Mar 20, 2020 City Council on 2020-03-20 1:00 PM (EMERGENCY MEETING - AMENDED AGENDA)

Welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council emergency meeting. It's Friday, March the 20th, 2020. It is 104 p.m. We're going to I'm going to go ahead and read the caption just so read it in the record on the agenda. Pursuant to provisions of Chapter 551, VTCA Government Code notices hereby given of an emergency special meeting of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Denton, Texas to be held in the council work session room at City Hall 215 East McKinney Street, Denton, Texas. On the 20th day of March, 2020 at 1 p.m. As I said, it's 104 p.m. We do have a quorum here. We do have three council members who are offside who are joining us by phone, which is allowed under the suspension of some of the Texas Open Meetings Act rules and regulations. And those council members that are present by phone are Councilmember Briggs, Councilmember Armitter and Councilmember Ryan. The ones that we have present in person are Mayor Chris Watts, Councilmember Paul Meltzer, Mayor Pro Tem Gerard Huspeth and Councilmember Jesse Davis. We'll go ahead and move through our only work session report, which is receive a report, hold discussion and give staff direction regarding an update to the City of Denton's COVID-19 response. Good afternoon, Mayor City Council, Sarah Keickler, Chief of Staff. We wanted to take an opportunity today to provide you a brief overview of an update on the city's response to COVID-19. Some documents were sent out in advance to you. They have also been posted to the public agenda, including the presentations for here today, as well as an updated question and answer document with the frequently asked questions that we've received. So as a way of quick reminder, the following topics were presented and discussed on Tuesday. From the city's emergency preparation and response to public safety response to which city facilities were closed, to the city's business continuity planning, how we would be staffing essential services and also our non-essential services. How the community was responding to help each other in these times. As well as what assistance we knew of at that time that would be available to residents or businesses. How we were trying to push out public messaging and education to our community. As well as on Tuesday, Council extended the emergency declaration and order that the mayor had signed on March 13th. So since that time on Tuesday, there have been some major updates as things rapidly are changing throughout the week. The first major update is Denton County Public Health has announced yesterday that there are nine confirmed cases in Denton County wide. There is one confirmed case in the city of Denton that is a male in his 60s and he is in isolation after travel related exposure. Two other significant updates to mention, Denton County amended their emergency declaration on Wednesday evening. Judge Eads took that action. And then yesterday, Governor Abbott held a press conference and announced a public health disaster statewide as well as statewide executive order. So I'm going to be going over both of the county and state orders in the following presentation for the individual consideration item. Let me just check with those on the phone. Are y'all hearing everything okay and seeing everything okay? Yes. Yes. Okay. Councilmember Briggs, everything okay? I'm having a hard time hearing on the phone. It's because she's so far away. So I'm going to listen to it on DTV. Okay. And then time in later. Okay. There's a slight delay. I noticed on DTV. Okay. But it might just be going on my end. It usually is. Yeah, so what we want to do is get through the presentation and then what I'll do is I'll recognize those that are on the phone first for questions or comments just because it's hard to know whether you're wanting to step in or not. So I'll make sure we give you the first opportunity. And then if you have a question or something, don't hesitate just to sort of get our attention somehow. Okay, thank you. You bet. Thank you. Yes. So first update, I just want to let city council know as well as our public that our emergency operations center has been open since last Friday. We have a team of staff that are around the clock working on various different items to handle this emergency as well as staff that are outside of the EOC. All of our city staff are working to handle this right now. Some items that the EOC is handling, just for some perspective, they are doing daily calls and routine contacts throughout the day with Denton County Public Health, as well as the Department of State Health Services. They're giving us situational updates about what is happening throughout the county, what is happening through the state, through the nation. So we're trying to take all of that information as it's rapidly coming in and be able to better inform the decisions that we are making to continue to provide service to our community as well as protect our staff and the community. So again, and then secondly, we're monitoring all public information, press conferences and announcements. It has been coming in one hour after and other things are changing. We are also in that center developing plans and logistics for essential staff if they are needed to shelter in place. We are also coordinating public safety response and logistics with our police department and fire department and outside of the city departments as well. There is also a finance section that is tracking expenses, payments, disaster reimbursement. They're tracking staff time. All these things will be very important. We're also doing the best we can to coordinate logistics and purchase more items. So that function is going through the EOC as well right now. And so I also just wanted to provide a quick update on the local community response and what our nonprofits, religious organizations and individuals are doing to assist each other. I think these are four very good resources for our community to know about. The first one is the DISD site. If you actually visit this page, they have all of their locations listed. The locations where families or students can go to a campus site to pick up a meal. Or as of yesterday, Denton ISD has actually started to use their school buses to deliver meals to various neighborhoods, areas where there is really a high need for meals to be provided to families and students. These last three from the United Way of Denton County serve Denton and we have also created a City of Denton special site that has all the community resources. These provide two things for us. They provide information on resources that are available for those in need. This can be anything from food and meals to child care to utility assistance to I need help to pay my rent so that I remain housed or I'm facing homelessness currently. How can I get assistance? Mental health care as well as just health care overall as well as digital resources that families and students can use from home during this time. The second thing that all three of these websites provide is that ways that you can contribute. So if you would like to volunteer, if you'd like to donate goods, money, so forth, you can learn more about the opportunities in the community right now. So encourage anyone to visit those sites. And we'll continue to update the pages as we learn more information. Our community development department staff are in continuous contact with our nonprofits right now to learn about their current needs. Another thing I'd like to take just an opportunity to update you on is the assistance to business. We have received a lot of questions from our businesses about what's available. So we have created a separate, again, website page where it's specific to business resources for Denton businesses. All this information is available on the website, so I'm just going to go through it kind of quickly, but there is more detail available there. So there's information on our small business administration disaster loans. So as of March 18th, the governor had made his request to the SBA to declare Texas eligible. We have not heard that it has been approved yet by SBA. We were checking in on that. When it is approved, businesses that are eligible can apply underneath that program. A business does not have to be closed in order to apply for these loans, but they must demonstrate economic injury as a result of the disaster. And then local businesses are encouraged to reach out to the local SBA office to discuss eligibility. Even though it hasn't been approved yet, we expect that to be coming. Secondly, there's been some questions on unemployment benefits. So the Texas Workforce Commission is the agency in Texas that manages those. We have the website listed as well as a toll free number for more information. And then just continued, some other resources available on that page is if somebody is looking for work currently. The Texas Workforce Commission has a job board. It's workintexas.com. The site also contains local resources to the city of Denton, the chamber, the Main Street Association. And we've also included a listing of Denton businesses that are providing adapted services during this time, as well as Denton restaurants that are offering takeout and delivery. In addition to these actions of creating kind of this website and main source of resources, our economic development department has sent out and posted a business impact survey. So we are asking Denton businesses to please fill out this survey. It's available on the website as just a way of information gathering so we can understand how our businesses are being impacted. And then lastly, here's the resources that we had listed on Tuesday. Again, just want to share these with the community as they're looking for assistance or information. I'm happy to take any questions you have on the city's response. Sure. It's my understanding that in the item for individual consideration in the next portion of the meeting is when we're taking direction or proposals or just discussion of if there's an update or inclusion or modification of the actual city of Denton's emergency declaration. That's not necessarily -- this isn't necessarily the agenda item for that. This is just sort of comments in response to what the city's doing. Correct. This is just an opportunity to provide you some updates since Tuesday. Again, there is some more detailed information in the Q&A that we sent out that will also be posted on the website. Okay. All right. So I'm going to go around the virtual dais. We'll go to Councilmember Briggs first and then Councilmember Ryan and then Councilmember Armitage. Councilmember Briggs, do you have any questions on this particular agenda item, understanding that any type of additional proposals or comment on the actual declaration of emergency will be in the next part of the meeting? Yes. I have a few questions just in general about updates and about other information. Okay. Okay. And these are questions -- do you want me to just ask and then go or just ask them all and then -- No, just ask them and we'll answer it and then you can -- just like we would do if you were here. Yeah. Okay. So with cleaning supplies, sanitizer, soaps running low and almost nonexistent, will places of employment in the universities have to close if they cannot guarantee employee safety? I'm not sure who can answer that from the city's perspective. City Manager Harmon? Can we find out? I mean, these may be questions that need to come back to us at a certain point. Yeah. I think there's nothing in a -- prescriptively in any of the legislation that we've seen that requires that. I know I did have another question from another Councilmember about whether the Council could require a business to shut down or demonstrate that it had cleaned its facility on a daily basis. So I think that's something that deferred to Aeronon, but that would be something that the Council would need to kick around in your emergency declaration. It's probably more symbolic than thing. Again, I'm not sure how we enforce it, but it was something that I think the Council can discuss. Okay. So that will go to my next question. So if somebody's at work and they suspect someone has the virus and is still coming, what should they do? Now, are you asking specifically regarding a city employer? Are you asking about somebody in the private sector or in a different organization? Just in general, like if -- I mean, it could be someone who works for the city or somebody who, you know, works not for the city. I think the way that we've handled it internally, you know, and we can't obviously prescribe how other organizations are doing business, but the way we've prescribed it internally is if they are reporting symptoms, they are speaking with their supervisor and our HR team, and our HR team is working them through that process or the questions that have been submitted on the coronavirus symptoms, as well as we've made available telemedicine-type visits. And we're basically -- the professional advice from the physicians is evolving also daily as they learn more about this issue. So I would just encourage any of these folks that might be exhibiting those symptoms to contact their HR departments and get guidance. I don't feel like we should be giving them professional advice right now to outside organizations, but internally I've asked our HR department to coordinate with our physicians that both advise the fire department as well as work with our health insurance companies. I would -- it would be my best recommendation for everyone else to follow that same advice. Okay. Do we have an emergency plan in place for overflow of the hospitals? Are we discussing using our gyms, hotels, and city facilities with anyone? I've actually been in contact with both of the CEOs of Medical City Denton and Texas Health Resources. They're okay right now in terms of their space needs. Obviously, we'll know more in the next few weeks as this evolves, but yes, we're identifying facilities right now that can be utilized for other purposes. I don't really feel like I should be broadcasting that quite yet until we know exactly which organizations that might be impacted, but we are setting aside a couple of city facilities to assist with either homelessness overflow or the hospitals. Okay. And in that conversation with the CEOs, did they -- did they show any concern about ventilators? Not at this point. It's been kind of business as usual right now. They're just -- obviously, they're in the same position that the city is with our public safety personnel, just kind of managing it as tightly as possible and, you know, not really quite knowing what to expect at this point. So it's going to be something that's going to evolve probably week by week. We'll be continuing those conversations. I'll continue to reach out. They've got our numbers and also our fire and police chiefs also are in close coordination through our EOC. So the lines of communication are there. None of us have felt the impacts yet within our organization, but we'll be working together each day. City attorney, I think, has a comment as well. Councilmember Briggs. And also, as the county public health officer mentioned yesterday, I mean, he's going to be coordinating the health and medical response on behalf of the county and throughout the county. And so we will be working with him as things develop in the future. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I have just two more, Mayor. Sure. Okay. And do we know now if we are testing people without direct non-contact or travel since the community spread is happening in North Texas? I do not know confidently to answer it at this moment, but we can follow up. Okay. And the last one, and it's probably something we don't know, but I would like to find out how many in the city do not have access to broadband or Wi-Fi infrastructure, like the group at Preserve at Pecan Creek, as we are continuing people, especially if we, I know we may be far away from it, but if they're mandated to stay inside, I'd like to know how many in our city would be affected by that lack of infrastructure. I think we've got that data somewhere. We can certainly share that in a Friday report. Okay. Councilmember Briggs, I have a question of clarification on the question on the testing. Could you repeat your question as far as it sounds like you're asking what are the requirements in order to be tested? Could you repeat your question? Well, the requirements to be tested were before that someone had known direct contact or just returning from travel. And now I'm wondering if those requirements have changed since community spread is known to be happening in our community. Okay. All right. Good. That's helpful. Thank you. We'll get an answer from Dr. Richardson to see if anything's changed. Thank you. Councilmember Ryan, any questions, comments? I just have one. Have we already used or do we have any plans to use like Red Alert or utility phone numbers to robocall and point people towards the web page that gives them the information for those that aren't watching this meeting right now? We haven't discussed that. We can certainly put that in play. That's a good recommendation. Okay. That's all I had. Okay. Councilmember Armitage? Yes. So first of all, does this sound okay? Yeah, you might back off just a little or if Billy can turn the volume down a little. That's fine. That's fine. We'll make do. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. And can I ask, I'm not sure how it was for council members Briggs and Ryan, but for me, when you all were talking, it was a little hard to hear. So for me, if the person who's speaking could have the phone near them while being sure not to put it too close to you. Okay. So you're saying you couldn't hear because it seemed like they were speaking lower. You need them to speak a little louder. You need to have the volume a little louder. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. So when you just spoke just now, I would say 90% of the gist of what you were saying. Okay. It could be clear. So it's fine if that's not a solvable problem. So anyway, thank you. And a number of questions, some of which were covered by both council member Briggs and Ryan, so that shortens my list. Is there one, is there a way now for people to hear this, people who don't have broadband to hear it on the radio? If not, if we could get that set up for our next meeting, assuming the next meeting will be online. Whatever format it's in, just for people who don't have broadband to have a radio option. Okay. Should I just go down my list? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think we've taken that to see if we're able to do that. And I know they still can view it over DTV on their local television channel if they have the right cable subscriber to do that. So I wanted to put that out there as well. But yes, go ahead. We'll take your questions one at a time. Okay. Great. So number two, so I saw that an announcement this morning that the governor says that within the next two weeks that the number of cases in Texas will likely skyrocket to the tens of thousands. And I was just wondering just kind of to get a statement on that, because I just saw that in writing and I haven't had much time to research that. But I'm sure other people are seeing, you know, seeing that too, so if we could have some clarification on that. Another issue, there have been, you know, just in the past couple of days at the federal level and the state level, there's been suspensions of eviction and foreclosure. So I would like some sort of statement about us, you know, from staff about what that means for Denton. And if we could have on the website, if we could have information for tenants and homeowners, like how we have, I love how there's the information for businesses and I love the survey for businesses. I think those questions are great. And if we could have a survey like that, really very similar questions for renters and homeowners and workers. And I'm not sure if that would be just one survey or three different surveys or two different surveys, but I would really like to know, you know, very similar questions about how is this impacting you, because I'm hearing what people are choosing to communicate to me personally and to council. But, you know, it would be great to have that kind of information. So also I would like to know about as far as the city jail goes, but also I'm concerned to know about the county jail and the juvenile detention facility, because even though that's not our jurisdiction, because it's physically, they're physically in city of Denton, I'm concerned about what they're doing to mitigate the issue. And if they've considered letting nonviolent offenders out, so as to help contain or mitigate the spread. As far as I have the same question that Councilmember Briggs had about, and I'm forgetting now if her question was just about, about healthcare workers and hospital overflow, or if it was about homeless shelters as well. But I have that same question about what kind of preparations we're making, and I also have a recommendation that I think that from everything I've seen, that the time to be prepared for that and have everything lined up is now. And hopefully we'll never have to use it, but I think we should get that all lined up now. Another question, communicating, you know, we've been communicating with our local hoteliers who I know are obviously struggling because the tourism industry is dormant now. We've been communicating with them about contracting with them to use those spaces and also about sick people, people who are sick who either have tested positive or they don't know if they're positive or not and are waiting for a test. And they want to isolate themselves. What options are there for somebody who doesn't have a lot of disposable income, especially now, to go stay at a hotel where they can, you know, be with a bathroom. Hello? Yeah, you're there. Go ahead. Okay, sorry, I heard a beep. Where they can, you know, be in a bathroom, have someone drop food at the door, et cetera. What the options are for someone in a situation like that because I would obviously hate to think that somebody who is sick was just staying with their family, somebody who is an adult who is sick, is just staying with their family, especially if they have a compromised family, because it's too expensive to isolate themselves at a hotel. Councilmember Armitter, do you have very many, do you have very many? Say that one more time. No, I'm saying do you have very much more because if you do, what I'd like to do is get around to some of the other council members and circle back around to you. Yeah. Okay, I had two more but I can just circle those. No, no, if you've only got two more, we'll go ahead and move through those. That's fine. Go ahead. So the last two, has the city compiled a list of who we as a city consider to be emergency workers at a time like this and what that means for Denton that is essential emergency workers, obviously first responders, you know, but in addition to that. And then lastly, I heard the governor's town hall the other day, and he mentioned about state of many day funds and emergency funds. So I was just wondering if you could get some sort of update on update on that and how, how Denton is a plan to apply for those funds, pardon my dog. And, and the status of those funds. So that's all. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Mayor Melzer, anything? Yeah. First of all, more than ever, I truly admire and appreciate all the work that staff is doing. And, you know, that it's around the clock is, it's around the clock and it's intense to, you guys are under a tremendous amount of pressure. So, we all owe you a debt of gratitude. I just wanted to ask about how we're communicating the elements of the disaster declaration that were recommendations. You know, there are a few things that were requirements, but most of it was in the form of recommendations, particularly with industry groups. Are we working with the chamber? I'm thinking particularly of the recommendation on observing social distance and queuing in establishments. Let me question. When you say the requirements or the recommendations, you're talking about the governor's declaration, the counties or our declaration. Let's talk about ours. Okay. All right. Okay. Our immediate method has been to do a press release and post on social media, just to get it out there as quickly as possible. And it is being shared quite widely. The media is also helping us out and sharing that information with the public. I know Jessica Rogers and the economic development staff have gotten some calls in terms of what does this mean for my business or what can I do? So we've had staff that are businesses as well as nonprofits that are reaching out and asking us those questions. I think through the next days or weeks, we might be able to do more of that proactive outreach, but right now it has been just in the immediate response mode. And I think one of the one of the strategies for today, Councilmember Meltzer, it's a good question you're asking because there's been some slight differences in language between the state, county and city. So one of the things that the city attorney and I talked about last night was just the need to try to update our emergency declaration to be as consistent with the state and county as possible. That's the other thing that's really confusing people as well. Is this a recommendation on one level and a requirement on another and which one supersedes what? So that's kind of the strategy for today. Once the council updates our declaration, we'll be able to get out there with a little bit more certainty. Great. Thank you. I'll pause there. Sure. And that brings up a question that I have for legal and that is, you know, we have sort of, I wouldn't call them dueling or competing emergency declarations, but we have different ones at different jurisdictional levels. And so if you know, if you could just sort of share just a brief moment how all these interplay as far as, you know, we've always heard that state law in general preempts city law or county law and vice versa. But if you could just give us a sort of a lay of the land of how are we to look at these based upon is there like if the state one is silent as to one of the terms in either the county or the city declaration that those declarations, those requirements or those terms in the city and county would still be effective. Or if it's silent, does that mean it occupies that space and that whatever the state issues is what governs the rest of the state. So if you know that, if you could just give us just a couple of moments or comments about how we look at these different levels of jurisdiction and the declarations coming from. And I know in terms of whatever the state passes as part of their orders that reign supreme over the state. And so if we have any contrary provisions in our order or the county, they would yield to the state. The county and before I get there, if there is something that is not addressed at the state level, but that is something that we're authorized to enact as part of Chapter four 18 the emergency management statute and or the local health and safety code provision to adopting reasonable regulations to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. Then we can fill in there and so can the county. As far as the interplay. I'm sorry, but real quick. So we've talked about the interplay between the state declaration and the county and the city that if something's there, that state supersedes all. But if there's not something there, then the county and the city are are free to enact regulations that are consistent and within the law of the emergency statutes. Yes. Does that same then go down the line that if the county occupies a space and puts in regulations that if the city has anything that's contrary to that, the county is the one that that applies and so forth. It depends. Okay. That's a great lawyer answer. I've reviewed the emergency management statute again to look for that answer because I have heard from other attorneys in the Metroplex as well as the press statements or actually newspaper articles about which one is supreme, the county or the cities. The way the emergency management statute is laid out is that the county's plan emergency management plan takes precedence and applies throughout the county. It but that doesn't really answer competing provisions. So there is a section in the list of powers about the county and ourselves enjoy or as these have delegated to us to be able to address the these this emergency certain certain provisions that are found in their order will trump whatever we put in there. And the example that I can give you would be not finding a bit way it dealt with the occupancy of use of businesses, whatever they put that would trump whatever we have and there are some other provisions that are in the in the emergency management statute that actually provide for that. So in some cases they will it will trump over whatever we put in there. And as we go through, and if we encroach upon something that there's would control. I will raise my hand to point that out to the rest of the council. I'm sorry, I just wanted to get some clarity on that as we, as we move forward, especially as we move more into the portion of the meeting where we're looking at the actual city declaration mayor pro tem comments questions. Thank you. Just to let me pick up where you left off. Aaron on that, if the