Jan 14, 2020 City Council on 2020-01-14 1:00 PM

Welcome, everyone, to this meeting of the Denton City Council. It is Tuesday, January the 14th, 2020. We do have a quorum, so I'll call this meeting to order. We'll move through our work session reports. Before I do that, sort of a housekeeping measure. Because of outside council and commitments for in the afternoon, we're going to move the closed session up after agenda item 3B. We just need to be able to get some time on that, and, of course, depending if these last longer, then we might have to do it only after 3A, so that's what we're going to do. Mr. City Attorney, is that for all of them? The first one, we can -- That's the one I need to move it for, yeah. The Stonetown Country View? Yes. Okay, that one we will communicate with outside council. I know we've asked him to be here. He's here. Oh, he is here? Yeah, I just saw him. Yeah, that's what this is. We're -- outside council is probably not going to be here between 3 and 4, or so. Okay, so we'll do 3A just because of that time constraint, and then we'll revisit it at that time. Okay. All right. Thank you, sir. Okay, so we'll move on to citizen comments on consent agenda items. I don't believe we have any, all right? And the next item is a request for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda. We're going to pull agenda item -- consent agenda item D for individual consideration. Councilmember Davis will be recusing himself, that's at least for now the purpose of pulling that. Yes, Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, I wanted to pull D for a separate presentation anyway. I think, you know, it would be just interesting for the public to hear, and H as well. Okay. Just for a brief presentation, you know, after the session. Okay. All right. And a -- and I'll -- yeah, and I'll be recusing from H and I. So you're wanting a full presentation on D? Brief presentation. Okay. And the same on H? Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Anybody else? Okay. We'll then move through our work session reports for agenda item 3. Agenda item 3A is receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding the 2020 Denton Mobility Plan update with a focus on the downtown area of the city. Thank you all for coming. I'm just giving a hard time. Hello, Mayor and Council. I am Pamela Mutul, traffic engineer for the city. Sitting in front is Brian Yahn, the city traffic engineer. And Rob Ray, he is the project manager on the consulting side with Walter P. Moore. So this is the first work session of a series that we will be going into detail of all three plans. So we're going to be discussing all three plans today. We're going to briefly discuss the methodology, some of the proposed plan updates, and we will also -- part of the thoroughfare plan I will be touching on the 2030 Comprehensive Plan, how it ties into the mobility plan, and the proposed cross-sections and the roadway classifications. Real quick question, just a process question, because I see you two gentlemen sitting here. If -- are we going to -- is this where we can do this in segments so we can let you get through your presentation and then ask questions? I just am conscious that you guys will be sitting there, and it may just be all through the presentation. So if you want to sit there, that's fine, but it sounds like you're here for resource questions. Is that -- or do you all have a part in the presentation as well, but you'll need a mic if you're going to speak. No. So I will be covering the first section for the thoroughfare plan. Mark Oliphant will be discussing the bicycle and pedestrian plan, and they are here as support. If questions arise and we both cannot answer, they're here for the technical support. Sure. So if you all wanted to just sort of sit back and just come up as warranted because you're going to have to get up and go to the mic anyway, and I just didn't want you sort of out there front and center for the whole presentation if it's just for questions. If that's okay. Not as far? Yeah. All right. Thank you. Not kicking you out or anything. I mean, it's -- So we're going to get started with the first section, the draft thoroughfare plan. So these are the major milestones that have been accomplished and are upcoming. We reviewed the existing roadways, what has been built since the last update in 2015. We wanted to make sure it was the latest and greatest, and we were working off the correct base map. We identified future roadway projects with the CIP and other departments in the city. We also have received feedback about projects through the technical committee. With all that information, we developed the draft thoroughfare plan, which we're about to start discussing today. We have updated the travel demand model, which I have a slide to kind of provide an overview on what a travel demand model is. We have conducted one-way versus two-way roadway analysis, which we plan to present to you all on a separate work session. Upcoming, we are going to be conducting a closure analysis for Bell Avenue. We are going to, based on all the input we received today and the future work sessions, we're going to go back to the public, receive additional feedback. We will finalize the thoroughfare plan, prioritize our recommendations, and develop cost estimates. Any questions? So the 2030 comprehensive plan, how it ties into with the mobility plan. So the comprehensive plan is more high level. Right here are a couple of the goals listed in the plan that tie into mobility plan to provide an efficient transportation system that connects the road network, providing mobility options, different kinds of modes, develop a well-planned infrastructure system to serve the growing city. And part of this plan, they put together several maps. So on the left is the future land use map. On the right is a preferred growth concept. So we have been working very closely with the planning department, updating the land use based on what has changed in the last five years, what is planned in the near future, updating those demographics. That way we can use that and put it in the travel demand model. And as a result, the planning department is going to be using this travel demand model to update their comprehensive plan. So in a way, it's really developing the tools that they're going to use for the update. So this is kind of an image of the travel demand model. It is one of the primary tools that we use for the thoroughfare plan. On the bottom right is a close-up of just showing the network links, how they can see volumes. And then when you zoom out, you can see it's broken down into traffic analysis zones. So each of these zones, it develops trips. So it's a four-step process. And the first step is the trip generation. So it figures out within the zone how many trips are going to be generated based on the land use, the map I was just discussing. So if it's primarily residential, it will develop trips for these residents and then the next step is trip distribution. It determines if it's going to go -- which TAZs it's going to go to. So based on employment, they may be staying within the Denton area or, for example, they may be traveling outside of the region to the city of Dallas. So it would be sharing that information with us. The third step of it is the mode choice. So the model generates vehicle trips. It can be carpooling, HOV, transit. It can tell us all those options. So once it determines where it's going, from origin to destination, it assigns the traffic -- it conducts the traffic assignment. So it puts that trip on the roadway network. It determines the shortest, fastest route to get from point A to point B. So this table shows the roadway classifications that are part of this plan. This is a description of what we're calling the suburban roads. We are going to develop a different one for urban and rural. So from the top going down, it has the highest capacity. So a freeway, it varies on the capacity. So these are highways. And they're owned and maintained by TxDOT. They're typically grade separated. And they move traffic through and around the city. And as you move down the table, it serves a lower capacity. The next one is a primary arterial. It is owned by the city or TxDOT, typically managed by traffic signals because they're having to manage more traffic. It's regional connections into and through the city, and it's capable of high traffic volumes. And then the next classification is the secondary arterial. That's primarily owned by a city. It's more regional traffic, moderate levels of traffic, ability to incorporate other modes of travel. So as you go down, the design criteria becomes less. We require less feet for a right of way, typically downsides on the number of lanes, and speed goes down as well. And then the last classification is collectors. It's owned and maintained by the city. And this collects the neighborhood traffic, and it serves lower levels of traffic. Any questions on the right of way classifications? >> Questions about the speed limit that is posted there? >> Yes. >> Because there's been requests, and we have a lot of complaints about people speeding. And so the speed limit is more of a suggestion, I guess. So is this maximum, or is this just average, and would we consider lowering any of those that are posted there on those? >> These, correct me if I'm wrong, but they are averages, they're just a suggestion. After a road is built, we do speed studies. And depending on that, we may change the speeds. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> So just for this plan, this thoroughfare plan. So let me just add one thing, so the speed limits that are listed here are actually the design speed limits we would use to design the roadways. It's not necessarily what the roadway would be posted. Those roadway speed limits could be different depending on the character of that roadway, where it actually serves in and around, close to a neighborhood, is it high pedestrian volumes, does it have a school? There's a variety of factors that would impact that. That's purely just for a design that we use in the engineering side to say it impacts things like how steep the gradient is on the road, how quickly you turn around a corner, those kinds of things. >> Okay. So may I follow? Okay. That's good to know because some of these, you know, like you said, could be entering or exiting a neighborhood, and some of the feedback I got was concerned that when seeing this 45 miles an hour right into a neighborhood was concerning. So it's good to know that this is just a -- it's not necessarily going to be the speed limit on that street. It's just a place to start. >> Right. And there are other things that we might do in neighborhoods or close to neighborhood entrances where you might expect those speeds to go higher, there's some traffic calming, there might be some right turn deceleration lanes that could occur, there are all kinds of things that we could put into that mix. It's just understanding the nature of that roadway and where they are in context with the community. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Councilman Baumgart. >> And so this is for either of you, okay, so just to clarify something that you mentioned a little earlier, so did these represent also averages of the way things are now on these roads? >> These are typical design speeds for these classifications of roads. Now, the roadways that we actually have out there and how they're marked, we periodically do speed studies throughout the city in different areas to ascertain how they actually get assigned their speed limits. That's different from this. >> Okay. Okay. So this is not necessarily a recommendation? >> No. >> Okay. Excellent. Thanks. >> Any other questions? So we're going to jump into the proposed cross-sections for each of these classifications. So we're starting with the primary arterials. So on the left, you'll see what we currently have existing in the standard details. For a primary arterial, it is 135 feet wide for the right-of-way required. We have the bike lane on the street with sidewalks, and what we are proposing for all new builds is the top right. So we're maintaining the 135 feet that's already required, but based on citizen feedback, we are proposing to move the bike lane off the street and creating a multi-use trail. So the survey we conducted, I just wanted to share some of the survey results with you based on this cross-section. So when we asked the question about landscaping, if people preferred some shades on the roads, 58% of them agreed. So we are showing trees on each cross-section to kind of recommend wherever right-of-way permits to include landscaping. For lighting, 52% mentioned that they would prefer better lighting in the city. So that's another reason why we are showing the street light on these cross-sections. And then as far as moving the bicycles off the street, 56% of the responses of the citizens mentioned that they feel unsafe on the road. And the third top option of the type of bicycle facility they feel comfortable with, so the third highest was 36% preferred off-street trails only. So a decent percentage of the citizens would like to see this option. And with the high speeds on primary materials, we believe this is the safer option for the cyclist. >> Quick question. >> Yes. >> What are sort of the aggregate numbers that surveys based on, I mean, how many responses, those percentages, I get the percentages, but that's percentage of what? >> There was a total of over 380 responses. And most of the questions, they were able to just select all options if they agreed with all of them. There wasn't a maximum, so I don't know if those are responses. >> No, I just appreciate it. I just was wanting to know what the actual total was. Thank you. >> Right. Any other questions on the proposed new bill? We are also providing kind of alternatives, so this on the bottom right, it would be for new builds that are in rural areas. So we are recommending they preserve the full 135 feet, and these are typical cross sections for a rural road, one lane each direction, sometimes with a two-way left turn lane. Questions on this? And then for urban alternatives for primary materials, we have two options. So these we put together kind of with the idea that, especially in the downtown area, we're so built out and we're limited on right of way. We wanted to present the city with options to when we're reconstructing a road that this may be a potential option for a primary material, where we're showing the separated -- a buffer for the bike lane, sidewalk on both sides, but the median. Questions? >> Councilmember Reed. >> One thing I didn't notice in any of these designs was a bus lane or a travel lane for buses. >> Yes, and I think that's in the secondary material. There are the consultants and the project team, we were discussing that. And where we have kind of assigned a lane where it says bike lane or parking, we want to introduce the concept of a flex lane, a flexible lane, where it's kind of just an option where it's a case by case for each road, where depending if there's a bus route or if the bike plan proposes a bike lane, that space can be used for numerous options. So bike lane, bus turnover lane, or parking, or in the way future, autonomous vehicles, or something that's just continuous flow. So we are including that in the secondary arterials. Primary arterials, we don't have that option. We can look into it as having that flex lane. >> Okay. I just -- I didn't see it, so I wondered and we're trying to encourage alternative modes, and part of one of the issues when you're driving on a primary road that's going fast is that left lane or the far right lane, where there's just all of a sudden you have to stop and -- >> Great. And that's always going to be a challenge, especially in the urban core, where if we do opt to go with like a two-way option, especially in the downtown area, that becomes even more of a problem. It's a challenge for us because we just don't have the width of right of way to work with. You've got some sacrifices there that then have to be considered. Do we give up some parking to provide bus pullout lanes? Do we provide -- do we go parallel parking so we get a little bit of extra width, then we can add some extra space? Do we provide more landscape violence so that people can actually get from the curb to the bus in a more effective way by putting the parking outside that area? There's a lot of tradeoffs when the built environment is what it is. It's built, so we have some hard corners that are just very tough to deal with, whereas when we get out into areas that aren't currently developed, we can put more of those items in because we have the space. So part of what you see in this is more of a reliance on what are we hearing from DCTA and how they're moving forward, working with them to potentially include some things like provide us their ridership calls if they go to this on-call system so we understand better where are those calls coming from, where is the actual volume that needs the capacity. Roads like Oak and Hickory in the downtown area, they're very constrained on space. So do we give up some things to make some other things happen? That's part of this conversation. That's why we're having this conversation today. When you go with Elm and Locust, when we know there's a turn back coming, there's a little bit more width, so there are some things that we can play with on those corridors that we couldn't just because the buildings are set back far enough that we can do something in those areas. But that is part of this conversation is where do you want to go? One of the things that we had addressed last year was technology and how it could also help offset some of these constraints we have in the downtown area. Things like having responders on the buses themselves to where they can preempt the signal, which allows them to get to and from the signal in a much more efficient way, continue to move traffic through. So there are things we can do, but there are some serious trade-offs in that if we really want to give a preference to a mode of transportation that currently is not utilized to its fullest extent and not knowing what the next generation of say autonomous vehicles or other modes of transportation bring. Okay, thank you. I just want to make sure that it was part of the conversation. DCTA has been a part of the conversation. It is something that we're looking into, but it is a tough animal to try to wrangle. Okay, thank you. Yes, my mom is here. So picking up on something that was just said, and again, either of you could answer this, I love the plans to work in bike lanes with buffered and protected bike lanes into existing urban roads. And I understand all the challenges involved in that because of existing infrastructure. And I agree with what you said about with new roads, new construction, it's easier to build that in because you're dealing with less of a built environment. So it looked to me like in the recommendation for new rural roads that there's not going to be bike lanes in there, but then I hear that there are. So if you could, I'm looking at the little illustration for the proposed new build for rural alternative. So I was just wondering if you could just, if you could speak to that and yeah, exactly. Referring to these, okay. So you do have that wide shoulder in the rural section here that you see on the bottom, which would be the same as that bike lane. When you're in that rural segment, there are some travel demand that aren't, from a cyclist standpoint, you just don't have the same demand between a cyclist and a pedestrian and a vehicle out in a rural area, which is where this is intended to be, limited homes, a lot more large acreage plots of land. So this is an area where you're going to have a wide shoulder that would take the position of that walk drive lane. That's what you see currently out in kind of the country setting. So that it would be a wider section to provide for that that may just not be called out specifically bike lane. That's a bike lane. Okay. Yeah. And thank you. That makes sense. I guess I'm just thinking about because of the rate of development, you know, so much of the areas that are rural now, you know, may not be rural for long, and then we have those, the new bills come, and then we have these existing infrastructure problems, but of course it costs money, I know, too. That's also where, when you get into that development scenario, these are more those farm to market type roadways, not necessarily the residential roadways within a subdivision, which is going to have a different requirement. It's going to be that residential with a curb and gutter segment, so they will be looking at those types of things, and then a road that ties into that would be a collector. So that has a different element altogether. That's also why we redo the mobility plan every three to five years, so that as development comes in, we can modify this plan and adjust for where development really is going. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. So moving to the secondary arterial cross sections, so existing is 110 feet wide for the right away needed, and the main change for the proposed new build for development is including that buffer space for the bike lanes, and again, landscaping, and then on street lighting, for maintaining the 110 feet. Similar to primary arterials, we have a rural alternative to preserve the 110 feet. Questions on these? Real quick, on the existing secondary arterial cross sections, you've got 110 so that your right of way is the same from the existing to the new build, but it looks like you take out, at least on the top one, not the rural alternative, but the new build, the raised median, whereas before it could comprise either a center turn lane or comprise a center turn lane, are we saying that on the new build, if we reduce it down to 18, do we still not have the opportunity for the center turn lane, because it seems that we've done a lot of that on our existing, but on new builds, do we not want to -- or is it still have the capacity to convert to that if it needs to? We're proposing 18 feet, and typically a turn lane can be 14 feet, so there's room for it. We can just update the label. There's a lot of flexibility. So what you're seeing here is the maximum build out of a cross section. But there's flexibility built into the transportation criteria design manual that allows us to modify this cross section based on the context of the area where we're putting the roadway. So just because the roadway is labeled as a secondary arterial, what may be needed for that secondary arterial through one part of town and then another part of town may be a totally different cross section, it gives us the flexibility to change that, two-way left turns or some other alternative. And also on the proposed new build rural alternative as the same that Councilmember Armitage's question sort of was posed, that right-of-way preservation, if you have development along that road, that's there to preserve in case we either need to expand the lanes and/or create sidewalks/trails/bike lanes. So it's not that it's not there, it's just it's not needed, so we don't even spend the money yet. If the development comes along, typically they're required to pay for it if it impacts their development. Is that correct? Absolutely. Okay. All right. Thank you. So similar to primary, we have urban alternatives. There's three options we would like to share. The one on the left, it has four lanes that, again, it's very flexible. We can use the outside lane for different uses. The top right shows it's a three-lane undivided with a center train lane in the middle, and the bottom right has similar as the top, but it has options where parking, bike lane, whatever use. Councilman Briggs? Yes. So I'm not really comfortable with the shared travel lane, the sharos. That is something we currently have, and it's not really infrastructure, it's just paint on the road, and there's a lot of people who travel on bikes, more seasoned riders who feel comfortable, but some who, if they want to start riding the bicycle, are not going to feel comfortable doing that. And this is at least 40 miles per hour, when we're talking about the secondary arterial right. I mean, and so then people are going a little bit faster than that, and we're asking bikes to get on the road and share with vehicles, and I was under the, I thought that we were trying to get away from shared travel lane in the city. I think Brian wants to answer that question. If you could speak to that a little bit. It just causes a frustration between the bicycle and the, especially the people driving cars. I understand. And so I think what we wanted to show with these cross sections is the flexibility that we're trying to build into our plan. So I would agree with you on most cases, secondary arterial is what you think of as a secondary arterial today, it's probably not where you want on the street, but again, this is going to be context sensitive, context based, and it can be a phased approach. So even though we may ask the developer, and this is a new bill, to build a secondary arterial that looks like one of these, it may have almost no volume, and the speed limit may not be 40, maybe 35. And so what we're trying to say is we want to keep the flexibility of the appropriate treatment for both vehicular and cyclist and pedestrian. When the speeds increase or the volumes increase, then we can move to a different cross section. We can go to, because you're doing a share, you're not really limiting your parkway use. You can add that side path, widen the sidewalk a little bit. It's just a matter of, that may not be used very often. We may opt for the off street or the separated bike lane in a lot of cases, but we're just trying to maintain that flexibility. Typically the Sharrow, historically the Sharrow has been not used with speeds in excess of 35. Some agencies are migrating to a 30 mile an hour cutoff, or 25, anything more than 25. We can certainly take that approach, but I can envision when a roadway is greenfield built, some situations where you have got low volumes, because there is no development yet. Again, this is the early life or stages of a roadway. The on street, the Sharrow may still be appropriate. So there are some criteria, FHWA has a cyclist or a bicycle infrastructure selection criteria. We apply those criteria as well as NACTO. But if the interest is that we move away from the Sharrow and we really want to focus on a protected or buffered bike lane or an off street, we can certainly remove any on street on the roadway beyond or above classification of a residential. So for collectors, secondary and primary arterials, unless it's separated or protected or buffered, there is no on street. We can simply do away with the Sharrow. I'm not sure that that is necessarily a have to, but we can consider that. I would like to set a speed limit to that, so if we're going to have Sharrows, it would need to be 35 or 30 miles per hour. That's the typical criteria that FHWA and NACTO. My thought, though, is that if we're going ahead and building a new street, that we build it to the way that we really want it instead of trying to go back later on and retrofit or squeeze things in there. So that's where I'm coming from on this one design, instead of going back as development comes, then we just get the infrastructure right the first time and then that's just the way that it is. Well, certainly, specifically regarding the Sharrow, we can treat that, but I do want to reinforce the concept of we want flexibility. So if we build a primary arterial and over the life of the roadway, the volumes just never materialize, we want to be able to repurpose the pavement. And so if we built a greenfield, we'd build a six-lane divided roadway. That's what we're requiring because we project the traffic volumes and speeds are going to be high, but it never happens, or it happens and it changes because some other facility is built parallel. We want the ability in our design guidelines to go back and repurpose and put it on street. It may be appropriate because the volumes are low enough now that those criteria, the threshold, we can do that. So we're just trying to maintain as much flexibility with our corridor and it's really a complete streets is kind of a misnumbers. Want to pursue a complete corridor and we're looking right away to right away. How do we best utilize that space? And sometimes we get to repurpose space and sometimes we have to go back and, and add more infrastructure outside of the curb to curb paving. So it's, we can certainly look at removing the Sharrow or limiting that Sharrow usage to a low volume, low speed. We can throw numbers. Again, 35 is historical, 30 is kind of an emerging threshold. Certainly possible. Thank you, Mayor. On the upper right picture on here, it shows sidewalks on both sides at 10 foot wide, but yet when you were in the primary, it was referred to as a multi-use path. Is 10 foot wide enough for multi-use for both bike and pedestrians? Yes. You could call it either. There's a wide sidewalk. So there really wouldn't be, if you were using that scenario, a need to have share roads on this road since you've got 10 foot wide pathways. Correct. But again, if the case where the developer on one side hasn't built, the 10 feet on one side isn't really wide enough for pedestrian and two-way cycle traffic. So we might still need an on-street alternative. Again, it's all going to be based on volume and speed and those criteria that are included in this are referenced from other documents on what is the right treatment for this roadway. Okay. Thank you. So the last road classification is collectors, and for collectors, on the left is existing. So the right-of-way is 65 feet. And we felt that they provide already the flexibility needed for the city. So we are proposing to reuse the cross-sections for this mobility plan. So we have an option with one lane each way, multi-use, parking, bike lane. And on the right is a three lane divided with the turn lane in the middle, sidewalks on the side. Again, collectors, there is just residential traffic, they collect the residential traffic. The bottom right is the proposed urban alternatives. And these, we were proposing either parallel parking or angled parking, but we will likely update it to serve different uses, that space may be bike lane for buses, things like that. So how large are Oak and Hickory and Elm and Locust, like width-wise, is that, when it says urban alternatives, is it 65 feet, is that generally, like if we were to. So this gets back to that context sensitivity of where we are. So Oak and Hickory, really what constrains us on Oak and Hickory, especially in the downtown area, is we've got parking defined on both sides of the street, some are parallel, some are head-end parking, and that eats into how much space we have available, because then you've also got sidewalks on both sides, and then we're also trying to reserve enough width for vehicles to be within that area and drive. Trying to fit all that in with the existing buildings, that's where the trouble always comes in, it's very narrow. I'm not exactly sure what the actual right-of-way width there is, we can certainly find out fairly quickly, but it is much narrower than what you have on Elm and Locust, where it is a much wider segment and a lot more flexibility. Any other questions? All right, so we're going to go into the proposed plan updates, and today we are focusing on the downtown area with the proposed boundaries of US 380 on the north, I-35 on the south, and Woodrow Audra on the east. So on the left you will see the 2015 thoroughfare plan, and on the right is the proposed draft for the 2020 thoroughfare plan. There are four major updates, number one is Oak Street and Jim Crystal Road, the second one we're going to talk about is Welch Street and Avenue A, the third one is Eagle Drive, and the fourth one, Elm Street and Locust Street, we will be developing a separate work session to discuss the one-way versus two-way and what we're kind of envisioning for those cross sections. And because the downtown area is primarily built out, these three updates that we're going to discuss today is primarily classification changes. We're not proposing updates to the alignment. So the first one, Oak Street and Jim Crystal Road. On the left, currently the thoroughfare plan classifies it as primary arterial. We are proposing to update it as a secondary arterial. The existing daily volumes on the east side of I-35 is slightly under 10,000 vehicles a day. On the left side of I-35 is about 3,000 vehicles. And the model, we are estimated to have, so the model is volumes for future year 2045. So by then, it's projecting about 15 to 20,000 vehicles, which is less than the max capacity for the secondary arterials, 23,000 vehicles. So it would be around that. And we would like to see a consistent classification east-west of these limits. So that's our recommendation for Oak and Jim Crystal for that section. Any questions? The next one is Welch Street and Avenue A. On the left, currently the plan has the classification as collector. We are proposing to update it as secondary arterial. The existing volumes are less than 10,000. And it's estimated by year 2045 to be about 10,000 vehicles a day. So it's right at the border of collector and secondary arterial. So this recommendation is primarily to match the existing roadway functionality. It's serving decent trips for the UNT on the east side, and we want to provide that connection from Oak to I-35. Currently these two sections are forward lane on divided, so it has that pavement width. It's serving a lot of traffic, and yes, based on the projected volumes, we are recommending it be classified as secondary arterial. Can you remind me, for some reason, I thought that we were talking about doing a road diet on Welch Street, and does this affect that, or is that a different section? Again, there's the flexibility for that. So we have options. It can be three lanes with a turn lane in the middle. Based on the width per section, there can be a bike lane on one side. So there's a lot of possibilities and flexibility with what that can be. So this is, again, an urban alternative for a secondary arterial. So that classification change won't change what we can do there with that area? Exactly. Any other questions for Welch and Navinue? And then we have Eagle Drive is the last slide for me. On the left, Eagle Drive is currently classified as collector. So we are proposing to upgrade it to a secondary arterial. Again, we want to match just the functionality of Eagle. We want to be consistent on the classification from North Texas Boulevard to Elm, because east of Elm is labeled or is classified as secondary arterial. Currently it serves about 11,000 vehicles a day, and it's projected to serve 15 to 20,000 vehicles a day, which meets the criteria for a secondary arterial. Do these upgrades, do they mean that we're going to start increasing the speed limits on these roads? Again, those speeds are just designed, and we're not proposing any changes currently for the cross section of Eagle Drive. I think we believe it functions really well. It's more of just updating the classification and how it functions within the city in 2020. So it may function differently when the mobility plan is updated in five years, 2025, it may serve differently. So it would require another update. You may have said this, but I'm just not sure I'm totally getting it. When we make these changes, or if we adopt these recommended changes in classification, what do we change then? I mean, is it just what we call it, or are there implications for width or speed or markings or streetscape or...? I keep trying to give Brian an opportunity, but he's not as quick as I am, so. That's your problem, not mine. Does it mean we move from one kind of streetscape to the next? So the use and the character of that roadway may be different, depending on what development happens. So like currently you're seeing on Eagle Drive right now, UNT is buying up quite a few properties and they're going to use it for what they intend to use it for. Now, they intend to use it for one thing today, and what we may see is pass-through traffic that now starts to utilize Eagle because something else has happened in the environment over time, or maybe UNT anticipated to do some kind of development on these properties they've purchased and it doesn't pan out like they thought, so they end up selling those parcels to somebody else, and that use changes over time, and that's really where we're playing a little bit of catch-up every three to five years to say, "Well, I don't know where the market's going to take us, but I have pretty good ideas of where it's going to take us." So those classifications of roadways may change over time as we see where people go. I think I get that, but what I don't get is what is it we're agreeing to when we decide to call it something else, or call it a dock, or what is the substantive, what will we do different after we say, "Let's call it a secondary arterial instead of a collector"? Do you want to try that one? So there's more than one answer to that. So the first answer, and probably the easiest, is we're just calling it an orange and orange. It's already carrying more traffic than we say a collector should carry. So it's not acting like a collector. It's acting like a secondary arterial, and we might as well call it that. Okay, second answer is, as development occurs, then we've opened up the toolbox to all those tools that are associated with a little higher classification roadway. We might be able to get additional right-of-way at intersections. We might be able to get some off-street facilities that we wouldn't be able to at a collector because it's not really part of the toolbox of a collector. So what we're trying to do is, one, call it what it is, and two, open those tools up. If it's going to carry 20,000 cars a day, then we need to be prepared for that and have those tools in front of us to address that kind of volume, and then what do we do with our pedestrians and our cyclists? So those tools become available to us when we change the classification? Truly they're always available, but it's really what, as development occurs, and so there's two scenarios. One, if you're in a built-out corridor and you're never going to get any more right-of-way, then it's really how you use the right-of-way that you have, and we can, if we go back and do a CIP project and reconstruct it, then it's up to us what we rebuild. If you're in a corridor that's not fully developed and you change the classification, then you can get those amenities, wider sidewalks, off-street bike lanes, from new development that you couldn't if it was a collector. I'm only going to try to beat this dead horse a little bit more. He's breathing. Do you think we can get those tools just because we have internal rules that we won't think about those other tools unless we change the name? Well if we don't change, again, in a developed corridor, it's really, the roadway is not going to be built by anybody but the city. It's a CIP project, and those tools are always available to us if we want to based on context. In an undeveloped corridor, if you still have a green field or if the property is still turning over and you've got large tracks, then if we call it a collector, we cannot necessarily exact and get the amenities that we want or think we need. Because why can't we? Because our design criteria and our thoroughfare plan say that a collector has these characteristics. So it's going to be consistent with our internal plan and you're communicating to us how we want to think about these roads. And how we want to, how we want development to think about it. Okay. Thanks. That's absolutely the key there is when a new development comes in, whether it's on an established corridor or in the green field, one of the first things that staff absolutely gets is, well, your mobility plan says it's a collector, so we only have to build a collector. Okay, well, you've just tipped the scales to where I've got a lot more traffic now. This allows us to call it what it is, and when development comes in, we can absolutely say this is where you have to be. Okay. It's a communication tool. Right. I get it. Thanks. Any other questions? Not yet. So I'm going to hand it off to Mark Olyphant. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Mark Olyphant. I'm the bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for the city. It's my pleasure to speak to you today about our bicycle plan and about our pedestrian plan. We're going to start speaking about the bicycle plan. I'll give you a quick overview of the process that we have followed in developing this plan. We started out by looking at the city's current plans. That includes the 2012 bicycle plan and the 2014 bicycle plan map, and comparing those to the infrastructure that we have in place. Then we looked at other changes that have taken place within the city since that time, such as any new barriers or constraints, as well as new opportunities for connections. We also looked at ways that we can connect parks and recreation to the street system. We're going to be talking about that later. We've been working very closely with the Parks and Recreation Department on this. And selection guidance, so why are certain bicycle facilities appropriate in certain situations. Let me tell you a little bit about the various bicycle facilities. We've talked about some of these already this afternoon, but let me give you some background. There's two main types of bicycle facilities, on-street and off-street. On-street facilities are always located within the roadway, they're between the curbs. And then there are sub-types of on-street roadways as well. We've talked a little bit about these sharos, I think people are familiar with those. Those are the least protective, it's just paint on a road. But it can serve to help bicyclists find routes that are safe for them, because we tend to only paint them in areas where they are safe. And that goes down to the safest of on-street facilities, which are separated bike lanes with a physical barrier of some kind. That could be a planter, it could be a small curb, mini curb, something like that. And then that second major category is off-street trails, and we've been discussing those to a ten-foot right-of-way. Right now, over on May Hill, on Bonnie Bray, we're in the midst of building these side paths, and the difference between a side path and a trail is that a side path is within the right-of-way. So the streets department is the one maintaining and taking care of that. But trails, like the rail trail here, or in our parks, or something like that, those would all be parks, right, maintained by the parks department. But we're being very careful to work with them, because people don't care, right? As long as you're safe. So let's take a look at our bicycle plan. I just put aside... Oh, yes, sir. - One question. If you could go back to that last slide. - Yes. - Just my own curiosity. - Yeah. - This bottom picture? - Uh-huh. - That's some kind of trail, I guess, with a yellow line down the middle. - Yeah. - Does that yellow line function as we think it does on our roadways? In other words, those lanes represent traffic one way or the other. In other words, the guys riding shoulder to shoulder, that's not the way to do that. Is that... - I mean... - Generally, no. - Okay. - And I'm getting the nod from my boss. So as far as enforcement, we'd have to ask PD, you know, but... - No, no, I'm just curious, because... - Yeah, generally, yes. - I think that's part of the... I mean, we talk about bicyclists and safety and all that, and I get that. But then we also, I think, need to continue to reinforce that there's a set of rules that bicyclists should follow as well, which we see, I see every day on the roads, that that doesn't happen. I just wanted to verify that if that's the correct way, then I want to make sure I understand that. And if not, then I won't understand that as well. - Yes, general, unless you're passing. - Okay. - That is the correct way. - Thank you. - Yes, sir. So moving on here, I just put a side-by-side of our old 2014 plan on the left. And on the right is our new plan, just so that you can sort of see them side-by-side. We've had a number of different changes, and I won't go into all of them. And noticeably, you might see that McKinney is now on the new map on the right, but we lost Dallas Drive on the left. Overall, this new plan recommends more protected infrastructure, so we're getting away from the sharos. I believe we have about 15 miles of sharos right now. And there is a little bit of sharos still recommended in the new plan, but we are going much more towards either separation, well, off-street trails or separated on-street trails, things like that. So those are the two next to each other. I'll point some other things out here. Let's see. Woodrow and Audra will switch from a curb lane to a side path. On Bonnie Bray, we've gone from nothing to a nice side path that's gonna be along there. On the Union Pacific right-of-way, you'll see there the green line on the bottom. This is actually part of something that we're partnering with the Council of Governments on. They have a plan called the Regional VeloWeb, and this is part of that. And one great thing about this, too, is it isn't just little Denton working with Union Pacific Railroad. This is a region-wide effort, and so it certainly helps us. And also, trails on that plan are ones that they are eligible for certain funding, because they're on the Council of Governments VeloWeb plan. Let's see. Mingo, we went from nothing to now a side path along there. And McKinney, we are now recommending on-street bike lanes. One thing I do want to just make clear is that just because it shows up on this map doesn't mean that we have funding or we have the proper right-of-way width at this time. It's really just aspirational, if you'll allow me to use that word, where we think these are good ideas, and hopefully we will find ways to make these things work in the future, but no guarantees yet. So these locations of the new routes are based on feedback from the community. Yes, and I have a next slide that's just a little closer in. I have a couple questions. Oh, yes. Councilmember Briggs and Councilmember Ombudsman. So it's really exciting that Mingo is a priority, and on that list, I see people, or I've ridden on it. It's very dangerous for bicycles and pedestrians. There's lots of people using that. It is, you mentioned, a path. Is it going to be a multi-use path for both pedestrians and cyclists, or is it just a, is that what we're proposing for Mingo? Yes. Okay. Let's make sure. Okay. Yes. All right, thanks. Councilmember Mametra. So I like the aspirational aspect of this, and I appreciate your mentioning that because it is aspirational, there are some obstacles which we have to figure out what to do with to reach that aspiration. I was wondering if you could comment on, you know, do you feel that overall, is the bigger obstacle our rights of way, how our rights of way are currently defined and/or our right of way ordinance, you know, or is it existing infrastructure, you know, or is it kind of some combination thereof? Yeah. Because I'm seeing, I'm seeing themes, obviously, because we're still talking about roads, but rights of way keeps coming up again and again. I think I'm going to defer to one of my -- So the biggest roadblock or hurdle that we have is really in the, as Todd mentioned earlier, the built environment. Those rights of way previously dedicated, people didn't plan bikes. We didn't have a bike planned when a lot of this rider was dedicated. So it's how we utilize that right of way is do we narrow the roadway to put a side path, do we widen the pavement a little bit to put an on-street protected bike lane, but it is truly the right of way that's in place in the built environment where we've got -- and I'll take Mingo as a good example. We've got the railroad on one side, so there's no development that's going to happen on the east side of Mingo, and the west side of Mingo is pretty built out. So we have what we have. We're not going to -- probably not going to get a lot of right of way, so we have to build within that existing -- it's probably between 50 and 60 feet. It seems wide because the railroad is there, but that right of way comes out quite a bit as well. So that's the biggest hurdle that we have is those existing narrow streets. Todd mentioned downtown. We're not going to move the buildings, and we're not going to take them down, and I checked with our consultant. Typically, downtown, we've got between 50 and 60 feet of right of way. So we're trying to squeeze a lot of activities in this complete streets and approach in that existing 50 and 60 feet. So, again, as Todd mentioned, it's a balancing. We have to trade this for that, and we have to prioritize what our needs are. But the biggest hurdle is the existing right of way. In Greenfield, where we've got the right of way recommendations and the criteria manual in this thoroughfare plan, we're planning for that use. So we were planning for pedestrian, we're planning for cyclists, and vehicular. That's not our limitation. The roadways that have 110 to 135 feet of right of way, right of way is not the biggest problem unless there's something in that right of way, like a drainage facility or something that prohibits. But the built environment, those narrow, older roadways are the biggest challenge. My question is really for the city manager, or maybe you could answer this because this is more aspirational and it's not all funded. My question is, where does the current funding come from for bicycle infrastructure? Is there a separate funding source, or is it included in something? And if we were going to look at this plan and say, okay, it's not aspirational. We want to have this, this, and this done. Is there a little pocket of money to do that with? Well, as part of the bond program, the community passed $12 million worth of bond monies for sidewalks and those enhancements. So I know that we're leveraging not only those monies, but also, say, for us, the schools and all those other things. So I don't know, Ty, if you want to elaborate. Is that for sidewalks, or could that also be used for multi-use path? So all the roadways we designed today have that context sensitivity in it. So this is a component of that complete streets scenario where you have a variety of funding sources. Currently, we have $200,000 in the budget annually to take care of some of our bicycle lane facilities. Now, $200,000 doesn't go very far unless I can just restripe it. Other parts of this are achieved through capital projects, like when we do a major roadway. When you're doing a Bonnie Bray or a Mayhill, you include those aspects both from a pedestrian standpoint and from a cycling standpoint in those facilities, especially if they're defined in this plan, that becomes the guiding document that we start putting those projects together with, saying all those components come in here. It also becomes a piece of the development. So as development comes in, it's identified in this plan, it's another funding source to get some of this infrastructure in place. So really, when we put this together, it's a variety of places that we end up getting this funding. Not all of it is fully funded today because some of the roadways included in this plan also will be future projects that are either through future bond programs or assistance through federal grants or funding, maybe COG, some other resources, and these all get tied to it. Sure. So just, we're talking about Mingo, so Mingo, I know that there's really not gonna be any road work done on that, so we're talking just specifically about a side path. So is that, that funding have to come from the $200,000 that we have already, or is that? That's the only resource we currently have. That doesn't mean there aren't some other places that we could go get that funding. So as we work on Mingo road design, which is something we do have funding for, we'll start to look at those elements that potentially could be put in place before the roadway or other aspects. That design also allows us to go to partners like the COG, council governments, who might look at the project and say, you know, that's something I really want to contribute to because it has a regional importance. It also rolls in that complete streets aspect, so they might be more willing to be a partner. But until we get a plan enough together for what Mingo looks like long term, they're gonna be looking at where they put that money in other places. So as soon as we quantify that, then it becomes much more of a reality for some of those partners to say, that's a good project, let us help with that. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Ryan. Just to point of clarification on your draft map. The gold stump, the dotted line, the proposed and the solid line existing, are those both supposed to be on street? Because you get another proposed off street below that. Yes. I was trying to figure out how we were going to get additional right away on Willowwood to do an off street. I think I actually got pointed out, but it was too late to change it officially. Okay. Our apologies. Yeah. So I do want to point out under this new plan, we are proposing 35 miles of new on street bike lanes, 10 miles of sharos, 45 miles of side paths. So about 90 miles total on streets. And then there's another more or less, almost 50 miles that are being proposed on park lands. And so we, if everything's built out, we're looking at about 140 miles total in addition to what we currently have. I just want to, because it seems like there's been some comments about, when you use the word aspiration, aspirational, all of our plans that we do over 10 years are aspirational in nature. In other words, they, this is what we would like to do. And the only reason we wouldn't do it is if number one, we don't have the resources or somehow the facts change on the ground or things, different things happen. So I guess I just was hearing, like somehow that was a term that didn't seem, no, no, I'm not saying from you, I'm saying from some of my colleagues, it's like all of our plans are 2030 plan. All these plans are aspirational in the sense of this is what we aspire to do. And then it's up to councils now and subsequent councils to make sure that those either come to fruition or they get changed to better reflect how the city is growing. Because this plan isn't to be completed in one year. This is what we aspire to do over 10 or 20 years or whatever this plan is supposed to cover. Exactly. And it's, and it's a vision as well. So if something doesn't get built, we still know, well, there was a demand in this area for access. Right. It, it, it helps as we look forward. Right. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And we're also controlling expectations. That's why we say aspirations. So that is the bicycle plan. I'd like to go now and talk about our pedestrian plan. Is that okay? Yeah. So before we get a pedestrian and this is really addressed addressing both bicycle and the thoroughfare plan. We had a presentation a little ways back about vision zero. Yes. And I, I understand we're going to eventually see some kind of a plan about what the application of that would be. And that was to reduce motor vehicle and pedestrian accidents to zero, fatalities to zero. So are the recommendations in the bicycle plan and the thoroughfare plan consistent with what we're going to see for vision zero or is that something else altogether different? So vision zero becomes more of a guiding principle for when we actually design these facilities. It's making sure that we do everything we can when we actually do these improvements to reduce the potential for facility, for accidents to occur, fatalities to actually occur at that particular location or along that corridor, it becomes that guiding principle that we're committed to even if that means we've got to put a little bit extra into that project to make those happen. Those don't necessarily reflect here from the standpoint that these are defining roadways and classifications of roadways, but they do have an impact on how we put these roadways or facilities into the ground. So it's part of your thinking. Yes, and you'll see it more along the lines of when we quantify going into a new roadway impact fee, what would be the cost to construct those facilities knowing that we have a vision zero policy in effect. All right. Now, look, I haven't seen what that presentation is going to look like. I just saw the sort of preamble that we all saw, but I think that part of the upshot of that is toward slower speeds in the city and is that, I'm not sure, I've really heard that that's a particular interest of yours at this time, am I wrong? Of mine personally? Well, y'all's, you know, presentation. No, that's part of that whole complete streets context anyway. Vision zero is way less about should it be 65 miles an hour. It's a component. Should it be 65? Should it be 45? Should it be 25? I'm not saying that you arbitrarily take every roadway down 20 miles an hour. It is absolutely saying there may be other factors besides speed that contributes to accidents and fatalities. It could be the way those intersections are actually set up. Is it a visibility issue? Is it a traffic control issue? Are there other things going on there that might be causing that? So when we design this infrastructure, we're making sure that we take those types of things into account as well. And I might take a cost of a project to a different level than say a project where I just put in four lanes of pavement 12 foot wide. Thank you. Well, with that, I would like to go into the pedestrian plan. Now, this is personally exciting in that we've never had a pedestrian plan previously. We've had that label on our bike plans, but really there was no specific component for it. I think that's an exciting thing and I'm really glad that we're doing that as a city. So to create this draft plan, we collected data about all of the existing sidewalks in the city using GPS units in the field. Then we compared that information to our roadway network with GIS mapping software and basically just did a subtraction equation to figure out where they're missing. Our two main priorities in developing this pedestrian plan are to identify network gaps, so holes in the sidewalk, that's anywhere that we have public roads but not sidewalks, and to determine priority connections and destinations or what are the most important places for sidewalk access. There's demand everywhere, but we want to figure out where is it most important. So we've looked at some criteria. What we're doing is looking at citywide needs, not just individual nodes or requests, providing safe routes to schools. So ideally within a quarter mile of all of our elementary and middle schools, we will have sidewalks, closing gaps in the infrastructure so that we have continuous corridors, and avoiding any islands of sidewalks. Also focusing on sidewalks in the central business district and around the universities, high ridership transit stops and those with the potential for higher ridership. Also a focus on intersection crossings so that we can surmount barriers of any crossings. And I do just want to point out as well while I've used a lot of technical terms for software we use and so forth, another great indicator is paths that you might see and just notice out in the city. We call this goat paths in the industry, but that's just where people need to walk. And so they wear paths into the sidewalk. So let's look at a couple maps together. This first map shows us all of the existing sidewalks in this downtown area. It's all in the yellow there. It's actually pretty good. If you look at some of the edges, we're missing sidewalks, but generally we have good coverage. Next this is that map combined with another map that has sidewalks that are either funded, that are committed with funds or under construction or that will be future bond projects. So we will have in the next couple years both the yellow and the blue built, which is nice. And then third map here, this one shows us all of the gaps. So the red and the kind of yellowish orange, that's places that we are currently missing sidewalks. And what we did is we created kind of a simple formula to determine what are the low and high priority. You see the red sidewalks are our high priority here and the yellow are the low priority. So this is where we're missing things in the downtown area. And you know, when you flip it around, there's some significant sidewalk. And then finally, here's a map that combines everything. So basically along every street right of way within the city, they all should be lined here. I will point out if you look like up at Razor Ranch up there, you don't see anything because that's private property. So we don't have control over it. But essentially, these are our sidewalks in the downtown area. Can you speak to the extent to which the quality of existing sidewalks and ADA issues played into that criteria and the way these are ranked? Yes. So we have two different ways or two different plans underway for our sidewalks. This plan is only for missing sidewalks. So if there's no sidewalk, that's what this takes care of. But we also do have underway and we have -- it's moving along nicely, an ADA transition plan. That's actually where the data for the sidewalks, the GPS came from because they drove every sidewalk in the city and collected condition information about those sidewalks. So took pictures of them, they measured the tilt, all those different things. So between the two, we will have covered all potential sidewalk infrastructure in the city. Okay. Excellent. And so just to follow up, would it be accurate to say that even though these are being presented to us in two separate presentations, the other at a later date, the ADA plan, that these are very much working together and two parts -- you know, parts of the same project essentially. I think that is accurate. Actually, at one point, we considered putting the ADA transition plan under the mobility plan. It was actually a similar consultant who did some of the work. So we were -- it was great. We were able to use the data for both, which was super helpful. So yes, I think that's -- Excellent. I think that's great because not just for ADA accessibility but for connectivity. Yeah. The sidewalks connect. Thank you. I think that's all from me, Mr. Mayer. Okay. All right. Any other questions on this presentation? Mayor Putnam. I was just curious. When do we talk about the infrastructure that goes into these plans? Here's my concern. When you're talking about a bike lane, and let's say we put it in, the argument becomes it's not utilized. Well, it's not utilized, and the argument becomes because it's not protected enough. And so I think in advance of those conversations, we need to have a standardized city of Denton-approved kind of methodology that adds the proper protection. So if we're going to put in a bike lane, the bare minimum protection is this. And in that way, your department can have those conversations early and often, and when we're talking about pricing the project, we know what it is, and if we go below that threshold, we know that we're now broached what staff recommends, you know? And so that to me plays into all this, but I, you know, so if we're approving a plan that, because there's nothing worse than having a lane that no one's comfortable using and it's paid for ready to go, right? So I don't know when that conversation happens, but that's what I'm listening for. Okay. Anything else? Oh, Councilmember Briggs. Yeah. I guess that would be in the earlier conversation with the streets design that we just say no unprotected bike lanes. That would have to be that conversation. But I'm really glad to see this and the conversation that we've had, and this is going to go to the public next, you said? Yes. So we'll go through with Council a series of different parts of town, so we get a chance to narrow in on different areas of town. We start with the downtown area. We'll also have one more conversation about one-way versus two-way streets. Then we'll take this back to the public through four or five, I don't remember exactly how many. We'd sell it on four or five different public venues so that people get a chance to comment on that throughout different parts of town, and that way we get a little bit more comprehensive look at what our conversation has been, how we understood it, and then took it back to the public, let them weigh in again, and then ultimately come back to you with that master thoroughfare plan, mobility plan, with all the master thoroughfare plan, bike plan, pedestrian plan, as that kind of policy piece for all of us as staff to be able to guide our decisions as we're working with people. Well, I just want to comment that I'm really happy to see this plan and the bike plan and the pedestrian plan, and I was the one that used the word aspirational earlier, but that's because I don't want to see this plan sit on the shelf, and I want it to go to a reality and not necessarily just be aspirational, and I chose that word because that was the word used in the presentation, and so I would also like, if we're talking about this, for this council, to start talking about increasing the $200,000 that we have currently in that for bike infrastructure next budget, it might be something we need to talk about just to help us move this plan. Anybody else? Councilmember, Mayor Pro Tem. Do you have an answer to what the bare minimum infrastructure is that makes people comfortable, that makes people comfortable using the lanes? That absolutely, and I can go back tomorrow. Do you? Okay. Well, I'll let you address that. So in reference to that, there's been some very good research done about who is comfortable in what types of infrastructure. Generally, like 40 to 50% of people just aren't going to ride bicycles at all, but then you have these broader categories of comfort levels for users, so I would put myself on the right side there, highly confident, but there's actually a lot of industry level standards about this. Maybe our consultants want to say anything about that or I've hit it. Okay. Great. Well, and I appreciate your question. I think the point is that the answer to that question is no. We have preferences, we have a survey, but the City Council has not had any conversation about do we have, do we prohibit sheriff lanes? So that's not, we have not had that conversation. We did not have that conversation today either, so I think what I'm hearing is that it would be helpful, I think, probably in this process to be able to implement a plan more quickly with more predictability if we have some of those concepts a little bit more solidified as to what is this Council's policy on if you have a bike lane. Because when I read 51 to 56% of people prefer off-street or separated bike facilities, they're not talking about separated bicycle facilities on a road. They're talking about totally off the road. No interaction with traffic, and that's a whole different, you know, concept necessarily than what we've been, and this is, I guess, some survey from, or some thing from this website. It's not necessarily from our survey. Well, and it's the practicality, right? I mean, it's the, if I'm out with my three kids, I know my three kids. I don't want to be in the middle of the roadway going, "Okay, Jillian, you've got to get to the curb. Stay on the curb." I do that the whole ride. But if I'm over at South Lakes Park, and I've got a nice wide sidewalk, and I've got grass on both sides, then I feel a lot more comfortable riding with my kids to say, "Hey, let's go ride, and we're all enjoying it." That's that 51 to 56%. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Council Member Meltzer and then Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah. I just want to comment that some of those streetscapes we saw, I think, do fit that description of separated bicycle facilities. For some of the roadways, you indicated like the planted area of the right-of-way is in between the street and the bike lane. I think that's, I mean, this is all a question. Do you think that's what's indicated? Well, and that's what we've been trying to build in with these cross-sections is the options so that when we build a road or we're working with a developer to build their part of the road, if there's space, yes, we'd like to have the off-street facility, but we may be in an oak or hickory scenario where I just cannot, unless we're going to take a building down, or a lot of them, I cannot physically fit it into that space. I may be forced to ask the real question, do you really want a bike facility in this corridor? If you do, then what do we give up to make all this work? The inflection is so strong, we talk about a vision or an aspiration, the idea of having a place where, what does that work out to, like 72% of the people would feel confident using the bikeways you provide, I mean, that's a very different city. So I'm glad that at least where we think we can do it, that we're aspiring to do that. Of course. Mayor Pro Tem. I want to thank you for your summary of that spot on, and I think to compound that, when that comes back, I think it absolutely, because the plan you've outlined is in the high confidence to somewhat confident range, right? And so if we're in a hurry to adopt something that's in the services, only that narrow piece, do we need to go back and look at that, right? And so for me, when it comes back, I'd really like to see the numbers, right? If you apply this slide to your recommendations, what does that look like, right? Because there's not much that's in that 51, 56%. And so do we need to go back and do exactly what you said, look at it and say, what is our philosophy, and how do we want to approach that, and how do we want cyclists to navigate the city? And so I think that's a great question, and it's something that at least when we're having these public meetings, they're looking at a map, and it's not just a colored line, it's saying, hey, if you're, this is by design, based on this study, going to make somewhat confident and highly confident riders happy, but those that are interested but concerned, it's not really for you. And so if we parse that out over the map, then we can get the proper feedback, I believe. >> Just a quick response on that is one of the things with bicyclists and pedestrians, they're vulnerable users. Even though in the whole region, there's 1 to 2% of the mode share is bicycle and pedestrian users compared to the vehicle users. If there's any kind of crash or incidents, it's always serious. And so that's one of the challenges that even though it's a small percentage, and there's certain portions of the city where that's their only mode of transportation that some people have is either walking or biking. And that's what we heard in a lot of the public meetings is that McKinney is one of those streets where there's a lot of cyclists, and Mingo is another one, where, yeah, there might only be a few cyclists or pedestrians on that corridor each day. But because there's no infrastructure for them, it's a very dangerous corridor. The other thing is that in 2018, we did a traffic study at Frye and Hickory and counted bicyclists at that intersection right there next to the UNT campus. And there was about 70 bicyclists during the day at that intersection. Compared to the vehicles, that's a drop in the bucket. But that's probably your highest bicycle intersection in your city. Maybe there's some downtown intersections that have a higher bicycle count, but that's one of your highest intersections, and there was only 70 to 100 bicyclists at that intersection. When you're there, it seems like a lot, because you see bicyclists throughout the day. So we can't compare, we can't necessarily compare vehicles to bicyclists or pedestrians, because it's a different level of protection. So I hope that might answer a little bit of your question. >> No, where I'm going is, and thank you, insightful, but where I'm going is, I think the citizens, when they come before this body, get on average four minutes. And if they take advantage of all the minutes available to them, they may pile it up into eight minutes, versus you having these informal meetings and making people aware and fleshing out, hey, do you want this mingo as a pathway, or do you want us to find a new way that is more comfortable for others? I kind of want to have the public needs an opportunity to, because we all get the emails, right? It's only after the fact, and so I'm trying to say, instead of giving me four minutes of your best kind of points before we vote, how about before we even get to that point and it's less regulated, flesh out what the majority of those 70, so 40 of those riders say we'd rather this, and obviously there's going to be dissenters. But that's kind of what I'm trying to get at. >> To your point, that's exactly why we're going down this pathway. We had gone to the public before we came here to get a sense, and of course we had three hundred and forty-three respondents. Our hope is that now that we're having this conversation, especially with council, and then we go back to the public, so it's a little bit more well-known, this is what we're engaging in, we get a chance to do exactly what you're saying, is have that input from a broader spectrum now, even more than three hundred and forty-three to say, where do you sit on this? >> So I wanted to, you know, respond to you, and I appreciate the consultant's comment about the dangers in biking on dangerous roads as far as fatality goes, because you're so exposed, and I wanted to ask that as we continue to get public input, I know that the focus for an engineering department is on the actual building out of the roads, because that's the most complicated part, and so, no? So you can respond to that in a moment, but I'm thinking compared to, say, speed. So I get a lot of comments about speed and people concerned about speeding, just setting speed limits, not that people are going above the speed limit, but what is the speed limit going to be? And I know that that's a question that depends on the road, as you're saying, and these estimates that we got were just a rough guideline, but I would just ask that it be considered that, you know, the extent to which in addition to the quality of the road and what kind of bike lane exists, the extent to which the speed limit, the posted speed limit on that road, never mind that people are, whether people are exceeding it or not, has to do with, you know, people not feeling safe biking, and just, I'd be curious to know your thought, you don't have to answer this now, but as the feedback continues to come in, you know, what role does speed limit play in people's comfort level? Speed plays a role in so many things. I know from talking to cyclists in a variety of locations, one of the things that does play a role in is if they're even, so Texas state law actually says a bicycle is considered a vehicle, and they're allowed to be in a lane of travel with a vehicle. And when I've talked to cyclists that are those hardcore cyclists, Mark may feel the same way, I don't know, but where there becomes that tension, right, so a lot of your hardcore cyclists that use this as their everyday mode of transportation, they're okay driving with the traffic, now they're very cognizant, just like a motorcycle is, but where they start to feel those pressures is when something changes, and you start going uphill, and it's much harder to start to pedal, having that lane just to the side, right on the street where they can essentially pull over and get out of the way of where they're kind of feeling cars edge up against them, because the car are trying to slow down, cyclists are slowing down from 20 miles an hour down, cars coming up, they don't slow down as quickly, having the ability for them to get out of the way and not feel that pressure absolutely plays a factor, so there are a lot of components to that, and that's just one, there are a lot of components to that, how close is the facility to the road, is there enough of a barrier, there's a lot of components to that. Thanks. Do you have something, and then I'm going to wrap it up, because we're going to get out of this discussion, go ahead. Something really great with the overlay maps, and something I think, I think this is a very helpful piece of information, and I'd be interested in seeing in a follow up that you may want to use with the public as well, an overlay map of what's the network look like that would suit the green, you know, interested but concerned group, you know, what's the kind of aspirational network look like, and what's the bigger one that would include what the somewhat confident people would go for, and then the full one is what you probably have now, that would include the shadows and all that, yeah, just to see, you know, how much