county is silent on those occupational example you gave in occupations, then whatever the city puts in place would would stand. Yes, as long as it fits with our emergency management authority to address in this case the disaster of stopping the spread of coronavirus. Got it. Thank you. And then for staff and the city manager, I really think it is important. I mean, as city staffs working around the clock as is, and powering through the emails, we were, we've received regarding some of the things that are out of our purview, is there a way in this goes in the messaging, is there a way for us to just build a patented answer that we can reply to or post that says we're getting it. So for example, the rent freeze that that's not in the city's purview. I mean, it's just there's no way for the city to control that. And some of the other requests with the county jail those sort of things. I think it's imperative that we put out that information and direct people, but I just don't know that if staff is maxed out running the city, if we need to be running down leads for the county jail. That's the sheriff department and we can provide that information. Obviously that's easy to do, but no different than I'm advocating for sales tax relief. Well, I've been on the phone with my state reps. I didn't call city staff and ask them to facilitate that. And so it's really important for the city to do city business, especially if we're paying overtime, we're doing, we're all over the place trying to manage this as best we can. We have to focus. And so I don't know what your pain threshold is that for that Mr. City Manager, but I really would like to see as we start to see a run on these emails of someone saying write the city about rent freezes that we have a response and says, here's your source for that. And I know that may get in the tricky situation with legal advice, but I don't know how to pair those two. But I just think we have to be careful about what we do to our employees and what we run down versus just information we disseminate. Yeah, and I've asked Sarah Keickler to put something in the Friday reports just outlining the number of requests we're getting. Who's asking for me whether it's in our purview or not. So I think a simple matrix can do that. You know, and you're right, we've got the staff kind of split those folks that we can afford to have working at home there at home and you know, but I think the we've got a number of staff as I told the council yesterday doing pretty non traditional duties kind of chasing down things interfacing with the homeless. Interfacing with the homeless community, interfacing with our daily bread, just doing some different types of things. And we'll get to these questions when we can. You know, I think the other thing for the community and the public is, you know, if there's a private sector issue, there's just not a lot of times we can intervene. I know the mayor's followed up on a couple of items, but there's just not a lot of time for us to be chasing down, you know, concerns or opinions at this point in a realistic timeframe. So we'll try to get it. We'll try to get responses back to people as soon as we possibly can. But, you know, this staff is doing a great job in terms of still responding to calls and we happen to have some major flooding going on in the community at the same time all this is going on. So they are swamped and I appreciate both you and Councilmember Meltzer recognizing the job they're doing. But we will try to at a minimum put a resource there and a contact number for people to follow up on on their own. And that's certainly reasonable for us to do. And I just want to add to that, the Q&A document, we sent it out Monday night this morning. Our goal would be to continue to add to that as we get new information or as we hear similar questions from residents, from Councilmembers so that you can have that as a resource to respond directly if you would like. We'd really like to do that daily. Hopefully we can get to that at a certain point soon. Is the Q&A that we were sent, is that also on our website? It is, yes, and it has to do with the agenda as well. We'll work with the Q&A and kind of breaking it down by subject. It's getting so long right now. I think the last one I saw was about nine pages or 11 pages. So we'll try to start figuring out how to format it. I think kind of taking off on Mayor Pro Tem's question there as well is just trying to make it a little bit easier and searchable for the public because we are getting a lot of the same questions and the resources are there. It's just not always obvious in a nine page document. But it is really helpful to hear what you're being asked because that will better inform how we're putting together our web pages, social media, as well as other messages and channels that we have to push out that information to the public. What's your email address? I'll forward them to you. Thank you. Councilmember Davis, any comments, questions? Sure, very briefly. Again, echoing the thanks for the staff, I know that you're getting some of the same questions that we're getting. To kind of follow on to what we just talked about, we just heard from the city attorney about the numerous responsibilities that fall primarily to the county. That public health in Texas and emergency response in Texas is primarily a county responsibility and that we coordinate with them. That helping people feel better in times of sickness is primarily a health care community thing. We liaise with them. We as a city don't treat people, don't make people feel better. And then to Mayor Pro Tem's point, I got about 20 emails just in the last five minutes asking me about rent freezes. I would really appreciate in addition to what we're doing already that we just talked about, if my colleagues on the council would also, I'm going to respond to those emails as soon as this meeting is done. When you respond to those emails, if you would please help us make clear to constituents the things that the council has no control over, including private rent freezes, including health response by the president or the governor or the county. Instead of what I've seen somewhat in social media encouraging people to contact their city council to take on problems that aren't ours or that we have no control over whatsoever. Going forward through the crisis, it's going to, we're going to get more of those requests from people in trouble and people wanting our help and we have to more than ever disseminate factual information and not false hope or incorrect information. Okay. Those council members on the phone comments, then we'll if not we'll move on to the special called portion of our meeting. I have a follow up question. Okay. Something that Mayor Pro Tem mentioned and I had it down here in my declaration section but since it's not part of our declaration, my question is, can we or should we discuss passing a resolution, asking the state to postpone the beverage and self tax payment that he spoke of earlier, I have also been talking as well and is that something that we need to discuss. Well, if that's a separate resolution, I think that, I'm not sure we were posted for that, but I'll let the city attorney look at that and answer that, but I understand what you're saying. What you're saying is if it's not something that we can directly have an impact on and make the decision directly, is there something that we can do that the powers that be know where the city council stands, is that what I'm understanding? Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Okay, go ahead. We can we can certainly include that in a, I guess it would be on the city manager side and Friday report or some type of an update with that. I mean all that's readily available online. And as far as the resolution if the council wishes to do that we can we can always post it for another meeting on the 31st or the seventh we can certainly do that. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Any other questions councilmember Briggs. No, no thank you. Okay. Councilmember Ryan or armature. No, I'm fine. Oh, yeah, I just, I have a response to other council members comments, but I don't know if that should go later in the after the presentation. Well, I mean, we're going to, if you don't have them we're going to move on to the special call meeting which we're going to consider the Denton. Okay, so then I do. Yeah, I will just say, just to respond respectfully, as far as the wanting to know information about the, the county jail and juvenile detention, as well as the city jail. That's highly relevant, even though you don't have control over that because we are responsible for public health in the city of Denton, and because the virus doesn't know how to differentiate between the county jurisdiction and municipal jurisdiction. We, we need to be very concerned with anything in and around city of Denton, as far as collecting information, because that's how this virus spread. And even though I know people are on lockdown in there you've got all the people coming into the jail people coming out of the jail and you've got staff who are always coming in and out of the jail and I know that even if people are taking all of the precautions, as far as distancing and hand washing goes. The, the science says that detention facilities in general are pressure cookers for coronavirus, and as far as I'm concerned that that's just the fact so I do want to have that information. And I think it would be valuable to all of us, and that we should be communicating with the county to not just ask them what they're doing but also to say here's what we think you should be doing as, as a body. I wanted to also respond to the issue of rent forgiveness. I would like to see I'm not convinced that that it is totally outside of our ability to legislate anything on that. Maybe that's the case but I haven't really seen the evidence for that said, even if it was, I still claim my right to be able to let the public know that this is what I would like to see. And I thank people for those emails and I think it's important for us that that input. I wanted to state that for the record and also to say that I also would like to see more than that 50,000 for rent assistance. I would also at the same time like to add more. Councilmember. Councilmember. No, no, I'm just saying that that sounds like something that also be more appropriate for the discussion, coming up in the. Yeah, yeah. So, I believe, Councilmember Melzer, and then Mayor Pro Tem. It's a little narrow and you might push me off somewhere else on this, but I don't see where else to bring it up. It seems like the bottleneck, as we approach peak, maybe in the ventilator area. And everybody, not just Denton obviously, you know, every place around the country is going to be trying to acquire these. And it just occurred to me if we could, you know, understand what the projections are, but the need and the supply so what the scale of the shortfall might be. And this might seem like a long shot but it might be the thing that gets us through. I wonder if the scale might be such that if people started now with 3D printers and there's there's a fair number of them in our community. This could be potentially a volunteer opportunity would need proper controls and so on, but it might be the little sort of tiny boat mobilization that could get us through a pinch. So, just for your consideration. Sure. Council, Mayor Pro Tem. My question is for, I guess just a follow up for Councilmember Armitage so I can make sure I'm tracking with her regarding the county jail, and the juvenile facility that you mentioned. Is it, is it not possible for you to make that call, just as an individual to then disseminate that information back or ask them to provide you an email. And that's, that's really my point is I don't I don't think there's anything wrong with getting the information. My point is simply, I don't know if that's the highest and best use of staff time. Can I answer that. Yes, of course. So, absolutely, if Council and staff don't want to do that, that would absolutely be my next step. But I'm, I'm gonna say I'm a little shocked. There's not consensus that we absolutely need to know this information because it's a city of Denton public health issue. Okay. I appreciate that. I've just received something that says let me look, somebody summarize it for me just so we're so we all can hear it. It's just a housekeeping under the open means that with these are, there's a provision within the any council members who are participating within on a audio conference call that the, in this case the mayor shall identify each party who wants to speak prior to this. They're speaking. Yes, that's fine. Yep. In other words, I just need to start stating the name of those as I've done except maybe in that last situation so okay. That's correct. I appreciate that. Thank you. This is all new to us so I certainly you can teach this old dog new tricks. So I have no problem with that. Council member anybody else have a comment. I think what I think what's important here, because what I don't want us to do is get into wrangling about issues that may or may not be within city jurisdiction or if they're not, we need to make sure if they're not such as example, the rent control or the rent freeze issue. Let's make sure that we pass along the accurate information where those people who are advocating for that can truly go to the sources that have the power to make that decision and advocate and lobby on their behalf and the behalf of the community to do that because I think if we're going to pursue something we don't want to spend a lot of time pursuing something where we can't do anything about it. We want to make sure we spend some time, number one, providing information to where people can go to advocate for that and then also how can we spend our time doing what we know we can do. So there's nothing wrong with gathering the information. There's nothing wrong with the question at all. There's nothing wrong with the request. It's that in this time we want to make sure that we give people the information where they can actually go to the place where they can get the sales tax issue for instance. We can pass a resolution but we can't make the decision. But who can make a decision is potentially the Texas legislature. Who can make the decision is the comptroller. Who can make the decision, I mean, and I don't know which one of those bodies but those are the bodies and the members and the organizations I think that where these requests and lobbying efforts should be at their most prominent. So the requests, I don't have any issue with the requests. I just want to make sure as we get them that if we don't respond or if we don't tell them where they can go get that information, then it looks like we're not doing anything and that's absolutely not the case. So I appreciate that. All right. Any other questions before we move on? Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. Just because the cat's sort of halfway out of the bag, I'd like to just suggest that regarding the sales tax that we also point people to the information about, you know, where they can find out what the penalties are for late payment. I don't want to cite something that I'm not 100% solid on, but that could be very useful for someone who's trying to make a decision right today by whether to push the send button or not. Well, and that's, I mean, I think you're right. And of course, I think it's the comptroller who is in charge of the sales tax collections. And so I think either that on the website or the comptroller's website probably can find fairly easily what the penalties are for nonpayment of sales tax when they're due. So I appreciate that. That's a good recommendation and a good word. Anything else? Anything else from the speakers on the phone? And if you do have something, if you'll say yes, and I believe I'll recognize your voice and I'll be able to identify you. Okay. All right. Seeing none, we will then close that this portion of our meeting, which is the work sessions, and we will now go following the completion of the work session. The city council will convene in a special call emergency meeting to consider the following items. It is now 156 on Friday, March the 20th, 2020. The first item on the agenda for consideration is consider an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, a homeroom municipal corporation amending ordinance number 20-721 regarding the declaration of emergency. Before we have presentation and discussion for that, just as a matter of housekeeping and protocol, we've received a lot of emails regarding these particular agenda items. So what I'm going to try to do, and first of all, all of those emails will be part of the public record for this meeting. I will try to look at the ones that I can identify and just real briefly state the name of who sent it and just to sort of paraphrase a general topic of what it's pertaining to. But I'm not going to read them verbatim, but they will be a part of the record. So I just wanted to make that, I wanted to make that very clear. Okay, agenda item 1A. Thank you, Mayor. So this is an agenda item to amend the city's disaster declaration and order. So before we get into that discussion, just wanted to provide a little bit of background in terms of Denton County and the state. So as mentioned, this week on Wednesday evening, Judge Eves issued an amended declaration of disaster and executive order. There were many things included in that order, but most importantly, just want to highlight that in Denton County, gatherings of 50 persons or more are now prohibited anywhere in Denton County. It also made that restaurants can continue to operate, but they cannot have dine-in services. They may only provide takeout, delivery, or drive-through services. And then that order also closed bars, lounges, taverns, private clubs, arcades, and gyms. So this order was effective. It will be effective until March 25th at 11 a.m. if it is then extended by Denton County. The state of Texas also issued a statewide order yesterday. This was, this will be effective tonight, just before midnight, and will continue to April 3rd. However, it could be extended by the state and by Governor Abbott. There were four orders in that. The first was that every person shall avoid social gatherings in groups of more than ten people. I should say of no more than ten people. And secondly, people shall avoid eating or drinking at bars, restaurants and food courts, or visiting gyms or massage parlors. However, for restaurants, it can still continue the use of drive-through, pickup, or delivery options is allowed. Third, people shall not visit nursing homes or retirement or long-term care facilities unless you are there to provide critical assistance at those facilities. And then fourth, it temporarily closed schools across the state. Also included in this order was more detail about what it does not do. It does not prohibit people from visiting a variety of places, including grocery stores, gas station, parks, and banks, so long as the necessary precautions are maintained to try to reduce the transmission of COVID-19. So the governor in his press conference was very clear that this does not mandate sheltering in place. There still is the ability to visit certain facilities. It also means that all critical infrastructure will remain open and that government entities and businesses can continue to provide essential services. For those offices and workplaces that remain open, it encouraged that employees should practice good hygiene and wear feasible work from home. So I just wanted to take a minute to go over what is our current declaration and order within the city of Denton. So this was extended by city council on Tuesday. Right now, in the city of Denton, it's prohibited for public gatherings to be no more than 100 persons. It urged that all individuals avoid gatherings of 50 persons or more. It also urged that any high-risk individuals not attend any gatherings. And it strongly urged restaurants and bars within the city limits to limit their occupancy to 50%. It also took some actions in regards to expenditures for us to spend money in response to COVID, as well as providing funding to the United Way of Denton County for housing assistance. So for consideration for city council, in Exhibit 3 was an order. There is really four sections that we're looking at if city council decides to align the city's order more in line with the county and the state. The first is Section 1, and this is that public or private community gatherings are prohibited in the city of Denton, and it references Section 4, which is the definition of what community gatherings are. And really, this is to fill in the blank of no more than blank number of persons. In Denton County, that is at 50 persons right now. The second section for consideration to edit would be Section 2, which is urging all individuals to avoid gatherings of blank persons or more. Would you say that that first blank, according to the governor's declaration, would be 10, given some maybe tweaking of the definition? Yeah, I don't believe the governor's order defined social gatherings. It just stated no more than 10 for social gatherings, where I believe the county's order and the city's order actually define further what community gatherings are. So there's a little bit of discrepancy there. Thank you. Appreciate that. And then third, it would modify, as proposed right now in Exhibit 3, it would modify Section 5 to state that restaurants, microbreweries, microdistilleries, wineries within the city may only provide takeout delivery or drive-through services. There would be no dine-in allowed within the city of Denton, and that's statewide right now as well. So that would be in alignment with what the action of the state has taken. And then fourth, it would actually add a new section into our order, and that would be Section 6, bars, lounges, taverns, motion picture, and stage theaters, clubs, and gyms shall close. And that would be in alignment with Denton County's order, where they had used this same language. And so that's just staff's first attempt at trying to put together what an amended order could look like in order to be more in alignment with the county and the state. But we have left in those blanks for right now for council to fill in and/or any other direction that you might provide. Staff can go back and work with legal to get an amended order put together for your consideration. Okay. So there's going to be a process whereby we talk about this. I know that there's probably several of us, if not all of us, who have their own version of the recommendations that they would like to see in this order. And what I would like to do as we talk about those, number one, let's simply state what that recommendation is. If you have comment about that recommendation, just make it very brief, please, because I'm sure there's a lot of them. And we certainly can understand what you're asking for. And instead of trying to figure this out all at once with all these recommendations, and Mr. City Attorney, you can tell me if this is appropriate. But as the recommendations are put forth, I think we just need to get direction on each individual one as it comes forward instead of trying to figure out what's at the end of the process, sort of what's left standing. Mr. City Attorney, is that -- I mean, we're not voting, but we're saying this is the direction -- I mean, if the direction of the council is to place one in there, it's sort of like what we do with our one-minute council request that, you know, if there's four that would like to see that, well, then that's something I believe that moves forward. And if there's not, then that's something that doesn't move forward. That is correct. Okay. All right. So, yeah, if we could just really, as we state what our recommendations are or our requests, if we could really just be concise in the rationale for that, because I think a lot of what we're going to hear we've already read and we've already seen. So I just want to really try to make the most efficient use of our time without being extremely redundant. All right. So since we started with the phone callers the last time, we're going to start with those here present in the room -- yes, council member -- I mean, council member. Oh, Mr. City Attorney. As I mentioned earlier that I would raise my hand whenever we got into a discussion that would -- Can we get public input first? I wanted before we -- my point was to alert the council exactly as they start considering what's on the slide and any other related provisions, the distinction between what the county has and the city has and who controls. So one of the broad powers that the county has that will trump the city is relating to occupancy of premises throughout the county, or premises in this case, the plural. These up here -- well, the state has already answered some, but some of those are also basically addressing occupancy of premises, whether it's a certain number, a certain percentage, or zero. They affect that. So anything the county has already put in their order would trump whatever -- if you are trying to get something that's inconsistent with them or higher with what they've already designated in their order. I wanted to point that out for this council before it starts beginning its deliberations on what to include or what not to include. Sure. Okay, council member Armitage, I'm sorry, go ahead. And this is council member Armitage who will be speaking. Council member Armitage? Council member Armitage, I think I think the public has had to say, I don't know how many comments there are, but I think it's pretty important. No, and I don't mind reading some of them verbatim, but once the actual gist of the request is made or the comment and the public input is there, some of it is just -- so I will read them verbatim as much as I can, and that's a good point to read those before we go into it, if we're going to take them one step at a time, I mean, one request at a time. So I will certainly do that, and I'm going to pull them up right now. These were most of these, and I don't know how many we have who are in the other chambers waiting. If we could sort of get an idea of that, and then we'll call on them as well. All right. Let me go through here and look to make sure -- okay. All right. I'm going to go ahead and start. This is -- and some of these names, I don't have a full name. Certainly we don't have any addresses. Mr. City Attorney, how do we -- do we put -- I mean, how do we -- what identifying information do I read, and if -- I mean, just the name or an e-mail address, or I don't want to do that, obviously. Well, the -- basically, they submitted a comment even via e-mail. That name, if they've identified that, is public now. I'll read the name, and then this will all be a part of the public record anyway. Okay. Let's see here. Aaron L. COVID-19 has reinforced the importance of social solidarity. We ask that the city didn't take steps to provide healthy food and medical supplies to individuals who are unable to acquire them because of health reasons and adequate transportation or financial hardship from lost wages and jobs. In order to facilitate the distribution of these essential goods, the city should evaluate its police, first responders, and other city staff resources to assist with delivery of food and other essential health care items or essential health care items to households. Then it should have a better food distribution infrastructure, especially in the time of crisis, as well as the city should provide free and fair testing for treatment of COVID-19 for all. The next one is Tiana Elpinano. Please consider freezing rent. I go to UNT and stay in an off-campus apartment, but I know of other students who come from unhappy homes and would just like to stay in their apartments while finishing the semester online. Okay. We've probably got about 30 of these. Kurt Van Zandt, considering the unprecedented amount of lost jobs and wages, will the city issue rent freeze for this month so that the money of our citizens go keeping themselves safe? Ethan Kuhn, please put a freeze on rent and utilities for the foreseeable future. We need to stop any towing procedures that are not directly related to auto accidents or blocking traffic. Carolyn Hostetler. My household is three college students, and two out of the three, including myself, are in the hospitality industry, and our businesses have closed for an indefinite amount of time. So many stories like this of my peers in Denton. While we are legally not allowed to work, it is outrageous rent is legally allowed to be collected. We demand rent freeze. Allison McGuire-Powell. In light of Governor Abbott's recent decision to allow cities to postpone local elections, I would like to ask you to vote. I'm just going to read these. I'm not going to try to separate them out, Mr. City Attorney, on the agenda items, if that's okay. That's fine. I'll start over. Allison McGuire-Powell. In light of Governor Abbott's recent decision to allow cities to postpone local elections, I would like to ask you to vote to take that offer and reschedule our May 2nd local elections to November 3rd. Andrew Key. Money should be made available for disaffected tenants in these trying times. Valentina Uribe. Please consider rent freeze. My roommates have essential jobs that are not giving them time off and still asking to come in, so they are unable to make money elsewhere. Abigail Wolf. This week nearly everyone I know has