of a, not that everything would ever probably meet the green level, but to see are we potentially offering a meaningful facility to that group. Sure. Thanks. First of all, thank you for the presentation, it's comprehensiveness and just the vision that you have. I have to tell you, sometimes it's fascinating to me how we ask things of staff and we ask things of plans, but yet what we've done in the past is, I mean, I've heard today, you know, we need to possibly take a look at speed as it relates to bicyclists on the roadway, and then on the other hand, I've heard that we don't want bicyclists on the roadway, so we shouldn't be taking speed that much into consideration for bicyclists on the roadway. We have to decide which one of these three groups, and it's not mutually exclusive, but what are we trying to accomplish, because if we're really trying to get people to ride, more people to ride bicycles, you really don't want to continue to design things for the highly confident, maybe some of the somewhat confident, you want to try to increase the 51 to 56 percent, so when I drive down a road and I see that bicycle amendment on it that says the bicyclists can share the whole road, what I'm hearing today is we don't want those, but before we wanted just bike lanes. We wanted to be able to add to the number of miles that we call bike lanes, and what I'm hearing now is some of those that we added now are not as desirable, they're not wanted, we need to do something different, so I think this council needs to also really come to grips with what are we really trying to accomplish, because it's not about some plan sitting on a shelf and not being implemented, it's that sometimes we sort of give mixed messages on what we're trying to accomplish, so I think this next conversation that we have on this, we need to begin to focus on which one of these, we only have a certain amount of resources, which one of these criteria do we really want to try to, if the highly confident are okay with riding on a road without a bike lane, without anything, we really don't have to do much for those individuals, but the ones who said I'm not getting on a bicycle if I've got to ride two feet even if it's on a protected sidewalk path next to a road going 30 miles an hour or 35 miles an hour, how do we work our plan to attract those people, because if we're really trying to increase bicycle ridership, it's that population that's probably going to provide the most bang for the buck, so I appreciate the -- it's just interesting and maybe it's because I've been the longest tenured person on this council to see the iterations of bicyclists and bicycle lanes and what is a lane, what's not, and that's great that we're sort of evolving, but that means that some of the things that we're calling bike lanes, I mean, technically they meet that definition based upon a painted symbol in the middle of the road, but from what I just heard is if there's a bicyclist in that lane and the speed limits, even 30, even 30 miles an hour, the ardent bicyclists can maybe ride 20 to 30 miles an hour on a flat surface, I guarantee you I'm not riding 30 miles an hour on a flat surface, so I think we need to begin to focus in on, we're almost -- we're shooting at a moving target, we're trying to figure out what exactly we're wanting to do, we want to have more bike lanes, we want to say we're bike friendly, but this right here is telling us, this is giving us the guidepost, this is giving us the sort of parameters of what do we need to do here, because if we don't have a plan that tries to increase that interested but concerned, it's a waste of money. I'm just going to be truthful with you, it's just a waste of money, you're not doing anything, and you're certainly not providing alternative modes of transportation, I'm not telling this to staff, I'm saying this to my colleagues, because we've got to begin to funnel this down, because just throwing more money at it isn't really the solution, we have to really have a well thought out comprehensive plan and what are our interests, who are we really targeting, to really make this I think what I'm hearing that people want this to be. So again, thank you for the comprehensiveness of this, because I think it really helps lay the foundation for a conversation that can actually begin to put a dent in the population, I think we're really trying to encourage, to feel safe to ride a bicycle when they want to. So thank you for that and this information. We're going to take about a five minute break, and then when we're going to come back, I'm going to go, you know what, I'm going to go ahead and call the closed meeting session, because we're going to do it at three, but let's just go ahead and get the first one done. So I'm going to, now we will convene in closed session at 2.38, pursuant to Texas Government Code 551.071, which is consultation with attorneys. So if we could prepare the room for that and any personnel that aren't necessary. Welcome back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, January the 14th, 2020. It is 3.24pm. We're resuming our work session reports after taking a break to consider a closed session. We are on Work Session 3B, which is receive, report, hold discussion and give staff direction on polling locations for the May 20th, May 2nd, excuse me, 2020 general and special elections. I'd like to make a comment before we begin. Sure. Yeah, you know, I'm disappointed that we haven't found a way to get an opinion from the Board of Ethics on the, yes, on the specific point of polling locations, you know, that whole conflict prior to us taking up this item. And I would hope they would find a way to do that. So I'm going to, I'm going to recuse because it's been adjudicated. Okay. All right. Thank you. And make sure you fill out the paper work. Okay. Yep. Thank you. Good afternoon. I am Rosa Rios and I am your city secretary. So I'm here to present the polling locations for the May 2020 elections. So to provide some background information during the 2019 election process, the city council had asked that we make every attempt to come to you with polling location information well in advance of any upcoming election. So the state allows two uniform election dates, the first being in May, which would always be the first Saturday. And we consider those our general elections. Runoff typically will happen the first to the second Saturday or the second Saturday. And that is basically determined by the counties working jointly. For this year, that proposed runoff date is June 13th. That's what we've been informed so far. The second uniform election date is considered, it's the first Tuesday of November. And we call those our special elections. So for our upcoming election on May 2nd, 2020, for the general election, the purpose will be to elect council members to council places five, six and seven, which is considered the mayor's place. And then of course any runoff if needed. And then for the special election, if the purpose will be to let council members to districts one and two and a runoff election if any is needed. Our proposed schedule is just order our election on Tuesday, February the fourth, the last day to order the election is February the 14th. So in an attempt to meet council's request to provide polling information while in advance of any election, we did provide an informal staff report on December 13, 2019. We provided some detailed information as to some summaries and at a glance look at election information for 2018, 2019. And then also for the 2019 special election to just kind of provide you a comparison of the polling locations that are used by each type of election. And we'd had asked for comments, any suggestions or recommendations on locations and we did not receive any input at all. So here for the May uniform election date, participants are allowed to select the desired locations within their jurisdiction. Of course, every location must meet the ADA accessibility requirements. For early voting, a participating entity can add as many locations in any precinct as it chooses because the voting does not happen. It's not precinct based voting. And for election day, there can only be one location per precinct because the reporting is and the voting is done per precinct. Precincts cannot be divided. That's per state law. So the estimated cost per location, you see here's early voting at $7,100 more or less. And of course, for election day, it turns out to be about $3,800. That is, of course, an estimate. It always depends on the number of participants and then the number of locations. So here kind of to recap some of the information and condense it a lot more than what was on the ISR. You can see that for early voting, you know, the proposed locations could be the Denton Civic Center, which we usually used. The key for that is to note that on June 6th that we would not be able to note that election. Luckily, this year we are not affected at all by Jazz Fest. So we're very lucky on that. The Denton County Elections Administration is the main early voting site. So we always use that. We did check with Robson Ranch. We would be using the Medina Room. And there has been some changes from the information that was initially placed in the packet. So now for if we use for the Robson Ranch for early voting, it would not be available April 24th, which is during the general special election early voting or the June 5th date for the runoff election. And of course, here you can see some the results of the ballots cast for 2018 and 2019 during the early voting period. And you can see here we don't break it down by precinct, again, because voting does not happen precinct-based. And the early voting schedule is below. So for potential Election Day voting locations, you can see here we've broken them down by district. So for District 1, we're looking at the Civic Center or the Texas Women's University. So it would be up to City Council to decide. Of course, again, for Election Day, both of these locations are in the same precinct. So we would need for you to let us know which preferred location you have or you would prefer. And then of course, we have the MLK Center and the Pecan Creek Elementary that Denton ISD did verify that we would be able to use that location. John, you got a quick question. You haven't gotten down there to 4 yet, but you've got South Branch Library and we've used L.A. Nelson the last couple of times. I'm sorry? We've used the elementary school, L.A. Nelson. We've not used South Branch Library in 18 and 19. In District 4. Right. So for our election, the school district has verified that we can use the Denton ISD, the Civic Center and Pecan Elementary. In District 4, the very last one on there is South Branch Library and you've got votes cast. There were no votes cast at South Branch Library because it went to the L.A. Nelson. You're correct. I think we marked it out because what we're proposing is that for the 2020 election, it be at the South Branch Library versus elementary school because the school would not be available. Okay. So then for District 2, again, you know, there's only two locations here for Denton ISD 6 Service Center and again, the school district has agreed to let us use the locations whether or not they are on the ballot or not and then of course we would also look to use North Branch Library. For District 3, we would look at Denton Fire Station number 7, North Lakes Recreation Center and then of course Robson Ranch would not be available on election day so we would be able to use the UNT Gateway Center in that event and then for District 4, we have the option of course of Danier Recreation Center and then the South Branch Library and you can see at the very bottom below on optional locations that if you want to try to kind of even the number of locations that are in each district that Town North Baptist Church and Lifeline Church, both of those were used for the November election so they're tried and true as far as ADA accessibility and meeting all of the requirements. So we did receive verification that Lifeline Church would be available if the council so, you know, decides to use it and we're waiting to hear back from Town North Baptist Church, their board has to discuss it before they can confirm whether or not we would be able to use it and so those are the proposed locations. So again, the options today would be to identify locations to be used for the May 2020 general and special elections, early voting as presented, Sunday as presented or any other proposed locations that you desire or would like care to identify that we would need to go ahead and follow up with those locations just to see one is they would be available and if they would meet the requirements. So again, just to recap, we're scheduled to order the election February 4th but we do have until February 14th to I guess order the election and there's a question. Those are okay with me and it seems well we've had people ask us since that I think is it Tarrant County or some day past that legislation where the polling places you could go anywhere and vote and can you just address that for a minute and that's not something we've done and we're not going to do that here but there's a process that has to be done before this council can even consider that. Yeah, so in having discussed that with Denton County, there would have to be a legislative change in order to allow for vote centers to accept ballot on demand, which means that when a voter shows up, you find out what what you know precinct they're going to be voting on and what their ballot looks like and then they basically print it as they would vote it and that right now their equipment doesn't provide for any other voting method, which is not an acceptable method in order to become a countywide polling center. Thank you. So that decision is entirely up to the county. That's Denton County. I know that Collin County does use it and then Dallas went to it recently for countywide voting. Thanks. And they would love to. So if you know we care to maybe add it to a legislative agenda that would really work, help a lot, hopefully. Any questions, comments? Yeah, I'd like to hear from Councilman Davis on 4003 just to get a feel for his read on those locations. He knows it better than than I do for sure. But I don't know if we're going to move forward with the decision today with that. That kind of is going to guide my decisions. I just don't understand a good option for that for that to go that precinct. If I'm not mistaken, it could be mistaken. So we'll let Health Member Davis answer that. But because this is he may have an issue with whether he sits in on the discussion or not because of I think he's recused himself on other polling places, discussions with the county. So I don't know how that's going to how that's going to be. So but he can answer that question for sure. Okay. And that leads me to because I think from memory and I could be 100% wrong. Because again, I don't have any practice. In the past, have we used is there a fire station in an area that we've used maybe vintage there or? Okay, well, during election during election. Yeah, during election. Yeah. And again, it is a proposed location. You can see here. But it would cover Well, it's election day. Okay, got it. It's very difficult for us to use city locations for like the for the full early voting period. We did double check on that just in case you were interested in it was just I mean, the days were scattered when some of those were available. And then again, historically, the early voting sites. Another thing to keep in mind is, is because of the other joint election participants, I mean, there's actually a lot more locations than we're looking at here, because they also add their locations voters can go to any one of those locations. These are just Denton. So can we look at election day? Got it. And so precinct 4003 could go to the fire station or all those all those kind of captured there. Right. Well, what they would do is they would look at they would reassign the 4003 to the location that's closest to it. And then of course, it would also depend what the other joint election participants are. The only thing is that for our for for our purposes, I provided the precincts just kind of as a reference to show that you can only have one election per precinct. So just because so for for precinct 4003 would be assigned to another location. Only because ropes and ranch would not be available on election day. I'm not I'm not tracking with you. Sorry. I'm slowing up take 4003 would could vote at the fire station on election day or not. If they're inside. Yeah, both could be assigned there. Both who? 4044. Yeah, and 4003. Yes, yes, yes. It would be one to each voting location. Yeah, each precinct has to be assigned a voting location. So 4003 in the past, it was assigned the voting location within ropes and ranch on election day, whereas it's not available today or at this time. So they'll assign them to somewhere else. That's open. Got it. Okay, I'm tracking with you. And then lastly, when we look at if I might just to kind of show here a comparison of 2018 to 2019. You can see how the precincts were assigned in 2019 to go to Russell ranch. So it was 4003 because that location was available if it wasn't available. Chances are, it would go to another location. Got it. And that would be determined by the county and other election participants. Perfect. And then going back, the Civic Center versus TWU. That's it. That's election day. Only? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So so and and here's the thing. So again, for election day, we could, you know, you could go ahead and choose to add TWU, TWU in here, because for election, I mean, for early voting for early voting, you can have as many locations as you want. And so it's just election day that it's impossible to do that in closing. So yeah, so if we're if we're going to, I know that was a point of contention before. So early voting, I'm okay, if we do it at TWU, I do think election day at the Civic Center, if we can, if we parse it out that way, covers that area pretty well. Did the school district say why LA Nelson was not available? I'm not seeing it anywhere in the presentation that it was even checked in. So that's not during the election time. I mean, the the school period time. And so their locations just would not be available on election day on election day. Yes. So what they did, they're not proposing to use it. They basically what I did, the discussions I had with them was based on the locations that we had, we had previously used, and which was the concrete and then the no, we used LA Nelson, if you go to LA Nelson, if you go to the other slide that you had there just a minute ago. Yeah, that one there, the precinct breakdown. Because what will happen is if you switch it to the library, 4037 is going to be the only one at Dean, your rec center, everyone else will be closer to South Branch Library. My concern is having the same using the same locations as much as possible so that the voters understand where they're supposed to go to, because now you're going to have two precincts that are going to be switching over to South Branch Library that may next year, if LA Nelson is available again, would end up having to go back over to Dania and it's yeah, and I'll talk with them because I know that the only two schools that they said right now would be available were the other two, but certainly I'll talk with them about that. There might be if they are not on the ballot, there's going to be an increased cost for us to use that location, but certainly would be warranted. Okay, so we'll do that. Is the T.W.U. location, their union? On the T.W.U.? I mean, I'm talking about for the early voting, I guess it would be either the same, but for the early voting. Go ahead. Can you please bring the screen, the full screen? So they can see it on the video. So that was yes, it's there. It's available. Yes, T.W.U. would be available with, you know, along with the Civic Center. Oh, sorry. So my question is, yes, so I completely understand. I was just wondering where on the campus is it there? Yeah, they're trying to identify the location. Okay. But we would have something there. Okay, so to wrap this up, we've got a couple of questions because you have optional locations and I've not heard anybody say anything about optional locations for the municipal elections in May. These were used in November of 2000. Are we making a decision for even the November election today? No, no, I'm just showing you in case you wanted to increase the number of sites. So it sounds like what I'm hearing is the same locations that were last year, if they're available on election day, whereas Ropes and Ranch is not available, that precinct will be assigned somewhere else. The L.A. Nelson doesn't seem like it's available at this time at least. So those precincts that had been assigned there may be assigned somewhere else, but we'll work on that to make sure there's some type of consistency. This is one of the problems with choosing a bunch of different locations is consistency so that you have voter just education and voter predictability. So TWU will be used for early voting together with the Civic Center, but on election day, it's Civic Center or TWU. The Civic Center has never been an early voting location anyway. So in District 1, you would have three -- if you used the Civic Center or Texas Women's General -- so we've got to make a decision on that. Do we want either one of those or keep it what it is, M.L. Creek, Connard Creek, I mean -- Mayor Pro Tem? Yes. Election day, my understanding, it's always been MLK Center and Connard Creek, and then if there's a third, then the Civic Center would be the logical option for me. Okay. Anything -- and I'm okay with that just because Texas Women's University is -- I mean, people who are walking on the UNT campus to get over to the Gateway Center, they could be walking all the way from the western edge of the campus, so it's a pretty good jaunt, and I think coming down from TWU to the Civic Center is probably not any more distance. It's just across the park, basically. Yeah. And especially if you have an early voting option, I mean, really, if you obey yourself on that, then you don't have to walk anywhere. Okay. All right. Councilmember Briggs? Yeah, so on the option locations, is that District Precinct 1011, is it already assigned as one up here, either the ISD or the North Branch, or is that just in limbo and it doesn't have a place to go? No, what it is, it's just a new location, so Precinct 1011 would have likely gone to another one of those locations within that area. And is that the only precinct going to that? No. Well, again, we don't really know what, let me see. I'm okay with just the two that have been historically. Historically? Yeah. Yeah, this is where we run, and we start adding all these things and they start getting taken away. I mean, people are going to get really confused. So it sounds like what you've proposed, forget the optional locations of either Town, North Baptist, or Lifeline for the November election or any of our municipal elections, and then what you've proposed, I believe, is acceptable, the consensus is, and on the Civic Center, Texas Woman's University during Election Day, that would be the Civic Center. And then we have to check on LA Nelson to make sure that that's totally unavailable. And if so, if it's not available, is the South Branch Library okay with that? I mean, because, and if we do that, we probably need to leave it there, quite frankly. Go ahead. Well, South Branch Library has got an access issue. Since there's no stoplight getting out of there, if you're trying to make a left onto Teasley, that was the reason we used LA Nelson to begin with. My concern is Precinct 1015, which is South Ridge, would then get flipped over to this for this year, and if we went back to LA Nelson, it would end up coming. All you're going to have left is DENIA voting at DENIA by that point, if you move it that far north. And it was trying to get something further south in the city was why we went to LA Nelson. My question is, if LA Nelson is not available, are we saying we want to get some other options for that particular area of town, other than South Branch Library? Yes, because Geyer would actually probably be even preferential to get something further south in that area in District 4. I'm sorry, Geyer? Geyer High School. Geyer High School, well, that's ISD as well, so just be aware of that. If it were available. Yeah, okay. All right. And we have to make these decisions official by February 14th? Yes, that's when we're looking to order the election. And then, of course, you have until February 4th, that's when we're ordering, but we could always postpone it to the meeting after that, which would be February 11th. Let's try to bring this back before then. We should be able to resolve this. That's really the only outstanding issue. And again, the key to ordering the election, at least for the special election, which we're going to use the same locations for both of the elections, is that the deadline to file for Districts 1 and 2 are affected by the date that we order the election, because they cannot start filing until the day after we order that special election. So if we change it, then it changes our date. We don't need to change that. We need to have this fixed so we can stay on track. And I'll be sure to report back ahead of time. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. It's a little sort of like a whack of polling location. You just got that? Okay. All right. All right. Agenda 3, Agenda 3C, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the results of the 2019 gas well inspection activities and annual summary report by Modern Geosciences. Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council members, Ken Banks, General Manager of Utilities. It's my pleasure to introduce Dr. Kenneth Tram, who is here today from Modern Geosciences. Modern Geosciences has been our consultant and contractor on performing the gas well inspection services. And he is here today to go over the 2019 results from the gas well inspection program. So without further ado, I'll introduce Dr. Tram. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Thank you for having me. What I've tried to put together is a summary of kind of our findings, some take homes, some good summary information, but the point of this is to get the data to you from all the work that we've done over the last year. It's about a year from last time, so this time we have information before that we can kind of compare to and see a little bit of trending. So to remind everybody, these are your locations of your 290-ish wells. These are the individual pad sites that obviously are really in the southwestern half of the city. As far as numbers, when we began in 2018, part of what we did was to actually catalog all the infrastructure related to the pad sites. So we actually track it more than just a well, more than just a pad site, but each separator, each above ground storage tank, and those things can be updated and changed throughout the year, but those are reflected in the reports, and all those things are recorded in GIS that's shared with the city for use and all the kind of planning that you've discussed today as well. But these give you the breakdown of the numbers for the city, in the city limits, all the number of wells and infrastructure. You'll see down on the bottom, the number of wells are listed both in a high priority, a moderate priority, and then a low priority, you'll see two numbers. And the reason for that will be kind of more illuminated on the next slide, but the low priorities are inspected once every other year. So there's an odd year that we hit one and an even year that we hit the other. So for the first half of the year, and we call it that way because the high priorities are actually inspected twice a year. So the second half represents hitting those ones the second time through. So the first half captures both high, moderate, and low, in this case for the odd year. So if you break down that population of wells by operator, this gives you a good kind of visual representation, right? So we at least visited one from all operators except for one, because those are all done in an even year, and they have only low priority sites. For a reference on how the program is structured, so starting with the top there, the inspection schedule, similar to what I just mentioned, right? So you have twice a year for high priority, once a year for moderate, and twice if it's low priority. And off to the right, you'll see the basis for that is really proximity to a sensitive receptor, right? So the closer you are to a sensitive receptor, the more often you're going to be inspected. Clarification on that. On the comments where it says on the first one twice a year, less than 300 feet from sensitive receptor. Help me understand what that really looks like on the ground. So let's say you've got a wellhead, right? So you're going out 300 feet from the wellhead or 300 feet from the pad side? So we actually present both to city staff, and they actually make that determination, but I'm not sure there's a hard and fast rule on that. But I think proximity to infrastructure in general, so that'd be a well, is enough to move something in. Okay, got it. So it's not, Dr. Banks, real quick question. On that very top one, if you could maybe, sorry, just so I understand and the council and the public can understand, where it says 300 feet, less than 300 feet from sensitive receptor. So if you're going out to, I guess you're setting something that'll monitor something. Are you measuring it from a facility within a pad side, or are you measuring it from the pad side boundary, 300 feet from the pad side boundary? I'm going to rely on staff on that. I'll say what I think the answer is, and I'll look for a head nod on that. I believe in this particular case, we're actually measuring it from the well head. Is that correct? Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Which is closer than if you were outside. That's correct. You're going to include more rather than less. I just didn't want, that's kind of a policy element, so I didn't want to... No, I understand. No, that's helpful. Thank you. And we actually... Councilmember Meltzer has a question. Sure. Yeah, actually, I think this might be, I might be able to find it on one of the slides, but you've got the alternating group because of the low priority. Is the total number of wells that are tested different from one year to the next? Correct. So the high and moderate, those would each be inspected a minimum of one time per year. Yeah. The low then would swing, and so I'll actually hit... Because it's based on the company, not the number of wells, right? That's correct. And they're close. We tried to break them up so that we would have kind of an equal workload per year, but they're similar. But there are wells that are only touched or inspected by us. They're actually inspected by the city more often than that individual. Sure. But is the total number this year lower than the total number inspected last year just because of the way that list happened to break? Have you had that on a future slide? If it's coming up, it's coming up. No, I have it right here. I'm going to say, we went from 60 lows last year to 54 this year. Thanks. I mean, it becomes relevant when we look at year to year trends, right? We're looking at fewer wells. Correct. Somewhat, slightly fewer wells. Correct. When we look at wells, I'll steal my own thunder from the end, but we try to normalize across individual wells, so we will... Right. Per well. Yeah. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. All right. So now we've discussed how often we get to the pad sites, right? So the compliance inspection has a couple of components, too. They all have something where we look through your ordinance, and we actually verify that they're meeting all the elements of the ordinance. Some of them are very environmental. Some of them are more just things you expect them to do and the way that you expect them to run their pad site. Then we do an inspection that we refer to as a near equipment inspection, which means we're right up against these pieces of equipment, whether it be a well, a separator, an above ground storage tank, or what we refer to as ancillary, which is anything else they're going to bring, right? Kind of my catchall for that. In addition to that, that's done on all the high, moderate, and low priorities. They all are going to have that piece of equipment inspected with multiple types of apparatus that we bring out to do the inspection. Then the fence line inspection, as you see listed here, has different elements based on, again, its proximity to a receptor or being moderate or high. And then there are some contingency elements built into our program. If concerns are identified, we can do different types of monitoring to localize and confirm there is a concern, is not a concern, what needs to be addressed. So we'll talk a little bit more about that in the slides that are coming up. So let's look at some of the action items. So anything, whether it was there was a corrosion concern, whether it was a leak, maybe it was elevated radiation above normal levels where we need to have, you know, labeling done on pieces of equipment, all those are generally referred to as action items, things we would like to see action take place on. And so this gives you a listing from the first half of the year by operator and then by what that action item was. I break them down a little further for you, but it's good just to see comparison. To your point, some operators have a lot more wells than others. So, you know, until I normalize this across the number of wells, just keep in mind this is just the number identified. But you might notice quickly from there there's a lot more blue than others. Right? So there's a lot more leaks would be your driving and then probably corrosion, your number two item that we're seeing out in the field. So the number of action items, I normalize it by well. Right? So this gives you a comparison here. XTO in this case only has two wells. And so if I identify anything on their one pad site, sometimes the statistics don't work in their favor here. But this at least gives you a comparison across the board for them. And then this is taking that and just making it into a pie chart. Again, leaks in blue, corrosion in green. Do you want me to hold questions or is it okay to ask? Yeah. If you'll just sort of give us some natural, I know there's about 40 slides or something, just give us a natural break to where we're not waiting until the end to ask. Sure. Whenever it's -- if you see something you have a question about, then -- Well, I'll monitor. Yeah, okay. Unless Mayor Dick tells me otherwise, then I'll reply. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, if you could go back one slide, please. Yes, sir. All right. So we've got Eagle Ridge at more than one leak per well. Correct. You know, does that reflect, you know, a portion of their wells that are leaking multiple times and not being addressed or, you know, how do you get to more than one leak per well? Sure. So now remember, we categorize all the equipment as -- there's every well I come up to, there's every separator I come up to, every above ground storage tank I come up to, and then any ancillary equipment. Those are all grouped together. So I really could have at least typically three pieces of equipment related to one well, the well itself and nothing else. The per well just gives us a way to normalize that data so that when we have an operator that has 100 wells and then one that has five, that we can put it in context. So it could be like a ninth of their wells have three leaks each. That's correct. Okay. Thanks. One other good reason to put it into that context is allow you to compare how you see performance in your city versus other cities. And we shared some of that information via email, too. All right. So for the near equipment portion of that, so this really takes some of the data you just saw, but kind of gives you a narrative piece of that. So we identify a total of 144 leaks during that first half of the year. And then, you know, working with your city staff, each of those are identified. Not only do we communicate it to the operator, if they're with us in the field, several times they can adjust that, you know, crescent wrench can often fix some of these leaks really quickly. And so they often follow behind us and want to address some of those. Some of them are not addressed immediately. And there are things that they need components or other pieces for. City staff will follow up behind. And so you see in bold in my first bullet here, right? So the city staff followed behind or it was done, you know, when we were on pad site to confirm those things are actually addressed and there's no longer leaks there. As far as norm naturally occurring radioactive material, right? So the scale that builds up inside these these equipment, primarily the separator, but sometimes the above ground storage tank, too, requires that it be labeled per the Railroad Commission rules. Part of that is we make sure any equipment that has any excessive radiation on it doesn't just get back and recycled and back into the, you know, the community be used for other purposes, just needs to be cleaned out first. So it's the way to identify it per the Railroad Commission rules and make sure that when it's done being a piece of equipment it is, it can become something else later. Yes, if you could just help me understand when you say addressed there, does that mean just known about or does that actually mean fixed? So it depends on the operator. We have some operators that, you know, we inspect their pad sites, they'll have somebody come and actually sandblast the inside of an above ground storage tank or a well or replace piece of equipment and then they'll address those piece of equipment elsewhere. So some might do that. And the norm is addressed and doesn't need to be labeled. Many will wait until the end of the pad life or the pad sites life to address it at that point. So probably the majority are just labeling it. So that way when it reaches the end of its life, that piece of equipment will be known to be norm containing and that way it will have to be addressed before it can ever be recycled. So many of them are just labeled on the pad site, which is that's within the Railroad Commission rules to be there. We actually do fence line data too to compare. And so that amount of radiation there, I know just saying the word radiation, you know, gets people, some people are very familiar with radiation, comfortable with it, some are less. But in this case, it means labeled for most of it. Okay, so I just misunderstood, I guess. Okay. What I thought was that we identified the leaks and the operator fixed the leak. But what I think I just heard you say that's correct for leaks. Oh, okay. Radiation because what I thought I heard you say was that it just needed to say, oh, hey, there's a leak here and we'll get to it eventually. Sure. So either they're able to actually address the leak when we're there with them on site. And actually, when they do that, we'll actually return if we're there physically with the equipment, we'll come verify it or say, you know, give it a keep going. All right, now you got it. I say it's about 5050 as to how many are very active and have the equipment or the personnel to fix those things with us. The other ones, once these are noticed, identified in the report, reported to the city, then the city will come back and they'll follow and then they'll communicate back to us. We went back out and they did fix it. So now we can put it in the report. Do you know? Sure, go ahead. So that the the time that passes between when you've identified a leak and then the city inspector comes back out, do you know what that time is generally? Um, you know, typically when we begin this, we probably set about a two week window of our goal of because we want to get the report to you, right? We want everything to be timely. And it's best if it's as close to when the event happened. So two weeks is our general goal. Rarely do we see it go beyond that. But that's then get into the operators availability to get that, you know, the piece for that piece of equipment, coordinating schedules. But I'll say two weeks is a general goal. Okay, thank you. I can't say we met that every time. Yes, ma'am. Can you speak to how many of the operators have that equipment to fix the leak on site? And does it vary within operators by pad site? Or is it operators, single operators generally, you know, consistent in it? If at one site they have the ability to do it, then they have it at all of them. So there's a couple different things in that answer, right? So it depends on what the piece of equipment is. Some are more exotic and have components that need to be ordered or they have to go pull it from somewhere else. By and large, the what we refer to as a dump valve, it's a pneumatic controller that the separator, you know, fills it with water to a certain point and then it dumps it. Those are the most common leaks. They can fix those relatively fast because it's a small elastic component that's actually on there that just fails over time. There are operators that are very aggressive at fixing leaks and, you know, now part of having a program is they get familiar with you being part of their program, right? And so I'll mention for XTO, not necessarily only in Denton but in other cities, like they'll send people out specifically with us because I see it as an immediate benefit to them of let's fix those things and stay on top of it. And I think we're seeing some improvement with some of that across the board. You can use it to your advantage. We're going to be there. You might as well use it to your advantage. So for the dump valves, those get fixed relatively quickly, usually that same time. A second piece to that answer could be who was available the day we were there inspecting. And so sometimes the pumpers that they send, a generic name in the field for this, may not be the person who they want to fix certain pieces of equipment. And so they may have to call back and get a second person to come and they'll fix that piece of equipment. That's why when we're there for a short window, having the city to come in behind us and verify is very helpful. So there's not one answer to that, but I'd say I'm seeing improvement in those operators we have worked with a lot, not just in Denton but in other places. They start to use this as part of their, you know, I'll say maintenance. They probably wouldn't agree with me on that. But you know, way to fix things as we're there, you might as well. Thank you. That's good to know. Sure. All right. So that was the near equipment. So for fence line information, right? So each of these bullets include the things that we see. The high priority ones get all of these, but we didn't identify VOCs and we use parts per billion resolution equipment. So very sophisticated and high level equipment that we walk the boundaries of, both the upwind and downwind. Hydrogen sulfide, radiation as we've talked about before, methane itself and then particulate matter and then noise. Of these, the only fence line one was one noise one, which happens to be a pad site where there's been development move closer to it. And it's right on the edge. And now we use a screening criteria of 65, which is actually just a planning based number. It's usually that number where we want to say that probably needs more scrutiny over time. Someone needs to keep an eye on it. So fence line looked very good the first half of the years. Kind of my take home for this slide. Fence line is the pad site perimeter. That's correct, sir. Yes. So is that something you touched on something that's noteworthy. So residences came back up towards the well. Is that something you check with the developer kind of time or how do you kind of know that to be the case? Sure. So I'll say our understanding of the changes around a pad site in this case, that one particular pad site is we've got different aerials. When we pull everything into GIS, we actually have at our disposal a lot of information that's really historical in nature too. And so this is a pad site that predates the development that is immediately around it. But like anything, over time, you know, development will happen. It will come around. And then your rules change as to what they meant to them. What's good about your current program is as you get development that gets closer, the priority of that pad site will also change in accordance with that. Thank you. Yes, sir. Can you go back one slide? Okay. About the methane, so it says none of the up or down down when fence line monitoring exhibited exceedances of methane screening criteria. Is this the methane screening criteria, is that are you talking about the federal EPA standard or Texas Railroad Commission or is this what? Sure. Well, I'll start with saying I wish there was one in the state of Texas for you. It's right, so a screening criteria is just a tool to say if we're observing numbers that we think are significantly elevated above background, this may be indicative that there's another problem. So we're just looking for indications that maybe we need to go back on the pad site and look for other things. So we use a number of 500 parts per million by volume for that, for our fence line. And that's been a very useful number, but I cannot point to something to say that's a criteria that somebody must meet or not meet. It's just to me, I'm in the field and I'm seeing something that suggests that there's another problem. I need to increase my scrutiny on this part of the pad site to help find it. Okay, got it. Because that was going to be my follow-up. Absolutely. Because it was my understanding that at the federal and state level we're not monitoring methane. So this is the standard of modern geoscience. That's correct. Just doing this long enough, it's a very good tool to tell you when I'm seeing something that, again, there's probably something, I might not be near it, but that means that I'm going to change the way I'm assessing the site until I confirm there is or is not a problem of any nature. Got it. Thanks so much. You bet. This may be a question for our staff. Is that the noise on the, I know that you have your screening criteria there, 66, but what is in our code for sound levels when it becomes a nuisance? Is that on par with what you have? I can offer what's in your ordinance, and staff can definitely come up here and bump me out of the way as soon as they need to. But in general, what your ordinance has set forth, and there's been different iterations, of course, over time, is that a baseline is set by the operator and then they're allowed a daytime allowance increase 5 decibels A-weighted during the day and 3 decibels A-weighted during the evening. But in this case, some of these path sites are so old, some came in when that was changing, right, things have happened since that time period, they may not be held by those same requirements. In this case, there's not a known baseline for this site. And so we fall back on, okay, what's a screening criteria that we would like to use, just again, just like methane was a great example of, that suggests that these are elevated numbers and some more scrutiny or monitoring may be appropriate for it. 65 is a number that's used, really, by the many federal entities. In fact, many got together and said, what is a number where annoyance begins? And that 65 decibels A-weighted came out from that. And then they work backwards as to, you know, how much can I have here to not get above 65 there, type numbers. Well, just to follow up. So not in the GASPOL or specific for GASPOLs, per se. I'm just curious if that is, that number is consistent with our ordinance when we're talking about noise as a nuisance, like with music or any kind of base level or anything like that? And just as a comparison, is it 65? In 2015, actually, in 2015, we do have, just as Dr. Tram presented to you, that it depends on the baseline level that was set and in those cases. But as far as the noise level, we treat the noise, any noise complaints the same as we would for loud music, loud parties, the same type. We keep it all consistent so that we can prosecute those violations in municipal court under state law. And that is at 65 decibels? No. It actually is, the standard is, and it's been a while since I've, I haven't prosecuted in years, but it's going to be, if the noise is unreasonable, it more or less offends the ordinary sensibilities of a person. Does it make the average person feel like they're being offended? And that's more or less, it's a very subjective standard that we use to prove in court. It has been upheld by the Texas Supreme Court, so we proceed under that provision. Will you follow back on what that is? On the noise, I'll mention there's a second element to it, which is there's a, so this is just an overall number that you see here. When we actually go out, we actually use one-third octave filters, which allows us to actually compare, you know, are we seeing a lot of bass end, a lot of high end, and there's actually an annoyance criteria in your ordinance. So I don't want to make like a buzzing noise to give you an example of something that's annoying, but you've probably been somewhere, you're like, what's this crazy buzzing noise? That would show up in that one-third octave, and so this one doesn't fall under that, so this is just a, you know, a noise that has a number that's above, and these are just sound pressure waves, really, is how we measure things. But at least I can tell you, it's not, it doesn't cross over that annoying threshold, because we actually dice it up, and we actually, it's called modeling through, but we run it through a spreadsheet and actually compare all the sound criteria to see not only is the number bad, but is this annoying for the other ones. So every time we take a noise sample, we're doing all that. So none of those, this one didn't break that either. But I just wanted you to know, in your program, we do, we weigh it in another way as well. Correct, and, you know, it's, bear in mind that we're there for a short duration too, right, and so some of these noise things need to be kept in mind. These are meant to be snapshots to say, am I seeing something that needs a little more scrutiny on it? In this case, you'll see mentioned here, city staff did mobilize when they did their inspection and came through, and their number was slightly below. That's 65. So this is just on that line. Correct. Every pad site that we inspect will have its own individual report. And so these are, of course, all posted on your website. And kudos to you being like the only city that I know that has those. And so those have the individual criteria listed here. And so for VOCs, for example, 0.1 part per million is a number. And the reason that we use that, that's our screening number, but again, it means that there could be something that may exceed a regulatory criteria. So if we exceeded that 0.1, for example, we actually have with us in the field thermal desorption tubes, and we'll actually take an air sample and we'll actually run it and we'll look for any 60, 70, 80 different compounds. And then those individual compounds can be compared to air monitoring criteria. Right? So these are triggers. So we screen, but then if something is above, we have a what do I do next? You know, if the screening criteria has been exceeded, we want to take a sample that then has a regulatory certainty to it. This means we could contact somebody and say, hey, there's compound X above this number. That now represents something that we want to elevate this site and the concerns on the site. So you mentioned that part of your screening criteria is if it's something that's above, I don't know what, I thought you might have said the ambient. In other words, that screening criteria is the baseline is something that would just be seen just in general. It's, it's, it's that or our screening means that if, if we have something that exceeds our screening criteria in the field for any of these parameters you have here, it's suggestive that there could be a concern on the site and either depending on what it was. So if it was VOC, since you mentioned that one in particular, right? So if we're walking the fence line up, wind down, we will get an upwind monitoring result. And typically we are less than one part per billion. And then we'll also get a downwind result. If we see something on that downwind, we'll stop, we'll set up something, we'll collect a sample, and then we could tell you what was in it. Okay. So that, that, that's important. So what you're saying is your screening criteria is yes, it's sort of what you're choosing, but also if you're doing upwind and your downwind of a pad site and there's no change because the upwind, the pad sites not creating an issue upwind. If it, if there's an issue there, it's going to show up on the downwind monitor. So it's that comparison that you're also using to say, if there's a big difference here, that means something's happening between this point and this point, which is the gas well in the middle. That's correct. Yes. And if we saw something very interesting on the upwind, we'd probably take a sample too, because we'd want the city to know we saw something. Yep. Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. So your screening criteria, which were meant to kind of indicate to you, dig deeper, are they looser than what the sort of regulatory screening criteria would be? So it'd have to be kind of. We're probably, we're probably have a higher level of scrutiny, right, because we want to pull them in and then we can know for sure. So it's a tighter tolerance. That's correct. And you say, but you say probably. And that might be helpful for us to know that. I'll say absolutely. Here's the, you know, here's the regulatory line. Here's our line that we test at. Yes, sir. Okay. And we have those and each of those are in every report with. Okay. All the citations of where they, of where they come from as well. That's a good question. All right. So post inspection, now you have the data, the numbers of action items and their findings. One thing we do every time we come back is we're also making some observations of, hey, have the distances to potential sensitive receptors changed. And so we'll present city staff with a certain number if we find them, because development happens, and people build new things closer to pet sites. And so in this particular case, after our, you know, the initial wave was performed, we suggested a couple to the city. The city looked at it, measured things off in their own GIS, multiple directions, multiple comparisons to receptors, and so two of them were bumped from moderate to being high. So going forward, these will all be measured as a high priority pet site. Yes. So just to clarify, so by receptors, you mean new development, right? There's new. Correct. As in that. As in that right there. Yeah. And so, and maybe you don't feel comfortable speaking to this, but when local pad site operators find out that they've been bumped, you know, from moderate to high, now, obviously, that means they get more inspections, right? That's correct. Yeah, is, do they, you know, have you heard any reaction about, oh, no, we're going to get more, you know, more. I personally have not. I mean, I think they really say, what's the list of ones that you want to go visit, and let's go visit them. I'm not sure they even know that the priority has changed. That's my experience. Oh, okay. Okay. So it would be the city that would be, or actually, there's probably no notification. I think pretty much the schedule is, you know, it's now like clockwork. So they're just now on the list, and to them, it's just tell us which ones you want to see. Yeah, so they find out when the next inspection happens. Okay, thanks. Yeah, so I wanted to show you those, too. So this is one here, and my reason that there's multiple distances to things. This is a good example of a pad site. So we have 235 feet from a structure at above ground storage tank A, versus 210 feet from the fence line, versus, you know, another one if we took it to well A, and did it just by that well piece of infrastructure, that would have been 350 feet. So for this one to be high, you can see it was incorporated by the infrastructure around it, more so than the well. Does that make sense? So this was one of the two, and this is the second one. The development is actually so current. I don't have an aerial with the homes on it, so I've just given you kind of my green blob of new home construction there. But, you know, the program's working, and it's pulling in the ones -- and I think we've even had ones where development had been moved away or the structures moved away. It only happened once, to my knowledge, where something went from maybe a moderate to a low. And so they're both at Roves and Ranch, these two. I believe that's correct. And two is the -- what is the gas well operator for the two? Sure, I believe both of them. I'm trying to look for where that is. I know I could go look up the number for 147 and 156. Yeah, I can -- Zach may know. Do you see it in the file name, Zach? You're assuming that my eyes can read that. Well, and we can -- I mean, I don't want to necessarily get bogged down on where an actual location is. They're both Eagle Ridge. They're both Eagle Ridge. That's the ER that's in the file name. Yeah, which is a high -- thank you very much for that. And they're -- correct, they're both high color. Have a great number of leaks. Well, I would look at the reports for those individual ones. Because some -- Per site, you mean, not per operator. That's right. That's right. So with that being the first half, let's just jump to the second half real quick. There's a summary of all the data together at the end, too. So the second half, you see, I've kind of bolded the operators, right? So now my universe of operators is smaller because the other ones have low priority path sites that have dropped out. And so that leaves us just with these four operators you see here. Obviously, Eagle Ridge is still the largest portion of that. So looking at fence line-wise, again, the -- we kind of have a similar -- we're still at that same pad site that's right on that edge, noise-wise. And then action items. I do have a question about the noise again, because a while ago you said that there was not any City of Denton complaints. My question is because I know that when there's other gas well issues, it's always, you know, we'll call, you know, TCEQ or call the operator or call -- so is there a way to find out if the homeowners near there have made complaints to those individuals rather than even knowing that they could call the city to complain about something? That's probably more of a city question. We've not heard that they've had any in the city indicated they did not. This one does include -- I will mention this as Deborah's coming up. So when we find -- so we go to the fence line of a pad site. That's where we're going to take our reading. So I'm not necessarily representing what, right, that home may see. But I know that, man, if it's below a certain number, we know it's going to be much less over there. So in this case, you see that there's two numbers, right? So any time that's triggered, our second measurement will be taken closer to the structure. And so the close to the structure one was 47.5, as you see here. So just realize that I set the screening criteria very conservatively because I want to bring in what these issues would be. So sometimes that means you're going to see things on the line. But it's the reason to do that extra, you know, trigger whatever the next thing is, whether it's taking a sample for VOCs individually, whether it's taking another reading closer to that structure. You know, if we saw, again, elevated numbers, because we've not in Denton, but in another city we work with, there was a compressor that was having a problem and it exceeded at the fence line and it exceeded as we get, you know, still remaining further away from them but closer to the receptor. And so that resulted in them taking corrective action and fixing it. The city attorney had a question or a comment. I'm sorry. As far as prosecuting the noise violations, in 2015 and even before that, the city council at that time, based on our advice and with the PD's advice, was to have the property owners, homeowners call PD to actually go out there because most of the complaints are coming in at night or at least at that time they were, especially when they were drilling out the Acme brick site. A lot of homeowners in the South Ridge area were complaining about the noise. And so what we did, the police officers are very trained in loud music complaints, the same analysis, the same observations apply when they come out to these, and that's how those are usually prosecuted. Now, as far as have there been any in the last few years, I'm not aware, but it's something that we could run through PD and municipal court to find out if there have been any loud noise complaints against gas well operators. Did I answer your question? All right. So as far as action items, and again, realizing we have a smaller subset of operators to work with that were inspected. So Bedrock had 13 leaks and we had 39 leaks on the Eagle Ridge sites, of which they had 50 wells, so that's comparison wise not that bad. But this gives you at least a summary visually. If I take those number of action items and then normalize it on a per well basis, this drops it down for the second half of the year down to a 1.4. So these metrics become things that I often get asked about and we work with other cities and I've given you some ranges, I'd say somewhere between like a 0.5 to a 2 is like a normal operational number we see for different cities. Lower is better. And we typically have seen improvements lower numbers on a per well basis over time. But this is where your numbers are here. I think I provide the city some comparison for three or four other cities just so you would have that. So this like the 1.4, that's per well operator for the second half, not for that's correct. So the total for say Eagle Ridge is something like 2.7 for the year. I think it's 0.98 over I have I do have that exact slide. Well, yeah, I mean, I recall some of the information provided before a number like that. But I think it was 1.3 on the previous slide. I'm not mistaken, it's greater than one. And it's greater than one here. So I don't see how that would, you know, wouldn't those be additive then get this many in the first half? Well, that may be the second half, you got to add them up. And how many in the full? I don't I don't disagree with that. Okay, I can give you the individual stats if you need it. But I'm just remembering what's coming up. Maybe it is over one. I just don't I'm just don't remember here. We have it later. Maybe this Okay, and since you're gonna pull it all together. Yeah, I'll just let you know the question I'll be asking is, how would you how would you react to this data if you were Eagle Ridge? But you don't have to answer that now? I'd probably say thanks for letting us know. Maybe if I was management, I'd say, Hey, let's get those numbers down, because more gases be in the line and more sales would happen. Or what are the other operators have less than we do? I don't know. action item by type, obviously leaks being your bigger driver, and then a little less corrosion know the second time through, again, with the near equipment summarize, we have 52 leaks. And that second half of the year. Those did have some remaining action items that we were waiting on one of them being corrosion related. And then on seven pad sites, there were 29 actual leaks that we're waiting on. So our reports are actually still in draft. And hopefully, we finalized we wanted to stop that for a minute to put the day together to present to you guys. But as of like right now me standing here, we were waiting on hearing back on 29. So I think it's important to note and I know it's made, I think some of the press and I don't I mean, I think, actually, I think staff might have sent something out to us. But it's my understanding. So if it's not right, somebody correct me that at least I thought I read a news report where Eagle Ridge has sold all of their interest in Barnett Shell to a company in Colorado or something. That Devon is Devon. Okay, so I am mistaken. It was Devon. I knew there was one of them. Okay, thank you. Yeah. So no breaking news, no breaking news happened here. No breaking news, sir. Okay. May the stock price went up when you send that I don't know. So from the second half, we didn't identify any structures. I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean, yeah. From the second half, so the high priority only we didn't notify any new structures or notice anything that was going to change the priority of the path sites to items that were of interest and probably outside just the norm of no pun intended with that name. Nobody got my joke. That's all right. That's the world I live in right there. No, my students at least laugh. They give me a courtesy laugh because I get to grade them. No, no, you guys are working hard today. I'll give you that. So two that I wanted to at least just note because these are, you know, not the norm that we bump into. So one is we did identify a sub grade leak. So those are uncommon, but they they get immediate action from the operators because they do recognize the concerns that they represent. But that means it's not coming from a piece of equipment. It's usually sub grade piping that's kind of forgotten about the connects piece of equipment. And that was on pad site 78. And then in response to an air quality complaint, so a concern was voiced by a resident, I believe, and the city had us mobilize and actually do an extended monitoring event. So we did about three hours. You can do shorter, you can do longer. But we saw consistently, you know, numbers were well below any of our screening criteria, which we would take another sample. But these are good tools that you have at your disposal. If you see concerns that we can at least speak to those for those individuals. So I did have and just to show you what this kind of looks like because I think it's helpful. I mean, you're you're asked to make policy decisions and things of that nature. So you'll notice in the top right, right, so there's a map of the pad site. So you've got the equipment that the piping is going to. So that includes a separator, which is a square a that you see there in the above ground storage tanks that are circles. And then there's one well. And so in between, there's some piping, obviously, that connects it. So what you're seeing here in the bottom left is actually the screenshot here for a second, but it's actually a short video I was going to show you shows it in what we call optical gas imaging mode. So it's in black and white. That's the nature of it. So behind it, you see a lot of plant life. So that plant life just happens to be a little warmer than the ground. And so hence it shows up as black too. But that's just plants that are behind us there. But it will go from our optical gas imaging back into normal and then back so you can. Well, hold on. I tried just joking. Just built that all up for no reason. All right, here we go. Take two. But this is what it looks like to us in the field. This is what it would look like to you and I walking to it. So it's the benefit of having the kind of program that you do because not only do we screen equipment, we actually walk and scan anywhere where we believe there's any underground piping for that exact reason. So we find those. And the operators are very appreciative on those. Those are ones where they immediately go, yes, stop what we're doing. We'll get on that. And that's what you want to see. Can you speak to the connection between corrosion issues and leaks and for corrosion, is that corrosion of, you know, any kind of equipment on which there's corrosion seen and is it an indicator of future leaks? Sure. You know, corrosion's a hard one to judge. You know, I'm thankful we've got crews that have inspected thousands of wells. So we've gotten familiar with, you know, when do we see those leaks more often? We try to draw the line. When there's enough corrosion, we believe it would compromise the integrity of that equipment. It's no longer going to function correctly. So that would result in a leak sometimes. That may result in fluid discharge sometimes. But if there's enough corrosion, like the pitting is so deep that we think that you're about to compromise that, we want to bring it to your attention. It's not just you may have also failed the you can keep it painted policy too, but we'll elevate it and we will call it corrosion for that reason. And it is rare for me to get pushback from an operator when we call it based on those lines, right? Because they also know we're close to something about to happen and we don't want that something to happen. And that's in corrosion is visible to the naked eye, special equipment. Yeah, no special equipment. Maybe I would say some experience of what the pieces are doing and which ones are your most sensitive to because you will see corrosion on equipment that's been maybe out of service or is temporarily not used. And so knowing what's actually running the other ones like we'll we'll make a note but if it's not going to compromise the integrity of their operation, it's just there. Thanks. So this has been really helpful. And I'm glad that you guys are doing the inspections. And so my question is, on say one like this, it's pretty significant. I know that the operators want to get these fixed, right? Because they're they're losing their product. But what happens if this may be for the city manager, if if do we have rules in place, like say, they don't fix it within that two week time, by chance, you know, that that's allowed. And they it just keeps going. Is there a fine or do we what what do we do at that point? If it's a consistent leak, that's this bad. On those, because of the way the some Texas Supreme Court case and Southern crushed concrete as far as our and the BCC appeal group, our enforcement is quite limited. So the routes that we have are to report it to TCEQ to actually verify and they enforce that the other is to actually file a civil lawsuit under the Clean Air Texas Clean Air Act, which would involve us coming to you to counsel to get permission to enforce that and file that lawsuit. Part of that also involves us giving TCEQ notice of the lawsuit and TCEQ has 90 days in which to take care of it before we can file that lawsuit. So those are the two mechanisms that were that we have available as a city to enforce these types of violations. Thank you. Yeah, so as a follow up to that, what would trigger our taking that action? Let's say the second one you talked about the Clean Air Act. And before you answer, I just want to underscore, you know, I asked the question, how would you respond to the state of your eagle? Which I don't want to pile on them. I don't know them. I'm sure they're all great people. But, you know, just the data keeps on talking to us about them because it looks like 2.7 leaks a year per well. And you showed us 29 leaks on seven pad sites, not addressed. Because I would be inclined to agree with your initial reaction, like that they ought to be saying, yeah, let's fix it. That's our product getting away, right? But we're not seeing it for whatever reason, or at least to some extent we're not seeing it. So I don't know why, but would that lead us to some kind of enforcement action within the scope of what we can do? That's my question to you. Yeah, but if these are continuing, I know that after if they've basically not addressed these issues, and it can be for different reasons, I mean, I'm going to speculate on the reasons, but, you know, we can at least let them know this is the route we're going. We report you to the railroad commission or the TCEQ depending on the violation. And then a lot of operators don't like that. But, you know, if that doesn't work, or if TCEQ comes out here and they don't verify it, then we're stuck with the position of having to, and if we continue to, and if we're insistent that we do, that the violation is there but TCEQ disagrees, then we have, where that venture, you know, what to do. Do we file that lawsuit or not? Let me just ask a little point of clarification, though. You first went to TCEQ. I think what I'm hearing is that we're seeing leaks because we care about leaks, but we're not seeing exceedances. Is that fair? That's fair. So, you know, they're doing something that is a concern to us that isn't violating a TCEQ rule. So, you know, so the question is is there something in what we're seeing that would trigger, you know, a Clean Air Act cause of action or not? And that's really going to depend on the actual facts at hand, depending on how much is being released. If it is a minor leak like that. It's a quantity of what's being released. Exactly. And I say to your quantity point, ones that are of this nature, so these are rare enough, I'm telling you this is out of the norm, and I want you to at least be familiar because 500 times out of, you know, 10, it's not this one. These individually, like the lower explosive limit would be exceeded. So there may be something in your fire code, right, for ones that are that significant in nature, right? So this is a flammable environment that's been generated. It's the reason that you'll see the operator immediately take action. They're as concerned that there will be some larger catastrophic event. So they are very motivated, but their eyes, like that conversation changes immediately when we find those. And we don't always find them subgrade like I show here. Sometimes there's a piece of equipment that are that level and they will take action immediately. But that's the benefit of a program because you'll listen, you'll find that maybe one out of a hundred. I'll put it that way. Yeah, yeah. Now, Captain Melcher covered a lot of what I was going to ask. I'll just add to that, that I am concerned about these, you know, 29, 29 remaining leaks. And does that include this? It does not. This was addressed that day. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And I was wondering if you could speak to what any other cities that you work with in Texas do to enforce what the city would consider violations of the city standard, but that do not meet a, a TCEQ or even a, you know, clean air standard, because I know that, I mean, there, you know, there are limitations to, to EPAs. Yeah. You know, so methane, what they're after is methane. If it was, you know, they want to be 95, 97% or more by volume methane. What you're seeing depicted here is methane. It just happens that we're in a state where it doesn't include methane in the definition of a VOC. So therefore it's not triggered or caught in any other compliance element that goes with it. That's just where we are. And I didn't make these rules. But what I can say is if we know they have methane in their system and that's what they're doing, we can use methane as our indicator. There's a leak. And then what's in that 3%, 5%, 1% other can hold those VOCs that we are concerned about. And so if you stop the methane, which is what in the end they were after anyway, you will then negate the, what are we worrying about what's in those other? And so that's, that's the reason to set these thresholds and use them as a tool and a screening criteria. And, you know, when you're in public and having that conversation, there's a different answer that they give you, which is very regulatory based than in the field where they're like, yeah, I need to fix that. Right? So they happen in a different way. And so the end result is, I think when I go to a pad site, it's the same as that operator I hope. I've not found anyone that just wants to, they, you know, open a valve and just let it rip because they can. You know, and one thing you can do it's like anything. People speed less when there's people checking for who's speeding. Maybe they're like out there, but that behavior is different. I'm not saying I'm making this into a social experiment, but you know, being there and there's a little bit of, you know, name and shame that happens. And, and honestly, if I was Eagle Ridge, that would be my driver. I'm not. And I think they're perfectly fine people. And I'm saying they're like, they would say, would point to XTO and say, XTO go to hire. They got a two. What are you talking for? I know, I know. Um, but regardless, you know, well, I'll say is that the, when you, when we get to the end, you'll see that there's actually a decrease over time from year over year, which is interesting because most of the infrastructure just ages with time. And it's a lot of repair components as you have to. And so when we started doing this kind of work for cities and we started with enough cities that we had to see trends, the initial trends were actually up, they're actually increasing. And then over time, it's kind of started to decrease because I think they had to change their, the way that they operate. And part I think that change came about because well, people were asking, people were looking, we, we didn't, you know, uh, want to be in the news for being the people with the highest leak rate per well. So there's a, there's a way to get there. And I think what you're doing is hopefully having some of that impact. This is my last question. I'm just curious because we talked about individual, um, sites and there's the, um, the form where it says it did Nick see this, um, screen, but have we, or do you have an, a form that totals up all of those leaks? I'm wondering, um, I know that individually they may not, but if we're looking at the city's air quality or our, our carbon footprint, how all of those leaks added up affect the larger, um, outlook? Sure. So did you segue from, do I, a yes or no question, right? Leak, no leak, like visual presence, not visual presence. And you move towards a quantification. Um, you would have to make some assumptions of, okay, here's a number of leaks. So then duration would have to be estimated by time between visits. Uh, and then I, you know, how many cubic feet per hour do we think the pressure was? I'm not saying it can't be done. There's a experimental thing, but you'll need a list of assumptions that went into that before I would throw a number out at you. Um, I start on this end, which is, I just want to make them zero. Uh, right. I mean, my goal is to do, and I, again, I think operators by and large, uh, want to arrive as close to. All right. Paul. So what level, you know, sorry to keep harping on Eagle Ridge, but the data keeps talking to me about that. At what level of their organization do we interact? Is it just at the, you know, at the field level? And let me put a second part of that. You're talking about a specific operator, which is fine. Can we get through the presentation? I just want us to be able to get through the presentation. Yes, sir. Yeah. All right. So let me jump to so for 2020. So we've wrapped up. We found the first half, the second half. Um, so we're poised to begin in February. The right, we'll start again and we'll see how those numbers match up this time, but I should start in February with the notification and then the inspections get underway. Um, our last reports are ready to be done. And I think I was bothering Zach about them on the way here, so I bet you'll see them and not end of the week, probably next week. And then that will include any of the responses back from the city on any of those that have been repaired. So I'm giving you the number I had as of today. Several of those 2829 may have been addressed. It's just, this is the information I had at the time I was putting this together. Um, and then if there's any outstanding action items that weren't addressed, we'll, we'll start to see those now that we're doing the re-inspections on these pad sites and see if they've addressed them or not. Um, and then obviously continue to track trends, which is the slides that follow this have some of that information. Um, and then one thing I'll mention is, you know, having gotten to work with probably about seven or eight different cities in a similar capacity, uh, different cities generate programs that reflect their interests and needs and priorities. And all of them are apples to apples, but, um, we're actually pulling the stats, not only from Denton, but from all those other cities and actually generating a technical paper to help the industry in judging and how do you gauge things. So, uh, just a kudos to you on the volume of wells that are here and the type of program you have that's allowing us to put that together will help not just Texas, but other states. Um, so let's, we have a lot of work going on and a lot of spreadsheets as you might think, uh, processing all that. I took the person who did the greenhouse gas inventory for the city of Dallas and I said, this is your new assignment. We're going to crunch through all this data. Um, so anyway, that'd be a better yardstick for us to compare of how are things doing. We're going to hold questions to this presentation. I promise. I don't have a few slides and we could use them again if we want presentation wise. We were asked looking at, uh, leaks, uh, an unlabeled norm as you see here in green and, uh, and orange just to represent them based on the low, moderate and high priority pad sites. Now this of course is skewed because I will see more wells, right? So if I normalize it for the number of wells, this is what that looks like. Um, so I'd say statistically probably significant, not significantly different between each other of a low, moderate or high from the near equipment results that we get. Um, if anything, the low ones are slightly higher, but, um, there was a question of, Hey, I wonder if the high, moderate or low are seeing. So really the rates appear similar to me. Um, number of action items. So this includes things like corrosion, uh, maybe signage, maybe landscaping, right? Um, by operator. So you see there an orange was our 2018 results and then above it in that greenish color, uh, is the current results. So in general, some improvement, some a lot more improvement than others, but, um, as a per well basis, I only have two years for my trends. So I don't want to get way out in front of my skis here, but I like that. Uh, if we do leaks, we just pull leaks only out of the action items. Um, this gives you your comparison here. And so, uh, taking all the data itself and putting it all together, this took you, Eagle Ridge was over one before and is at 0.97 now. And I can get you stats if you need. And then as far as norm exceedances, so this is a unlabeled norm exceedances, right? So we do that again on a per well, so we're seeing some improvement in that area too. So these are, these are good, they're comforting numbers and then moving in a direction we like to see. Okay. All right. And that, uh, you know, a little bit over one to a little bit under one, that may not be a statistically significant change, right? That's could just be random. So, so, um, my question is, uh, what level of their organization do we interact is it just at the field? And if I can say a little more before you respond, you know, I think it may be the case that if we were interacting at a higher level of management there and they were to see what we see, they may respond in one of two ways. One would be, yeah, exactly what I would have thought. That's a conscious strategy. We're saving money and there's nothing you can do. Maybe, or, you know, it may well be, wow, I'm really shocked. There's no reporting mechanism for us to see this. Thank you. Uh, and let's collaborate on a plan. Maybe you want to, you know, visit us again, you know, so I, so, so my question is, are we interacting at a level where their management, you know, could appreciate this and take action. And from the inspection level, I'm mainly dealing with the operators that are out in the field. Um, the city staff would have to tell you how much they interact at a, at a higher level. Can I volunteer you, Deborah? I'm sorry. Good evening, Deborah of your environmental services. Uh, as a part of the notification, uh, inspection program, we notified the site operators about upcoming, uh, inspections. So we have one chance to talk to them in that regard. Uh, it is not uncommon for us to have conversation with the different, uh, operators back and forth about ongoing issues. Uh, just keep in mind that we also have our city inspector that follows up with any findings from modern year science. So that is another way that we have, uh, we have also implemented a survey with the operators where they have a chance to actually, uh, tell us how they think we are doing and how we can improve. So we have taken the, their venues and ways to get, uh, that conversation going if necessary. And, uh, we are looking to see if there are other ways that they think that we can improve that contact with them. We are willing to go that route. So on a regular basis, we have a conversation with the site operators. But when you say the site operator, is that a local person, a regional person, a national person, where in the, in the organization are we interfacing? My interactions have been with people who are in, at least within this region in the north central Texas. Okay. So, uh, those might be not located here in Denton, but might be in Dallas, might be in other nearby cities. So at that level, is that the one that we interact with? I guess that the point of my question is, you know, are we dealing at a level where, uh, it might make them look bad if they were to take it, you know, like they might want to contain that, that information. Whereas it might be very useful for someone at a higher level in the organization to go, oh, okay, you have a problem that needs action. And I, this is, I've been protected from this information. You see what I mean? Because, because, you know, we're seeing a sort of illogical feeling result because like your initial reaction was, wow, yeah, I think they would say, thank you. I want to fix this, but yet we see unfixed wells over seven sites. Doesn't seem logical. So I won't go on and on about it. I would just, uh, say my suggestion would be that we find a way to interact at a higher level in the organization, share with them what we see. Yeah. So, so right now, um, modern geosciences is not doing any soil testing for Denton, but I noticed that, um, that you do soil testing, uh, in general, I was wondering if you could speak to, do you do any soil testing for other cities at or around, uh, gas wells? So as part of a normal monitoring program or in response to an event or spill, either, either. Um, definitely if there's a spill or an issue that's, you know, say we did an inspection, we may have found a spill or release. If there's sometimes we do inspections, not people are not present. Um, operators can electively say, have at it and let us know what you find. So that happens too. Um, so in those cases, we have taken samples before to determine, is this something that's above the regulatory level? And if so, um, who do we need to communicate it to based on the results and based on is a threat to, you know, the ecological health or another, uh, you know, which program would apply to it. So we have taken samples before, not typically as part of a normal operational program, but when concerns are identified. Yeah. And when that happens, you need to get the permission of the, of the, uh, operator to do a soil sample. It depends on the governing ordinance, right? So in all of those, we're working with the city, right? So we're going to communicate. Here's what we see in some cases. If there's an inspector available, they'll come out as well and be part of that decision making process. Um, so I guess I don't know the, that legal part of that, but I can tell you, I have taken soil samples before, um, but at the direction of the city. Okay. Yeah. I was just in any in state of Texas. Sure. Okay. Cause there was a question about council member armature. If I could, I mean, I appreciate the question, but it's straying almost off, off posting because we're talking about the report. He's summarizing the report. Well, soil sampling is not a part of the report, nor is it part of any contract that we have at this time. So, uh, and I'd ask the city attorney is, do we need to limit that? Or, I mean, the posting says, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding, uh, the results of a 2019 gas well inspection activities, an annual summary report by month. And I don't think soil testing is part of that. And I would agree because we are starting to go out posting. Oh, okay. So I, I just, just, you know, in my defense, I thought that because I noticed all these interesting results and that I noticed that soil testing is not part of that, you know, just wondering if, because it does involve leaks and DOCs. And so that is the, you know, consistent, uh, anyway, it's something that, uh, that, that I would like to speak to the city manager. Uh, I'll be, you know, requesting a staff report on possibility of, uh, including that in future. Have, have, did we not consider that in your last request? Was that not part of your last request? Oh, it was, but there was a quite debate about, you know, whether that was possible. So I just wanted to know about the possibility Okay. All right. Any other questions? Comments? Mayor Pro Tem. I would like to ask you just your, your read on, so in, in most areas, I, I've, you've seen a kind of, uh, kind of a trending up, if you will, of the quality of equipment being made better, faster, more efficient, et cetera, et cetera. And we're having these kind of components switched out. What, what kind of is your read on the industry, on the replacement parts? Are there new technologies, kind of advancements in that area that you've seen hold up longer or just kind of, what is a trend, uh, in, in that regard as the equipment and our replacement parts is kind of what my focus. Sure. I think when there are individual components that actually perform better, I have seen operators come swap out those components mainly because again, they're like, we're tired of revisiting those same components over and over again. So, you know, low bleed, pneumatic controllers is one that we've seen come into the, the gas field probably in the last three to five years. Uh, and so some operators have those, some do not. Some have maybe a higher maintenance program of, we know that that's got a lifespan and may they, they track it. I'm getting into conjecture on how they operate, but what we see, uh, is at least there, there's improvements in the maintenance of the equipment. Sometimes that's swapping out for things that require less maintenance. Sometimes that's just increased human power. Got it. And then one more for me. Sure. On the pad sites, have you come across a pad site that, if you come across a pad site that has a capped well kind of in it, do you, do you inspect those just generally on the pad site or is it specific action? Do you look at wells? Sure. So if, so what we're talking about here is production monitoring. So that means right, there's activity. Um, there are other things and I visited with your staff on some options and how other cities are approaching when you reach. So I want to, I want to be consistent here because, uh, the soil testing wasn't part of, of the report and neither were capping of the wells and inspection of the well. So I really want to make sure that we stay within the, and it's not a criticism of anybody. It's just, I want to make sure that we stay on posting on what on the summary of the report. So no, no, he answered my question. He said live wells versus yes. So that was my question. So yes. Okay. All right. Okay. Any, uh, so I want to make sure I understand slide 27. Um, so when you say number of leaks per well per year by operator, that means that in 97, uh, that means that each well per year would have this many leaks. This number like correct and bear in mind, right? That that formula includes the inspection of non wells with that. Well, it's just so we can normalize it. So probably, so it could be, it could be a separator above ground storage tank. Absolutely. In fact, um, you know, there's, there's more stats that we didn't give us cause I don't put everybody to sleep. Um, but most leaks are at that separator at the point where you see the pressure change from a high pressure to a lower pressure. That's when you'd expect the equipment's going to undergo more stress. So that separators probably your most common component and they get on those relatively. I think you probably said that. I just, I just forgot that you mentioned that in your presentation of what that number really means. Okay. Anything else? Quick. I mean, yeah. Um, maybe the follow up might be able to see if you can, you know, explain whether I'm not understanding right or whether it is, you know, an error or something, just this business of 1.3 plus 1.4 doesn't equal one. You know, I'm talking about, and then 1.3 and 1.4 even averaged don't equal one. So, so something that I don't understand. My math would be with you on that. I can go back and verify these numbers if they're, yeah, I appreciate that. Perhaps they're a little, I would say this slide went through probably the most scrutiny because this is a post slide. So sometimes we have to parse the data to make those different, uh, slides that are first versus the half. So this has been through the most level of scrutiny or may Zach will come up here. Here's who's visited most of your, uh, pad sites, by the way. Uh, I think the numbers, just state your name, Zachary Tondre with monitor Geosciences. I think the numbers you're referring to actually are for action items, not leaks. So we're looking, we're looking at different things between the two different graphs. I think that's where the numbers are. Yeah. I think that's where the numbers are getting flip-flopped. Yep. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? All right. Thank you very much. The comprehensiveness of your report. All right. Let's take a quick break. I think I thought I heard something back there is the pizza and yeah, we'll take a little five or 10 minute break, grab some dinner and we'll then do the, uh, internal audit, economic internal audit, workshop workshop. Welcome everybody back to this meeting of the density council, uh, January 14th, 2020. It is five Oh four, uh, due to some constraints with our legal counsel for our next closed session, we're going to go ahead and convene into closed session and then come back into open session. So we will now convene in closed session at five Oh four pursuant to Texas government code section 551.701 consultation with attorneys. Uh, I apologize for any confusion or mix up, but I wasn't aware of that until just recently. So, uh, anybody that's not necessary for the hearing of closed session item one B, if you could please excuse yourself. And then we will call, uh, the public backend when we resume our open meeting. Welcome everybody back to this meeting of the density council. It is Tuesday, January 14th, 2020. It's five 47 PM. We were back in open session, moving through our work session reports, work session item three D receive report, hold discussion and give staff direction regarding internal audit of the city's economic development program. Hello mayor and city council, uh, city auditor. We have completed an audit of economic development program. Uh, this audit was presented to the audit and finance committee on November fifth, number fifth, 2019. And in accordance with the rec recommendation, we are presenting this audit to the full city council. Now, what is economic development? Economic development is about increasing wealth and prosperity in a community that results in increased employment, economic economic, economic diversification, enhance standard of living and improved quality of life for citizen among other things. It is more than recruiting businesses and providing them incentives. Strategically prudent economic development stimulates, uh, investment in neighborhood make more funding available to a government through increased tax base, which can be invested in infrastructure and amenities for the citizens, provide employment opportunity by creating and retaining high paying jobs. This audit reviewed is subset of issues related to, uh, development of economic development strategy. The audit was not intended to suggest an economic development strategy. Uh, currently the city's economic development program use tax abatement and incentive policy, which is less comprehensive than a typical economic development strategy. This audit reviewed effectiveness of current program as it relates to business recruitment and incentives, uh, incentive administration. If I could just interrupt you, just apologize. But you said a couple of things and they've almost sounded in opposite to one another. So I think I might have misheard one. You said that this audit is not intended to recommend economic development strategy. Is that did I hear that right? No, actually, I'm basically, I'm not saying that I'm saying that this audit does not propose any economic development, uh, strategy strategy. So it is not meant to provide economic development strategy. Okay. We are making a recommendation for an economic, I mean, hiring a consultant to get economic development, which the city already has. Okay. So then I thought when I heard you say that the tax abatements and sales tax were less efficient economic development strategy, what was that sentence that you said about the abatements in the sales in the sales tax? Uh, let me find and the only reason I say it is I on one hand, I thought you were saying, yeah, this audit isn't intended to advise on any strategy or to evaluate any strategy. But then I thought that statement was sort of an evaluation comment on those as pertaining to a particular economic development strategy. So I, I think I misheard it. I just want to make, I just want to get clarification on that. It was a statement you made about sales tax. No, I think, I think, let me clarify what I said. Uh, what I said was that, uh, recruiting businesses and providing them incentive, uh, is, I mean, the strategy is more than recruiting businesses and providing them incentives. So basically what this audit did was looked at what the city's program is looked, looked at the subset and identify the gaps, basically where the gaps exist, those gaps, that information can be useful to the city for, uh, getting the consultant and evaluating their results. Okay. And I, this is my last question and then I'll, uh, gaps in what? It's just to audit the gaps. I'm going to, okay, fair enough. All right, go ahead. Okay. We found that the department adequately administers, uh, uh, incentive agreements as, uh, as, as they exist. We also have a tours agreement were properly executed, uh, and, uh, grants were appropriately calculated in accordance with chapter 380, uh, uh, agreements. The city's policy has identified seven target industries. The city has a contract with Denton chamber of commerce to recruit business or businesses for economic development purposes. The current target industry sector, uh, sectors include advanced manufacturing, research and development, supply chain for existing, uh, primary employers and information technology. These terms either are not properly defined in the policy or present represent a large number of businesses. For chamber staff, it is difficult to identify which businesses are actually targeted. And without such an understanding, it is difficult to market the city effectively. So question on that. Um, you said that economic development staff, it makes it difficult for them to market. I think is what you said, uh, difficult to either identify. You mentioned economic development staff. Is your statement based upon what was shared to you by the economic development staff or is this sort of as the auditor, you're, you're making that kind of, um, state? No, it's not an economic development staff. What I, what I said that for chamber staff, chamber staff, it is difficult to identify which, because the, our policy, uh, is not very clear as to the, some terms, uh, for example, advanced manufacturing. So I miss hergy, but even if we said chamber staff, that it's difficult for the chamber staff, is that opinion coming from a conversation with the chamber of commerce, uh, staff or is it coming from the audit department? Uh, no, it is chamber staff. Thank you. I appreciate that. And besides that, I mean, say for example, advanced manufacturing, there is no set definition. What is advanced manufacturing? Uh, uh, so it, advanced manufacturing could be anything. I mean, either it is. So if you look at, uh, Austin, they are considering advanced manufacturing as a semiconductor and, uh, electronic R and D. So is that advanced manufacturing or something that we are, I mean, it's not clear what it is. So it becomes difficult to see what is included in that. We use a cluster mapping methodology developed by Harvard School of Business, Harvard Business School and supported by the departments of, uh, commerce and, uh, economic development to analyze Denton's likely opportunities to recruit businesses. As depicted in our report, which, this doesn't zoom that much, but it, I mean, this page came, came from our report, this table, uh, as depicted in our report, the city has targeted only one of the several areas where business growth is possible for Denton. So let me explain this table first. So the cluster, the cluster analysis identified that for city of Denton, these are the industry sectors that are likely that will produce growth. I mean, there are four of them. For Denton County, uh, three of the industries, industry sector will produce growth. And for DFW MSA, uh, metropolitan area, the growth is in these five sectors, industry sectors. In addition to that, the state of Texas has identified automotive and, uh, aerospace defense as, uh, industry sectors, which are priority. So there, there are significant amount of resources available for economic development purposes in, uh, in, uh, in the state of Texas. And these, these, I'm looking at the actual report. So these four areas automotive, city of Denton, automotive distribution and e-commerce, transportation, logistics and paper and packaging. Those come from this, uh, they're coming from some report, some, what are they coming from? Uh, it came from cluster analysis. And you're saying the basis of the cluster analysis was this Harvard report and this sort of national chamber of commerce report of what? No, no, no. It was, this cluster methodology is created by Harvard Business School in conjunction with, uh, the federal department of, departments of commerce and economic development. Okay. So you're, you took something from those two entities that they either published or wrote, and this is where you got these, this cluster, these cluster categories? No, there are 50 million, uh, records that are available. There are specific for, uh, it goes to the county level and we did a cluster analysis on county level as well as DFW MSA. But I'm saying what's the, hold on a second, please. What, what, what is the, what is the data that you were using to get these fours? What are the source of the data? That's what I'm asking. I'm Madison Rocha, a staff auditor with the city. Um, we got data from the city's MZ system, which is, um, uh, system that the economic development staff use to look at industry clusters and they gave it to us and we use that, um, using the Harvard methodology, the cluster methodology to, um, analyze that data to come up with these, um. So you used the, the, the methodology approach from the, the Harvard study or the Harvard business school and applied it to the data that you received from the economic development department? Correct. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Did you have a comment? No, I was just going to try to clarify. Okay. Yes. So, you know, to see if I understand, uh, is the, the basic premise of this analysis that these are in general growth areas and that there are clusters of, uh, of businesses in our area that, uh, that might, that make up kind of an ecosystem locally that, that we would benefit, conceivably benefit by, you know, adding to. Basically clusters are building blocks of economy. Yeah. So, so it's just saying there's others like this here. There are the elements, the elements of for, for that industry are, are available locally. Well, and I guess when I'm looking at this, I think outside of automotive, depending on what automotive means, I mean, automotive could be sales. It could be parts distributors. It could be, but I certainly look at some of these and realize that we are experiencing growth in those sectors. So there you go. Yeah. Okay. All right. Go ahead. Okay. So we compared the city's targeted cluster and, uh, there's only one growth, uh, area is, uh, common between all of these, and that is aerospace and defense, which is common between the Dallas MSA and, uh, uh, state of Texas, uh, priority. However, yes. Council member Meltzer. This isn't also possible at the filter that, uh, the chamber and economic development to date have applied is not just whether there's an ecosystem, not just whether it's a growth industry, but also whether they're higher wage jobs. I mean, I feel that that strikes me as how aerospace might be different from the others and why they might have prioritized that over the other areas. Is that, is that a factor? Yeah. It does look at the wages. Uh, do you want to explain that to me? I'm sorry. Can you repeat your question? Well, okay. So, uh, the, the implication that I'm getting from the presentation of this, uh, table is that there are these other growth areas. Why weren't they prioritized? Clearly there's an ecosystem for them and our analysis indicates they ought to be, but I'm saying maybe there's another filter that is, has been applied, which is high wage industries, right? Cause they may be opportune in terms of growth potential and ecosystem, but they might not be, they might not necessarily speak to an objective of raising average wages. Um, so that is definitely possible. We could not find any documentation of how the targeted, the city's targeted clusters were selected. So I can't speak exactly to how they were selected. Um, but the cluster analysis is look at just at what we have. It's one way to look at the current economic environment. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So finally, uh, uh, chambers reporting method hinders the appraisal of their performance. For example, the contract with chamber requires establishing three new contracts per marketing event. We could not easily verify this achievement of this requirement with provided reports or available information with them. Further analysis indicated that chamber responded to opportunities where almost 60% were for targeted and 40% for non-targeted industry sectors. However, the targeted industry sector included mostly manufacturing businesses. It was not possible to identify if this businesses belong to advanced manufacturing category, which is a targeted industry sector of this, of these leads, uh, which is 64 only 10 site visits was completed and 70% of which belong to non-target industries. We could not verify if the city inquired with the chamber as to why efforts were not focused on recruitment of targeted industry sectors. Chambers report reports do not clearly communicate, uh, their progress on all metrics laid down in the program agreement. The tax abatement and incentive policy does not include specific matrix that will, that can be used to monitor performance based on its objectives. For example, the city's focus is on creating quality jobs, but there are three definitions of quality jobs. The department uses this factor to make decisions about offering incentives, but the creation of quality job is not a typical requirement in incentive agreements. Economic development department reports to the city council the number of job created, but it is not clear how many of these are quality jobs. The department mostly does not verify how many jobs were, are actually created and whether they are quality jobs. Now quality job in part requires high paying jobs as indicated before the agreements are properly evaluated, approved, and executed in accordance with the city policy. It may be a good idea to include general evaluation and monitoring procedures in internal policy manual. Okay, I have a question. This is probably this and a couple of other issues I really have some struggle with about this report. Yes. Um, just the philosophical aspect of this report, and you and I have discussed this, so this isn't anything that, you know, you're hearing for the first time. Sure. Because you and I talked about it. But on this one in particular, when you talk about that there needs to be performance measures as a policy, as a general policy, there are performance measures. They're, they're located in each individual contract. I mean, each individual economic development incentive agreement can have you have to create so much value, uh, additional value. You do have to have certain number of jobs created. Those jobs also many times in the contract will have a definition of what either the average something about wages, uh, and that it's my understanding. And so I might want to have economic development staff speak to this if necessary. But I know that we get a report every year about how that each contract is evaluated on its performance. Um, so I'm not quite understanding what you were seeing or what you weren't seeing that to me, and it may just be an issue of definition and wording, this, um, uh, it says, uh, all incentives agreements, the general valuation monitor could be codified in an internal operating menu manual to facilitate continuity. Okay. If they need to have an operating manual to spell out what they're already doing, uh, okay, I get that. But, uh, when you talk about tax abatement and incentives does not completely define all goals, which hinders the measurement of incentives, programs, performance. Maybe I'm wrong, but when we have a specific economic development agreement, that is monitored. In fact, I've known economic development agreements that have been terminated because they had not met the metrics that were identified in the actual contract itself, because each contract is different. Each development incentive agreement is different. So I'm having a hard time understanding what you're really saying in that particular section quite honestly. So could you help me understand that? I'll clarify that. Sure. What I'm saying is we have got a policy, tax abatement and incentive policy. Yes. Now that policy does not define what are we looking for? I mean, and what are the matrix that we would be looking for? Well, that's, that's my point. I think to put that in a Paul and in the policy manual or in the, in an ordinance or in some kind of resolution, to me, it really constricts the ability of the economic development department, chamber of commerce and the city council. They're basically structuring these incentive policies based upon a set of criteria. If you're wanting incentive, you have to meet a certain set of criteria. You have to have, I don't remember what they all are, but, you know, you got to be able to provide 25% greater value. But my point being, you're asking for specific criteria and measurements to be put at a general level. And I'm simply saying I sort of disagree with that in that each development agreement is different. The reasons we give those abatements are different, but they do meet the general policy criteria for them to even make an application to the city's incentive policy. So you're saying it should be further defined, specifically defined in a policy. And I'm saying that to me that would hamstring the economic development department's ability and the city council's ability to craft specific, unique incentive agreements that comply with the general policy, but that meet these other criteria like high paying jobs and things such as that. Go ahead, councilmember. So I was wondering, excuse me, this is kind of, you know, related to this line of questioning. If you would feel able to speak to, or maybe Jessica would feel more comfortable speaking to it, you know, to what extent were the findings of this audit considered when coming up with the improvements to the, I call them improvements because I think they're good and we all voted on them last week, to the economic development contracting with, in conjunction with Chamber of Commerce, you know, that we voted on last week. Are these two totally separate processes that just wonderfully align because I'm seeing lots of overlap? So I conducted my initial review of the Chamber contract when I was originally hired in April prior to the audit beginning. And in fact, we had already initiated discussions with the Chamber on the need to improve the reporting. I came to the exact same conclusion as the auditors and provided them with that information prior to, as part of their audit, and they had all of my documentation and had access to the Chamber staff, the same that I did. So this was the exact same finding I had already come to in advance of the audit being performed. Thank you, and I think that's a testament to, in my opinion, you know, great work you did and seems to be the excellent work of this audit and the findings of both corroborate each other. And so I guess I'll just say, I mean, to me, you know, as somebody who voted on those contract improvements last time, this is all making perfect sense to me. I'm not quite clear, but Mr. Mayor, you don't have to answer this now since it's the staff presentation, but I'll just to point out exactly why those contract improvements were, you know, not a problem and why these findings, which to me seem so similar to you, fit with us so well. They were similar because what we just heard was that the economic development staff forwarded many of those findings onto the internal auditor, which incorporated them into the report. So these weren't necessarily independent findings based upon, and it was also aided with this is what our economic development staff had found prior to that, and rightfully so, passed it along to the internal auditor. Is that correct? Sure, and we verified those findings with the available records. And again, this report just communicates to the city council. Okay. So currently, the economic development department staff and the EDP board work on negotiating and preparing incentive agreements. The city council is involved at the end of the process. During this time, the business is required to undergo scrutiny twice. Once at the EDP board and second at the city council. And during this, while they are going through this process, the business does not have assurance of receiving incentives. Now, this process may discourage the business. We feel like streamlining this process may be more beneficial. We have business visitation program, and that is a very valuable program. The purpose of this program is to retain and help businesses expand in Denton. The city's efforts in this area are driven by in-person visits. Currently, the staff tracks how many visits were made and date that they occurred. The details