lost their income, including myself. We do not know when this pandemic will end, but it is likely that we will be affected for at least three months. People should not be evicted as that will contribute to this public health crisis. People need to be sheltered during this time. Further, people should not be punished with late fees because of circumstances that are out of their control. The economy will be greatly affected by this crisis, and late fees or rent will hinder the recovery of the working class, and as a result, it will hinder the recovery of the economy. Carly Ragsdale. We need a rent freeze immediately. I, like many others, cannot work from home and have no additional income. Please freeze rent is Zane Motlow. Adam Turkman. I did not work since March 8th. I did not earn a penny since then. How would I pay rent, utilities, car payment, and car insurance, if any kind of billing and freezing those accounts? Kristen Fox. I am a teacher who works with Aid Network of Denton, a recently assembled group of volunteers delivering care packages and groceries to the COVID-19 crisis. As of today, our organization has filled aid requests for aid. We have received many requests for rental assistance and service that we are unable to provide with our current funds. Denton workers with reduced hours and recently unemployed workers need to bail out, too. I believe that should come in the form of an absolute rent freeze, given that housing security is crucial to overcoming this crisis. At minimum, we need a longer-term eviction moratorium going forward, as well as $500,000 in emergency relief to be made available for rent and utility assistance. Sandra Flores. I am a concerned parent. My daughter is a student at the University of North Texas. She lives in an apartment and her lease is up. Even in a time of crisis like the Conoveris, an unexpected emergency that affects us all, please advise me what I can do to help my daughter and give her a reassurance. Christina Harris. I am for moving the elections to November. Noah Kerbo. I support a rent freeze due to COVID-19. Braden Inman. Freeze rent and halt the eviction and foreclosure process for the City of Denton. Rena Gallegos. At time of uncertainty and mass layoffs, the only logical response is to have a freeze on the rent and utilities. Jennifer Lane. Since this form doesn't allow one to click all the buttons, I'm writing to say I'm for items A and B regarding the City of Conoveris response. I'm against items C and D regarding holding the city elections in May. Zoe Kay. Has four requests. Freeze rent and ban evictions and repossessions and utility shutoffs. Ensure free, fair, and speedy testing for residents showing COVID-19 symptoms. Create an active plan to ensure equitable distribution of necessities such as food and water. All full and part-time workers must have paid medical leave. Sorry, there's more. Ban penalties against workers for missing work during this pandemic. End bail for jails. Free any and all ICE detainees. Open up unoccupied homes for homeless people to self quarantine. Samantha Streeter. With impact this crisis is having on Denton workers is imperative the City attempt to implement a rent freeze and moratorium on evictions. Brett Westbrook. Please enact a rent freeze. Cheyenne Parrish. I would like to request a rent/bill freeze for the City of Denton. Shay Kiley. Please push for a rent freeze. Excuse me. Christina Barrera. Work has been impacted by this whole virus, no doubt. If self quarantine or government mandated, the only people profiting from this are online retailer. Either I'm forced to work at a chance at catching the virus so I just can make enough money to pay rent. I will not make enough to cover depending on how long this goes. Kendall Ballard. As more and more businesses are closing to help prevent the spread of the virus, please heavily consider a relief option for those who are out of work. Rent payments are right around the corner. Sean Close. How do I renew my CDL with the DMV closed? I cannot renew it online. My company will not allow me to continue work beyond the 29th without it. On some of these that are sort of questions somewhat related but also unrelated, like that one, it was number 81. If we could just take a note of that so that we might be able to, if we can, find some type of answer or he could call the DMV but that's a good question and at least we can post it to our website because that's probably going to be a question we get more often. Martha Larkin. Why are the daycares being allowed to stay open in Denton? My grandson and daughter live with me and I'm 60 years old. My husband has asthma. My daughter received state assistance for daycare and is worried about him staying home as the state will count him as absent. I don't understand the reasoning about allowing daycares open. Isn't the rate of contamination the same as it is for schools? Bethany Johnson. The majority of college students living in Denton have been laid off. We reside in Denton to be close to school. Most of us do not have our degrees yet and are there for working service, industry, jobs. We need a rent freeze so we can continue to practice social distancing and stay home and not worry about where money is going to magically appear from to avoid eviction. Matt Solomon. We need a rent strike to address the housing crisis in Denton. The job crisis that this town has feeds this crisis because most of these jobs don't pay well nor do they offer benefits. Too many of us are having to pool our resources together and cram into housing units that we can make and we can work more for less. Things need to get better for us. Most of us are poor. Most of us can't afford to shop and eat on the square. This town has practiced a great deal of social distancing from black folks economically, socially, and politically to the point of hyper-normalized and outright alienation. Please freeze rent collections, utility payments, and all other billing obligations for at least 90 days so that people don't have to compound the stress of survival with the overwhelming stress of figuring out how bills are going to get paid. Okay. Were there people out -- there weren't anybody out there wanting to speak on this? Okay. All right. That's the public comment. So we're going to start over here at this end. Councilmember Davis, if you have either questions or comments or suggestions for amended declaration and order. I think we've had a good outline from the city attorney of what the role of our order is, and I'll kind of point out for those following along at home or for my colleagues that the purpose of the declaration was not so that we could have competing orders with other jurisdictions. It's so that we could free up city funds in an emergency. That's the point of an emergency declaration. So my suggestion would be on these two blanks we've got on the screen now, slide number six, that we simply mirror what's already in the county declaration. The county declaration lines up with the state declaration at this point. I don't think we have to reinvent the wheel. And yeah, that's my that's my recommendation. So that would be which numbers in those blanks. So I believe that be 50 and 1050 and the first one and 10 and the second one community gatherings, you know, we talked quite a bit about that on Tuesday. I believe that's 50 in the county's declaration in order. And then 10 is the urging all individuals to avoid gatherings of 10 persons or more. So Councilmember Davis as far as with the governor's declaration, which I believe is 10 for social gatherings, which is not defined. Would you speak to sort of a reconciliation of that? Sure. I'm not sure that a reconciliation there is necessary. I think the governor's social gathering is talking about what we're talking about with avoiding gatherings. I think community gatherings is a separate separate thing. And again, at this point, we're talking about prohibitions at 50, just like the county is. And then just like the governor is urging people to avoid gatherings of 10 or more. Okay, great. Thank you. Appreciate that. Mayor Pro Tem. I appreciate that clarification on that. I think though. Yeah, I don't have. I'm processing that I appreciate I just just understood the distinction between the two, you know, as, as presented by Councilmember Davis, and I absolutely am comfortable with the 10 as a prohibition. I just need to process the 50 as a department, the 50 is a prohibition, the 10 is a suggestion. So I understand that. I just need to process that and understand that better. And then, and we'll take them one by one but because I'll come back, and there's some additions, not covered that I want to discuss. Do you want to discuss those now and we'll just look at them one by one or whatever I don't know if you want to get, try to get consensus on these two blanks before we add to the discussion, you know, because because then it could get, you know, convoluted. Okay, you bet. Okay, Councilmember Meltzer. But that's fine, you know, let's get it lined up. But if we're going to do that. The state doesn't urge individuals to avoid gatherings, says every person in Texas, shall avoid social gatherings, groups of more than 10 people. So I mean I take that to be different than urging. So, as far as these blanks. Councilmember Davis had said, 50 in the first one and 10 in the second. What what are you. You're saying with the governor's executive order. Yeah, you're good. You're good. They heard you. Okay, so, no, go ahead, just keep going. Yeah, yeah, so so if we're going to line it up. Maybe we should just cut and paste but with order number one from Governor Abbott says is in accordance with the guidelines from the president and the CDC. Every person in Texas, shall avoid social gatherings in groups of more than 10 people. So for purposes to line up with it. You know what, why don't we just just cut and paste and, you know, if you want to say, instead of every person in Texas can say every person dead. Okay. All right. Okay. I'm going to come to the phone now. Councilmember Ryan. Yeah, I'm in agreement with the 50 and the 10. And again, once we get that settled there's some other ads or changes I'd like to make when we come around again. Okay. Councilmember Armitage We lose you Councilmember Amater. We'll come back to her. Councilmember Briggs. I just got a text from dad that she did get cut off. She got lost disconnected, so somebody can call her back. Okay. All right. Do we need to call from this line right here. Yes. All right. So let's take a let's take a five minute break. It is to 27 we'll come back at about to 35. And then we'll hopefully get all the technical glitches resolved so thank you. Okay. This we are back in our meeting of the density Council on Friday, March the 20th 2020 is to 37pm. We're on agenda item one day of our special call meeting. Currently, we've had a recommendation or from Councilmember Davis that in the current slide up on the screen. Section four definitions in the current in the in the city of Denton emergency declaration that limit community gatherings are more than 50 or more, and then in full edit section to to urge all individuals to avoid gathering of 10 persons or more. And we're moving through the process of seeing if that's what we want to start with in this particular declaration so Okay, who's got I don't like hearing myself in the feedback. All right. Okay, so we will get we're going to go ahead and go to those on the phone. Councilmember Ryan I think we left off with you. Yeah, we. Okay. All right. Councilmember Briggs. Yeah, let's let's come back to that because there's let's take care of the things that we can probably get taken care of fairly easily. We'll come back to those additional comments that may be additions to our current declaration. Councilmember Armitter, can you hear us. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And as you know, as everybody on council knows when people submit through the form, the subject heading is all the same. So I've got a lot of emails that have all the same title and you can't tell who it's from. So I have been frantically digging through all of these messages and I hadn't even gotten to the name that contacted me. So I just wanted to mention that in one person said that there's hadn't been read in full just in part. So, and that is true. And that is true. That all the emails get read in part. But as far as the 10 goes, I think that we should just limit it to 10. And I don't think that the 50 is okay anymore. Last time I was, I was okay with 50 having 50 in there, but I think we should just mandate 10 because of what we're hearing. Okay, so you're saying that I would like that point of procedure address. Okay, well, I'm still trying to know I did not read all of them verbatim, because some of it was language just describing different personal scenarios but what they were asking for and what they were advocating for. I certainly did read. And now as far as the procedure, I'm still not quite following what you're talking. Are you talking about the reading of them in verbatim? Is that the procedure question you have? Yeah, I'm saying now I'm not a Texas Open Meetings expert, but I know that on individual items, people are supposed to have the same amount of time to comment. So unless, I mean, I could imagine if somebody sent a big long email that went over the three or four minutes, whatever the time is, you know, I could understand limiting it then. But I think it's my understanding of Texas Open Meetings Act and city attorney could comment is that it's important that we should comment in full within the same time limit. And, go ahead, city attorney. Go ahead, Mr. City Attorney. If I understood you correctly, Councilmember Armitory, are you wanting to allow or the mayor to read verbatim up to the time restriction we have for each individual on a court of no rules procedure? I think, yeah, I think it's something from staff credit instead of somebody who's going to read the book. And I understand that it's the procedure that, meaning the person, that the mayor reads the written comments. But I think because of how unusual this is, the situation this is, I think, just to have somebody from, and I know there was no harm intended in that, but we're all reinventing procedure and trying to adapt it as best we can. I think it may be best for some. We'll come back and revisit that at the end. We're going to get through this meeting. If we need to read them out loud on the record, we can always, somebody can stick around, four people can stick around, and staff can read them in. But I read most of them full into the record. There were only a few. But I'm not going to worry too much about getting every word absolutely correct, especially in this first time, because simply all of these are going to be a part of the official record. So we're going to address that at the back end of the meeting, because we didn't, you know, I explained it at the front end, and this is the first time you've raised that issue. So, okay, so you're okay with the ten? No, no, no, I think maybe the third time, but the second time I raised the issue. But I think because of Texas Open Meetings Act, it's important that we make a decision before we hear all of them. I think that the Texas Open Meeting Act was suspended to allow these kinds of things to occur, and I think it's also up to the body or the chair to decide how do we want to administer these new procedures. I've said I will take a look at it at the end of the meeting, so we're going to move forward and we'll take a look at it at the end of the meeting. So you're saying that you want the ten and the ten in the edit section one and edit section two. Yeah, and I think all the comments should be read in full before we decide on it. Okay, well, we're going to read the comment we're going to read all the comments in the full at the end. Unless this body decides something different. So we'll put it up to the body Councilmember Davis. I just wanted to be really clear for everybody who's watching at home, and there's some social media stuff going on right now contemporaneous with this meeting, claiming that the public record is not being made full or that people aren't being listened to. Each one of these things that the mayor is reading is also coming to each member of the city council by email. They're identifiable by unique numbers. I think we're up to 87 is the last one that I saw. And we are reading them. We have them. They're not only a part of the public record, but I also as a council member have the ability to read them. I'm fine with moving forward in the way just the way that we have so far that the thrust of the email is read out loud so everyone knows what it is in addition to the council members who each have access to it. And then we move on with the business. This is an emergency meeting. We got called here to take care of business that is considered an emergency. I'd like to move forward expeditiously with that. And I think what you've done so far is a good balance of the expediency that's necessary and the ability for public comment. Anybody else? Mayor Pro Tem? Is there there was an individual's name who requested their email be read? I think that we should at least acknowledge that please. Acknowledge. I'm sorry I don't understand the gist of your comment. Well, from what I understand somebody reached out to Councilman Barometer and said their email was not read and would like for it to be and I would at least like to acknowledge that person who would like to be sure like their email to be read. Okay, well I didn't understand that somebody's email had not been read at all. I understood it to mean that the email was read but it wasn't read in its totality. Okay, I heard that it wasn't read at all. Okay, yes. I think there was one that was not read in full and then there was another that was not read and I don't know what time it came in. Councilmember. Yeah, yeah, I just want the city attorney has a comment. I think that we are working on a process to have all the public comment to come into a centralized location. What is causing the confusion right now just by listening to the conversation is that people are sending emails and texts and Facebook posts etc to individual council members expecting that those to be read in the record. No, no, no, no, no, sorry, sorry to interrupt this. No, these were sent to, this is the contact all city members, contact all city council members forum and that's why. Correct and that's the issue. I'm having a hard time sorting through because in our input and kudos to my colleagues who can read all of them at the same time. And I think it must be because I'm at home with my family and my dog, maybe harder to multitask, but I got a lot of emails all with the same subject heading. And councilmember armature, councilmember armature, the city, the city attorney. We're trying to come up with a centralized system so that they all come just like it would mirror the same thing in practice of filling out the blue cards to be so that every speaker can be tracked by not only the city secretary but also by staff to present to the entire council. So we're working on a system to duplicate that for so that we could keep track of that. I mean doing the the all council members feature. We can't keep track of that so to be able to put into the record so that we will work on that for the 31st to make sure that the public is totally aware that any comments related to that, your new blue card is going to be filling filling out a form online that actually has gotten that goes to the PIO or the city attorney which they will then compile and present to all the council members so they can be read into the record if that's what the council chooses to do and that would be it would create a more efficient way of handling what what is going on today. Let me resolve this real quick. I see the email from the one person who said she wants it read it entirely it's a paragraph, I'm going to read through it very quickly, and then we're moving forward. And if somebody wants to file claim or they want to do something, that's fine but that's what we're going to do. Before you do that, can we make it. Come on. Come on. Can we, can we make it clear that what is the Aaron, or I guess the question is there. What is the cut off time, right, because what did this, yes, yes, but let's let's establish a we're done here so that we can move on wouldn't, you know, we have significant things. My next step is to make a motion to table everything other than necessary until we can get together and have a meeting that's efficient we have people watching online. We have staff tied up in here that have a lot of other responsibilities we need to either pair this down to the urgent matters that are going to, because this is not moving at a rate that is effective for our staff and our city. So we can, we need to pare it down or move forward. Right. Well, once I read this, this paragraph and in a regular meeting. Once the agenda item is called these are not. Is this a public hearing or is this an item for individual consideration. I see item. Yeah, so people fill out blue cards they come in and they and so I consider these emails blue card so anything else that comes in afterwards that blue card that or email will put it as part of the record so I'm going to read the rest of this there's an effort underway from Jennifer Lane. There's an effort underway to persuade the state to allow us to all vote by mail the timeline to make this change the bit short however and the legislature has not yet voted on I hope it will pass but best in the short run is probably to propose. Since writing last night you and has made a difficult decision to cancel last it was planned activities for the semester. May 7 commencement exercises that further highlights the need to postpone the municipal election, because many didn't voters may not even be here in April and May and they may be unable to get out except for essential business to same life without universal access to voting mail to voting by mail. We cannot effectively hold an election this spring. Okay, so we're done with the public comment. Remember, you said 10 and 10 councilmember Briggs. I forgot what you said 50 and 10, or you haven't said, I said that I'm okay with it going to the federal and regional recommendations I believe which are 50 and 10, but I also had comments to that, that I guess I'm holding until further. Okay, you bet. Councilmember Mercer. Yeah, a couple couple points that the county order is March 18. The state order is the next day March 19 because these things are happening pretty quick. And, and the state order which would supersede, you know to trump the county. You mentioned the 50. It just has the 10. So, I think maybe a cleaner and simpler way to do it is along the lines that I think Councilmember Davis was sort of indicating that we make just some language that references, you know, whatever the binding orders are from, you know, from the higher levels of government, and I think another benefit of that is, I see the governor specifically says that he's acting in accordance with the guidelines from the president and the CDC. I had that interest expressed last time that, you know, if there's something we don't foresee now causes something more stringent to be required, either we're not hampered by us not getting together quickly enough, then we're automatically governed, you know, by law by, you know, whatever the higher authority says. Okay, Councilmember Davis. I think Councilmember Meltzer makes a really good point and that kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier about the important thing from a city government perspective is the emergency declaration that gives the city manager the powers that we did. Just like the mayor did when he did the first emergency declaration. If we're just trying to copy what the governor is already doing, or copying what the county is already doing, either we could even, as Councilmember Meltzer said, refer by reference, or we could just not have a city order like what is the, what is the additional benefit to having a city ordinance fine up to $2,000 for operating Achilles in the city limits, when we already have an order from the governor and we already have an order from the county judge. Earlier in the week when we acted in this space, it's because some of us felt like there wasn't enough response from the governor, and that we wanted to mirror what other municipalities and counties were doing. Now we have those orders in place from the governor, we now have them in place from the county judge. So I would say, as Councilmember Meltzer did, either we mirror those exactly, or incorporate them by reference, or we get out of this space altogether and recognize that it's been what we wanted the other day has now been done. Well, we've got to decide, I mean, because what you're saying is, do we even move forward with the emergency declaration, an amendment, we have one in place right now. We have an emergency declaration in place right now, which I believe lasts longer than any of the other ones that have been enacted. Ours is through April the 27th or 30th or something like that. Through April 30th. So, yes. So I would support incorporating by reference, and having it, at least take that position now, because I think there are going to be some proposals for things to add that might not exist at the state and county level. So that would at least give us a vehicle for filling in some of the blanks, or some of the gaps. Okay, so I'm not understanding exactly, are you saying that- Yes, I have an ordinance. I understand that. I understand that. Incorporate, as far as section one and section two, rather than have those, just refer to the governor's order, and then we can discuss what else may or may not be needed. Well, are you saying incorporate by reference just the governor's order, or are you saying incorporate by reference also the county order? Well, okay, I'm fine with saying the county too, because the governor's going to supersede that, but that's fine. Six in one, half a dozen in the other. All right. Okay. Everybody okay with that? Yes. That was Councilmember Briggs who responded. Councilmember Davis, you okay with that? I'm fine with that. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem? Yes, and then we'll discuss the- Yeah, the other options, yes. Councilmember Ryan? I guess my question on this is if we incorporate it, then are we incorporating their dates as well? Because the governor's runs out on April the 3rd, the county has to wait for the commissioners to meet again to extend theirs past, what was it, March? Let me pull up the slide here, but I just see ours is if we go with the 50 and the 10, it's going to last longer than the rest, and we're going to be revisiting this I'm sure on the 31st and on the 7th as this continues to progress. Councilmember Davis? To Councilmember Ryan's point, I think we can incorporate them by reference in a way that refers to any order of the governor currently in effect, any order of the county currently in effect is also in effect, however we want to word it. So I think we can incorporate their dates, and that does the added benefit of if they change, then our order changes with them because we've done it by reference to any order then in effect by those other bodies. And then if they're not in effect, then ours will be the underlying one with its corresponding terms. If we feel the need for that, sure. Okay, Councilmember Armitage? Yes, there were some things that I heard, some things that I couldn't fully hear, so apologies if I'm repeating everything. Can you hear me? Yes. So, because the state law supersedes, county law supersedes municipal law, and then of course the federal law, we don't know what they're going to pass, I would suggest that we, I think in line with what I think I heard Councilmember Davis say, that it will be okay because we'd be superseded anyway. But as far as an end date, I don't know if it's possible, is it possible for an end date to just say until, you know, until an event uncertain, until the emergency period is declared over, or does there have to be a specific date on a state of disaster declaration? A specific end date, I know there would be a specific start date. Any comment on that? All right, so we seem to have a consensus around incorporate by reference the order of the governor and the order of the county, and in substitution for those particular items. Just the incorporation of the state and the county, do you want to have the 50 and 10 in as well as a backup if the county and the state, for example, the state goes through April 3, they will likely extend that, but if they do not, if you had 50 and 10 in the city order, it would carry through to the end of April 30. I think what you could do is, if you incorporated by reference, you could say that we recognize that somehow those orders are the ones that are valid, but if those orders disappear, then the 50 and the 10 would be what would be then active. Is that what the council wishes to do? I mean, I think that's, I'm seeing head shaking here. Is that okay with the members, Councilmember Briggs, is that okay? Yes. All right, Councilmember Armitage. It sounds like that was what I was saying, but I'm not sure. Okay. It sounds like it. I couldn't entirely hear. So you're saying that if any superseding emergency ordinance ends prior to whenever ours ends, that ours will continue? If we so choose. But what we're saying is that if they end, that we do have a number in there for no more than 50 at community gatherings and no more than 10 for people who are at a high risk population to congregate and no more than 10. But those will only be active if there's no other superseding order from a jurisdiction that is above the city, you know, that's superior to the city. Yes, and regarding Sarah's question about the date, the same goes for the date for the end date of the ordinance. Well, the end date is still, I mean, still we're looking at April 30th. I mean, we're going to be revisiting this probably often. So we just got to get something in place where there's less confusion among our community between what applies and what doesn't apply. That's really the point here today is to give people some guidance, to give them some predictability, and to give them what the law currently is regarding these declarations. So I think the incorporation by reference provides the best effect on that, at least for today. Now that may change tomorrow. Could we make the end date just until we declare the emergency over or does there have to be an actual date? That's Councilmember Armitage who's speaking. So I've got to be sure and remember my role in that. So please bear with me. I apologize. Councilmember Armitage, I don't think, I mean, that's going to be defined by somebody other than us. And I think if we have a date, then if we come up close to that date and we see that things aren't progressing or we see things are getting better, we can certainly make a decision. It's just a date to give some kind of guidance to the community. I don't think we're trying to predict when it's going to be over and when it's not. Thank you. Thank you. You bet. So that's what we're doing. We're going to, in incorporation by reference, and then we'll put the 10 and 50 as a backup in contingent upon no other superseding declaration of emergency being applied to the city of Denton. All right, so now we'll get into our individual comments. Is that the only blank other than the time frame? Yes, I believe those were the only two that we needed direction on. Now what we're working on is additional amendments that have never been in there before. Correct. And if you're okay with the proposed modification to section five and adding section six, but I guess that will probably be part of your conversation. Yeah, well, and that's also some of that's also incorporated by reference in the state and in the county order. Yeah, okay. All right, so Mayor Pro Tem, I believe you had some comments. Yeah, no, I want to start with where Councilmember Melser has kind of had a bright line. And so with respect to our daily bread, they're in the newspaper saying they're having 100 people in their room. So if we adopt what he's pointed out, then we need to curtail that one. And if we're going to do that, then my suggestion is my suggestion is that we then have that mobile operation shifted to the MLK Center, because by my math, that's 3.34 miles driving. That's a straight line, obviously driving. It's longer than that, that we're asking people to go from, let's say they needed to shower at MLK, then they needed to proceed to our daily bread. And in addition to that, if we're going to put a prohibition on the church that's using the same building, it just doesn't seem right to then allow one entity in the same address to function one way and another to function differently. Yeah, I can jump in. I spoke with Ms. McGee this morning, and they have broken up their service into two separate spots over there that can each accommodate about 50 folks. So right now they're able to deal with it. We've worked with our legal department to get an interpretation of the law and make sure that we were in good standing. So for right now, they're okay with splitting it up. I would urge the council, I really don't want to get into a position where we're dedicating certain buildings. I think under the emergency order, we've got the ability to work with her, and we definitely will. For instance, right now we're doing some real in-depth cleaning at MLK, and we don't want anything but in that building right now. We're purposefully keeping some buildings and facilities open in case we need them for just that kind of a scenario. So you're on point in terms of that thought process. And we are also going to be meeting with her after this meeting, actually, to discuss different methods of feeding the homeless population. So they may be changing how they're delivering food, that sort of thing, in order to shorten interactions and bring food in. So we're kicking ideas around, but I think she's on top of it, and Sarah Kuechler and Danny Shaw are right there with her trying to come up with some ideas. If I have to keep lending supplies or opening up different buildings or whatever, if this changes, we will pivot quickly and work with her. Well, and I appreciate that, and I appreciate the pro-activeness. And really what I want to do is point out, I mean, if we're going to have an issue with 10 people being in this room, then we need to dig in on everyone. And I'm fine with that. I'm just an advocate for consistency. So I need to hear, I'll wait and listen to hear if people are okay with 50 in a room and 10 in this room, or if there's inconsistency there. I just want to, I'll make some notes and make sure I'm following the logic. Yeah, and I think you're bringing up an interesting point. And I think one of the things, too, that council needs to be a little careful in this arena in terms of, you know, that 10 in a room, there's also, as I recall, some specific time limits, that sort of thing, but we need to be careful here because they can barely keep up with the volunteers. They're operating right now and about a third, so big hearts may be having some real unintended consequences on our nonprofits who are helping our most vulnerable populations. And again, I think we need to kind of back away and let staff kind of work on those types of issues and not get overly prescriptive. We've got a lot of smart people there that are planning the logistics, but I get your point in terms of the continuity of the argument. I get that. But I just think from a practical perspective, understand that these folks are fighting right now for volunteers who are scared. And we need to, I think, give staff and then the flexibility to work through these issues. Let's get your guidelines in place, and we will figure out how to get them through this. Sure. A common sense approach across the board. I'm all for that. Thank you. I do want to highlight to the no more than ten. I mean, there is some exceptions, even in the state's order, for government entities and business that will continue providing essential services. So we may define, you know, in order to help our community, this is an essential service, but how do we practice the social distancing requirements, the hygiene, and so forth. So I just wanted to point that out just as far as definition, but certainly a city manager, Halleman, explained we're taking it very seriously and trying to honor that and how do we get there with the resources and the logistics that we have. And I just, if I may, I just want to have a clear record that I'm okay with that. I just I'm not okay with people not taking a common sense approach to things. That's what that's what's frustrating for me. Okay, all right. Okay, anybody in here that has any additions to the ordinance or recommendations or things such as that. Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah, there are a couple I'd like to at least discuss. One is, given that our, our overriding objective should be slowing the spread. Do we need to take a look at, as they have in some other areas, salons, barbershops, tattoo parlors where you can't deliver the service of that being right on top. I know it means that unless you're, you know, brave enough to cut your own hair, some of us are going to have longer hair. But, you know, should, should we consider excluding that? I think it's hard to argue that you shouldn't, in my view. I'd be interested in hearing the discussion. Okay, all right. Any discussion? Councilmember Davis. Yeah, yeah. Let me go ahead and recognize Councilmember Briggs. Was that you Councilmember Briggs? Yeah, I couldn't hear anything he said. He kept cutting in and out as far as on my speaker. Okay, if you could maybe repeat that Councilmember Meltzer. Okay, so the keywords were salons, barbershops, tattoo parlors. Do we need to look at forcing them to close because there's no way to provide those services and observe social distancing? Okay, so I too had on my list of questions and concerns because we've had people ask us about daycares, salons, and other areas where conflict exists between our recommendations on distances and in the actual profession. So I'm open to discussing that. Councilmember Davis. I think the logic is understandable. I think that's why we're getting messages about this and some of our emails have, I think that we've all gotten pertained to barbershops, salons, tattoo parlors. We have some businesses that are already kind of absolutely prohibited now under some of these orders, you know, movie theaters, for instance. We have other businesses that have been provided a new way of doing business, like a bar. Yeah, just get your mic a little bit, just to make sure they can hear you. Sorry, it's going to be a little louder for the folks here in the room or at home, but we have some businesses that have provisions for continuing on. You know, a restaurant can now switch to delivery or takeout, a microbrewery can now bring beer to your window, if that's a good idea or not, it's up to you. But I really worry about when we get into personal services, tattoo parlors, not so much unless you want to go out and get a virus tattoo, but a barbershop or salon kind of personal services, I worry a little bit about not allowing those. And I also worry on the daycare front, you're stuck if you're due, you're stuck if you don't. Either you provide daycare for the people who now have to be at work when the rest of the world is not, or you take it away and now you have a child care problem, and you're doing what we heard a commenter urges against on Tuesday, which is asking strangers on Facebook to send their teenagers over to your house to take care of your kids. So, I think my overall preference is for tracking with what the county and the state are doing. And if and when they tell us not to do those things, then we incorporate that by reference and taking their advice and sticking with what they're doing. May I comment? Just a moment. Was that your? That's it. Okay. All right, Councilmember Armitage, go ahead. Yeah, so, I agree that tattoo parlors, hair salons, nail salons, massage places should also be included. However, I also agree with what Mayor Pro Tem said, at least what I think he said, is that we should not be making differentiations between different kinds of businesses. What I would prefer is to just, instead of adding one by one all these different kinds of businesses, that we just look at it from a public health point of view, from a virus point of view, and say that whether you're a consumer or a worker, no matter what kind of business you're in or whether it's a social gathering or workplace or a search or whatever, that no more than 10 people together, and if you can't sustain your workplace like that or figure out how to do it, then we will have to shut it down. And now, that could also have to come with, though, exceptions for who and what we consider emergency services and emergency service providers, and this is something that other cities are doing, and I know the county and state aren't doing it, but at least not to my knowledge, but I think it's really important for us to be able to say that grocery workers, health care providers, health care providers, people who provide food, including restaurants, and people who provide services to the homeless, et cetera, that we be able to make exceptions for them, and that we be able to provide buildings, and we don't have to decide and specify which buildings are in the ordinance, but I would at least like us to have something in there about that, that we will see that essential services that we consider essential emergency services and essential emergency workers can do what they do, and that we will provide them with the space and the money to do that, if they can't do that in their current -- >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Mouser. >> Yeah. Councilmember Armitage made a number of points, but just to address the one that was responsive to what I teed up, I think the issue is different than the ten or more. The issue is personal services that require contact -- bodily contact. That's really the point. Whether there's only two people in the facility or 20, and I take your point about maybe not listing every kind of thing that fits that description, and maybe there could be just a more general thing, which might be personal services requiring bodily contact would be prohibited. Not because of the number of people in the room, but because of the bodily contact, other than essential services like medical, et cetera. >> Okay. All right. Yeah. I mean, some of these comments almost reflected de facto shelter-in-place order, and I don't -- I mean, neither the state, who's the governor that has made that decision, nor has the county. I know that the governor's proclamation does give some guidance with some specificity as to shall avoid -- people shall avoid eating or drinking at bars, restaurants, food courts, or visiting gyms, or massage parlors, provided, however, that the use of drive-through, pickup, or delivery options is allowed and highly encouraged through the limited duration of this executive order. So, I mean, I've received emails from people who are voluntarily shutting down their salons, who are voluntarily shutting down their places of business. And so I don't really have a need to begin to start itemizing out particular businesses. I think that I'm satisfied with the governor and the county's order specifying those right now, because, number one, who's going to run around enforcing all this? I mean, what we have to rely upon is, you know, voluntary compliance. Yes, we can put in a shall and prohibit and go start arresting people and shutting down businesses, but is that really what we want, our limited resources of our police department and things such as that, that we only have the authority to do? We don't have the authority to call out any other type of law enforcement personnel, such as the National Guard or anything like that. So I think we need to be very careful. No, I'm speaking. Thank you. So I'm not in favor of necessarily parsing out and adding those things other than what's already in the county and the governor's order. And like I said, we're going to go through this one at a time. So we're going to go ahead and consider this one. And so, Councilmember Meltzer, if you could just repeat your request so that we can begin. And I know Councilmember Briggs, you have a question. So we're going to get to this after he repeats his request. You know, if you don't mind, I'd like to make a broader point in response to what you just said and as well as repeat. Sure. You know, as we consider these things, I would like to just stipulate in general, laws are difficult to enforce. All laws. Mostly we don't run around constantly monitoring people. It's impossible for any law, but we still have them. And there's a reason because mostly people do voluntarily comply with law because they don't want to do things that are illegal. And there is some maybe background calculation of probability of getting caught, you know, or how severe the penalty is. That's why there are T and people will avoid, you know, a negative consequence out of proportion to the probability. But I don't think we can make every judgment that we make about what should be a law about whether we should constantly enforce that law any more than any law that exists anywhere. So that's that's it. Sure. You got that point. Yep. So no, no. Yeah, I'm just going to come around the horn. I'm just going to restate that we would add to Section six personal services that require bodily contact. Okay. Councilmember Briggs, is your question related to this because we're going to go ahead and work on it if we want to include this or not. Okay. It's directly about this. Okay. So massage parlors is included in the governor's declaration, but the contractors and then use home isn't. And so I'm not looking to add individual things to this. What I am trying to ask and see from this council is an understanding because people that work in these industries are very confused and they're asking us for leadership on this. And so that's why this conversation is happening. We don't have to add it, but we are good. If you're good with just saying stick to the numbers, then that's fine. But massage parlors is there, but I have individual massage people who do this in their home and they're just wondering, is it because it's a massage or is it because it's the number? There's a little bit of gray area there and they're just they're confused. Okay. That's a good comment. I appreciate that. And I don't know the answer to that question. And so I'd hate to. I mean, I have an opinion on it, but I certainly don't have a definitive answer on the law. Staff can look into it further. Yeah. Does massage parlor mean where you have multiple massages and multiple people? And so if it's just one individual in their home, is that really considered a massage parlor, so to speak? So that's a good question. But I would also encourage people to call the state's hotline if they have questions. And hopefully they can connect them even with another state agency that may have more information. Yep. Okay. And I have one more follow up to that. Yes. And so on those, when we were getting the bar and restaurant conversation, people were saying, well, we need to mandate it so that they are able to get disaster funding. So do you think or is it why salons and daycares are reaching out, asking these questions? Is there something that we have to do to make sure that they get funding or are they still able to get their funding without being on the list? Well, I don't know because I'm not so sure how accurate the whole narrative was of if it's recommended or if it's prohibitive. You know, because then you have it from the perspective of the workers or the perspective of the business owners. And I think we were getting questions on both of those. And those perspectives are very different. One is, you know, maybe business interruption insurance. The other one is unemployment insurance or disaster relief. And I just don't know enough of that. I think those questions need to be directed to either the state level or even a federal agency that we can maybe put on our website. Sarah, did you have a comment on that? Yes, we had a few questions and answers that were in the document distributed this morning that addressed that question. For the SBA disaster loans, you do not have to be closed. You just have to demonstrate economic injury. And then there were some other questions, just a little bit more context, because it does depend on each business and in terms of the insurance that they have and what are those provisions in each insurance. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. So we've got Councilmember Meltzer has made a recommendation to add tattoo parlors. Personal services. Are we going to define personal services? Okay. All right. You do know that includes positions. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. So, Councilmember Davis, we're just going to come around. Yeah. My preference is for leaving those decisions to the county and the state and to not add additional to Councilmember Briggs's point about confusion. What am I allowed to do in Denton that I'm not allowed to do in Louisville that I'm not allowed to do in Sanger? I think we leave those to the most broad and highest level of government that has primary responsibility for those things. And I think if we start adding in, then we start creating more confusion. We start asking questions that have been answered in other places. I think we leave it the way that we have it. Okay. Councilmember Pro Tem. Help me understand. Are we saying, is it guidance or prohibition? It's section six. You know, that language is shall close. Yeah, it's prohibition. Yeah, prohibition. Yeah, I think I support it because, yes, I'm in line with the proposed shall close because I think my interpretation, in my mind, it allows you to do in home. It's saying your home is not, I mean, it's a business address, quote unquote, but it's not, I don't think it's going to be treated the same as a parlor approach. Obviously, I know massage parlors are captured in there. I think an individual at home is, because, and here's what I'll tell you. I know a guy in a neighborhood that cuts hair in his garage right now, and he's not going to get caught up in any of this because he's at his home and we're not going to. So for me, I think, yes, they're independent contractors and they can function in a different environment. But, you know, so that's how I get there. I mean, I'll save the narrative. Okay. Councilmember Briggs. Yes. Your, your direction on to include a prohibition against personal services. I, I'm not inclined to, uh, contractors. I've had a few reach out to me and say that they feel that they're responsible enough to do. One on one, so I would just like more clarification on, on what the state. What the state means by massage parlors. I mean, if it's because of it, the direct contact because if that's the case, then what Councilmember Messler is suggesting, we should apply. Okay. All right. Councilmember Armitter. So I strongly urge that people consider if our goal really is to mitigate the community spread that's already happening, given what we see that not differentiate between different kinds of businesses, except in the case of those that we consider emergency services. Now that's not, that's not, we're not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. Then, yes, I think that we should include massage parlors and tattoo parlors. Here's the nails. However, ambiguity goes, there is ambiguity already in the state ordinance and the county there's ambiguity in what we're hearing from the federal government. And so I feel like as municipal leaders, we should be providing clarity, like people are calling out. So Councilmember Armitter, Councilmember Armitter, are you, are you in favor of placing now what his, his quote was personal services. We say it again, prohibit personal services requiring bottom contact. And I'm, and I'm assuming that before we would leave, if it's not in there already, that we would accept, you know, medical essential. Sure, of course. Yeah. Okay. All right. Councilmember Ryan, Councilmember Ryan, you're going to need to speak up just a little bit louder, get closer to the microphone or the phone. Okay, I'm with Councilmember Davis on this. I believe in letting the state and the county decide which, which ones are good and which aren't. Okay. All right. So it seems like, and I guess I'm going to look, I'm going to go ahead and stay with Councilmember Davis only because I think the state right now has occupied space for that. And I think we can get clarity on massage parlors. I think Councilmember Briggs had a very good point. And again, let's say again, I understand about the enforcement, understand about whether it's enforced or whether it's not enforced, but also each individual has to also make their own decision. So it doesn't mean that we don't have to put it in there or that we do put it in there. So I would like to get some clarity, quite honestly, on the massage parlors before I agree to do that because if it is from the perspective of personal bodily contact, then I think it's a good service. It's a good amendment. If it's not, then I would like to just look to the direction there. But I'd like some clarification on that. So we can come back and revisit it once we get that clarification. Go ahead, Councilmember Miller. Actually, contrary to what I said myself, when I look at the language in the state, it's kind of a little interestingly different that they don't address the places of business, they address the customers. It says that people shall avoid visiting gyms or massage parlors. I'm just pointing it out since we're going to have a little more time to think about it. So what you're saying is then it's not so much from the standpoint of whether we should prohibit the business, it's saying the customers should not be going to the business. Well, that's what the state says. I still actually stand by my recommendation. To the extent that you want to sort out what does the state mean, I'm just sharing the observation. No, I appreciate that. That's a good observation. So it seems like for right now, we're going to get some clarification from the state and go with the state and the county order as far as the specificity of the businesses. So I did find a press release from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. It says massage establishments are closed. However, it reminds other practitioners that they must continue to observe sanitary requirements. So we'll have staff look into a little bit further, make sure that means that if you have a license, you still may be able to practice, but the establishment itself would be that customers should not go to the establishment, a massage establishment, and then we'll look to see what that's defined as in state code for licensing. Because, I mean, without getting into too much detail, there's a large difference between someone getting their haircut, and I know you're in close proximity with your breath and things such as that, but as far as actual contact, bodily contact, obviously, when you're getting a massage, that's a very different situation than, you know, getting your haircut or something. I think it's a great observation. I think it's a great request. I think it's just, I think clarification would be helpful. And we certainly, because what I'm hearing is from the license and regulation, they're not interpreting that sentence there to be as specific as bodily contact, because they're saying you can continue to practice your license, however, you must be sanitary. Yeah, it doesn't say that specifically, but how it's worded, TDLR reminds other practitioners that they must continue to observe sanitary requirements. Okay, all right. It's just the language. Okay. May I ask a clarifying question about that? Well, I think we've got direction on that. I think we've got direction on moving forward, even, that's just some clarifying. So we're going to continue to move forward, so that would not... I mean, for me, and I think for a number of people, it's an important question, and that is the bodily contact, eventually, the bodily contact between the service provider and the service recipient. What about bodily contact between workers, because... Councilmember Armitage, and that's... Can that be answered? Not right now. We can seek that out, but we don't have that answered. Councilmember Armitage, please, allow me to speak. I mean, I understand your clarification, and we will try to find out that clarification, but for now... Okay, thank you. You bet. All right. So anybody else have any here in the work session room, additional requests or comments for additions to the declaration? Yes, Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, I do, and I provided this to the city manager in advance. I'd like to have the city add a prohibition against truly 24-hour businesses. Let me put that in practice. But 7-Eleven is open 24 hours a day, currently. I'd like to mandate that those businesses close at least one hour so that there can be cleaning. We've seen the grocery stores take that step on their own. I think these businesses should...I'm not mandating the hour of day that that happens, but that there is a period of time where those doors are locked for 60 minutes and allow those businesses to deep clean, treat their services, whatever they need to do. To then reopen. Okay. Councilmember Davis. I'm a little worried, like I was on Tuesday, that we've all kind of become armchair epidemiologists, and we've decided that we need to kind of pick and choose that the businesses that are open or how they need to be conducted and all those kind of things. I think the spirit of what Mayor Pro Tem is saying is good. I just worry about the city at our level micromanaging down to saying that a 7-Eleven has to close for an hour a day so they can clean. I'm not sure that's how this virus behaves necessarily. Back to the personal services conversation, I don't think that's how the virus behaves necessarily. I think we go with the expert advice we have, and the expert advice we have thus far is from the state and the county where there are people who know what they're talking about. Okay. Councilmember Meltzer. It's kind of sort of a guiding principle, and look, you can go too far with what I'm about to say, but I would say on balance, in this moment, if we have to choose between doing too much or doing too little, I think we should lean a little toward saying, well, we did more than we had to, but, you know, we really slowed the spread. Just because of the severity of the issue, if not controlled. I mean, you know, at present, you could still say, you know, it's not much really happening. But, you know, I think we know enough to say, err on the side of caution. I think it's a good proposal, and I think the language doesn't have to say if you're 24 hours, you know, you can just say, businesses must have at least one hour that they are closed. Just get there for for cleaning. I guess you don't know if that you do the cleaning in that hour, but, you know, you do it, you do it again. Okay, Councilmember Briggs. So I understand the sentiment, and I think cleaning is a great idea. But one hour out of 24, I mean, you're still going to have 22 hours of contamination. But I do want to go back to one of my original questions is that without cleaning supplies, sanitizer, soaps, anything like that that's almost non-existent, how can we guarantee employee safety? If those items aren't even available for the companies to clean with, what are we going to do? I mean, they, in my opinion, shouldn't even open if they can't guarantee safety for the people that are coming in and the employees working there. So that's a big part of it for me. So on this on this particular proposal, where do you fall as far as the specific language of businesses or that are 24 hours? That was the request. 