about the discussion with businesses, their needs, and what city can do to help them was not available. Therefore, the details of the outcome of this program is not available. At this time, the effectiveness of this program cannot be evaluated due to lack of information. We made 11 recommendations and 10 to the department and one recommendation to the city council. The department has concurred with eight recommendations and partially concurred with remaining two. We are recommending that the city council -- again, mayor, you disagree with this, but we are recommending that city council to revise the tax abatement and incentive policy to outline clear performance expectations based on city's incentive objectives. Just a couple of comments. Again, you and I have talked about this, and I talked about it in our audit finance meeting. Part of my struggle with this report is that much of it is policy. It really comes down to my understanding of what the internal audit function is. Primarily, it's been as we've used it in the past, number one, compliance, make sure we're in compliance with the law, to make sure that we are mitigating our risk by looking at our processes for handling cash, making sure that our processes for handling payments and all those kinds of things, that we're not out there in a situation. So there's a couple of things, and I want to give some examples in the report that sort of give an example of my concerns. I'm not saying that it's an issue only in the sense that I think what you're recommending or what this report contains a lot of is policymaking, and I've never understood the internal audit to necessarily be policymaking otherwise in the realm of how do you improve the processes of handling cash, statutory compliance, and things such as that. So when I look at page 19, it says, what have we found? It says improving reporting -- oh, let me go back. Yeah, page 19, what have we found? The city's tax abatement incentive policy does not outline any performance measures for determining if the policy's recruitment objectives are being achieved. That's what I mentioned before about those are outlined in the actual contract. I mean, the metrics are in the actual incentive contract. So I really disagree with -- I mean, it's not in the policy because that's not what this council has decided. So you talked about high-paying jobs, and I knew that we had some criteria for jobs, but I couldn't recall them off the top of my head, but they're in the report. It says, for example, there are several criteria for identifying quality jobs within the policy as shown below -- jobs with wages above the Denton County median wage, increasing the number of jobs paying more than $75,000, and encouraging knowledge-based jobs for those that require specialized or theoretical knowledge. So I don't know exactly what specificity this report is looking for, but that's one example. And then it's really just in the first -- >> Mr. Mayor, can I use that example? >> Yes, you can. >> So we have three definitions of what is a quality job. So when -- if somebody is looking to recruit a business, using these three definitions will give three different results. >> Yeah, and what's wrong with that? >> So if somebody is actively recruiting a business, like, for example, $75,000 a year, and Denton County's median wage is like $22 per hour. So those are two different -- >> They are. >> So I'm not sure what is the city council's expectation in that regard. Are we trying to recruit jobs, high-paying jobs, like $75,000, or we are trying to -- and the third item is like knowledge-based job. I mean, that's kind of -- I'm not sure what that means. >> You said I'm not sure what the council is looking for. The council drafted these. The council is saying, you know, you have some parameters out there. You have some parameters that if someone is coming to you that they are not adding $75,000 a year jobs, but they are meeting one or two of the other requirements, that's something that we want to be able to take a look at. If what you are saying is you want one criteria as if we only want high-paying jobs and high-paying jobs are $75,000 or above, well, if that's what this council wants to decide, that's fine. But my concern is and my challenge is that it's being put in a report as if that's a deficiency. And to me, that's a policy decision that this council can make. And that's my concern about the report. I mean, there's some things in here that you're absolutely right. You want to do the evaluation of the Chamber of Commerce. What are they doing? But when I go to the initial part of the report, the very first part, and again, I'm not sharing with you -- I mean, I'm pretty passionate about this because I really think that in some ways this is sort of out of bounds, that I think that some of these statements in here, number one, aren't accurate, and number two are policy, and I don't know -- I mean, it's this council that sets policy. But in salient findings, you talked about the findings. You talked about the broad categories. Oh, here it is. It's the executive summary. We have completed an audit of the city's economic development efforts. That's not really numbers-wise. I mean, that's not, hey, we want to look at -- like when we look at P cards. You know, when you looked at P cards, it's how many -- you know, what do we got? How many are pursuant to statute? And so that -- that is my concern here. Now, if this -- and secondly, we hired -- we authorized them to perform a strategic economic development plan by hiring a consultant, which to me is directly responsible for advising this council or sharing with this council based upon their expertise in the business, that that's basically what they focus on. That's their area of expertise. These kinds of things. So that's my concern, and I might be the only one that shares this concern, but I would be remiss if I didn't state it in a public forum, because I don't know if I want to keep having internal audit reports that are giving policy recommendations when we've already got policies in place that have been defined by the city council. That's all I'm talking about. Councilmember Armitage. Go ahead. You can respond. Yes, you can. Yes, absolutely. Again, the city charter requires me to do performance audits, and we use the generally accepted auditing -- government auditing standards, which is probably known as Yellow Book, which is standards applicable to governments. And -- How many of those standards apply to analyzing the policies in an economic development department? No, there's a standard. I mean, again, I've got it on the -- The standard includes, for example, 1.23 -- paragraph 1.23 of those standards, gives you examples of the effectiveness and results -- program effectiveness and results audit, and the objectives would include all of these. So basically, this is a program effectiveness audit, and program effectiveness audit will also look at the policies. But those are based upon your opinions on the recommendations in those of a Harvard study and a national study. Is that my understanding? Yes. I mean, Harvard study is a best practice used by economic development industry. And for example, I mean, any consultant we hire, I mean, they probably will use similar -- the same methodology. Okay. All right. Councilmember, I'll return. I don't want to repeat too much of what Umesh has just said very well, but I will say that it never occurred to me this is an out-of-bounds audit, and in my understanding of what an audit is, it involves looking at risk, and not only in terms of, you know, numbers in and out, but about a policy and procedure. It points out things that don't work, but it's up to us to decide, the City Council, you know, what we want to do to fix it. So -- and I know that's just a much less articulate, you know, way of saying what you just said, but this is precisely the kind of reason, you know, why I think it's so important for us to have internal auditing. It is absolutely up to us what we want to do with this, but I don't see this as telling us how to do our jobs. It's a report, and in the case of wages, for instance, it is important to me, and it's interesting to me, to know, you know, that there is no standard objective measure that we're using to make sure that we're bringing in high-paid jobs. So how do we define a high-paid job, right? It's defined. I'm not hearing. It's defined. Well, it's $75,000 or higher to quality job. And what this report is raising is that there are a number of other ways to look at it, and that when you put that together, you know, with the other, trying to think of the right word to use, gaps, it suggests that additional streamlining could be used to match along the same lines as, in my view, our contracts were improved the way that we voted to improve them last week. So, again, I mean, just for what it's worth, this is really helpful to me, and I'm really grateful that this report was done. It makes a lot of sense to me. Can I make a comment? Sure. Well, Ms. Armenter, you're right on risk-based auditing. Government Accountability Office adopted in 2013, I believe. Under-control audits related to the government organizations, and they do recommend, I mean, this approach is risk-based. Basically, I mean, the purpose is to mitigate the risk that the government may face. And I appreciate that. My only concern is when I hear statements that we don't monitor, that we don't have any way to measure our economic development incentives that we've given, that's just not an accurate statement in the report. And so, that's my concern. And I've not heard anybody say that this city council, nor the Economic Development Department, does not have any way to measure the metrics that we've outlined in an economic development tax incentive. But your report says that we really don't, and that we don't do that. And that's just not true. So, I mean, I'm not saying that the whole report, I'm saying there's components of the report that I really take exception to on whether they're -- and it's an accurate reporting of what's really going on in the Economic Development Department. That's my concern. So, have I misunderstood when you said that we don't have any -- we need to put things in our policies to be able to measure and to govern our incentive packages, that we don't have a way to measure those outcomes? Have I misheard that, and have I misread that, I guess, is my question. The report also states that agreement by agreement, there is a way for evaluation of performance, because each agreement has got separate performance measures. But as a whole, if you were going to evaluate the performance of, say, Economic Development Department, you don't have that sort of metrics in your agreement. Do you want to comment? Yeah. I don't really know what that means, to be honest. So when we looked at the policy, in the terms of measuring the program of giving incentives and the application process, there's five objectives. One of them is create quality jobs. One of them is expand and diversify the tax base. They also include things like enhance the quality of life for residents, protect human health and the environment, and secure new customers from municipal utilities. When we looked at, in the policy, the definitions of what those are, some of them have multiple definitions, such as create quality jobs, or you could, say, expand and diversify the tax base. When you look at the targeted industry sectors, that's a way to measure that kind of objective, right? Secure new customers from municipal utilities, that's pretty easy to understand. The other two are difficult to understand what exactly you mean by that and how that could be measured. On a program level, I agree, incentives, they're unique, and we're measuring them appropriately according to the contract that we have, or the agreement, sorry, with each business. But on a program level, it's hard to understand how to measure some of these objectives. >> Okay. So I heard you mention five. >> Yes. Those are the five. >> Yeah. And you named all three that you felt could be fairly easily quantified, expanding the tax base, forgot what the other two were, but then the two that, after remembering what you said, one is improving the quality of life of the citizens or the community, is that correct? And what was the last one? >> Human health and the environment. >> Okay. So you're saying that those two either need to be further defined with some kind of measurable attributes, attributes that can be measured, or toss them out. >> We're not necessarily saying to get rid of them or anything like that. We're just saying that if those are objectives, in order for staff to be able to report on them, there would probably need to be some sort of -- >> They're too vague? >> Right. And in addition, staff is reporting on some of these things, but, for instance, they do provide a report on incentives every year, but they don't go into what amount of the jobs created are quality jobs. And so we found some issues with that. And they don't report on new customers for useful utilities either. >> Quality jobs based upon those three definitions we -- >> Correct. >> Okay. All right. So that's more of a reporting issue of, hey, with each economic development report, you might just -- and I don't know if they do that or not, but okay. All right. I appreciate that. That's very helpful. Thank you. We're going to go with Councilmember Davis and Councilmember Briggs and Councilmember Meltzer. >> I appreciate the report. I appreciate the scope of the report. I personally don't have an issue with the scope of the -- as a performance audit. To me, what you do in a performance audit is you compare what you're doing with best practices, and you also look at if you're spending money on something, are you spending that money wisely, and are you performing at the level you want to perform? I think the takeaway for me, and I think we've all agreed to this because we've agreed to undergo a redevelopment of our economic development strategy, is that we don't have enough information. That's the big takeaway. Either because we don't have goals clearly defined, because we don't record or report the data necessary for knowing if we meet those goals, and I think that management has by and large concurred with a lot of those conclusions. I think if I read the management response correctly, I see a little bit of disagreement in relying so heavily on the cluster methodology for identifying our target sectors, but again, that's why we need a strategic overhaul, a revisiting of our strategy in this whole space. So for me, my specific ask would be when we have the strategy development sessions and when we get that strategy developed, if we could have at least some report or slide that correlates what we work on in that strategy with some of the concerns raised by the audit. Many of those responses I saw in the staff response to the audit specifically said we were sharing this concern with the consultant who will be helping us develop the strategy. I'd like to see how those things relate back. If the consultant thinks we ought to be using a different methodology, I'd like to see why that is. If the consultant agrees with a point in the audit, I'd like to see that they agree with that point in the audit. >> Thank you. >> Councilmember Metzger. Oh, Briggs. Okay. Sorry. Councilmember Briggs. I'm sorry. >> I don't really have that much else to comment and say. I appreciate this report and I think that suggestions on policy is very helpful, especially if we're all, when we're talking about policy and we're looking at incentives, we're all going from the same definition. It causes less confusion and it also causes less confusion for the businesses coming here looking for the incentive if we're all starting from the baseline of what we're talking about. >> Okay. Councilmember Meltzer. >> Yeah. You know, when we reviewed it in committee, you know, a lot of it was for me bracketed by the fact that we were about to, you know, go ahead and have a strategy done. So frankly, I didn't stress about it too much. It's like, okay, that's good. That'll be input and then we'll really, you know, review it in the future. But in retrospect, you raised it, Mayor, you raised a number of these concerns, you know, at that time as well. But maybe all of them. But I feel like we could have done a better job of sort of hammering that out at that time. I don't, you know, just to resolve them, whether that really is appropriate or not. And I think it would sort of be a better use of council time if we worked harder on it. So I'd sort of put a mental sticky note on that, you know, for future. >> Well, and to that end, I did meet with the internal auditor and we talked about it. So this isn't, I mean, I don't think I'm saying anything that he wasn't. >> I'm just trying to like say, you know, how can we learn? >> Well, but also the council needed to hear the whole discussion. Whether I'm the only one standing out here on the island, I'm real okay with that. But I think, though, we have gotten some direction or some input as to what my question was. So I think in that sense, I think this discussion has been very positive and productive. Absolutely. >> Glad to get some out of it then. And then, you know, just on the cluster analysis, I think strategy is way more multidimensional than one tool. I think it's a very interesting tool and it makes an argument, you know, that could lead to good insights. But it's my personal responses. It's by no means the be all end all of the discussion on strategy or target selection. However, the general observation of the strategy you say you have isn't reflected in your metrics. I think that point was well taken, well observed by Jessica, and I'm glad that that got built into the new contracts. >> Okay. Any comments? Council member, I'm sorry. >> Yeah. I would like to hear a little bit more about this, the recommendation eight, because that was one of the two where there was, you know, partial concurrence. And it was mentioned that -- let me go back, going back and forth between the report and the presentation, that if council wanted to, you know, make a change to that policy or the procedure of starting with the economic development board and then the way we currently do it, that that would be an option. So I was just wondering if -- and I know there's not time to flesh out every single one of the recommendations, but that one was especially interesting to me. Just kind of wondering if you wanted to flesh that out a little bit and to say, you know, what -- well, yeah, I'll just leave it at that. >> Well, as I discussed during my presentation, that whenever a business comes to the -- their chamber is recruiting a business, that business goes through a scrutiny during EDP board process. And when they come back to the city council, obviously city council has some concerns. And that business goes through the scrutiny again. Now, during this entire time, the business does not have an assurance that they're going to get any incentives. So maybe that may frustrate the business, and recruitment may become difficult. So all recommendation is that there is opportunity to streamline that process. >> And can I -- I'd like to ask a question of Jessica. Do you feel that this process is the way it is now, that this part of the process is frustrating to businesses? Have you seen that? Or does it depend on the business? >> I would say in my general perspective, city council has adopted a policy that gives us the general guidelines for what we would expect to bring forward. It says if you bring forward agreements that meet these general criteria, that it will in some capacity make it through the vetting process. And U.S. city council have set that vetting process by ordinance through the economic -- going to the economic development partnership board and vesting them with that authority to make a recommendation to this body. And so I think that is effective. And certainly if we saw something that was outside of the norm of that, we saw a project coming forward that was unique or different or required a different level of scrutiny. I would have no issue bringing that forward to the council first to get your perspective. But generally, you've adopted the guidelines that we follow in that policy. And so we're assuming that if we're bringing forward a project that meets that policy, that that step has already been taken. >> Okay. That makes sense. Would you say that you feel like the concern about this part of the process being frustrated -- possibly frustrating for businesses is -- doesn't quite fit with what your experience has been. It may be more of a future hypothetical. >> Yes. In my limited -- I will say in my limited experience. But certainly my opinion is that council adopts this policy for the purpose of streamlining. Adding in another meeting means we have prospects now going through city council, EDP, back to city council. And so perhaps that's more efficient to have more meetings. But perhaps it's not particularly if it's a business that's coming in from out of state that can add travel and cost to their decision. So I can see it creating an inefficiency. I'm not saying there's a wrong way or a right way to do this. We will do it whichever way the city council chooses to tell us to do that. That is your decision. But certainly I can see where it could create more inefficiency. >> I would just add a few years ago, you were actually seeing different recommendations coming to you from EDP and from staff. We were -- that was just part of kind of getting the EDP and the staff on the same page. We were making far more conservative recommendations in some cases. And you're starting to see those groups kind of work more in concert now. I haven't seen it have really much of an impact on economic development decisions. Typically within a week or so of each other. And as we've laid before, we always make the caveat to the business community that this is a council that values transparency, values the input of the business community. And we haven't had anybody push back on us over a week or so. >> So that's great. So that makes sense. And yeah, I would just be -- so I'm fine with it as far as number 8, the way things are now. And just be interested to know, you know, if that ever comes up or there starts to be a pattern or even one exception. But it's an interest. I'm glad to have had that observation to consider. And if it ever occurs, you know, then we can consider it. But anyway, thank you both for answering that question. >> I will tell you, businesses are frustrated period to even just have to come and ask for incentives and that there is a process in which they're considered. So whether or not -- I mean, there's some very logistic and philosophical and practical concerns with having the city council involved in the front end because then you basically render your economic development partnership board impotent because the council is the one that makes the ultimate decisions. And if we're giving direction, if we're already having engagement with the businesses, then they're just going to feel that they're just going through the process here with the EDP board. So I mean, as far as who knows whether the businesses are frustrated or not. We'll find out soon enough when they come talk to us, but I don't think whether they're frustrated or not is necessarily an objective basis to determine is the process that we have, does it work and does it provide the best opportunity to be transparent with the community, with the public. I will tell you, the thing that will frustrate the businesses more than any of our meeting schedule will be how we grapple with the disclosure and nondisclosure of their business and at what stage in the economic development process. And that's surely just simply a policy decision made by this council. That will be much more frustrating to them than having to go forward with this well-defined process that they know when they start this is exactly what we're going to do. And they understand the risk from what I can gather from the ones I've talked to that EDP may make a recommendation, but the ultimate deciding body is the city council. And we can make that we can make a decision based upon that. So I appreciate the discussion around that particular item. Any other questions, comments? All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mesh. Sorry to keep you here so long. I apologize for that. You bet. All right. We'll move on to agenda. See, when we get we don't need a break yet. Move on to agenda item 3e. Receive a porthole discussion and get give staff direction regarding the potential inclusion of whitetail wolf ridge wind farm physical energy deliveries and calculating total renewable resources percentages under the Denton renewable resource plan. Good evening, Council. Mayor Terry Nolte, Assistant General Manager at DME. Tonight I want to speak to you about the potential a potential change to the Denton renewable resource plan to in to consider inclusion of the whitetail wolf ridge renewable energy that we are purchasing. As you probably remember, we are we have issued three additional RFPs at the direction of Council for additional renewable resources. Those include coastal wind, solar, and battery solar with battery storage. Those RFPs are due in middle in the middle of February. We want to be in a position to make a quick decision on how much additional renewable resources we procure in order to meet our 100 percent objective. And this this particular issue has an impact on that. Before we start into the presentation, just a little bit of background on renewable energy credits. I think as I've looked through the record on the Denton renewable resource plan as it was presented to this Council and to the PUB, there was not a lot of time spent on explaining exactly what a renewable renewable energy credit is. And I think it's important to put that in context as we go through this discussion. So the renewable energy credit is a program that was initiated under Senate Bill 7 when Texas went to deregulation. It was the mechanism that the legislature decided would be used to mandate or to to document the achievement of the renewable standards for competitive retailers, REPs, retail retail energy providers. Renewable energy credits are administered by the PUCT. They've delegated authority to ERCOT. ERCOT grants and issues renewable energy credits only under the following conditions. Number one, it must be a registered renewable resource in order to be eligible for a rec. And number two, it must have physically delivered renewable energy to the grid in order to be allocated the renewable energy credit. Renewable energy credits are administered by ERCOT in an account for each renewable energy market participant. In DME's case, we have a renewable energy credit account at ERCOT in which we deposit all renewable energy credits that we get from either contracted assets like Santa Rita or Bluebell and also for recs that we receive from contracts like the Whitetail and the Whitetail Wind Resource. In bringing this before you, we don't have any agenda per se. We just want to get the facts on the table. We're going to discuss some options for you to consider and we'll take your direction to move forward in the procurement. So under the Wolfridge contract, we currently receive 30 megawatts of energy around the clock every hour of the day and every hour of the night despite the fact that the resource is an intermittent wind resource. The delivery point for the energy is at the interconnection with the ERCOT grid and the contract was amended -- I'm sorry, the original contract included 30 megawatts of recs to match up with the 30 megawatts of energy. In 2016, the contract was amended to add an additional 30 megawatts of recs. The purpose of that rec addition was to help the city meet its Denton Renewable Plan objective of 40%. The contract does -- so you can see here the number of recs that we receive is double the amount of energy. The contract expires on December 31st of 2023 and the resolution that adopted the Denton Renewable Resource Plan -- I'm sorry, the Renewable -- the Denton Renewable Resource Plan. I'm getting my acronyms confused here. This is the provision in the resolution as it was posted that deals with Whitetail. I've circled it. So there was a discussion as many of the members here were involved with that discussion by energy risk consultants about the inclusion or disallowance of Whitetail in tallying our progress towards the 100%. The considerations that we're asking for direction on today is there's three options. One is to continue under the -- under the current treatment, which -- in which we take no credit for any of the renewable energy credits or energy that we receive from Whitetail. The second item -- or second option would be to use the same method that we use for other renewable resources that we have under contract like Santa Rita. We'll call that the physical delivery model. And the third option would be to utilize what we term the ERCOT methodology in which ERCOT credits any renewable -- any renewable energy credit that's in your account towards your objective. So we look at the physical output of the Whitetail wind farm. It's actually in a 110 megawatt facility. We receive 30 megawatts of that around the clock. In many hours, the production of the facility is significantly above the 30 megawatts that we receive. There are hours, however, that are below the 30 megawatts that we receive. Here we see -- I've just circled a couple. This is a 20 megawatt hour and here is a zero megawatt incident for several hours. We can monitor the actual output. ERCOT posts this information. It's a matter of public record so we know exactly what the physical deliveries from the farm were in every hour. We also report that information on all of our renewable resources as well. So any -- any participant in the market can see how much wind energy was delivered by Wolf Ridge as well as Santa Rita. If we were to take only the amount of energy that was physically delivered at the contract amount, we would -- we would -- we would credit under option two the lower of 30 megawatts in any hour or the actual production in that hour. So in this case, we'd only credit 20 of the recs towards the 100% goal. In this case, we'd have zero. But any time that the blue shading is above the gold line, we would credit 30. So using the 30 megawatt criteria, about 65% of the hours of the year, we would credit off the full 30 megawatts. In the discussions that I reviewed and the record that I reviewed relative to the Denton renewable resource plan, there was very little discussion about the economic impacts of the inclusion or exclusion of these credits. We can see here our current tally of not including Whitetail, we would -- our total renewable energy credits in the account would be 283, 615 moving up last year, and we achieved 48% renewable energy for the year, for the fiscal year just ending in last year. Next year we have -- or this year that we're in now, we have the long draw project coming online. It's a solar project. It comes on in July, June or July, and it will add additional recs, and so we moved that 48% up to 50%. In 2020 and 2021, we'll realize the benefits of 100% of the year with long draw and an additional project that comes online that will get us up to 71%. And then you can see as we move out in time, we're approaching 82%. We see it fall back down after the Whitetail contract falls off to around 80%. Now because these numbers are less than 100, that's why we've done the RFPs, and that's what we're trying to figure out, how much to fill in to get that to 100%. Were we to include Whitetail in the method that I just described, option two, the physical method, our numbers would go up, and you can see we'd be at -- last year we would have been at 59%, 60%, and then we ultimately get up -- this is the percent renewable with Whitetail using these numbers. So we get about a 10% bump on credits if we were to use this option two methodology. One of the benefits of keeping the contract and using those credits towards the 100% goal is that it gives us some additional optionality. So when the contract expires, we'll replace it. It does provide us an opportunity to get what we term temporal diversity. The length of the contracts that we currently have are 15 and 20 year contracts. So we've got a lot of our risks concentrated in a very long period of time. We'd like to have some shorter term contracts to diversify that temporal risk, and if we wait until 2024 to replace that, we could potentially replace it with a lower cost shorter term transaction. We can also do that under the current procurement that's out there on the street. We expect that in a way that we can effectively select a term that will give us some of that temporal diversity. We could achieve lower costs because of the overbuild of renewable energy that we expect to see in the grid. We're having about a 22% increase in wind resources this year and next. We're going to probably triple the amount of solar generation in the aircraft market over the next three years. So as that supply goes up, we expect costs to remain the same or go down really to function of what happens with the tariffs on the solar panels. So the three options are the status quo. We do what we're currently doing. Item two would be the lower of the actual or 30 megawatts. That does add an additional 10%. It avoids $2.8 million of a -- I'm sorry, that's a misprint there -- $2.6 million of additional energy expense that we'd have to use to purchase those wrecks in the marketplace. We'd actually purchase the energy and the wrecks. The third item is to credit all the wrecks, which is the ERCOT methodology. And the reason why we brought this to you to consider is, again, if you remember the explanation I gave you about what a wreck is, a wreck can only be given out if a physical megawatt of renewable energy was delivered to the grid. So any wreck that any market participant has in their account represents the fact that a renewable megawatt was, in fact, injected into the grid. If you decide to go with option two or three, we would have to come back to the council with a new resolution in order to clarify this condition. Just to show you all three options side by side, here we see the percent towards the 100%. In option one, we need to procure some additional ones in order to get us to the 100%. Option two, we'd have to procure just a small amount in order to get to the 100%. And in option three, if we were to use the ERCOT method, we would not have to procure anything. We'd already meet the 100% in 2021. >> Okay. We're going to go to Councilmember Armitage, Councilmember Briggs, and Councilmember Meltzer. >> Okay. So I have a question about option number two. And I'm struggling with it in a kind of a math facts kind of way. And that is this. So as I understand it, we have been defining 100% renewable. Not to say that there's no natural gas or coal mixed into that ERCOT blend that we get, right? But to say that all of the external contracts that we have for energy in the City of Denton are renewable resources, right? We've got no renewable sources. We've got no contracts with a, you know, with a coal plant. >> That's correct. >> Yeah. Okay. So because of that, I'm trying to understand how if in scenario number two, if you could go back to the slide. I think it's just the one slide. Yeah, even just the options for -- oh, yeah. Actually, if you could just go to the options for consideration. >> Sure. >> They're right there. Thanks. I think it's the second to last. The third to the last. Right before that. There we go. So option two. So if we're only counting a percentage of the whitetail towards our 100% renewable goal, then whatever the rest of that -- whatever the remainder is, okay, is a percentage of a contract that we have that we're not counting as renewable. So therefore, by definition, as long as we are contracting with whitetail, then it's not 100% renewable according to our current definition. Regardless of -- does that make sense? >> Yeah. I think the confusion, Council Member Armitage, would be that the way that we are currently looking at compliance with 100% is we're doing what I would term a look back calculation. So we look at how many recs did we deposit into the account. And currently, we take the ones from whitetail. And I need to specify that recs are issued on a quarterly basis by ERCOT. They have a serial number that is associated with the specific resource that it came from. And it has a temporal time stamp on when it was generated. And so when we look into the account, we know exactly which ones came from whitetail and when they were generated. So we exclude those from our total. And then we compare that to the amount of megawatts of load that we served. And if we have more recs that are creditable towards the 100% than load that we served, we deem it to be 100%. And that's as a result of just the physics of how the grid operates. You know, we have to serve the load as it is demanded. And at times, like this past summer, when we were running the deck to serve load because there was no wind blowing in West Texas, people still wanted their air conditioners on and still wanted to be able to turn their lights on and wash their clothes, etc. And so in the grid, we have to have backup for those renewables. So we're in a practical perspective. The only way to really look at the 100% is to do that look back analysis. So the point I would make about it is that what we currently do with those surplus recs from whitetail that are in the account, and we do this with all the recs that are in the account with the exception of a small amount, we retire them. So once they go into the account, they get retired, which means that regardless of who generated the rec, if they're in our account and we retire them, we've effectively guaranteed the grid and our customers that that megawatt that was retired was a renewable megawatt. We don't resell them to someone else to take credit for them or anything. We just retire them. So in a real sense, the reason why option three is on here is because those were renewable megawatts that were injected into the grid. They just weren't physically contracted to us because they were above the 30 megawatts. Yeah. And so and thank you then that that actually it fits with my explanation. It's just a matter of as these options show, it's up to us, right? How we want we want to define it. Yes, that's an excellent point. And I meant to make it, you know, I mentioned that ERCOT is the is the agency that administers the program, but they only