24 hours shutting down for an hour to clean, making that mandatory. Honestly, I don't think that one hour out of 24 is going to help. It should be every, every so often, or we need to put in some kind of qualifier that, you know, the types of the types of cleaners that they're using, or that every day should go into the bathroom and clean the bathroom every hour, something that's really going to make a difference. So does that mean you're not for that? Not for the exact one. They just said, no, I think if I think it's a great idea and I like the sentiment, but if we're going to say that they need to be cleaning, then maybe they we need to say that they go in every hour and clean the bathroom with some sort of, you know, mandated bleach or something. Okay, Councilmember Armitter. Okay, I agree and I think in addition to that, that we need to supply. Councilmember Armitter, Councilmember Armitter, Councilmember Armitter, excuse me, excuse me. If you could hold that, I can hear you, but if you could hold it because you said you agree with it and then you wanted to add something, we're not to the point of adding, you're going to have a chance to add. You're going to add something onto it, kind of like a friendly amendment, right? So I think that we should make a commitment to supplying stores that provide food and other necessities with the cleaning supplies that they need and also the supplies they need to protect their workers. Councilmember Armitter, Councilmember Armitter, you're going to have a chance to talk about what you want to suggest, but to start adding these things on, we're not going to do that. As the chair, I'm not going to allow that. You can come back and make another recommendation to say, hey, we think we need to provide cleaners to everybody. The taxpayers need to provide cleaners, cleaning supplies to everybody. Fair enough, but we're just talking about this one issue right now. So I'm trying to really move this meeting along and make it as concise as possible and as efficient as possible. You're going to have an opportunity to request all the things you want to add, which will take one at a time, just like we're doing this. So from what I heard you say is you are for Councilmember or Mayor Pro Tem's recommendation for anybody that stays open 24 hours to close for one hour for cleaning. That is with Councilmember Briggs' recommendation. Well, Councilmember Briggs said she likes the sentiment, but that if we can't, that as far as the language is proposed, I'm going to take that. You need to decide. It's a yes or a no. OK, so sorry for not making that clear. I agree with her. I agree with her. And I think that we should provide. Councilmember Armitage, Councilmember Armitage, excuse me. Excuse me. Councilmember Briggs has said that she's not in favor of that as it was stated. So I'm assuming if you agree with her, that means you're not in favor of it as it was stated. I agree with her. If we can't provide cleaning supplies. OK, all right. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Councilmember Armitage, please yield the microphone. Thank you, Councilmember Ryan. I like the sentiment of it, but I'm not, not in favor of it. I need you to speak up, John. I like the thought that's behind it, but I don't agree with that amendment. Yeah, Councilmember Ryan, we can barely hear you. Are you on your phone or are you on some other device? Yeah, hang on. Can you hear me better now? That's much better, yes. OK, all right. I like the sentiment behind it, but I'm not in favor of it as proposed. You've been in the 24-hour businesses before. There are times a day that you do the extra cleaning and just say one hour is going to make a difference. Just doesn't quite get it there. OK. Yeah, I think maybe more just a recommendation that we would make in some form or fashion would be a better way to handle it. All right. OK, so it seems like we have four on that. And, of course, we can revisit that, as we probably will. Times change. So anyone else in here in the work session room that has other recommendations? Mayor Pro Tem. One more for the road. I would like to I'd like this council to establish a budget and authorize a city manager to purchase meals as he sees fit for employees that are working extended hours. Because I think it's something that we can it's not a the cost isn't something that's going to damage future budgets. But, two, it allows for the city to support our businesses, our restaurants that are hurting. So it's an opportunity. And we have staff that may end up spending more money because they're not at home as much, et cetera, et cetera. So I'd leave that to his purview. But I want to I want to give him a budget to do that. And if I had to to put a number out there, I would say five thousand dollars that he can then manage to take care of our staff. So could it I guess my question, we authorized half a million dollars budget for four. And is that something that Mr. City Manager, you didn't see as part of that budget or I do. But I do appreciate the sentiment that Mayor Pro Tem is bringing forth. We don't know what our work weeks are going to look like in the forthcoming months. And we'll keep an accounting and track that for everyone. And just so you have up to date information on a biweekly or at least a monthly basis, what what we're incurring in terms of cost to deal with this. So I appreciate the support of council if you're all there. But what you're saying is you probably can handle that within your current budgetary requirements. And if you find obviously there's going to be much greater expenses that are going to be needed. If you find that you need some additional funding, you can always come back to this council and request that. Well, yes, as long as if there's dissenting opinions, I'd like to have those come out because I think it's important that he know I want him to feel not not like an emergency. I have to do it, but I want them to feel free to order from greenhouse, the whatever, you know, you name it, the dive. And if I see delivery cars from all over the neighborhood going to City Hall West East, that that's a good thing. OK, so I don't have a problem with the city manager having discretion to to make those decisions at all. Any other comments on that? Council member Davis, I'm fine with the city manager using the money we've allocated for during the emergency to use as he needs to. OK. All right. Well, I think we lost Keely. So we're going to take a five minute break to get caught back up. OK. Welcome, everybody, back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on March the 20th. What's the date? 20th, 2020 at three forty nine. We are still on agenda item one of our special called meeting. And so where we were, I believe, was the just if there were any more comments about the city manager having the authority as he see fit to if there's something that meals needed to be provided for the workers that were OK with that. I mean, I think it's just more of a just giving him some some guidance and clarification. Any other comments on that? I'm going to go to the phone speakers. Council member Briggs, do you have any comments on that? I know you have a couple of questions. Yes. Do I have to comment on that one specific thing or can I just start with a few of my other questions? Well, we're trying to resolve these sort of issue by issue. So if you if your question relates to that, then go ahead and ask it if it's something unrelated. Do you have an issue with the city manager having that that leeway? I do not. But on that one of my questions is about the five hundred thousand dollars that that we allowed. Could that be used for rent relief? OK, I tell you what, I think we're going to that's probably going to be something that's discussed in in length. So as far as this particular issue, if we could just hold your question and we'll come I think we've got one more couple more here in the room and then we're going to come to you all on the phone to talk about specific additions and clarifications. So Council member Armitter, any issue with the guidance to the city manager? For the five hundred thousand? No, for him being able to, if needed be in certain circumstances to provide meals for employees who are who are working overtime or things such as that to meet essential city services. For essential providers? Emergency essential workers? Is that what that was? Mayor Pro Tem, could you articulate one more time and Councilmember Armitter, he's going to articulate and that's what we're needing you to say yay or nay on. And can you put, would you mind putting the phone by you so I can hear a little, whoever's speaking. OK. I can hear a little better. OK. All right. Speak up a little bit, Councilmember, Mayor Pro Tem. Just start yelling. Yeah. So the gist of it is I want to offer, give the city manager approval to, at his discretion, order to go meals for employees across the city. That's that's a different, bless you, that's a different city halls. That's the planning and development. But at his discretion, meaning he has not in an emergency situation, but just truly at discretion. So, so for me, so did that just apply to city employees? Yes. That you're suggesting? That's what he's, that's what he's suggesting, yes. OK. Yeah. So no, but for me, I would be in favor of using some of that money to provide food and supplies to workers in the city. OK. All right. OK. All right. So you're, so your direction is, so you're, we're going to, we're going to come to that again. So again, your direction is your sentiment. I don't know so much if it's a direction. Councilmember Ryan, any issue? I'm fine with it. OK. All right. Any other questions here in, I believe Councilmember Meltzer, you had one? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. OK. So when we met last, we had as a recommendation that social distancing be urged where queuing takes place. I think things have ratcheted up a little bit now, and I give credit to Mayor Pro Tem for making the first observation that that's really where you do have a lot of congregating in the city, you know, at the big box stores where the cash, where the cash rep is. So I would propose that we now make that a requirement that social distancing be observed, also that self-checkout stands are disinfected between use, between uses. And I, and in this particular instance, I think it really is very concretely enforceable too. I don't imagine we have as big of a need as usual for, you know, what little parking enforcement we have now. So let's shift the resource there to just, you know, hitting the big box stores. And I do think you can write a ticket for that. But more important than writing a ticket is give the guidance and the information, like draw a line here. Next person waits here. Next person waits here. If we're really serious about slowing the spread, you know, that seems to me like a real weak point. So that's it. Councilmember Davis. I'm sorry, you only start with somebody else besides you every time. I don't know, maybe. No. Okay, I will. Let me start with the phone. Let me start with the phone. I'd rather go ahead and say something now and then we go to the phone because that turns into kind of a time-consuming process to go to the phones. I'm fine with it the way that it is. I think we've done what we need to do. And anything further, we let the county and the state take care of. I'm not in favor of doing anything further than what Communist China is doing. Okay. All right. Mayor Potem? Yeah, I support that amendment. All right. Councilmember Ryan. So is he saying I agree with this? Did I miss something on the queuing? I thought I heard something said about that. Okay. Did you hear what did you hear Councilmember Emelzer? He kind of had a two-part, I thought, but I'm trying to go back and remember what he said. I'll have him repeat that. Go ahead. Yes, please. So basically the recommendation becomes a rule that you've got to have six feet between groups queuing at cash wrap and that at self-checkout that there's sanitizing of the station between uses. Yeah, I understand the thought behind that. But if you're having to go, if you've ever been in the lines for the self-checkout, the possibility of being able to get in there in between, you're just getting more people in closer because the next person is going to rush in. I don't see how that that would really work. Yeah, I think we've got good recommendations from the state and the county. I'm good with sticking with those. Okay. Councilmember Briggs. I'm okay. I think you can put a piece of tape down on the ground and people who will want to be responsible will not cross it until their time is to move up. Again, I'm going to say, we need to make sure there's cleaning supplies and sanitizer, or they shouldn't be open in the first place. Okay, that's how that I'm okay with that. But we also need to make sure that they are. I'm not saying we need to purchase it. I'm saying they need to make sure and have it in their place of business to guarantee the safety of the workers and the people shopping. Sure. So just for clarification, are you saying that you're okay with Meltzer with Councilmember Meltzer's prohibition, not a recommendation about the queuing and about the disinfectant? Yes, especially the disinfectant. Okay. All right. Councilmember Armitter. Sorry, my mute button was on. I agree with Councilmember Briggs and Meltzer. Okay, all right. Thank you. It seems like that that there's a direction of at least four on that so we'll, I believe so. Mr. City Manager. So, so are we basically being asked to send out something to anyone that provides food in the city, any grocers, that sort of thing to say, you know, this is the rule that Council has passed, we expect you to adhere to it. Is that basically what we're asking? Well, and the social distancing and it's really queuing, not just not just food happens mostly there. But like, you know, really any of your, any place where you've got queuing at a cash wrap, you've got to have the space people out, you know, space the checking out parties, six feet, six feet. And then where you've got self-checkout, because it could be Home Depot too, right? You know, you've got to sanitize between uses. Can I maybe add something? The county's order does have some, it just urges, but it's not, you know, mandating that something take place in terms of how grocery stores are supposed to do sanitation, social distancing, how they're supposed to clean commonly and frequently touched services. So all of that is contained within the county's declaration right now. It's just not a have to, but it is an urges. Right. Right. Yes, Mayor Pro Tem. I think to speak to the city manager's question because I think it's a good one. I think if we packaged it with earlier conversation, so there's some kind of sign signage that would just draft signage that we would propose. And then in a conjunction with that, a notice, this was passed, here's a sign template that you may use or may not. And so you're giving both of them to them at one fatal swoop. So it's a notice and a sign template of some sort, or it could just be a note, a letter, whatever it is. I think we're more than happy. I like that idea a lot. We're more than happy to send the signage all that. We have a finite number of police officers in this city. We're already watching police officers around the country get taken down by this virus. It is not reasonable to assume that they're going to be sent in because we have somebody that's three feet away from someone else and risking having them taken out of service with that. You know, in terms of the calls, one of the things that the chief is concerned about as we move forward into this, and you'll see this later in a Friday report. One of the things that the chief is concerned about, and you're going to see this in a Friday report, is there's been evidence when we've had other major issues such as Hurricane Katrina, that sort of thing. The police get diverted to calls looting. We're expecting that we might have some violence at home going up. There's going to be different problems that they're going to be faced with. And my main priority is keeping our police officers safe, minimizing the contact from unnecessary calls right now. And people take these rules very seriously and literally when you pass them. And I just think we need to be very respectful of our police officers. Their job is hard enough right now. There's a limited number of them. And I'm happy and we'll do whatever you want, but I really think you need to take into consideration, be more prescriptive about it, urging them about it. And at some point, people have to take responsibility for themselves and be civil with one another. And I think it is a mistake to encourage the public to be calling the police department because somebody is closer than six feet or didn't wipe down a station. I think we've got to, I love the idea of the signage, encouraging it, that sort of thing. We'll meet with the managers, but this is not the kind of thing. I think as this goes on, we want our police officers spending their time on. And people will call in 911 and we'll want this addressed. So, you know, recommending that we move forward, strongly urging, providing the signage, great. But let's manage expectations because you don't know how our police officers are going to be spending their time in the upcoming weeks. Councilmember Davis. I spoke a little kind of a flip way a little while ago, but I want to, in a more articulate way, perhaps a kinder way, make my better point, which was precisely what Sarah just said. We have guidelines from the county. We have guidelines from the CDC with how we're supposed to conduct ourselves. Again, we are duplicating efforts being made in other places and kind of from our arm chairs, deciding how we as a city council are going to manage a worldwide pandemic. I think we go back to what the experts have told us. We have guidance from the state and from the county. I don't think we need to micromanage all the way down to each single barber chair and checkout stand and all those kind of things. To Todd's point, people know how they're supposed to be behaving to the extent that their job is allowing them. They're doing those things. There's not much more that we can do from our chairs on the city council awareness signage, those kind of things. Those are the kind of things we're good at as a city government micromanaging every check stand at Walmart or every hour at the seven eleven is not something that we're good at and not something we actually have the power to do. Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, no, I take the city manager's point and I'm open to if the other four or other three are open to giving staff and the city manager that discretion and allowing him to our staff to talk to the managers and draft the sign signage as is. And provide some guidelines on enforcement so that people don't so it does not get mismanaged because yeah, there's no there's we all can see the enforcement of it becomes difficult. But I think the important part is to urge and give guidance on what we how we expect the stores to or where we expect them to put efforts and how they do business for the next three, four weeks as we get through this. Thank you. Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah, if I'm open to hearing a constructive proposal about how to go about a program that results in the in that behavior. I totally you know take your, your cautions. Seriously. So, you know, if there's a better way to achieve the result, but to say, Well, look, make sure we just have it somewhere in a note that no one looks at, and it doesn't result in the behavior. We won't be happy if that leads to not slowing the spread, we will have much bigger problems if we don't actually try to create the change in the behavior. So I'm happy with another way to get at it. And I don't claim to have only answers. And I'm sure you know, you come up with something better than I did that that's my objective is, is to not just say well people have to behave well, and I hope they do, you know, we got to take seriously that that's where the congregating is happening and we want to slow the spread. Okay. Go ahead. Yes. Yes, Councilmember Briggs, go ahead. I just want to clarify we're talking about essential services, the things that have the exemption for over 50 people right. I believe so. But I believe so. However, I think in the order also does spell out that. Let me see, it might not have been in ours. Yeah, it says, says this executive order does not but this is the governor's. This executive order does not prohibit people from visiting a variety of places including grocery stores gas stations parks and banks, so long as the necessary precautions are maintained to reduce the transmission of COVID this executive order does not mandate sheltering in place for offices workplaces that remain open employees should practice good hygiene and we're feasible work from home in order to achieve maximum optimal isolation from COVID-19. The more that people reduce their public contact the sooner COVID-19 will be contained in the sooner this executive order will expire. So, yes, that's the that's the governor's. Okay, well I have a comment because I was in favor of the other recommendation, and it's an essential service which means that people are going to go right we're not going to keep them home because they're going to go to the grocery store. The government, the government just said, well, take necessary precautions. This is the city's way of saying, well, these are necessary for us for our population. And I do understand we have the state and we have the county and the city and we want to be consistent. I think having those numbers are consistent. But as the city, we also need to look at, we have different resources and others in the county and others in the state. We have a different population. So we need to make sure that we put these necessary precautions in place. And, and so I feel like the Mayor Pro Tem mentioned earlier about the 24 hour service. If these types of things are in place, the ones the concerns that he had earlier can be addressed. So, I, I thank Councilmember Davis for your comment on you know trying to be consistent, but it also allows us to take care of, of the people and individuals in our city as well. I mean, to me, the issue is pretty, it's pretty easy. The difference is, is it a recommendation or prohibition? And so right now what we have is, is four council members who have said we want it to be a prohibition. Now Mayor Pro Tem, you were one of those. And so I just want to make sure you're still under the influence, not under the influence, that you're still, that you're still advocating for the prohibition instead of it being a recommendation. Well, I think I've heard from Paul that he's open to, to some degree to the city manager putting forward a suggestion and understanding we don't have kind of the nuts and bolts of it here. I don't know that I followed the direction from Councilmember Briggs, and obviously there's Councilmember Armitage. So my position is, if we're, yes, I'm on board, if we give the city manager the flexibility he needs to craft, what staff can manage, then yes, I'm in. But if we're heavy handed saying it must be one way or another, then that, my support shifts. Okay, well, I think that's really, so correct me Mr. City Manager if I'm wrong in yours. What I heard you saying was you were talking about enforcement, the 911 calls and all these kinds of things, and it sounds like the thrust of what you were saying is, do you really want to make it a prohibition or do you want to make it a recommendation? And we can begin to craft some, get into some collaborative discussions with these establishments to see how we can best enforce the recommendation, I say enforce might be a different word, to encourage the recommendation and compliance with the recommendation. Because look, folks, whether it's a prohibition or a recommendation, there is no way that we're going to say that if it's not a prohibition that somehow we're not doing what we need to do to try to flatten the curve. That this city council, the state, the federal government, because if that's the position, if the position is whatever we do is going to be to flatten the curve and we have to force compliance or people won't comply, well then we have a, there's a different discussion, not at this level, but a different discussion of you just do what California did and you just shut down the entire state. Illinois just did that as well. May I speak? Just a moment Council Member Armitage. So what I'm trying to resolve here is we seem to, I thought we had direction on either it be a recommendation of, and I think what you added to the queuing was the cleaning of the self checkout stands. Understand that. That's a good, that's a good encouragement to do. In fact, I do it every time I go there if I take my own sanitizer. So that's what I'm trying to get now is it seems like we haven't just a little, I don't know if it's movement or some, if we're shifting a little, but that's what we're trying to understand. I have no problem with the queuing and the hand sanitizing station. I don't, I haven't heard anybody that say they have a problem with that. The question is, is it a recommendation and urging, which we've used language like that, but, or is it a prohibition? And that's what I'm trying to say. May I weigh in? Yeah, yeah, go ahead Council Member Armitage. So here's why I think it should be a prohibition. And I understand the points about enforcement and the limitations of enforcement. So there's this thing called the social contract, which is not a contract in writing, it's an implied contract. And it's the same reason why if you've ever stopped at a red light, when there's nobody there, there's no cop in sight, there's not even another car going the other way. That's the law. And we do that even though we don't have a police officer at every traffic light and we don't have, even with red light cameras, and I'm so glad they're gone, we did not have them at every intersection. But we follow that and it's a prohibition and we don't expect law enforcement to always enforce it. So people really do take prohibition more seriously than they do recommendations. It adds clarity and it is good for public safety, and it's a time-tested thing, it's called the social contract, and it works. That's why I support prohibition. Thank you. And I don't think the enforcement problem is that much of a problem. We could have a hotline, you could engage Denson, whatever, if people have complaints. But I really do think it helps provide that clarity that the state and county ordinances don't provide. All right. So, again, I go back to, I guess then it would be, Councilmember Moran, do you have anything to add to this discussion? Sorry, Mayor, I'm keeping myself on mute until I get called up. That's okay, appreciate that. Yeah, if it's a recommendation and, yeah, I'm fine with it, the prohibition, again, I don't see us, I think we've got better places for our police officers to be invested in. I've got another comment future on once we get past this item that's in line with something near that. Okay, all right. So, I go back to Councilmember Meltzer, Mayor Perkins. Yeah, well, you know, I mean, the reason things change is because we had strong words from the city manager. And really the unanswered question for me is, if it's a recommendation, it's a recommendation with a plan of action that's different than you'd have if it was a prohibition. I take your word for it that you'd have an unintended consequence, because I didn't intend it, of a flood of 911 calls. I mean, that's, you know, that's a very powerful heads up. I think that may be able to be addressed in different ways. Like, I know when you do call, I think they say if it's a non-emergency, do something else. But, you know, obviously, you know that, so you have a reason for saying what you did. But if we just say, look, it's a fine thing, and who really cares, and it's just in there. But, you know, if they read the rule, okay, it won't get us the result we want. And we're going to have a faster spread of the virus, faster infection, higher peak need for beds, et cetera, et cetera. So what's the, I'm totally open to a different way to address it. I guess my question is, what's the program that goes with the recommendation? I'm asking that to people who are doing 100 programs at once. I totally get that. But it's not a small thing. That's where people are congregating, and congregating is the risk. I think we can strongly recommend it. I actually like something Councilor Mender said with the hotline. You know, we can certainly, you know, meet with each of the food distribution places in Denton. We can call a meeting with them, you know, next week, go through the signage with them that, you know, this is exactly how we, you know, we're recommending that action be, or that your business be conducted. These are the kind of best practices the council would like to see. And here's a hotline. If it's not working that way, we can go out and speak with their management. But people are scared right now. They will hit all of you on social media that we're not enforcing this law you passed. They will call 911. They will be viewed as an emergency because they're scared, and I think that at some point we need, the public needs to start taking some responsibility for their actions as well. We can certainly play a strong educational role, and we can go out and basically, in an initial meeting with them, say, the council will go the next step. You know, if we feel like you're, you know, you're not doing everything you could as a good steward, a business steward, to, you know, manage the situation. But I am having to plan with the chief that we could lose a significant portion of this police workforce. And I don't want to spend our time chasing social media complaints around and 911 calls around when we may have some other serious issues with people being cooped up in their homes down the road. That needs to be thought through better. Well, given your commitment expressed just now to, you know, really inculcating this practice, I'm content with leaving it as it is, and let's revisit it and see if we're actually, you know, if we're actually just getting the result that we need. And we need it. It's not a small thing. We'll call a meeting next week on this, and if you want to reaffirm it as a strong recommendation at this point to give us even more, some more teeth in that meeting. I'm happy with that. I just want you all to think about, we end up losing 25, 30% of this forced quarantine like is happening around the country right now. You're going to be back here unwinding this decision. Well, and to sort of -- Would you take yes for an answer, Todd? Yes. Thank you. Well, what I think is -- I think what we can do in the ordinance as well with the recommendation is we can put clarifying language that says that if this isn't -- if there's not voluntary compliance, the next step will be a prohibition. In other words, give us what -- you know, if you can't do it, then, you know, this is where we're going. Because that's ultimately protecting the community. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm fine with that. All right. So it sounds like we've got some direction on that. But I do want to add that we've had two -- I'm sure there might be more now -- news reports of police officers who have been in other cities that have tested positive. And I think in one case, they had to quarantine five or six other officers because of that one. So I think that reiterates what you're describing is that that's a very real challenge and a very real risk that we need to certainly be aware of. I just got sent a newspaper article today. Detroit has 152 police officers quarantined right now. So we just need to think this through down the road. We don't know what we're dealing with. And if we start losing these folks in quarantine and they come back in stages, you know, we're used to having a police department that's got a couple hundred officers right now. And what happens if that's a hundred down the road? And managing community expectations if, in fact, we start seeing some of the behaviors down the road that have been seen. So I appreciate you listening to me. And we'll work with Sarah and her team to get out and meet with the grocers as soon as possible and require that those signs be put up. OK, thank you. OK, anybody else in this room? Then we'll go to the phones and the council members who are on the phones attending the meeting for their request to be put in the ordinance. Any others here in this room? OK, I had a question of what question? A clarifying question. Yeah, yeah, I was just about enforcement, so I don't see why it would have to be police enforcing that. I mean, we have some laws that are, you know, we can decide how the enforcement goes. I don't even see that it would have to be a policing issue. It could just be a matter of, you know, if there have been a certain number of complaints, then. Well, we can we can we can talk about that. We can talk about that. I believe I mean, I think we've got some direction on this particular issue. So I'd like to do is go to other requests. And so why you're you have the floor. We'll just go ahead and open it up to you, council member armature. What additional requests would you like to see and if we could take them one at a time and and if you could also be very concise in describing your your reasoning for your request? OK, so I'll just start with what I started with already. That is, I don't think that police should be the enforcing agency for that. I agree. It's risky to staff. OK, it's not really worthwhile. I'm open to a number of suggestions, but we ought to get into that here. OK, now be the time to address the 50,000 for rent assistance. The what? How much? The fifty thousand dollars for rent. Yes, yes, yes. This would be the time. Yes. OK, so obviously I support a moratorium on rent and a moratorium on utility payments. But I can see that I don't have the support of a majority for a moratorium on rent. I do know that it is within our power to have utility payment forgiveness. I'm thrilled we have a utility and I'm sorry, a utility shut off ban. But a utility forgiveness would be really, really helpful. As far as the fifty thousand for rent assistance goes, if we're not going to be doing a total. Council member Armitter, excuse me, that amount of money Council member Armitter and I would recommend. OK, if you could, because you just mentioned about three different things, three different because I think we have a clear understanding on some of your positions. We've been going at this now for three hours. And what I want to do is get what your requests are to be added in this ordinance so that then we can take them one by one. So you would also mention the reason for it. The reason why I think we need a lot more than fifty thousand. Is because we've got a lot of renters. For instance, the thirty people who wrote in, if they each had a thousand dollar rent a month, that's just to cover those thirty people. I'm not saying they're all renters, but just as an example, that's thirty thousand right there. We're talking about a lot more. So what figure are you suggesting? What I recommend is that we have at least five hundred thousand to start with that rental list. OK, all right. And these agencies that will be applying to United Way for this money, they are cash trapped. And they can't afford to help the people that we're relying on them to help. So we help those wonderful agencies by adding at least five hundred thousand dollars to the fund. I'm sorry, four hundred fifty thousand dollars, taking at least five hundred to start. All right. OK, well, we'll we'll go we'll go ahead, start with the phone. Council members first. Council member Briggs. Yes, you want me to talk about that? I would like to increase since we are unable to do a rent freeze, which many have asked us to do and it's not within our authority to do. I would love to be able to increase the amount of money from fifty thousand to an amount agreed upon so that that money can be used for those. All of the people we've heard from today in e-mails and all the people who have reached out to us before for rental assistance. OK, well, the proposal on the table is half a million dollars. So well, we have half a million already for the city to use. My comment was more could that be moved over some of that moved over to to be used for rental assistance so that it's still five hundred and fifty thousand. But just the amounts are switched. I'm not following you. How much do you want for this? The five hundred thousand dollars was for the city manager to have emergency purchasing authority for things that are needed that we can't come together as a council and and vote on that. If it's something that is needed for some essential service or something within the city. So that's that's something that the council gave him the authority of this purchasing this purchasing power. So what you're saying is you want to take some of that money. We're trying to figure out we're working with the fifty thousand dollars and the proposal on the table is an additional four hundred fifty thousand. Now, that's that's above and beyond the five hundred thousand that the city manager has just to keep the city running with emergency purchases. So are you are you OK with that amount for that? No, I would like to increase the amount for rental assistance to the agencies because fifty thousand isn't going to be enough till last until we meet again with all of the information that we've had from the people who we have in our city. I do want to find out, though, that money can be used to help with mortgage payments and other things, not just rental assistance. Well, that's a whole different ballgame. I mean, that's a whole different. I mean, we've talked about fifty thousand dollar for emergency assistance. And I think if the council wants to have a policy discussion at some point. But my understanding was that wasn't necessarily for businesses or mortgage ease mortgage payments. It was more for rent or assistance because that's all I've heard on the e-mail. So, I mean, look, we've really got to figure out how to make these discussions more concise because every time we have them and I know everything is changing. All right. Everything is changing. And so we understand we're trying to change with the times, but I've not heard anything about mortgages or businesses or anything like that. So how much money would you want? How much money would you want to be? Go ahead. I didn't say businesses. My clarifying question was the fifty thousand that we've allowed people that apply for it. What can that what is their need? What can they if they needed to help with mortgage or rent? That was my question. OK. Well, I don't remember being part of the original conversation. So my question was clarifying so that I can decide on an amount. OK. So back in the original conversation, this was a fund that's going to be administered by United Way. And it may be that they're from what I've read, they will be sending grants to the different organizations that are currently on the ground, providing that type of assistance to people. I don't know if they provide assistance for mortgage payments. I think it's typically utility assistance or rental assistance payments for tenants. I don't think it goes to mortgage assistance. I've never heard of that. So Sarah, do you have any clarification on that? Yeah, if the intent is to keep those housed. So obviously, renters are at a greater risk of a mortgage payment and getting from your home is very different than a renter who is at subject a little bit more to the will of landlords. And it's more at risk of becoming homeless. So the intent and I can check with the United Way to see what their guidelines are in the Barriers Fund. But I believe it is for rent only. OK. All right. So I think that's the clarification answer. Councilmember. OK. OK. Well, I understand. But it also part of what the county judge in Dallas says that the main thing we need to do here is make sure that if we're limiting people to their homes, we need to make sure that they have a home to stay in, which is a different conversation. So I would like to see this fifty thousand at least increase to one hundred and fifty thousand for now. OK. So all right. So I take that that that's all right. So instead of five hundred and an additional four fifty, you're saying add an additional hundred thousand. Here. OK. All right. Hold on. Let me get John. Let me get council member. Well, I have a process question. Yes. The process has been the council member. Let me get closer. The council member makes a suggestion and then we make a decision on that point. At this rate, you're going to have it change three times. No, I understand. Yeah. So basically, council member Briggs, as far as the half a million dollars, that's not something you're on board with. And if it comes back around and you can do it where you can recommend the additional hundred instead of the fifty. So Richard, you're against the five hundred. But for the right. Well, with this process and the way that is in place, I'm just going to say I'll be for it because it may not get back around to me to make another suggestion. Oh, OK. Well, I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I think it will get back around to you if you want to make another suggestion. So council member Ryan, I'm a no on that. We're meeting again on the 31st until we get some more data from the the agencies that are doing the rent assistance. We've just kind of tossed some money out there is seed fund and we need more information to know how much really needs to be there. OK, no forever, but no for now. Council member Davis, council member Ryan just hit the nail on the head. We have not yet spent the fifty thousand dollars that just got authorized to United Way. We may very well there may be other sources of funding for United Way, but to simply say we're in some sort of economic freefall that every renter in the city of Denton is going to have financial difficulty. We're just not there yet. We can meet again, add more money to the pot if we need to at that time. But the sky is not quite falling yet for every renter in the city of Denton. I'm no to adding a half a million dollars. Council member Meltzer. I'm definitely in the need more information need to see how it's going because we're just picking numbers. My concern is that we're not really grappling with the issue in a way that we'll even ever be able to pick a number. And we need to establish some criteria. I don't even know what they are yet. I think we do need to see what evolves a bit. But if I'm going to make up some numbers here. Maybe there's something like 60,000 households in Denton. So maybe 35,000 of them are renters. I'm obviously rounding. If 20 percent of them are in distress, that's 7,000 households. If it's a thousand dollars each, that's seven million dollars a month. The scale of that is way beyond anything we can begin to address this way. So if we're just talking about blunting the sharpest edge of it, then we need to establish criteria. But understand that if what I'm roughing out there is anything like what comes to pass, this will be gone very quickly. Well, and I'm not in favor of just adding another 450,000 dollars. Let's make sure we understand that the Texas Supreme Court just issued an order. They didn't ban eviction filings. What they did is you cannot hear them until after a certain date, April 19th. So as far as April rent for April, landlords are unable to hear any kind of eviction claim until April 19th. And I think part of the reason was for April 19th wasn't because they felt that that was going to be the end of the crisis. But it's to take this at an interval step and an interval approach to see how the data pans out. So I'm not opposed to seeing, you know, if there's additional funds that need to be made. But I will concur with the Councilmember Meltzer's point is the city doesn't have enough money to cover everybody's rent. And I don't even know if it's the city's responsibility to do so. It's a matter of how do we how do we allocate because when we allocate funds to United Way, even now in the barriers fund, those funds get used up. I mean, those funds get used up. You can put any amount of money you fund these type of activities. You can use that money up. So I'm certainly OK with getting more data and seeing if we need to add more to that as it as it gets depleted. And what are the reasons that it's being funded for? But also, I just really want to send out that I mean, people have been asking for an eviction ban. And the Supreme Court issued an order that basically prohibited any eviction hearings until the date that was specified. So that particular request, I think, is is needing more information. So we will we will look at that as we get more data. I think the consensus is to get more data. OK, Councilmember Armitage and then we're going to go to Councilmember Briggs and then we'll go to Councilmember Ryan. You're you're you're still on the floor. Yeah, I think it's important that for people who are listening, that they be able to know who on council is a landlord. So we could just go around and just around the horn and just say, I'm a landlord or I'm not a landlord. No, I'm not a landlord. Sure. Councilmember Armitage, I know you're aiming that towards me. And so, yeah, I've been in the real estate business for 30 years, but people generally don't know. I don't. Councilmember Armitage, that's fine. I sure don't mind saying that. OK. I would I would direct everyone to the city website that has everyone's occupation. And if we could use staff's time better than this, I'd greatly appreciate it. That mentions that people are landlords. OK, Councilmember Armitage, would you like to go ahead and make some additional requests? I made my request at five hundred thousand. No, I mean, I think is that the only one you have in general? OK, in general, I had some other other suggestions to add. Is this our last time to add anything else to the ordinance? Well, no. You mean today or ever? Yeah, yeah, for today. Well, that's why I asked you to. Yes, I mean, if you want to request some things be added, this is the time to put them forward. So utilities as well. Utilities forgiveness, as well as utilities shutdown, but utilities forgiveness. OK, all right. I don't know. Hold on. Hold on. We need the ordinance that says something about the private businesses. Councilmember Councilmember Armitage, we're going to take these one at a time. So we need to talk about your proposal of utility forgiveness. OK, thank you. All right. Councilmember Briggs. When do we meet again on this? The next the next meeting is going to be on March 31st, and we will certainly have a coronavirus type update to you every meeting. So I think it'd be up to council if you want us to bring back certain topics on the 31st. We're happy to do it. March 31st. Yes, I would like to. I also would like to add the commercial businesses who have been shut down to the utility declaration for not to be able to shut off. That Councilmember Armitage has mentioned. Well, I think Councilmember Briggs and our original order that was ratified by the council, I believe that was last week. We we did say that there would be no utility shutoffs during the period of the order, which includes commercial and residential. But what Councilmember Armitage is talking about is so that the no utility shutoffs is already in. What I think is being asked is that we don't even charge them for the electricity that they're using and that it's a utility forgiveness. That somehow the utilities that are used, I guess, either residential commercial, that somehow everybody gets free utilities. So just to clarify, because the first declaration, I remember reading it, it said residential utilities only. So the second one, we clarified that and put residential and commercial shutoff. Yes, we changed that in the meeting during the meeting when the council met. Oh, OK. All right. Good. OK. So what I would like to see is a a financial statement of what that would look like for the. The lower the lower amounts, the people who are in affordable housing units, what that would look like for them. If that was the case, if we were to do that for those renters, you mean to not charge them for electricity? Well, the forgiveness for for a month, if they have proven that they've been laid off or fired because of the covid. OK, so I need to make sure that I understand the terms that are being talked about when I hear utility forgiveness. That means someone has incurred a charge of of utility service. And the city, what I'm hearing is being asked is the city to forgive that charge. In other words, if I incurred two hundred dollars worth of utility bills, I don't have to pay it. It's just not a matter of if I get it, you know, you can't shut me off because I'm delinquent. It's I don't I'm not responsible for that amount. So if I'm incorrect in that, I would really appreciate a clarification. OK, so, Councilmember Briggs, what I'm hearing you say is you what I'm hearing you say is you would like more data in the sense of if we took people who are in affordable housing. However, we define that either tax credit supported apartments or didn't housing authority section eight voucher dwellings didn't affordable housing units. You would want to see what that number is for 30 days. In other words, if you didn't charge people for 30 days of their utilities that met that criteria, what would that number be? Right. I would like more data, especially for those who have been directly impacted by the virus, either getting it or being fired from it. OK, all right, because just just hear me out here. The amount that the federal government is supposed to pay individuals, those who are considered in that category are getting less money than anyone else. So that's why I'm looking to this. OK, all right. Now, you had two different types of criteria there when you started stated your second criteria, you said people who have either been fired, laid off, lost their jobs because of the the pandemic. Is that right? It has to be directly related to the virus. OK, all right. But does that still also only entail people in in affordable housing? We can use because of the definition that's lacking, we can use a percentage of 60 percent or 30 percent, whatever that could be decided upon. OK, all right. I think we can probably get some of that data. Let me go ahead and just get through the the forgiveness of the utility, because I think that's where we're because I think I hear Councilmember Briggs saying she's not necessarily for that right now because there's not enough data. Right. Councilmember Davis, your last statement is absolutely correct. We don't have the data. We don't know one who we've not yet shut off because they may not have hit their billing date yet. We don't know fully who has lost or will lose their primary source of income because of the virus. If we're not shutting shutting anybody's electricity off, we don't really know or or their water, for that matter, or their trash service. We don't really know the full extent of this. We can't just kind of open up the queue and say that everybody who might be in some kind of distress right now doesn't have to pay their utility bills. There may come a time where we have to, you know, consider something like we already have people on payment plans for debt they owe. That's something we actually kind of deal with on a pretty regular basis, even outside of a virus crisis kind of scenario. I cannot, I cannot support any kind of bill forgiveness or utility forgiveness at this point in the crisis. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, no, the same answer, different reason, because this utility situation is is unique in that it's rate payer based. And so we're asking the, we're mandating without discussing with different homeowners or different clients or customers, however you want to phrase it, we're mandating, we're going to, you're going to have to pay more to offset the forgiveness, unless I'm misunderstanding how the, the rate payer based functionality works. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but otherwise, we're mandating without talking to those individuals, telling them we're going to raise your rates to forgive these other rates. Okay. Mayor Meltzer. Yeah, no no shut off for now I think is is the right thing. I'm open to, you know, relooking at this in the future. Also, I think it's going to be a little bit different. How this all looks. In about a week, well, a lot of things will change, but the federal subsidy to individuals that's been contemplated ought to cover emergency rent and utility kind of issues hasn't passed yet but my reading of the news is that that's a federal level is a lot more capable of doing that level of support than a municipal government. Okay. All right. Okay. So that that won't be included Councilmember Armitage, how many more do you have any more suggestions. Yes. Three. Okay. Yeah, if you could present them and then we'll, and I will I will certainly try to lead by example I will try to cut down my commentary, and just really stick with a yay or nay on it. And we can always come back and talk about when we asked for different data and all that so I will certainly try to set a better example of that. Go ahead Councilmember Armitage. So, the next one, the jail. So, I recommend that we stop bringing people into the jail, and that we shut down the jail, and I think for this emergency and I think it'll also be the best protection for our staff who are working in the jail. Okay. All right, we still have people there, and what you said before about police officers getting the virus, I think it's best for everyone. Okay. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Ryan. No. Councilmember Briggs. And we're talking about class D, and we're talking about a different conversation and I'm all on board with that. Okay, well, I appreciate that but the conversation we're talking about is shutting down the jail so. All right, Councilmember Davis. No, Councilmember city jail. No, no I understand yeah the city jail. Councilmember milsor inclination is no if the chief has a recommendation to make to us. His, his, his recommendations to be absolutely not. Yeah, for the reasons I articulated earlier. Okay. All right. Okay, Councilmember Armitage you've got two more. The other one is that we come up with a list of emergency workers. Essential emergency workers that we dedicate some of that 500,000. That is that the city manager's discretion to providing them with the supplies and the safety measures that they need to do their essential job is that just on that list. Healthcare workers, but, and functioning workers and workers who work with our, our homeless communities and delivery drivers. So you're saying that's not just city workers but you're saying any private worker. Okay, exactly because of this emergency. Okay. Yeah, because of the extent of this emergency. All right, Councilmember Ryan. I'm a down on that one. Councilmember Briggs. Can you repeat that mayor. Yes, I'm sorry yeah she was, she was her recommendation is to use the $500,000 of the city manager's purchasing authority to provide to first of all get a list of essential workers that are needed during this time not just essential city workers but essential workers in the private sector that that would be identified and that the 500,000 would go to provide. I think it would be like what you said some, you know, cleaning supplies sanitation some assisting those essential workers, both public and private public being city employees. Okay, um, I would much rather that money be used for rental assistance. I want to make sure that people have the supplies getting the supplies is actually the issue, not being able to afford them. Can I mention, just to clarify, I wasn't when I was imagining this $500,000 as being all that we could spend on this issue, I do think it's important for the city manager to have around that amount and no expression. Yeah, I didn't I suggested more for rent. Well, that's not what that's not, that's not what you suggested so we need to go around and make sure we, we get the feedback from the other renter from the other council members, Councilmember Davis. I think we've given the city attorney. Excuse me, the city manager authority to make the purchases he feels needs to make. I'm a no. Mayor Pro Tem. I want to fix one narrative, and then I'll answer but Governor average just had a town hall last night and he explicitly said there is not a supply issue. There is a, a transportation, a distribution issue a purchasing issue, but there's not a supply issue so we can't keep, we have to be careful about what we say, and what we put out there because we're then disseminating inaccurate information and causing more problems, but then also I'm no on the driver driver. Okay. All right, so you're, Mayor Pro Tem, you're, I'm no. Okay, Councilmember Meltzer. The general point I would make is we provided this big fund. So the city manager could use his discretion and respond nimbly as things arise so if that's the urgent need, and he decides to do that. That's fine with me and if it's not, that's also fine with me. So I don't see any need to, you know, slice that number up at this point. Okay. All right. So, right now it stands as the original as the original order. Councilmember Barber did you have one more. Yes, my final one is that I would like to see workers who are immune compromised, or who have family at home who are immune compromised or anybody that they're sharing a household with who's immune compromised, be exempted from having to work in one of the following ways, either by being guaranteed paid prime off, or by there being a guarantee that they could take FMLA or some other measure. And if their employer doesn't want to pay them that at least we could guarantee somehow that they couldn't be fired. So my first choice again was guaranteed paid time off for the state of disaster declaration for people who are immunocompromised, workers who are immunocompromised or have family or other members of the household at home who are immunocompromised. If they can't be paid for that, then at least there's some guarantee that the city can provide that they are not allowed to be fired for taking that time off, even if they're not showing symptoms yet. All right, Councilmember Ryan? That protective preventative measure that would really have to do a lot to prevent or mitigate the spread. Okay, thank you Councilmember Armitage. Councilmember Ryan? I'm going to now on that and formalize the federal law. Councilmember Briggs? Some of the things that she mentioned, wasn't that in the act that was just passed by the Senate? Can we get confirmation on that? Yes, I believe so. We're working with our federal consultant to get a summary of that bill that we can share with Council. Yeah, okay. All right. I mean, I think it's valid. I mean, we want to make sure that those who are immunocompromised aren't being forced to go to work, and also will not be retaliated against and be fired for staying home if they're sick. So it's very critical, but I think it may be covered in the federal, in the bill that was passed. I just want to confirm that. Okay, before you answer the question of whether you support it in our declaration or not. I support it to some degree on what we can do. If it's employment law, there's things that we can't do. I'd like to know what we can and especially for our city employees. I definitely support it. Okay, Councilmember Davis? The sentiment of what's been proposed is noble. The need is out there in our economy. It is so wildly beyond what the city can either legally do or responsibly afford. The best thing I can say about it is just hard no. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem? No. Councilmember Meltzer? I agree about the part that there's a need, based on where Councilmember Briggs is, that I think it's probably going to be addressed in the federal legislation. Don't see need to put it in our ordinance now, but I would certainly like to hear an update once we have sorted out what the federal legislation is. Okay, all right. I think we have direction on that. Okay, that ends Councilmember Armitage's request. Councilmember Briggs, you have the floor on the request? Well, most of mine were already talked about. I wanted to, I'm just going to go through what I wanted to do. I wanted to increase the amount used for the nonprofits for rent help, which was denied. I wanted to add the commercial to the utilities and that's been done. We talked about forgiveness, not necessarily total forgiveness, but I'd like the Council, when this comes back to us, to maybe think about a certain percentage, especially for the, maybe the businesses that have been mandated to shut down. And then those under a certain income bracket level. And these are, of course, not something I guess that are going to go into this one, maybe on March 31. I'll bring them back up. I do want to say now before we close this conversation that their universities are still having people dining in, which is a conflict. I don't know if we need to address that or not. And I want to say one last thing about testing. Someone reached out to me and said they have just traveled back from another country. They are showing symptoms. They wanted to know about testing. Their doctor would not test them, so I told them to go to the emergency room. The emergency room said come in. They tested them for flu. Flu said it was negative. Of course, they knew it was negative. They did not have a coronavirus test and they were not given a test, even though they had symptoms and had traveled out of the country. They did give them medicine for cough and another something or another. But what I'm trying to say to you is that we can talk about this ordinance, this declaration, all of these things to keep our people safe. But if we're not doing the correct testing and we do not have those tests in our city, then this is all for nothing. So I just want to put that out here because it's very concerning to me. Okay. I appreciate that. And we'll certainly double back with Denton County and see exactly. And if you don't mind, I would probably suggest maybe offline communicating with someone about this specific situation. And if you know the specific person, then you all can communicate offline to make sure that -- because it's these kinds of things we need to understand the process. That's the only way we can fix a process is to know exactly what's happening. So I certainly appreciate you bringing that to our attention. And I see the city manager nodded his head. We'll make sure that we get some information and some clarity on that as well because that is very important. In fact, I asked my physician about that as well, you know, what would happen if I was demonstrating symptoms. So that's an important point. Any other recommendations or comments? Councilmember Briggs? Oh, well, I just -- I want to know what the interest rate on the SBA loans are that we're recommending to everyone. I do not know over the top of my head, but I do know it is on the city's website that is specifically stated on there. So you can find that information there. Okay. And at some point, if we could just -- because, Mayor, you mentioned earlier about the evictions, people were having other questions. Is that just for renters, businesses, homeowners, or is it just -- does it just mean all evictions? If he could kind of clarify that for us before we get off the call. Clarify what now? The Supreme Court decision to halt the evictions? Yeah. Well, I've got the Supreme Court decision right here. And it says -- I mean, it's pretty small. Basically it talks about in an action for eviction to recover possession of residential property under Chapter 24 of the Texas Property Code and Rule 510 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, any trial, hearing, or other proceeding may be conducted and all deadlines are told until after April 19, 2020. A writ of possession may issue, but the posting of the written warning required by Section 24.061 of the Property Code and the execution of the writ of possession may not occur until after April 26, 2020. It says the deadlines in Rule 510(8)(d)(1)(d)(2) are told while this order remains in effect. New filings may be accepted, but the time period in Rule 510(4)(a)(10) is suspended and issuance and service of citation may not occur until after April 19, 2020. So I just want to make sure that people understand that rents are still due, that the rent is not halted. I'll let the City Attorney address that. That would be correct. Rent is still due. I do want to make this clarification, not a clarification, but this addition because I think it's important because in 4(b) of the order it says the court determines that the facts and grounds for eviction stated in the complaint under oath with personal knowledge taken as true show that actions of the tenant or the tenant's household members or guests pose an imminent threat of physical harm to the plaintiff, the plaintiff's employees, or other tenants or criminal activity and the court signs an order stating procedures for that case to proceed. In other words, as I read that, this eviction ban or prohibition or tolling of the dates applies to orders for possession, what is it called, rid of possession or to recover residential property. But you can get evicted for other reasons other than non-payment of rent and I think that's what the court was trying to emphasize was that if you have somebody committing criminal activity or violence or things such as that, that this doesn't necessarily apply in those types of cases. So if you have any other questions, be glad to have the City Attorney get with you on that and we can post some of that information as needed. Thank you. You bet. Councilmember Ryan, do you have any other requests or suggestions? No, not really an add on to it, but I would like to recommend that we beef up our health department inspections of grocery stores and etc. and maybe create a protocol that they can take out and explain to the workers in the stores what the city would like to see as far as you know, we talked earlier about wiping down registers between customers and that type of thing. Just kind of if we need to up our budget for the health department, I'm all for that and I figured that that's probably kind of built into the $500,000 already. City Manager, do you have a comment? We're on it. Okay. All right. Okay. Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah, just I think that makes a lot of sense. I'm glad to hear that we're on it. This is maybe looking ahead a little bit, but maybe not. Things are happening fast these days. As we get to the point where to slow the spread, it becomes more critical that we are careful about the food supply that we may want to include in those practices, checking of temperatures just like we do here on the way into council. You know, to advise those in the food supply chain to check temperatures at the key points of handling, you know, and record them, check temperatures of the people who handle food. Okay. You weren't talking about the temperature of the food. You're talking about the temperature of the people. Yeah, with the infrared check. Okay. So like the folks back in the that are handling the butcher shop, the bakeries. Yeah. Okay. I see what you're saying. Okay. All right. That now we've got. May I add comment? Yes. We're going around for final comments. Yes. So just to speak to the issue about having some of that money go to enforcement, I would much prefer that it go to cleaning supplies and health supplies to protect the workers. Again, I think enforcement is going to be a real staffing issue, and I think at a time like this, we're going to have to depend on that social contract that I was talking about earlier for people to do the right thing and that we will need to give them the supplies that they need to do it. And the other thing I wanted to just mention is I think I might have forgotten to add to my list of essential emergency workers, child care providers. I know that I didn't have consensus yet to add that, but I just wanted to use this opportunity to at least put a shout out to our child care providers who are trying to provide for children who are off from school within groups that are acceptable and healthy. And it's really hard, and these people need to get paid and supported. And so I think that's the public need that I would be put back to invest in. All right. Thank you very much. So we've got another agenda item, and this is an action item on this, but we don't have. Correct. I think what we'd like to do is break, see if we can edit the order further from your discussion, and then we'll move on to another agenda item and come back to this one. Yes. So what we're gonna do is take a five minute break and then y'all can be working on that. Are you saying, well, we have the two, we have more items on the agenda. Right, right. That's what I'm saying. But I was thinking that you edit the, the, the declaration and we move forward with the other agenda items and then come back and reopen this agenda item to approve or deny the revised. Okay. All right. So we'll take a 10 minute break right quick. Welcome back everybody to this meeting of the city council on March 20 2020. We'll move on to our next agenda item for the special call meeting wanted to make sure that we have Councilmember Briggs Are you present. Councilmember Armitter. Here. And Councilmember Ryan. I'm here. All right. So they've got the, they're going to be sending emails to the three of you. And then we're going to get some hard copies, but we're going to come back to the, the actual declaration hard copy of the ordinance, after we go through this next agenda item. And we'll revisit that. So our next agenda item. Can we call both of these together. Aren't they this B and C. Oh, which one. Item B is a mutual aid agreement. Oh, okay. Okay, I don't think I have the, I don't have the caption for it. I don't have an old agenda, I guess. I thought I picked it up. Sorry about that, Chief. Okay, we'll go on to agenda item B, which is consider a resolution of the city of Denton approving the greater Dallas Fort Worth regional law enforcement mutual aid task force agreement for the formation of a regional law enforcement mutual aid task force with other area loss law enforcement agencies for the purpose of providing and receiving law enforcement assistance. All right, good evening mayor council the purpose of this interlocal agreement is simply to allow us the bandwidth to provide assistance to surrounding agencies should they have a high number of officers start falling ill, as well as be able to bring those outside agencies into our city to perform the same function. So as you know over the last five hours, since we've been here, there's been a significant amount of officer number of officers around the country that have already been taken out of service, and some here locally in the DFW region so pretty important that we get this. Okay, any questions for the chief councilmember Meltzer. Approval. Okay. All right. Councilmember Meltzer is moved for approval. We have a second Councilmember Davis. Second. Discussion. Hi, yes. Okay, go ahead. So, so I keep fixing. He can hear you. Okay. So I'm concerned about I was wondering how you would answer my concern. I'm concerned about officers circulating from city to city, and you know the way that the virus spread, and so as much as I appreciate the idea behind it. I worry about that. And, you know, my other concern is, what about, you know, what does that mean that officers from other law enforcement agencies would would come over here to them to speak to that. That is what that would imply for you know circulating in and out of the city for officers and other officers. So I understand your concern but this inner local agreement is purely for emergencies if we got down to having 100 of our police officers go out of service and we had no way to effectively protect our community. We would have to bring in outside agencies to help us do that. Okay, anybody else. All right, because we're, some of us are here and some of us are remote we're just going to take an individual poll of council members so we've had a motion and a second to approve agenda item. One be I believe it is yes one be. And we'll just go around the horn here Councilmember Davis. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem. Aye. Aye. Councilmember Meltzer's Aye. Mayor Watts Aye. Councilmember Briggs. The chief is not concerned about the transmission of the virus, and I'm okay. Councilmember armature. All right. Councilmember Ryan. All right. Motion passes six to one. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate that. Our next item on the agenda now can I call C and D together. Yes you can, Mayor. All right. And then we'll just vote on them separately. Yes. All right. Agenda item one C is considered option of an ordinance amending ordinance number 20 dash 264. Ordering an election to be held in the city of Texas on May 2 2020 and if a runoff election is required on June 13 2020 for the purposes of electing council members to place five and six and electing a mayor to play seven of the city council the city of Texas. To change the date of election confirming candidate filings, etc. Agenda item one D is considered option of an ordinance amending ordinance number 20 dash 265 ordering a special election to be held in the city of Denton, Texas. On May 2 2020 and if a runoff election is required on June 13 2020 to fill a vacancy and districts one and two for the unexpired terms ending in May 2021 to change the date of the election, confirming candidate filings providing dates for voter registration, and the city secretary will make the presentation. Thank you. My name is Rosario and I am your city secretary so I'm here to present consideration of moving both our general and special elections to November 3 2020. As you know, the proclamation was issued by Governor Greg Abbott, allowing political subdivisions to move their may election to the November uniform election date which of course is November 3. And the only requirement on that is that the entities have to take an official vote the governing body would have to take a vote it's not just an automatic automatic move. So, we did receive a recommendation by the Denton County elections administrator, and the information was included in your backup and he listed several areas of concern and reasons why he strongly recommended that are we move our election to November I will let you know that we did just receive an updated email from Frank Phillips who is the Denton County elections administrator, and he has advised us that he is not willing to contract with entities to hold a May 2 2020 election, and that we would have the option to rent the equipment from his offices. And, however, we would be required to carry and perform all election duties, which of course would involve involve the hiring the staff finalizing locations, because you know that was one of his concerns. So basically the concerns that he initially indicated in the first recommendation, we would be faced with those as well although they would actually probably multiply, because he would at least have had trained staff, possibly available where we would have to identify and trained appropriate staff. We did as a courtesy and to ensure transparency as well as involved those that would be directly affected. We did a candidate poll that did not include the incumbents is of course those are members of the city council. And we specifically asked them, should the city of Denton move its May 2 2020 general special elections to November 3 2020. As you can hear, see here this is the vote result eight indicated that they were in favor, two were opposed, with one indicating that he would like to see what the others positions were of the results were four general election candidates that were in favor, and four of the special election candidates that were also in favor, the two in opposition were for special election candidates, and the one that opted to wait before voicing position was especially election candidate. And I'm here to answer any questions you might have any questions for the city secretary and we're going to have some discussion about this in general but any questions on the presentation for the city secretary, seeing no questions in the council chambers. Any questions for the city secretary for those who are joining us by phone. Is the November date the only date that's available. Okay, that's Councilmember Briggs, and I think we're probably going to have some pretty in depth discussion on that. So, I guess that would probably be a discussion with legal and the other council members so Madam City Secretary I think probably you can leave the podium if you like and then we'll go. So, Councilmember Briggs will start with you, since you are. You have the floor so go ahead with your questions. My question is the November date, the only other date available. Is there a date. I think someone messaged about August 9, would there be a date closer to the May date that would be allowed. So I'm, do you just want me to keep going or do you want to answer. No, no, let us, let us answer that because I think that's going to help with some of the future discussion just to get some clarity on what the law is and what our options are, if any. Mr. City Attorney. Right now Councilmember Briggs you know the November 3 2020 date is the only one. Since it is a uniform election date that's simply, you know, the governor just moved it from the, the May to November 3. That said, I know that just a short bit ago I received an email from TML. TML has provided another list of laws to the governor to requesting they be suspended, including in there is a request that somehow either the governor. However, you know, under the duties that he has or powers that he has is to come up with a different election date option than the November date and suggesting possibly in August 8 or the official primary runoff date as a substitute date and so these have been transmitted to the governor's office earlier this afternoon. So if I could just for clarification, Mr. City Attorney. So what I think I'm hearing is that this council is unable to take action to unilaterally change the date of the election to November from other some other date than the November 3, which is the uniform election day, as far as unilaterally, and there may be an option moving forward to make a petition and to petition the governor's office to see if he would be willing to arrive at a date that would be acceptable throughout statewide the city of didn't can't carve out its own day. This has to be a statewide. That's correct the election code basically preempts, most of what we could do at the local level mayor pro tem I believe had a question or comment. Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to make a motion. And then we can continue to see if it gets a second and continue discussion, but in light of the covert 19 outbreak and the governor having previously declared a state of emergency in the state of Texas do the outbreak, governor, governors strongly suggesting that governmental bodies for postpone their May 2 2020 elections, I move that the council asked the governor to ask the governor for permission to hold a special election on August 8, which is a former date that was considered when we had four days in the universe. What do you call it you uniform election yeah election code so it's a former date that was listed there considered before in place of the May 2 2020 general election, and by proxy we would communicate to the county that were waving the May 2 date, but we're going to reserve our right to select the date of election data later. If I understood you correctly, you're in order, you're referring to the election code provision that allows us to petition the governor for a special election date, based on an emergency which would be the disaster declaration is that correct. Yes, sir, and to frame that I believe that we will have assistance in that because there's a county runoff election day set for May 26 with I don't think would go forward. So Denton County will be top of mind and give us a greater opportunity to get a message and at least be heard. Okay, and if I understand further if I can just clarify that would be that would take it, be the action that you're proposing that and if it is if it is adopted then we would not be acting on moving this to November or anything, which is simply what you suggested that is correct. Yes, giving counsel giving county notice on regarding May 2. Okay, all right. Second, or discussion. I want to give the council members on the phone. Any, any discussion or second or. I will second. And then I'd like to do a little discussion as well. All right. All right, well, Mr. Councilman Ryan, you second it so you want a discussion so we'll just start with you. Okay, my main concern on November, there's, well there's multiple concerns involved in November one of the major ones in my mind is the budget is normally passed in September, and so if we don't have the newly seated council. We will have two different councils operating on one budget cycle, since we know there's going to be at least two new members up there. Secondly, the November 3 election, the general election does not have any runoff provisions, looking at the normal amount of time between an election and a runoff that's going to put us between Thanksgiving and Christmas to try and get people back after the polls runoff and there's at least four races, please three or four free races, free races that are subject to a runoff at this point and one quite highly likely that it would be a runoff. Okay. All right, anybody Councilmember armature questions discussion. Yeah, yeah, I strong feelings about it. I believe that we should have our May election. If we can guarantee that there are mail in ballots for all. If that's not possible, and it sounds like people are saying that that might not be possible. Then my second choice is to do the November election, but I am strongly against any other alternative date, I'm going to have to go outside because my dog. What you're, you're, you're fading in and out Councilmember armature. We know that we have a May election and we have a November election. So I don't want to confuse people. And the population in Denton changes a lot in the summer. So just from a voter's right perspective voter to access. My first choice is may with a guarantee of mail in ballots for everyone not just seniors and people with illnesses or disabilities but for everyone. And if you can't get that guarantee then November. Okay. All right. Councilmember Briggs. Yes, I would like to find out more about mailing ballots and maybe electronic voting from home online voting. If that was possible. I know that the county said they wouldn't do the election but what if there was mail in ballot. I have some questions about that but I do also have concerns with the election being right in the summer. All right. Yeah, Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah, I think we have a number of unpalatable options. And, yeah, there might be a sort of ideal, and I don't know if it's achievable or not. Doing it in May, normal course of business entirely unpalatable. I think doing it in November has its own set of problems, in part because you're taking a nonpartisan election and doing it during the most partisan election I just think it's. I just don't think that's smart. August is when didn't clears out. I think it's, you know, if you just had to pick a month, that wouldn't be the month you pick. I strongly concur that if we could get universal mail in or other form of safe voting as an option. That alone would would give us some better things to think about. And I understand that legislations may have been already introduced for that so I think you know that that's worth at least investigating, because I understand it would require legislation that it's not something that the governor could do, because it wouldn't be waiving a rule or waiving a lot. I do think the governor can waive the law requiring elections to be on a uniform date. I think, given, you know, everything. If I had to pick, I'd say, you know, I take me with mail in if it were possible but it's probably that's probably not ideal either. We've already lost some dates of candidate forums and things like that, you know that people should have the ability to see. I kind of lean to like a September date, and the mail in option, we don't know what the world's going to look like, even then. So, you know, I think it would be prudent to really pursue some of these safer voting options. If that's at all possible, and allowing some more time. And, and I would argue for September not in the middle of the summer when everyone's lots of people are gone. Okay. Councilmember Davis. So I support the motion as its phrase but I think there's some other moving parts to that. I agree with Councilmember Meltzer that I don't think there's a safe way to conduct this election on our currently, our current date that we've already called the elections for we have called two separate elections to occur on the same date with the same set of filing deadlines and all those kind of things. My only, my only kind of hold up with the motion. Did we lose somebody on the call? I don't know. She's still watching at home, so I'm going to continue speaking if that's okay. Yeah, because yeah. So the only thing that the motion doesn't include is dispensing with the election that's currently on the books. I think we have to, we've called an election, I think we have to cancel the election that we've called. My recommendation would be that we do that at a future meeting that has allowed, I suppose we could do it today but it's not captioned that way, but that has allowed time for the governor to respond to TML's request. If we're talking about additional dates and asking the governor for additional dates. So two things are going on simultaneously. One, we're talking about asking the governor under the provision of the emergency provision of the election code for a different date, for him to allow us a different date. At the same time, other cities in the TML, the Texas Municipal League, are doing the exact same thing. The reason why support has kind of coalesced around August 8th is not because of anything that happens every August in Denton or anything like that. It's that that is a prior uniform election date. Back when we had more available dates in the Texas election code, that August date was one of them. And it also, to Councilmember Ryan's point, gives us time for a runoff before, which is reasonably likely to happen in a special election, before we hit the November election and then worse than that, the holidays. So I support the motion as it's phrased. I just want us all to remember that we have some additional things to do. If that's the motion that we vote on, that we all that motion does is makes a request to the governor. We have to still make provision for the election. We have already called and is on the books, but it does remove kind of that that sense of urgency. The only reason why we have a ticking or a burning fuse on this issue is that the elections