are the are the police or the compliance monitor for renewal for for reps for the retail energy providers, the competitive part of the market, the policy that this council is set to go to 100%. It's up to you decide how you're going to measure it and what you're going to include it. Absolutely. It's absolutely a policy decision. This council and you made that very clear from the beginning of the presentation, by the way. So yeah, I'll say that I definitely do not want number three, because, you know, what what what I have been hearing since the fracking ban days is that people that they want 100% renewable, that is easily explainable to them, you know, something like a physical energy where a physical producer of energy we're contracting directly with the solar farm or a wind farm, that's not to say that I'm against racks or I think racks are horrible for the environment. Right. But that it doesn't so to me, and from, you know, from what I hear from people, it doesn't feel like a real 100% to them. But I just want to be clear, I'm not against racks. I don't think racks are horrible. I just and so, you know, for that same reason, I'm not comfortable with number two, although I do understand I think you did a good job explaining it, you know, and so did the the enterprise guys and their note that got included as part of the backup, you know, how that could conceivably be explained. I agree that it's possible to define it that way. So I'm happy with number one, the status quo, because it just to me for public trust feels the most honest to me. You know, the one one thing I was wondering if you could explain a bit more is that avoids the 2.8 million in additional energy costs that can can you explain exactly how that how that works? Certainly. So because we can't count that those racks, right? When we because we have these RFPs out there, when we go to execute an additional contract to get us to the 100%, that'll be a bundled product, it'll be energy and racks bundled because the market today doesn't really want to sell us just energy without the racks from a contracted physical asset. So in order to do that, the replacement cost of that energy, because we can't count it as renewable, is 2.8 million dollars over the remaining life of the term of the contract. That is equivalent to about $1 a month to the average homeowner. So when you take that $2.8 million dollars, and you and you allocated on the to the ECA, on a pass through basis, it would be about $1 a month. Okay, and one really quick question. When you when does the the whitetail contract expire? At the end of 2023. End of 2023. Okay. Thanks. Kessima roots. So I am still in the same camp as I was before when enterprise consultants were here. We had a pretty good conversation about racks then and understood it as paper and what it all intends. And at that time, I remember it even I think after I recall someone saying that racks are pretty much obsolete, like they nobody's really using them anymore. And so, can you sure explain why we heard that? Yeah. So again, remember the rec market was originally established under Senate Bill 7 to determine the percent renewable that each of the competitive retailers included in their offering to customers that had choice. Because of the proliferation of wind resources in Texas early on in after Senate Bill 7 was passed, way more renewables got built in Texas than were expected. Consequently, the racks became effectively very almost worthless. They're now about $2 each, but became very inexpensive because there was just such an oversupply of them compared to the mandated standard for renewables. And when I looked at the video from the conversation with enterprise risk, they clearly brought that out and that's how they characterized it and I agree with that. Now, what's happened since that time is we have a lot of corporates, the Walmarts of the world, the Amazons, Apples that have gone out and said, hey, we want to be we want to procure renewable energy in the competitive markets. And so they've done bilateral transactions with some of the developers of these projects in which they buy the recs as well and then some of their some of those commercial customers in fact just buy recs in the secondary market. So if I'm a developer and I've sold 30 megawatts of energy to DME but I didn't sell the recs, I could sell the recs to Walmart. Does that answer your question? Yeah, it does. It does. And so for us though, for me, whenever I voted for the 100% renewable goal, my intention was that we would purchase physical energy for the energy that we used or consumed. And so it would be in out, it would be real transparent. So can we sell those the recs that we have if we don't use them? Can we sell them on that market? Yes, sure. And then buy our energy, I mean, can we still do 100% physical energy, but just so those recs don't go in a hole and die, sell them out to make? And we could. That would be we currently don't interpret your policy direction to allow us to do that. But certainly we could. As I said, they're worth somewhere around $2 a piece. And you'd have to give us direction about which ones you'd want us to retire and which ones you'd want us to sell. Well, for now, I'm sticking with my original one where whitetail does not count. But I'm okay with the rec conversation in the future. Council Member Meltzer. Okay. I'm definitely not for number one, because I think it's the least honest. If we buy 10, 20 or 30 megawatts of physical renewable energy, and we say it's zero, that's just wrong. So I'm not for that. I think the ordinary understanding of 100% renewable, people think in terms of physical energy produced that we use. And I think number two is the closest to that. Now, the point that Council Member Aram to raise where like, well, part of it is, you know, it's always going to be not renewable. How does it ever get you to 100%? I think the actual effect of going with number two is it reflects that we're getting closer to 100. But you don't really get to 100 until whitetail is done and you replace it with something else, fair to say. It depends on how you, you know, whatever direction you want to give us on it. Barring other factors, but, you know, in other words, just look at the fact that they're never, you know, they're always going to be something less than 100% because they've got a promised level to deliver. Well, I think just to be clear, I think, you know, when they supply us the recs, you know, by the definition of what a rec is, they did in fact deliver renewable energy. They either bought it from someone else or in this case, because of the way that the farm is so much larger than our contract. In fact, in our account today for the last year, we've only received whitetail recs. Interesting. So I take that point. It's still safe in terms of just ease of communication. I think two is most common sensical. You know, we counted the renewable energy that they produced that we bought and, you know, taking all the other points into consideration. I would say if, just a couple more points on the way to ending recs. If in fact, we are also storing recs that we don't need to achieve anything, you know, I'd certainly be interested in whether that is something to sell. And then the last point I'd like to make is the temporal diversity objective, post whitetail, is I think spot on and I'll bet Georgetown wishes they had more temporal diversity. So thanks. Member Ryan. Thank you, Mayor. In 2014, when we amended the contract to get double the recs that for the amount of energy we're getting, was there an additional charge for that? There was, yes. So we're paying more and not using any of these extras. That is correct. Okay. I guess if I were to give direction, I would probably go with option two that we count the 30 or the, or what was actually produced. This is the first time I've seen that we actually could tell how much was produced. I was told that we never knew how much was coming. Well, we don't, but we can look back and see what we did get, is what I'm getting from this. And then the other 30 that were, the other half that we're getting, that we can't use in that way, that we would sell those on the open market. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. Because we have that additional charge to see if we can at least recoup some of that extra cost that we've got. Yes, Member Davis. So I honestly see this more as a public perception problem that, and as the public perception has informed our policy decisions, when people, when we talk to people about 100% renewable energy, they think of it in the very physical direct terms that there is a wind turbine hooked up to a grid that's hooked up to their house with a direct pipeline. They don't think about it more like the bank, where if you deposit $10 at one window at the bank and move down to the next window and take out another $10, it's a wholly new $10, but it's still your $10. And for me, number two makes the most sense from a public perception standpoint. From an actual dollars and cents and how much renewable energy is being produced, I'm okay with number three. We are putting renewable energy into the grid. It may not get burned up at my house, but it's going to be used up at some other place along the line at the grant. We are making a dent in renewable energy. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, so I'm fine with number three. However, when you take number three out to the public, they're going to tell you, well, you're doing funny math. You're moving things around on me. I want the wind turbine that is hooked up to my house directly and produces physical renewable energy, all of Denton, off the dirty energy. So I think number two gives us credit where credit is due. It takes into account that we are actually getting renewable energy that we are using in our homes, not some other place on the grid. And as far as wrecks that we're accumulating, but we've been okay with just hoarding them, sitting on them so far, there's got to be a better way to do that. If we're not going to use them towards our total in the way that they're intended, then we've got to use it. We've got to monetize them somehow. Wow. First of all, thank you. I think this is great information because do you know what the cost is from option two to option three? You monetized option two. In other words, if we went with option two or did you monetize that if we didn't go with option two, it cost us an extra $2.8 million. I'm sorry. That was a misprint. $2.6 million is for the first option. If we did option three, it gets us to about $5 million of avoided cost. And that's over the three-year term, the remaining term of the agreement. This is the monetization of the public perception issue. Public perception is we're elected to make decisions based upon facts and based upon data and I think that's why you're coming back to us because the misconception was that we were not getting hardly any -- we basically rejected Whitetail's renewable energy because of possible misunderstanding of how Rex operated or that the market was very low. And so you're saying things have changed. I just want to summarize what I thought I heard you say on a lot of this. If you could go back to the graph that shows the usage, because I think people get confused because I get confused and I think the public gets confused because I think there is that perception of the renewable energy from that -- which one is out at Munster? Is that this one? Okay. So you can drive out to Munster and you can see those wind turbines. And they're producing electricity. That electricity is not coming to the city of Denton over the physical wires. That electricity is going out on the grid. Now, at ERCOT, because we've contracted for it, we get credit for that amount of renewable energy. So first of all, every megawatt hour that is produced by a renewable energy resource, whether it be solar or wind, that's primarily the ones here, that comes with a corresponding wreck. Is that correct? Correct. Only if ERCOT can physically verify that it was delivered. So there's no wrecks that exist that were created by a natural gas plant. Not that I'm aware of. Because that's not the definition of what a wreck is. A wreck is -- if it's delivered to the ERCOT grid and it's verifiable that it comes from a renewable resource, then you have a corresponding wreck with that, right? Energy renewable credit. I'm not 100% certain on that because I've been told, again, I'm fairly due to the ERCOT market, that at some point there was discussion about natural gas being considered semi-renewable. And I don't know whether there were -- No, no, no, I understand. So I don't know about that. I don't know about that. I don't remember hearing that natural gas -- what I heard was that they could back up -- like on this chart, those white spots that are under 30 megawatt, that my understanding was that if the wind wasn't being generated, they could fire up a natural gas plant or the energy from the natural gas plant is put on the ERCOT market and credit us with renewable resources because they have a wreck associated with that. But what I'm hearing you say is that they would have to go out and either purchase a wreck to make up for that energy, which according to at least -- so that's a good -- we need to find out the answer to that question. Because if a wreck cannot be generated, except it is generated from a renewable energy resources of which a natural gas or coal generation is not considered that, that's important to me to understand that that becomes then a whole different paradigm in which to view this whole situation. So that's an important question. I would say, Mayor, that what I can say definitively is that all the wrecks that are in our account came from a true renewable. So even if some -- and again, it's pure speculation -- Well, then let's not speculate. I mean, I'd rather know the facts. The fact is that any wreck that's in our account came from a renewable resource. All right. Let me sort of get through this. So Wolf Ridge generates a megawatt of electricity through the wind turbine. Now, let me back up. If you have a contract -- so what I heard you say I thought was if you -- we could execute a contract with Wolf Ridge without getting the wrecks, and we could not -- unequivocally, we could not credit that to our renewable energy if we didn't have the wreck. Correct. Unless you decided that that was a policy change you wanted to make as a council. Well, no. Forget the policy change. I'm saying that -- because what I'm trying to say is that these renewable resources, they can bifurcate. They can sell those wrecks off to someone who wants to be able to say we've got renewable energy. And so they're getting credit for that one megawatt of hour for renewable energy that's put out on the grid. But if we have a contract with them, we're only getting credit for that one megawatt, and that's all it is. It's not renewable. Correct. Is that correct? Okay. So then here on this chart, everywhere we see a blue, that means that that has -- that that renewable resource has been placed on the grid for the benefit of our account. In other words, we can claim that because we also get the wreck with it. 60 megawatts of them. 60 megawatts, which is in the contract. Right. So even if we don't use the -- the 30 megawatt comes from what? That's the -- again, it's a bifurcated contract. So we bought energy as a product, and then we bought wrecks as a separate product. And the difference being that -- and I've got a slide in here I could show you. But Santa Rita, for example, is a bundled product. We pay, let's say -- make up a number -- $20 for Santa Rita. That includes the energy and the wreck. Okay. At Wolf Ridge, Whitetail, we pay, say, $30 for the energy and $4 for the wreck, for a total of $34 of bundled cost. Right. But what you're saying, though, we contracted for 60 megawatts of renewable energy. Is that right? We contracted for 60 megawatts of wrecks and 30 megawatts of energy. Okay. Right. Renewable energy. Y'all have had y'all's chance to talk? I'm going to -- I'm going to have my -- So -- so when -- so you're only showing us this 30 megawatts here because that's the actual energy that we contracted for. Correct. All right. So the reason you're asking about the other 30 megawatts of renewable energy credits, but we're not contractors of that energy. We're just buying those credits. Correct. And they're selling that energy off to somebody else without renewable credits. Got you. So then when you have nothing that -- you got the white, right, then what I'm understanding you to say is unless it goes up that line contiguously, then if there's renewable energy that's created above that 30 megawatt line of energy that we've contracted for, we get the credits for that renewable energy through the REC, but the other people get just the regular energy. They don't get the renewable REC. Correct. All right. So we paid for renewable REC, which is a renewable energy. I mean, we don't have -- we're not paying for renewable energy credit that's produced by a natural gas plant, at least right here. That is correct. Okay. So number two obviously is more in line with what we have done on our other contracts. We're just going to take credit for the actual physical energy, renewable energy, with the associated REC that is put out on the grid for our benefit, pursuant to our contract. Yes, sir. All right. And that's what option two is doing. And then option three is basically saying, all right, we may get all of our renewable energy satisfied, but we also are getting credit for the renewable energy that's being produced above the 30-megawatt hour, whether we want to take it or not. I mean, those RECs are coming into our account. We're paying for them. We're paying for them. Correct. Okay. So really, when we talk about transparency and we talk about facts and public perception, option one is the least transparent of these options in the sense of what's really happening on the ground and what we actually are receiving as far as physical renewable energy created by this renewable resource for our benefit in our account, excluding the RECs. I mean, this is the physical energy that's coming into our account. Is that right? Yes, sir. I just -- I mean, the determination of whether it's the least or most transparent is -- Oh, no, no. I'm not asking you to comment on that opinion of mine. No, no, no. I'm not asking you to -- I'm just saying that what I am saying is that option one says that even if we're receiving renewable energy from the wind turbines, it's coming into our account at ERCOT, we're rejecting that as part of our renewable energy. We're not counting it towards our 100%. We're not counting it. That's right. We're not counting it. We're saying we're not counting renewable energy that we're receiving as renewable energy in our calculation. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Well, I'm okay with two, but I'll tell you, I mean, if we're paying for renewable energy credits and we're getting it, and that's the way it is, then we either need to start selling those -- of course, we can sell them at a loss if we're paying four bucks for them and we sell them for two bucks, then we're taking a $2 loss on it. Yeah, Mayor, I will point out -- and I forgot to mention that, you know, we brought this yesterday to the PUB. They went right to that issue and said we're paying for this and to the extent we're not using them to offset the purchase power cost for our customers, that's not good. And so they -- they recommend option three unanimously, PUB did. And so, just to make sure, the difference between option two and three is about two point -- is it a two million or 2.6 million? 2.6 million. Additional 2.6 million. Yeah, that's -- We get the 2.6 at option two, but if we went to option three -- so not only are we paying more for our wrecks than what we can sell them for, we're also paying 2.6 million dollars more for our energy than what we would need to because we do have these wrecks that we've contracted for as renewable energy, and it's being produced as renewable energy. That's correct. Okay. And just to -- as I said, just to put it in terms that the average homeowner can understand, that 2.6 million is about a dollar a month. In the ECA charge. But if you go with option three, it's almost two dollars. Correct. Well, I will tell you, we've had a tremendous amount of discussion at this council on utility rates for a lot less than that as far as trying to either keep rates down, and in this case, what we're doing is we're keeping rates up because of this particular policy, at least based upon your analysis. That would be my conclusion, yes, sir. Councilmember Briggs? Oh, were you in first? Okay. Sure. Yeah. Sorry. I apologize. That's quite right. Why I made a gesture to speak before is to say in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, that was an incredibly right question about whether there's a money difference -- of course there should be -- between two and three. I kind of wish it had been laid out there. I'm sorry I didn't -- Yeah. I should have done that. Two point six million dollars is pretty significant. So if it's true and it's real, I'm willing to take on the burden of having to explain it to people in order to also have a two point six million dollar benefit. So, you know, glad I know that now. Just to be clear, it's like four point nine million dollars for option three is the savings. Two point three. So two point three being -- More than two million dollar incremental benefit. Correct. Good enough. Councilmember -- I move to three. Councilmember Briggs, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Thank you for that thorough explanation. And I did not realize that we double down on recs during that Santo -- or during the Whitetail contract. It was my understanding that they were -- we purchased the energy and then the recs were just extra, like, benefit coming in. That it wasn't actually -- we were purchasing them. So I would like to see -- City Manager, I would like to see that contract and go back to the date where this council approved that and if we did approve those specifically. Because I don't remember that conversation. But I really appreciate the -- helping me understand that. It's not intuitively obvious. Because of the fact that today in the market, you know, you buy a bundled product and back then it was a bifurcated product. And when we discussed this before, we discussed it as paper. Not really having that much of a significance financially. It was more about the energy and where it was coming from. And we've had lots of different conversations. So I'm just kind of trying to work them all into this one. The contract is subject to a confidentiality agreement. Right, right. So to the extent we provide it to you. Oh, yeah, no, I'm just trying to -- I want to go back to the date and the conversation. My understanding, Councilmember Briggs, is that the original contract was for 30 megawatts with 30 megawatts of REX. And I apologize since I wasn't here. In 2000 -- sometime after 2014 when the renewable denton plan was adopted, because it had a 40% renewable goal, council directed DME to purchase an additional 30 megawatts. And I don't know where they directed to purchase them from Wolf Ridge or just from the market or whether there was an RFP done, but that's how the additional 30 ended up getting in there because that additional 30 was necessary to get to the 40%. So the additional 30 wasn't actually the council direction, it was purchased REX, not the energy. So that's where my -- okay. Thank you so much for that. I am -- I don't know, it looks as if people have moved to option three, but that I've moved to option two from one, so that would make complete sense to me that that happened. So I'm in line with option two now because I like say the 20 megawatt or the zero megawatt, if we've purchased that energy and we're not getting credit for it, we should, so those would make more sense to go into that. And then whatever we have extra, we can -- we could sell. That would be where I am. So, Councilmember Archer, let me just sort of take a -- I'm not sure who all is in favor of giving direction for option three. Who's in favor of giving direction for option three? Okay, so we've got four all in. Let me start over. Councilmember Archer, before I recognize you, I wanted to see who -- you know, what the consensus was for option three because I wasn't clear the direction. And so, again, this isn't a vote. It's just simply trying to figure out if there's a consensus to move forward on option three, and I think I saw Councilmember Davis, you expressed an interest, Councilmember Meltzer, Mayor Pro Tem, and Councilmember Ryan, option three. So we have a consensus for option three. I'll allow just a brief -- I'll let Councilmember Archer use to ask her questions, but at least for now, that seems to be where the consensus stands, and after Councilmember Archer gets through with her comments, I'll check to see if that's changed, and if not, we'll move forward. Yep, Councilmember Archer. So thank you. Yeah, and this isn't so much a question, but a comment just explaining why I'm still for number one to the public and to my colleagues. To me, it is the most transparent option, but I understand that the way we define transparent, just like the way we define 100 percent, and the way we even define, you know, what constitutes buying renewable energy, entirely depends on the person, and I appreciate that this presentation understands that. To me, a renewable energy credit is a marketing tool. It is like a little chip or a token or a trophy that you get for producing renewable energy. That's how I see it. And kind of like when you get a book of coupons in the mail and it says, you know, this is $100. Well, it's not $100, right? Or, you know, tokens that you're, you know, selling, right? Or a trophy, an Academy Award, right? You can get an Academy Award that somebody else produced with their good acting, but it doesn't mean you're a good actor. It means you have the award that was produced with their good acting. That's kind of how I see a rec. And so I just wanted to be clear and also to say, as far as the bundled in, that recs, as I understand it, have always been, you know, bundled in with energy contracts because they're the little, you know, token that gets awarded when you produce renewable energy. Wait, wait, wait. I'm almost done. What is different is that about what was done in the past was that people decided to, here in the City of Denton, decided to buy recs. This was staff a long time ago to buy recs separately, but it was the case then that recs got bundled in. Your mic is on, correct? Yep. Okay. I'm not sure why the light's on, but I'm sorry. Go ahead. It was the case then that recs got bundled in, and it is the case now. So any time you buy renewable energy, you're going to get that, you know, just like any time if you, you know, if you buy something on an infomercial, it comes with a set of steak knives, you know, you could say you're paying for the set of steak knives, but you're really paying for the thing you want. It's just a matter of what we decide we want. For me, a rec is just, is a token, but I understand why people value that, but to me it's a marketing tool. I just want to make that clear. And I'm going to let Mayor Pro Tem and I'm going to say a few comments and then we're done. Yeah, a minute or less. For me, thank you very much. Great presentation. Made a difficult situation very clear. For me, I've been out to the wind farm, seen it firsthand. I really enjoyed Council Member Davis's point, and it's succinct and on point. There is no direct connection. You know, wrestle with whatever you want to do an explanation, but the explanation is there's no direct connection with any of the power, but not even the natural gas plant. There's no way to directly direct the energy to where it's going, especially when you're coming over those transmissions. It makes perfect sense. It's simply explaining something that's complex and it's not upon us to make someone understand it to the nth degree. That's not our job. Our job here is to be responsible with taxpayer money. I appreciate the information about the public utility board. That's great information. And again, even if I just want to distance from that, from the comments that proceeded, because I have a dollar in my pocket, I can't go -- it's not, in theory, 100 pennies or 100 -- it's not gold-based. It's not -- so our whole economy is based on that, and that's why I really like the banking example. It's not a new concept. And so our duty is to the taxpayers and the ratepayers, and I think we're doing them a great service. Just a question of clarification, because I've heard that RECs are just a marketing tool that, you know, they're things that, you know, they're not real. But I just want to make sure that everybody understands that if we do not have one renewable energy credit for every megawatt that is generated from one of our renewable energy contracts, like is it Santorita? Santorita. Santorita. That without that REC, I can -- if we rejected all renewable energy credits, we will never have one megawatt of renewable energy. We cannot claim one megawatt of renewable energy. If that's the policy that you adopt, that is correct. Again, remember what I said, that because this is not regulated by ERCOT, this is a public policy decision that only this council can make for this community. You get to determine how you're going to measure it. Now, the conventional way to do it is with RECs, and that's the way the market generally does it. But if you were to say I really don't care about RECs because, you know, it's a token or a trophy or whatever you want to call it, then you could say as long as I'm contracting with what I know to be a renewable resource, you could set the policy so that would count towards your 100% goal. But we would have -- but in the industry -- Not in the industry. Correct. In the industry. And when people say renewable energy, that we're going to go to 100%, 50%, Georgetown says they want 100% renewable energy, they're not saying that based upon they've contracted simply with a wind turbine farm for 100 megawatts of energy and if their load is only 100. And they would be an outlier. If that was their definition of renewable energy, that is against anything that the marketplace understands how renewable energy is measured. That is correct. And as a good example, Mayor, would be if we were to -- from an economic development perspective -- bring someone in, let's say it was a European company, and they wanted to verify the 100% renewable energy that Denton is providing, they would ask to see the RECs. Okay. All right. That's fair enough. Okay. Let's take a five-minute break and then we'll come back. Welcome, everybody, back to this meeting of the Denton City Council. It is 7/49/14/2020. We have completed our work session reports and our closed session. And so now we will convene -- where is it? What are we convening in? Following the completion of the work session, City Council will convene in a special-called meeting to consider the following items. And so we will open that meeting, the special-called meeting, at, again, 7/50 -- 7/47. Our first item on the agenda is the Consent Agenda. Councilmember Bryan. Move approval except for items D and H for separate consideration. All right. So D and H will be for a separate consideration for a brief staff report on both of those under items for individual consideration. So we have a motion for Consent Agenda item, pulling items D and H. Councilmember Davis. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. All opposed. Oh, Councilmember Briggs, I didn't look over there. Okay. All opposed, signify by -- same like sign. I don't see any opposition. So the motion carries 6-0. Okay. We're going to take those two items in order because we do have on items for individual consideration an item H as well. So I'm going to have to somehow distinguish between that. But we have -- since we put -- we've got a Consent Agenda item H and we also have an item for individual consideration H but the Consent Agenda item H now is an item for individual consideration but I'll figure that out. All right. So we'll take up agenda item 4 or 1D for item for individual consideration. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton authorizing the city manager or his designee to execute an agreement between the Denton Independent School District and the City of Denton for participation in advanced technology complex practicum of law, public safety, corrections, and security program. Oh, and Councilmember Davis, I'm sorry, yes, Councilmember Davis recused himself on agenda item D. Thank you. >> Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Paul Wombrock, Deputy Chief of Operations at the Police Department. What we're considering in this item today is a continuation of MOU between the city and the Denton ISD on a program that's related to their ATC program, their law enforcement program. It's one that we've helped them with in the past. Like I said, it's a continuation of MOU. We have a history of working with them to help them with their law enforcement program. Some of their instructors are former officers or had been in the past. So we've been doing this for quite a few years, not the MOU itself, but previously we've helped them out with developing these skills for the young boys, girls, the high school students that are interested in law enforcement as a career. So this is really just a continuation of something we've seen in this program, this MOU that we're considering right now. What we're really talking about is over the spring semester a dozen occurrences where high school students, a handful, five or six, get to come to the Police Department and experience different aspects of law enforcement so they can help develop their desire, I guess you would call it, to pursue a career in law enforcement or related field as is the reason why they're in the program in the first place. So it's pretty straightforward as far as the continuation of what we've been doing already, no changes, other than we've been able to squeeze out a couple extra days over the course of the semester, making it 12 as opposed to 8 or 10. Great. Council Member Briggs? Yep. And how many did you say get to come to the station? It's five or six. Five or six? Out of the group. I don't know how they pick those five or six, but that's on the DISD side on who they send. It's a great program. I'd make a motion to approve. Okay, we have a motion by Council Member Briggs. Council Member Meltzer? Yes, sounds like a wonderful experience for them. I second. All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries 6-0. If someone could retrieve Council Member Davis, he's probably walking in right now. All right. Okay. We will move on to agenda item 1H for individual consideration, which was pulled off the consent agenda. Consider approval of a resolution of the City of Denton opposing the application for an air quality standard permit registration 159031, which would authorize the construction of a permanent concrete crusher by mutual first LLC at 5120 East University Drive. There it goes. Mayor and Council Ryan Adams, Public Affairs. I'll also be joined by Dr. Ken Banks for any questions. Just to give a bit of a background and update on this item from last week, this is a TCQ air permit application, pardon me, a registration application for operation under the TCQ air permit. And it's proposed at 5120 East University Drive, which is the approximate location. As you can see from the map, the actual property is a little bit offset from East University Drive. Just as a reminder, for this registration application, the comment period does close on January 24th. And our last meeting, Council requested resolution in opposition be brought forward for consideration. And we have this map that's in your agenda material. This was also presented last week on the 7th, just showing the approximate location of this proposed facility. The resolution you have to consider tonight expresses opposition and requests denial of the application. Among other things that are pointed out in the resolution, it does highlight the environmental impacts of the proposed use, the traffic impacts of the facility, concerns for the regulatory history of the officers of the applicant, the access that would be needed through a residential zone, and the potential occupancy of nearby dwellings. All this is within that resolution. The next step that this resolution is approved, staff will submit the resolution with comments to CCEQ prior to that January 24th deadline. If the application is approved, staff will discuss options with Council. And I'm happy to answer any questions, as is Dr. Banks. Council Member Melser. Yeah, I'll start off by moving approval of the resolution expressing our opposition. Okay. Council Member Pomaker. Can I second? All in favor of agenda item 1H, please signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. Moving on to items for individual consideration. Agenda item 2A is receive a presentation of an ordinance of the City of Denton amending the City of Denton code of ordinances, adding language to officially adopt longstanding practices for scheduling regular meetings with the City Council, et cetera. Yes, I will. Okay. All right. We're going to -- we'll come back to agenda item 2A. Agenda item -- allow me to come back to that. 2B is consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas, amending the fiscal year 2019-2020 budget and annual program of services of the City of Denton to allow for adjustments to the park and gas well fund of $71,000 for the purpose of funding improvements to the American Legion Hall, allowing adjustments, et cetera, to the capital improvement program of $35,350,000 for the purpose of funding improvements to the city's fleet services building. Okay. Good evening, Mayor and members of council. David Gaines, Director of Finance. This budget amendment, as mentioned, amends the budget for the park's gas well fund, one of our smaller funds, and the CIP budget. And I'll talk through the details of those. The park's gas well fund is a budget amendment of $71,000. We use the park's gas well fund for those one-time parks costs and traditionally to kind of make up shortfalls in projects. And one of the projects that we have before us is the American Legion Hall project. We have a funding gap of the -- of additional $71,000 in addition to the funds we're already using from the park's gas well fund that a contract related to American Legion Hall will be coming to city council in February. This is in advance of that contract so that we have the full funding available and we have appropriate fund balance in the park's gas well fund to afford this budget amendment. Capital improvement program, obviously, a much larger budget amendment. This is primarily related to the 2019 bond program. Obviously, following the bond election for our six-year program, we do have planned issuance this year for our first year of issuance for the bond program. So you can see those -- the first round of issuance there and the projects associated. This obviously works in tandem with the reimbursement ordinance. That will be the following item. The totals there from bonding grade, Hickory Creek Street Rehab Program, which is the design cost in advance of our first year of the 2019 street rehab program, our first round of sidewalks, street lighting to start the street lighting project on University Drive, and then the $10 million is really those first costs for the police renovation in advance of entering into a contract. We'll have the majority of those costs next fiscal year. On the CO side, we do have two projects for CO issuance outside of the bond election. The first being improvements at our fleet building. This is CO issuance we would make, but that would be funded as fleet is an internal service fund who transfers from all the different funds within the city to pay that debt service. It wouldn't be paid directly from ad valorem taxes. And in the city hall, West renovation, which obviously has been in discussion with council over the past few council meetings, you can see the total there. So those are the budget amendments to move forward. Obviously, we have the reimbursement ordinance after this, but I can welcome any questions. Yes, Councilmember, Mayor Pro Tem Husband. David, do you know if, and this may be a city manager question, the full funding for American Legion Hall, does it include the patio on the backside? Yes, yes, it does. Thanks. Real quick question on the $71,000 coming out of the park. Sure. The parks gas well fund. Not that I have an issue with it being appropriated to the American Legion Hall. What is that an allowable expense based upon it being in close proximity to the park or what are the criteria that the funds from a park well gas fund can be used for it so it meets one of those criteria? Sure. And generally, it's we use those funds for any parks project. So we don't have too many stipulations outside of it just being a parks project that I'm aware of. Is that what this is classified as is a parks project? The American, the reconstruction. Okay. Is it is it located physically? I mean, is it part of that park? Or is it? I just don't know. Is it incorporated as in the boundaries of the park? Gary, come on. Gary Pagan, Director of Parks and Recreation. The funding for the gas well is not directly derived from land under Fred Moore Park. Right. Is that what you're asking? Yeah, no, what I'm just saying is the money being allocated to the reconstruction project remodeling project, is that because it's it's located on park property or it's in close proximity to the park? Oh, ALH is located in Fred Moore Park. That's all I need to know. Yeah, I just I was trying to place it and I couldn't. I just didn't know if that's inside the park. Okay, that's how we do it. All right. Okay, anything else on this? Councilmember Riggs, did you have a question? Yeah, on the are these going to the actual contractor or is this just to approve the funds to be used for the projects or? So this is this is this this portion is just giving us the budget to spend the funds. The next item would obviously give us that authority that in the funds and then obviously any contracts to come forward actually spend the budgeted dollars within come back to council separately. Correct. Thank you. Okay. Councilmember right move approval. Councilmember Davis. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second for approval of agenda item to be all in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. Are we ready for two? Okay, we'll go back to two eight. Receive a presentation of an ordinance of the city of the city of didn't code of ordinances I don't know if it's your lucky day or mine. This is my second time looking all of ours. So my name is Rosa Rios, and I'm your city secretary. And I'm here to present a proposed amendment to the city council rules of procedure. So for background information annually, the city secretary's office reviews the city council calendar and drafts a draft calendar and provides it to city council for input for input. That draft calendar was provided to you as part of an informal staff report on October 4 2019. And we asked for input and there was only one response received which did not affect the proposed meeting dates or non meeting dates. And historically, the city council, the council calendar has been accepted through a general consensus consensus based on council input and regular meetings were moved forward forward meeting date versus canceled. And there was a practice of not holding work session or meetings after a city recognized holiday. So we're trying to officiate those practices. So in reviewing the city code, city code, it referenced that in chapter two, article two, that city council shall meet on the first and third Tuesday of each month, unless the meeting is postponed or canceled for valid reasons. So again, we're looking to appreciate the process. So the proposed amendment amended above would preserve the practice while still making sure that we're complying with the city code. So the codification will accomplish that no regular meetings will be scheduled on the day or day, immediately following an official paid city of Denton holiday, that no regular meetings will be scheduled for the last two weeks of November or December. That kind of covers those holiday seasons and that no regular meetings will be scheduled for the first two weeks of July. So the next step would be to provide direction on any additional changes you feel might be needed on that section that covers the city council schedule, except the proposed changes as presented to you right now. And if that happens, then we would schedule formal adoption of the item for the January 28th meeting, along with other proposed rule amendments that were previously discussed, which relate to tie votes, the public hearing rebuttal process, public comments, the Boarding Commission and committee calendar, and the Boarding Commission absences. And those would be part of the consent agenda. And of course, you'd have the ability to ask any questions during the consideration of items for placement on the consent. And I'm here to answer any questions you may have. Any questions? And this is just an agenda item for presentation only. No action is to be taken on this agenda item. Any questions for city secretary? Seeing none. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. We'll move on to agenda item C, considered option agenda item to see excuse me, considered option of notice of the city of Denton, Texas to declare the intent to reimburse capital program expenditures of the general government. 33 million, 455,000 in fleet services, 2.9 million, etc. This item is some of the projects that we just talked about, but is the reimbursement ordinance so that we can can spend the dollars in advance of the CEO and geo cells that we have later this year. So obviously, we had one of these in October as well, after we started the budget year. And this is we have one one item that was on in the in the original CIP budget. And then obviously, the other items were the items that were just added with the budget amendment on the last item. The one item that was in our original CIP is the about approximately $1 million for parkland acquisition from the 2014 bond program. If you recall, this is our last year of issuance for the 2014 program. We had this a million additional dollar property acquisition. And so getting this reimbursement done now will allow those funds to be used in advance of selling the debt in the summer. And then the next items, we have these divided by proposition. So you can see the same amounts that we saw on the budget amendment. The first issuance for for the programs you see in front of you, Bonnie Bray and Hickory Creek, some of those initial costs that are going to come from those programs, the street rehab program, as I mentioned, those are the design costs in advance of the following year, the first true year that 2019 program for street rehab, they're still closing out the 2012 and 2014 street rehab programs as well. Sidewalks, the first planned issuance for sidewalks that we have each year of the six years, and then street lighting, our first $2 million for the university drive street lighting project. That's a member Ryan. Get up there Bonnie Bray phases five, six and seven, seven was being done by textile or the state. Yeah, that's really just kind of a nomenclature thing we've shown all this through remaining. Yeah, we just said, okay, all the phases there. As we go forward with any specifics, they'll definitely be called out which phase that we're working on. Any other questions? The police renovation, as I mentioned, those initial costs in advance of the majority of costs that will come in FY 21. And you'll see with that bond sale that we have have with that and we'll also have further conversations on why we're what amounts we're issuing in each fiscal year for the police projects and the CEO funded projects that we mentioned the fleet facility expansion and the City Hall West renovation renovation. In summary, a total of $36.3 million included for this reimbursement ordinance. Here's our next steps whenever we do anything related to our bond sale to step back and to say here's the steps that we'll have throughout the fiscal year. Obviously, these are very high level of these, some of the specifics can change and when we'll come forward. But we'll review with the bond oversight committee what we plan for the geo cell at our next meeting. In March, we'll have our CEO and geo bonds sales with the audit finance committee and start a notice of intent in advance of actually selling the bonds early summer. That's it. Do you have any questions? Any questions for 2C? Chair would entertain motion. I move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second for agenda item 2C. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. We'll go on to agenda item 2D. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, a Texas home rule municipal corporation, authorizing the city manager or his designee to execute a contract through the by board cooperative purchasing network contract number 601 dash 19. Good evening mayor, members of council, Terry Cater, fleet superintendent. This item for consideration is the purchase of nine new refuse trucks for the solid waste department. We've worked with the solid waste department over the past couple of years to improve the integrity and the reliability and the efficiency of their solid waste fleet and timely replacement of assets is one of the things that we've been keying on with this purchase here. We have eight of these trucks are fleet replacements, scheduled fleet replacements and those eight trucks will be auctioned once they're replaced. One of these trucks is a new fleet addition for the commercial department. It's a roll off truck. And basically it's just a standard fleet replacement with one fleet addition that we're asking for in this. We've worked with the manufacturer this year to to we've issued a letter of intent in June, just non binding agreement that we intend to purchase these units and reserve us a spot in the bill line. This is the first year we've done that. And they have agreed to do that. And so if this is approved, those trucks are actually going to be ready for delivery within the month. It's about an eight, six to eight month savings over time. I know that this one. Okay. So are these diesel? And so we're getting nine, nine trucks. And so it's replacing eight, you said eight replacements with one plate addition. Okay. And so when they go to auction, what percentage do we recoup back that towards like the purchase price? Is it significant? Or is it just to clear out the trucks from our stock? I mean, or the market changes, but and I'll tell you the truth, these trucks that were a lot of these trucks that we're going to auction are C and G. And we don't have a lot of experience with what the return is going to be on those trucks. We hear and we understand that it's not like it is for diesel unit. So we didn't anticipate getting that much money. But typically we get 50 to 80,000 per per truck when we auction it, and the new truck costs almost 300,000. Can you remind me? I know that we were trying to get rid of the fleet with the CNG. Does this rid of all of them? Or were there still be some? There were still be just a small handful of trucks, probably three or four left in the fleet. So I think seven of these trucks are our CNG with two diesel. Thank you. That will be replaced. Yes. I think I might have gotten an answer to the question, but of the because you said we're replacing eight. So none of those are diesel or one is diesel. The eight that we're replacing are one of those are diesel and the other seven are CNG. All the new trucks are diesel. Okay. And what are the ages of those vehicles? The oldest one is a 2012 model. And the rest of them are 2014. Okay. Yeah, I just I asked because I know that there's some Volkswagen money available for diesel replacements older than 2009. Okay. Any more questions? All right. Chair would entertain action on this item. That's member I move approval. Council member Briggs. Go ahead and second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries unanimously had to look real hard at Mayor Pro Tem because I'm sort of juxtaposed him left, right, you know, make sure I had it right. Alright, so agenda item to eat, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Council of the City of Denton, Texas, approving a grant application from around properties. This was one that we was a tie vote. Yes, both this item and the next item. We don't have a staff presentation, but I'm available to answer any questions that you have. I do have a question couple questions. Actually, I went and listened to the TURS board meeting. So it was a fascinating meeting. I was trying to understand the direction but I don't see so the Economic Development Partnership Board reviewed this as well. Yes. And they voted what? Was it unanimous? 10-0 to recommend a grant of $25,000. Okay, so the EDP was $25,000. We have two council members on EDP, don't we? Yes. Who's on EDP? Council Member Briggs and Council Member Davis, but this was October. I'm not sure. Council Member Briggs, that might have been your first. Okay, I was just curious. And then there's another committee besides the TURS board that considered it was the -- it used to be the -- The first committee that reviews it is the Downtown Economic Development Committee, formerly the Downtown Task Force. Right. The name was changed this year. Okay. All right. Yeah, I'm not going to make all the comments I want to make about listening to the meeting and some of the rationale, but I think just as a reminder, this has typically been a fund that's -- how did you call it, Council Member Ryan? First come, first serve. Yeah, first come, first serve, because I know there's some talk about saving money to see if the other grants are coming and things such as that. So I'm just bringing this back because I know it was tied. I'm not bringing it back. The council rules and procedure brought it back, so we're going to let it stand like that. Did you have a question, Council Member? I looked online to read the minutes to get my head around it, so I would appreciate someone helping me understand the rationale. I mean, literally, I looked at the minutes, and it's not a minute for minute, not a note. The rationale of the 12-5. Driving it down. Yeah, yeah. I believe Council Member Meltzer was there. Yeah. I was present and I'd be interested in your take on it. I'll let you know what I heard. Yeah. Very interested to hear that. I'd say that the gist of it, the discussion, was that the purpose of these grants is to motivate big individuals to take actions. There's two projects that were sort of part, basically I said that these two projects were part of one larger project, is how they viewed it, and they didn't really feel that, you know, the sort of, like, well, could qualify clearly for two grants of those amounts. They didn't feel that they wanted to use the resources to, you know, kind of reverse incentivize that one applicant to that extent. So they basically spread the $25,000 over two. That's more or less the gist of the conversation. So I did listen to it for about an hour and a half. I just got it from a flash drive. They are audio recorded, so I got it on the flash drive. And quite honestly, there were a lot of rationale for a lot of different things. I will say that they approved a grant for $25,000 prior to considering this, these two, and they approved a grant for $25,000 after the consideration of these two. I think part of it was some of it was talking about do the -- did the applicant need the money? Some of it was this dual project. Some were confused about the addresses, that they were -- that the addresses were for the same project, but they were two separate buildings, and they were -- both the buildings did have -- have worked up. The primary issue that I heard, I mean, what you were talking about as far as the -- it seemed like it was one project, was this idea that they were allocating most of the funds for the budget year for the -- this particular fund, and they didn't necessarily want to do that because if other projects are coming down the pike, then, you know, they want to have some funds to do that, but there have been years we haven't -- this is accrued -- the balance, at least in the general fund, had accrued -- or the -- I guess it was the general fund, or that fund, the economic -- >> The reinvestment fund. >> The reinvestment fund. Had accrued because we didn't have any. So it was -- it was helpful to hear that. I didn't understand -- I mean, if you applied that rationale to the other two projects, they got $25,000, but I think they felt more comfortable doing it because some discussion was, do we give one of these grants the full 25 and just not give the other one any? Or they just wanted to give a total of 25 to both of them. So do you split them to give some, or do you give one -- all of it and none to the other? So, I mean, it -- yeah. I look forward to the -- it was -- it was a very robust discussion. It was a very robust discussion. So, yeah. Yes. >> No other comments. I'll let other people talk, but, Mr. City Manager, can I get a -- can I get the thumb drop and maybe drop it in my -- in the packet Friday or something? >> Sure. >> Thanks. >> Yes, and I do apologize. It was a two and a half hour long meeting, and so even getting it to the mayor required some technical assistance from our Wonderful Technology Services Department. It's a very large file. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Councilmember Armitage and then councilmember Graves. >> So two and a half hours, that's nothing. >> If we were -- if we were in -- in the other room, I would have pressed the button now to -- to make a motion. It's a little more awkward to do it this way, but I'd -- >> Yeah. >> The discussion may continue. >> Yeah. >> But I want to approve the 12,500 that the -- that the committee -- or board, rather, voted on. >> Okay, so you're -- >> And I'm going to be doing the same for the -- >> Sure. >> -- next one, too. >> All right. >> For the reasons I stated last time. >> All right. So we do have a motion, so I'm just going to recognize people who want to be recognized, so if you want to discuss, you can. If you want to second it, you can, as we said, our practice will be councilmember Graves. >> Yeah, so I'll go ahead and just make a second so we can have the discussion. >> We didn't have the discussion. >> Oh, we can't. Okay. >> Well -- >> Do you still want to make the second? >> Yeah, I can -- I'm going to second it. I want to know -- because I think that this board could still increase those funds, right? So I'm -- I missed that meeting, and I did not watch it because I was on -- I was very, very sick. >> The EDP board? >> No, no, I was there, and I approved that here, but I don't -- I'm confused because I don't recall any of the conversation that you're talking about. >> Mine was the TURS board. >> Okay. >> Mine was -- that was the TURS board. You're the EDP board, and so -- >> Okay. >> And so when this item came to us, we were just approving or going through the 12,500, because it was 25,000. >> It was 25,000, and we -- this was in the group when we presented them to the EDP in October that we mentioned these would be the first batch that would go to the TURS board because this is during the transition of funds from the reinvestment grant to the TURS fund. So this is the -- these are in the first batch that are making that transition. >> This is why I'm confused, because we approved the 25,000. >> That is correct. >> Okay. So that's why I'm confused. >> Okay. So -- all right. So but you seconded a motion to approve it at 12,500 just now? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> But -- well, no, I didn't realize that they had -- that this was the same conversation, because the EDP board approved the 25,000, and then it went to the TURS board and got -- >> And they reduced it to 12,500. >> Right. So I just want to know the discussion and the conversation, was it to increase the 25,000 -- increase it back to 25,000? Is that why there was the denial of the 12,000? >> Yes. You want to know the procedural history of how it got back here? >> Yes. >> Because you weren't here. Absolutely. I'm sorry, I misunderstood your conversation. I made a motion to change these two to -- back to 25,000, which was the applicant's request. >> Okay. >> And the motion was tied. Since you weren't here, the motion was 3-3. And so Councilmember Armitage just made the motion to basically have it at 12-5 instead of the 25,000. >> I'll withdraw my motion -- my second. >> Okay. All right. >> On that. >> Okay. Councilmember Ryan? >> I don't know if the second's been withdrawn, if I can make a motion to amend at this point, or we need to wait. >> Let me just call one more time to see if there's a second. Let me just call one more time to see if there's a second. >> Yeah, I'll second. >> So we got a second -- a motion and a second for Agenda Item 2E for the amount of $12,500. So an affirmative vote here means it's 12-5. Yes, Councilmember Ryan? >> I'd like to make a motion for an amendment to increase it to 25,000. >> Okay. All right. Okay. So we have a motion to amend for 25,000. Do we have a second for that motion, for the amendment, which would basically substitute that amount into that, if the amendment passes? Councilmember Briggs? >> I'll make the second, too. >> Okay. All right. So we have a -- we've got a first vote on our amendment. So we've got a motion and a second to amend the underlying motion of 12-5 to amend it to 25,000 for Agenda Item 2E. Is that correct? All right. All in favor -- oh, Mayor Pro Tem, I'm sorry. >> Discussion? >> Yes, sir. Of course. I'm sorry. I missed you. Yep. >> I just want to bookmark this conversation for anybody that wants to talk to me about how many boards we have in the voting of the Councilmembers and sitting on Councilmembers and the confusion that it causes. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. All right. So we have a -- we're voting on the amendment to change Agenda Item 2E to 25,000 instead of 12-5 as the original motion was made. So all in favor of that amendment, please signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries 5-2. So now we need to vote on the motion with the incorporated amendment. >> Yes. >> All right. So now we will vote again on Agenda Item 2E, incorporating the amendment to change the Downtown Reinvestment Grant from 12-5 to 25,000. Is that how that needs to be stated? >> That is correct. >> Okay. So the original movement doesn't need to do -- this is just the way -- the procedure, this is the way it is. >> That is correct. >> Okay. So we're voting then for Agenda Item 2E and changing the 12-5 to 25,000. Everybody, please signify by raising your right hand if you approve of said motion. Okay. Motion carries 5-2. We'll move on to Agenda Item 2F. Basically, it's the same thing on a different grant, considered option of an ordinance of the City of Denton, approving a grant application from Scott Brown Properties not to exceed 12-5. Councilmember Ryan? >> I move approval with the change in it from 12-5 to 25,000. >> Okay. Councilmember Davis? >> Second. >> Any discussion? Councilmember Armitage? >> Okay. I make an amendment to that to move it back to 12-5. >> Okay. All right. We have a motion for an amendment to 12-5. Do we have a second on that amendment? Okay. Motion for amendment dies for lack of second. So we're back to the original motion that was made by Councilmember Ryan for Agenda Item 2F, changing the 12-5 to 25,000. Is that the correct item? All right. And it's been seconded by Councilmember Davis. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. All opposed by like sign. Carries 5-2. All right. We'll move on to Agenda Item G. For housekeeping, I will be recusing myself from Agenda Items H and I. So Mayor Pro Tem, you'll have the gavel. But I do have a concluding item when you guys finish. So I'll be coming back for that. I'm not going to leave totally. All right. Agenda Item 2G, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas, a home rule municipal corporation, authorizing the city manager to execute contract with Mr. Holdsworth and Company LLC. Is that how you say that? Yes, sir. Okay. Good evening again, Mayor, Council, Terry Nolte, Assistant General Manager at DME. This contract is and the city manager is going to come across the table and hit me if I use too many math terms here. But this I apologize for this is another complex issue. I'm going to try to simplify it as much as I can. To properly forecast our energy purchase expenses each year, and that include that we must forecast the intermittent renewable resources, the variability of generation at the deck, the load of the city that varies every minute. And we must take that in and push it against a market that changes every five minutes. And so we have a very complex mathematical equation in order to try to predict what our purchase power expenses are going to be each year for the city. Our objectives with this contract are to develop a better analytical model and achieve more certainty in our forecasts and manage risk better. Where this contract would involve the development of a state of the art tool to increase our productivity. Currently we have to run iteration after iteration of static models that we use. It will allow us to produce work products that will enable decisions to be made that are at a confidence level as opposed to just a 50 percentile of probability. And it will provide a tool to evaluate our risk management transactions and predict the potential outcomes and improve our decision making. Currently we budget using a static model. A static model is nothing more than a spreadsheet that looks at a snapshot in time, looks at a forward curve based on some point in time. It looks like at a forecast of load, one forecast, and it looks at all the other variables as a snapshot. The results are expressed as a single price path. So we bring to you as part of the budget a five year or ten year budget forecast. It is a single line that projects what we think the revenues and expenses are going to be associated with this aspect of our business. It does not provide you with any type of a confidence level about what the chances of that actual result occurring. The method that we're proposing here to develop is one that uses stochastics, which is basically a Monte Carlo simulation. That is a -- we run 15 to 20,000 iterations varying some 75 plus variables in order to come up with a distribution of potential outcomes. We also use that -- the model will also be a neural model that will learn from historical data. It's a form of artificial intelligence that will help us to forecast this stuff a lot better. And we'll be able to come to you and say what probability of outcome do you want? Do you want a 65% confidence interval on the forecast or do you want a 50% confidence interval on the forecast? I got to have my pictures, right? So remember back from basic math we talk about a normal distribution. This is a bell curve or a normal distribution. Here we have what we call one standard deviation on either side of the 50th percentile of potential outcomes. And what that results in is this curve. We look at -- and these numbers are made up, okay? So don't think these are actual budget numbers. So we give you the budget as this black line. It is a single price path. But in reality the distribution of potential outcomes around that is the red line and the blue line. We do not know that we're going to hit that black line. It's based upon that static model. Once we run the same analysis through this new model that we'll develop we'll result in -- oh, that didn't even print. Apologize for that. I think you have it in your handout. You see a more complicated graph that basically skews this -- in the graph you're looking at the dotted line represents this case. The solid line represents the new case. As you can see for the same 68 percent probability it's a much narrower potential set of outcomes. So that is the basics of what we're trying to do here with this model. With that I'll try to answer any questions. >> We're missing 15 slides. I see five of 21. I'm just kidding. I'm teasing. Councilmember Higgs. >> Just a few questions. Is there an employee that currently does this right now just not -- I mean, is that somebody who runs all of those reports? >> Yes. We do have someone in EMO that we run this analysis but we run it on an Excel spreadsheet and we do simulate it. We run a Monte Carlo simulation. But it takes about eight hours to run each case. This model will be able to run 15,000 cases in two hours. >> So will that same person run this model? >> Yes. Correct. >> Okay. And so will this help us with our renewable energy purchases? >> It helps us to narrow what the potential purchases that we may have to make because it's going to do a better prediction of what the output of those variable wind resources and solar resources are. >> So we'll have a better idea of what resource we need where? >> Correct. >> Okay. And does this -- it's only for three years. So is it that in three years we'll have it figured out or the technology will change or we just -- that's as far as we want to go? >> So we've spec'd it as a three-year transaction. It's actually -- the model development will take about six months. And then the rest of the time is to support the model to do the training with our folks and then to support it for another two years. >> Okay. Last question. Will this come out of the rates? Is that built in? >> It's built into the operating budget. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Councilmember Armitage? >> That last question, that's a key question, excellent question. I'm glad to know that it's built into the budget. I was wondering if you could speak to what you think about the advantage of having our own EMO because -- and if that's considered off-topic, I can change the question to make it more on-topic. But essentially, you know, part of this comes out of, at least as I understand it, Enterprise. I believe it was Enterprise. Maybe it was another consultant that came in for DME. But this was before you were here, but you probably heard, you know, they analyzed the EMO, and as I recall, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, they said that at that point, anyway, there hadn't been any, you know, big mistakes or mishaps, but they saw some risk for that, and they recommended some changes in practice, and those changes in practice were made. So as I see it, this is kind of along those lines of trying to improve the current practice. >> Yeah, I can answer the question in the context of this presentation. We have looked at that. We continue to look at that. Our analysis indicates that it's still more cost effective for rate payers to have an EMO as opposed to not having one, and because of that, this tool is critically important for us to continue to be able to grab the value that the EMO provides to rate payers. >> Yeah, thank you. So this -- so without this -- >> Without this, we'd be doing it the same way we're doing it today, which doesn't give us the high enough level of confidence that I'd be comfortable with. >> Yeah. So if we're going to have an EMO, this makes it a better one. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. Anything else on this? This is an action item, I believe. Yes. Councilmember Briggs? >> I move approval. >> All right. Councilmember Ryan? >> I second. >> We have a motion and a second on agenda item 2G. Please signify by raising your right hand if you're in approval. Motion carries. 7-0. I will now recuse myself for items H and I. >> I'm good. I'm not going to do it. >> Mayor Pro Tem, council, we have H. >> Well, let me -- so I'll call it. So we'll call -- this is -- call it item HID 20-102, consider adoption of the ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas Homeroom Municipality Corporation authorizing city managers to execute a contract with CBS Mechanical Services, Inc. >> Yes. Sarah Hensley, assistant city manager. I have a very brief presentation, but I feel like with the time it is, this is really just a routine item. It is plumbing services for -- not to exceed $750,000 with a one-year term with four one-year options. And it is just services for us to have for plumbing in case of issues related to any of our restrooms and our facilities. We have some staff, but this is a contract that we use to fill in. >> All right. Question. Councilmember Ryan? >> Fantastic presentation, and I move approval. >> Thank you so much. >> Councilmember Davis? >> Second. >> All right. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Councilmember Meltzer? >> Yeah. I just want to point out for anybody else, this is competitively bid. >> Yes, it is competitively bid. >> Okay. So no other comments. We will vote all in favor. Indicate by raising your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. 7-0. Pardon me, 6-0. And I'll note that Mayor Watts recused himself. And then that will take us to item 2I, which is ID20103, consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton. Home room municipality corporation authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with CBS mechanical services, Inc. >> Yes. Again, Sarah Hensley, assistant city manager. This is also a routine item, also competitively bid. And it's for additional electrical services. $450,000 for one year with four one-year extension options. >> Thank you. Councilmember Ryan? >> Move approval. >> Councilmember Davis? >> Second. >> All right. Have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All right. And so we'll vote all in favor. Indicate by raising your right hand. Motion carries. 6-0 with one accuser with Mayor Watts. Okay, concluding items. Yes, Councilmember Melcher. >> Between now and when we meet again will be Martin Luther King Day. And there's always very inspiring words to hear and performances. Activities are 11 to 430. And with that coming up, I'll just remind the public and council that, for public and council, that I had an item that we discussed briefly in a one-minute pitch about honoring the women's interracial fellowship. We were active during the period that Martin Luther King was active. It's a very unique Denton chapter in civil rights history, one that was also covered in this film, "When We're All Broncos," a documentary that back when I was involved in Thinline, first there was a big tent that was opened up down on Oak Street. Sold it out, beyond capacity. There was demand to show it again. So then we filled the campus theater, including the projection booth, like people were, you know, pulling chairs up just to the roof. We asked people, "Do you think other people should see this film?" And there was a resounding yes. And we showed it the next day, actually, at the Fine Arts Theater, and filled that capacity. So about 900 people came out to see this film. And I would just say, you know, the outpouring of, really, of love and good feelings from the people who went through that era. This is about the 1972 Broncos, which were, you know, an integrated football team coming out of Denton that had a great year. It was just, you know, quite memorable. And it covers, through interviews, the whole story of the Women's Interracial Fellowship and the black and white women who were quite brave and really helped make change in Denton in a uniquely collaborative, great Denton way. So this has been made available to counsel to see. I hope you take a look at it during our break. And also, it is sold as a fundraiser for the Denton Public School Foundation. So if anybody wants to, you know, look up When We're All Broncos dot com, you know, take a look at it, to purchase it, you know, we'll be helping local schools. Mayor Pro Tem. This Saturday is the United Way Dance with the Stars. So I just remind everybody, if there's tickets available still, it's a great event and great cost. Are you dancing? I am not, no. I'm still getting in game shape. Todd Heilman is dancing, I hear. Any others? I've just got one. You know, we implemented that new crosswalk procedure or policy at the square. I'd like to give it some time, but I mean, I've been around there a lot recently, and people are crossing the road anytime, anywhere, and so I just want to see how we're going to make sure that that's effective and is it achieving the goals that we are because it's quite interesting. And they may have been doing it even the other way, but it's just, I just want to know if it's effective or not. So whatever timeframe we need to give that and how we measure that. But I just would like to request we figure out how to do that. Yeah, I think our city engineer and traffic engineer had planned on coming back to you sometime in the next month or so with an update on how things are working. All right. Okay. Any others? We will stand adjourned at 843. Thank you.