administrator has said he needed to know. Well, he's told us he's not going to hold a May election. So we have time to deal with this issue at a future regular meeting if we need to. OK, I understand that we've lost Councilmember Armitage. So we're not going to take a break. We're just going to try to get her back on the phone. Councilmember Briggs, Councilmember Ryan, hang on. We're going to try to get Councilmember Armitage back on. Hello? OK, are you there? Yes, OK. OK, hang on. Are they on break? No, no, we're, we're, we're. Just hang on. OK, I missed a lot. I've been trying to call the whole time. OK. OK, just stand by here. I've got to conference the other two in. Is everybody on? Councilmember Ryan, are you on? Yes, I'm here. Councilmember Briggs, are you on? I am. OK, Councilmember Armitage, are you on? Yeah. OK, you're back on. OK. Thank you. All right. OK, I think we can accomplish that. I don't necessarily want to have to come back with a meeting. I mean, it's going to be difficult enough in the next few weeks, you know, as we find and refine and tweak how we have our meetings. I think we can take care of all that now, because what I'm hearing is we basically this is the way the law, the lay of the land is. We're not having a May 2nd election. It doesn't matter if everybody gets mail. They're not going to administer it. They're not going to send out mail in ballots, even if everybody could. That's not going to happen. May 2nd is just not going to happen. So then the default pursuant to the law is the November the 3rd ballot. All right. Now we have an option and we have an opportunity together with other municipalities in the state to advocate for the governor setting a different date for the municipal elections. So I would make a proposal because I don't know if I can support the motion as it's stated, because I think what we can do in the motion is we can say that we're canceling the election for May 2nd. We can say that we will accept the November the 2nd or 3rd election date, but for or contingent upon our being able to advocate to the governor to set a new date. And therefore, if a new date gets set, then we can choose that date. I think we can take care of that in this particular. Hold on, Councilmember Armitter, because I'm so I would like to get as much accomplished here today in this motion as possible, because there's no and I'll be honest with you. I've talked with TML. I've talked with the county administrator of elections. And yes, people are going to put in that request. But I just don't want us to think that the chances of that occurring are high. So I want us to be able to say let's submit a resolution for it, whatever we need to do to advocate for that and stand with other municipalities who want to do that. But instead of us having to come back and do something else that if that doesn't happen, then we're having the election on November the 2nd. I don't know if that can be accomplished in one ordinance or one. So I'm going to have to defer to the city attorney in that regard. I think what's up before you is to adopt the ordinances that are there or not. And these ordinances propose to move both the general and special elections to November 2nd or 3rd. What you're adding is something akin to what you've done in the past where you've stated a preference that you're going to direct staff to undertake an action and that these ordinances could possibly be amended again. Is that kind of what you're suggesting there? Well, well, first of all, the ordinance that are presented to us doesn't mean that we can't change those. That is correct. Yeah. So I'm saying that the foundation, the ordinance, the draft ordinance is a foundation ordinance of changing it to November the 2nd. But adding into that ordinance, if the council agrees, if there's enough votes to agree to that, that should the governor provide an alternative date that this council can then revisit that or can accept the date, but you don't know who knows if that's going to happen. You know, you've got all different kinds of attitudes on what date it should be. But but I think I'm hearing at least somewhat of a consensus, maybe not everybody, that an alternative date would be preferential. It's just you don't know what that alternative date is. I understand Councilmember Arnter. Hold on just a second. Hold on. So that's those are my comments. I'm going to go ahead. I just want to clarify. I think if that's what you want to put in the actual whereas recitals section of the ordinance, something along the lines that that despite the approval that you are doing tonight, assuming that's the direction you go, that you're putting in a statement that you're still nonetheless, you're going to apply to the state to the governor to try to get a different election date. And if it's if successful, we will bring back the election ordinances to be amended amended again. Is that more or less kind of? Yeah, because it's just a matter of do you do you have the contingency as the main part of the ordinance and you come back and accept the November the third date if we can't get a different date. Because the law currently is it's the November. I say it's the third. I don't know what day is it. The third November third date. And then we've got a contingency in there just in case. So we don't I mean, we've got it. We were following that we were acknowledging the law, but we're also acknowledging the exceptions, the potential exception to the law. So that's where I OK, Councilmember Arnter, go ahead. Let me get her in. So I feel very strongly about this. I think the city would get sued under the Voters Rights Act for voter suppression. And I don't know how that lawsuit would end up. But I think that is a really bad look for the city to try to advocate to the governor to have an election at a time when so many thousands of our population, many of whom are renters, by the way, who are not getting enough help in this emergency, are not going to be here. I'm not talking about intent. And the law doesn't care about intent. It is about access. And so to me, this is critical that we think about this from an access perspective and from a voter rights perspective. OK, all right. OK, thank you for that comment. Anybody else? Councilmember Briggs or Councilmember Ryan with a comment? What's eerily quiet? Yeah, go ahead, Councilmember Briggs. So what you're saying is it's not going to be on my second. Just put in there that it would be we're asking for another date, not put in what date that is. And if that date that we don't specify doesn't get passed, then it would fall to the November date, which the government, the governor said? Yes, that if no date gets set, if no new date gets set based upon whoever is advocating for it, then the ordinance will say that we will perform the election on November the third. If the governor says, no, municipalities can elect to have an election on, I'm just going to say September 1st, because I don't know all these dates, September 1st. Well, then the city council will have to come back and adopt that particular date if that's the desire. And so this same council would be having that discussion on if we adopted a new date or we just continue to go with November the second. So we get another bite at that apple, so to speak. I just I think we need to just make sure we are definitive about canceling the May 2nd election so everybody can understand and everybody has notice and nobody's worrying about those kinds of things. And then knowing that we're going to comply with the law unless the law changes, which the governor is the only one that can do that. I have two questions. One, just because the resignations that have been turned in, does that matter at all in this? Because the election, does it just depend upon when the results are called? Is that when that takes place? Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. Okay. Go ahead, Councilmember. We've researched that issue. I'm going to let Deputy City Attorney Katherine Clifton answer that. Okay. As to the question of the resignations that were submitted. Can y'all hear her? No. Okay. I think we're going to have to figure out how to get you a little bit closer. She's going to come a little closer to the telephone and she's going to talk a little bit. She's going to stand at the podium and she's going to articulate quite broadly and loudly so that y'all can hear it from the speaker. To the best of my ability. Yes. How's that? Is that better? Yes. Okay. As to the resignations, the resignations that have been filed will continue to be effective and do not need modification. Does that answer your question, Councilmember Briggs? Yes. I just want to make sure that since the date changed and there was a certain number of days we had to put that resignation in before the election, I'm just wondering, is everything still good? Everything is still good. Yes. And will remain good whether the date is November or if there is a sooner date that ends up getting selected. Okay. Next question is about runoff days. How and when do those get put in here? The body has to order a runoff date if one is necessary. It has to be done within five days of the canvas of the election, so it does not have to be done at this time. Okay. All right. Thank you. Sure. Okay. Councilmember Metzger. Wow. My feelings have changed a lot in the last two minutes. When you first articulated it, I thought that's pretty palatable and about where I stood, but if I had to rank order my preferences, it would be something like September, number one, November, number two, and August, like number 1,000. I mean, I think it's like the worst time you could pick to do an election in Denton. And I think it would be really almost criminal. So, you know, as that sinks in, I think I would just go for, since it's available, moving to November and, you know, if something else comes up, we'll discuss it at that time, which we still could. Yeah, of course. Of course. Okay. All right. So, Mayor Pro Tem, if you wouldn't mind restating your motion for everybody, just so that we can be reminded, because we're going to take a vote here shortly. Yeah. And I was, just to be clear, I was going to take a two-prong approach to it, but to your point, I'll just make it a one-prong approach. And I want to stress, again, the date mentioned is a uniform election, former uniform election code date. It's not arbitrary. It's not scheme. It's not planned. It used to be in place and existed for a period of time before we were here. So, that being said, my motion, in light of the COVID-19 outbreak and the governor's having previously declared a state of emergency in the state of Texas, due to the outbreak of the governor's, due to the outbreak and the governor's strongly suggesting the governmental bodies postpone their May 2nd, 2020 elections, I move that we adopt the governor's proposed date of November 3rd, 2020. With the stipulation that we will join other municipalities seeking the seeking a August 8th, 2020 election date, which is a date that was formerly available to the city of Denton and would be the next date that was previously available to the city of Denton in the uniform election code. >> Okay. Now, that was different from his original one. Councilmember Ryan, do you still second that one? That amendment, that amendment motion? >> Yes, I'd second it. I'd like to make a friendly amendment, if I may, if this is acceptable, instead of listing only the August date that we just say or other date prior to November. >> I'll accept that. >> That we are soliciting for a date other than November 3rd, prior to November 3rd, when we recommend August 8th, with it having been a prior uniform code election date. >> Okay. So just any date that, I mean, if he chooses a date, then we get to come back and decide if we want that date or not. And then if not, we just go to August 7th. >> Because if we just say August 8th and he says, you know what, I've had a bunch of people tell me that August 1st is good, then we're in a mishmash. If he can come up with some other date, and I think he understands the issue of having nonpartisan elections held at the same time as partisan elections. That's going to be probably the point that's going to be pushed to him quite a bit. >> Okay. Do you accept that friendly amendment? >> Accept it. >> All right. I do have a question for legal. There was nothing in the motion about specifically canceling the May 2nd. There was language saying we adopt the governor's recommendation of November 2nd or November 3rd. Does that necessarily indicate we're canceling the May 2nd or do we need to say that more specifically? >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Here comes the language, I think. >> While she's coming up there, Mayor. >> Okay. Hold on. If we could, yes, go ahead. >> While she's coming up there, may I recommend just because there's some changes that you all have suggested that we need to incorporate. Just make the motions in seconds and then table the item, move back to the ordinance, the item A, which we've already made the changes, so that gives staff sufficient time to make the addition. >> Sure, but we've got to figure out exactly what the underlying motion is. Yes, go ahead. >> So I'd like to make a friendly amendment to the movement and the second. It's somewhere in the motion that as we talk about adoption of the November 3rd date with the contingency, is that any other date is selected that the council has an opportunity to see that and that we are postponing the May 2nd election, to put that in there specifically. >> Accept it. >> Councilmember Ryan? >> Second. >> All right. Okay. So what we've heard is there's a recommendation to table this so they can draft the ordinance. So they can draft the ordinance and get it to everybody for review, and then we would take up the emergency declaration and then come back and review the ordinances regarding that. Now, that was for agenda item C, 1C. >> Yes. >> Is the motion, isn't the motion fair, would be almost identical for agenda item 1D as well? >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. So we'll vote on those separately. So is that motion, Mr. Movement, for CND? >> Yes. Yes. Okay. Councilmember Ryan. Yes. All right. And then Councilmember Davis. It may also be prudent to include if we're talking about and I guess we're talking about putting in a whereas clause that we're going to petition the governor, etc. It may be prudent for us to give ourselves a deadline on that effort. Yes, if if it hits May 31st, we're going to stop asking for a new date because now the new date is within three months of what we're what we're changing to give the candidates and every in the town some certainty on what it's going to be. And then I would also just kind of a friendly suggestion that once we have a new draft ordinance that when we come back off the table that the motion become adoption of the new draft ordinance because it will have all the all the language in it instead of I move, etc, etc. Just I move adoption of the new draft ordinance. Mr. Movin, are you okay with the deadline of at least that? Those efforts need to either bear fruit or we move beyond that. Yes. All right. And that deadline would be May 31st. I was suggesting May 31st. I just kind of threw that out there for discussion. Councilmember Ryan. Yes. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. So I think I need a motion to table. Is that correct? Yes. All right. Councilmember Davis. I move that we table this item. Do we need to put a time like just to come back the same day? Do we need to put that in the motion? No, as long as you pick it up after the before the end of the meeting. Do I have a second? I heard somebody on the phone second it. Oh, okay. Councilmember Ryan second. So we're gonna we're gonna pull the council for the table motion to come back and revisit this. Councilmember Davis. Aye. Mayor pro tem. Aye. Councilmember. Yeah, just so we so we can get the so we can get the actual draft of all the and I approve the table. Councilmember Ryan. Aye. Councilmember armature. This is just a conversation of mail in Dallas got totally lost and still not not clear on that. And I missed a lot when I got cut off. Okay. All right. I think we'll be coming back to if we can possibly revisit some of that. Councilmember. It's a big mistake. This August. Councilmember Briggs. I'm okay to table it, but we're bringing it back later for conversation. Yes, we're just gonna give them a chance to to put a pin to it to get it in a draft. Form. Yes. All right. So we have a the motion to table carry six to one. And so now what we will do is we will go back to agenda item one a and I believe everyone should have. And if you don't have it, please let us know. You should have the draft first amendment order of the council of the city of Denton exhibit a which is the emergency declaration and the amendments that we had discussed. So I tell you what, let's take a little five minute break and get everybody have a chance to read that. Do y'all have that there on the council members on the phone? You'll have it as an email. I don't have it. Okay. Councilmember Armature. Do you have it? I couldn't quite hear. I was trying to move. What are you asking that I have? Did you receive it? Do you? Did you receive an email? On the amended emergency declaration that we discussed today. In other words, the draft that I believe that came a little while ago. Let me check. Okay. Councilmember Ryan, did you receive it? Yes, I have. Okay. Uh, yeah, stay on the line. Don't hang up. Councilmember Briggs. Did you ever get that? I didn't. But I also had people tell me they emailed me earlier that I didn't get. So, um, something's wrong with my email, I think. Okay. Um, that's the subject heading of that email. Revised versions. Okay. I see it. It's from Rosa. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. You got it. I got it. Okay. All right. Let's take a five minute break to review that. We'll come back and consider that and then we'll move on to our table items. Welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on March 20th, year 2020. It is 6, 12 p.m. We will now revisit our agenda item 1A, I believe it was. Consider an ordinance of the Denton Home Reminiscent Corporation. Yes. Uh, declaring emergency. So, I believe the council members have in front of them, uh, what's to me at least labeled exhibit A, which is the meat of the emergency declaration is the exhibit that's attached to the ordinance. And if you have your red line version, you can take a look at the red line version. Um, and so want to ask if there are any questions or clarifications or any comments upon what you're reading. This is what sort of was decided by consensus. I know that some of you don't agree with some things that aren't in here, but we're dealing with what's what we had a consensus on putting in here, including in the order just to sort of run through the changes. You see the changes. I'm not going to go through them specifically, but in the first paragraph, um, where it talks about, uh, the Governor Greg's avid executive order. Also, you see down in paragraph one where it talks about pursuant to executive order G eight, which is Governor Greg Abbott's order. And also, I believe the Denton County judge, where we said we're, uh, making this or incorporating by reference, those two particular orders. Then in paragraph two, uh, we show that the city's didn't strongly urges all individuals to avoid any gatherings of 10 persons or more, uh, further individuals in high risk populations as defined, et cetera, et cetera. And definitions on four a, uh, we've got community gathering and the term 50 there. We see the changes in four B triple I there's a name. They call those. What are those called? Isn't that there a specific name for those? Uh, anyway, uh, where it, uh, council member Meltzer's addition, which is into clean self-service checkout machines between each customer and also the enforcing of the strongly urging the enforcement of social distancing of six feet for people in line or cube agenda. And, uh, four C talks about 50 people not present in any single space at any time. These are the exclusions from community gatherings, gives examples about 50 or more people cannot be, uh, in those particular, uh, in those particular spaces. They can separate them out. They can. And then D is new, uh, which is, uh, for the purposes of this order, a social gathering is, and I believe that definition was just pulled right out of the governor's, uh, order is no, that's not right. No mayor. The governor's order didn't define social gatherings. Uh, what we did was we looked at Dallas County declaration. It is defined in the, I knew it was came out of somewhere. I just, okay. So Dallas counties, uh, social gatherings came from the governor's, but the specificity came from Dallas counties. Yes, sir. Okay. And then I don't believe there were any changes made on the next page three of three. Yes. Council member. It's sort of a fine point, but, you know, as long as we're wordsmithing here, the governor's declaration talks about groups of more than 10 people. Which one are you on? Which paragraph? It's the governor's. Oh, I thought you're going to address something in the order. Go ahead. Because with the governor's declaration, our executive order talks about groups of more than 10 people. And in each case where we reference the number 10, we say 10 persons or more. So it's just, it's, it's just whether, whether 10 is okay or not in the state version, 10 is fine. We're saying 10 or more is not fine. So if you want to mirror the state, say more than 10. Okay. So then for the specific, for this specific change, so we don't have to go back and read print this, uh, council member Meltzer, what you're saying is in paragraph two of exhibit eight, where it says the city of Denton strongly urges all individuals to avoid any gatherings of more than 10 people. Of more than 10, if your purpose is to mirror the state. Yes. Okay. More than 10 persons. Okay. And that, that, that phrase, uh, um, occurs in a few, at least two. Okay. Uh, right. Because it's in, it's in the new item D, maybe it's just those two places. Okay. Oh, and also, let's see. Yeah. No, that's right. D and then, uh, and then in the first, you know, the first paragraph summary. Okay. So we want to change the, the 10, um, anywhere we find a 10 persons or more to no more than 10 persons. Is that correct? Well, like, okay. And two, city of Denton strongly urges all individuals to avoid any gatherings of more than 10 persons, persons, people, persons. I wanted to point out, and I apologize in after D, after the section that's redlined in D that you're looking at the sections of five was changed and the change markings are not shown. That's where I believe we originally had the 50% of the, yes. And so that is different language that is consistent with what the governor has done, except that it applies to the entities instead of the patrons. And it is different from what the county did in that it, there was a clause in the counties that says as, as allowed by law, I believe. And we kind of spelled out the law that we think that was intended to refer to. Sure. And then number six is new. Okay. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I don't, I don't have, I mean, I think that represents what we talked about paragraph five. Um, that's, that's, we don't want people to be able to go in and we don't, employers be able to have dine in services and that they're just for takeout delivery or drive through services. Okay. Yes. Mayor pro tem. One question. I know someone sent an email to this effect and I can't remember the answer, but for assistance is federal small business. A component of that. Is it that the city also adopts our forces or mandates closure? Is that, I think, I think we, we answer that question that to you to apply for the SBO SBA disaster loan, right? Right. I just, yeah. I couldn't remember. Yeah. They do not have to be closed. They just have to demonstrate economic injury. Great. To be eligible. Thank you. All right. Any comments or questions from the council members on the phone? Um, well, I just saw that we had another positive case and I worked to get in. Okay. And this is council member Braves. Okay. Yes. One. Okay. Do you have any questions or comments on the ordinance? I guess I do have a clarification because on here I saw that shelters were exempt. Um, would it be best if we didn't exempt them and just offered another case? Is there another place for somebody to go? Okay. What do you mean exactly? Well, I mean, if we're talking about the Monsignor King, I know they have protocols, but there's, we don't want over 50 people in certain locations that are close to each other, but we're exempting the shelter from that requirement. Does that make sense to me? Mm hmm. So I think manager Hellman addressed this question earlier in the afternoon in terms of what staff is working diligently on in terms of communicating with our shelters to understand how they're operating and providing those essential services while doing social distancing, doing the regular cleaning, doing wellness intake assessments, all of the mitigation things that they have in place to continue that critical service. We know when we're aware, we're trying to work with them on maybe what could be next steps. Um, if we need to create more space or have more facilities. Um, so we, we ask that we're, we're allowed to kind of work on that further, um, instead of making this prohibited immediately. Okay. And I just, I have one more other question, Mayor. Yes. Yes, go ahead. Okay. Um, and our, in our conversations earlier about, um, massages and, um, salons, since the conversation, I've had a few people who work at salons ask, um, for us to reconsider that again, or even maybe putting, um, uh, by appointment only, like no walk-ins and, um, just to help eliminate some, um, people, just random people walking in, I guess. Is that, is that something that at this point we can still consider or are we past that point? No, I mean, I think we consider, I guess my, my, my thought is on that, that it sounds like people are contacting you who are the business owners and they can certainly, uh, provide any type of rule that they want for their business if they want. In fact, I got an email from, from, uh, my stylist that said, I'm sorry, but I'm shutting down. I mean, she, they were shutting down. They were not taking appointments at all. So, um, I guess we can revisit it, but if this is the business owner, I'm just not quite sure why that would be needed when they can make the choice to close down themselves or to take appointments only with a sign and lock the door and those kinds of things. Because I think we've heard you don't need to have a governmental declaration of emergency to be able to apply for disaster relief through the small business administration of the federal government. Okay, so can I just clarify on that? So if it's, if it's not a salon owner, it's someone who works at the salon, um, are they still out, I mean, if they would need to release their lease space and quit to, um, get unemployment for their safety? Okay. I'm not, I'm not really, I'm not really following what you're saying as an employee. If you're saying release their space, if someone is leasing space, uh, some type of space, I don't know if they're a contractor, if they're an employee. Sometimes those people are independent contractors. They might be leasing their space, and so they're just paying money to a landlord, but they can control that space as they see fit. I'm not really understanding, what is the interest they're trying to, I mean, I know they're trying to protect their safety, I get that, but what are they saying they can't do unless we issue this kind of specificity in the order? I have a procedural question. Yes. Is, is this, I mean, this is almost like a public comment if someone's running a comment through her and then not everyone has the opportunity to speak. That's true. Um, yeah, that's true. Um, so I guess Council Member Briggs, if you want to, uh, provide an amendment that we include that, we can consider it and take a vote on it. I mean, we've sort of talked about it, but obviously that doesn't mean that you can't bring it up and, but I just ask that, you know, um, if that's the case, but we, we have discussed that. Okay. Okay. All right. Any, uh, anybody else on the phone, uh, Council Member Armitage? Yes. Go ahead. Yes, speaking of comments, so these individual items, and have we been getting comments on these? They're supposed to be reading comments. What do you mean? That people have submitted by email? Well, I read, I read the comments that were submitted by email by the, at the time that we heard the agenda item. I mean, we can't just keep the running, the running thing. I read all those. What about for this item, for instance, or the? We, this was our very first item. This was the one where you said I didn't read one email in its entirety, in which I did. Now, I did have that same person submit another email, but you don't get two opportunities at a public hearing. So, uh, that's why I didn't read that one. Okay, and then for the other item that we called? We read all the comments at the same time. As I mentioned. Okay, I'm just checking, just checking, just making sure. Okay. That everything was read. All right, thank you. Okay, anybody else? Okay, all right, so it seems like we have just a couple of changes. The more than ten persons. And I believe that's the only one. Am I correct on that? I believe that's the only one. That is correct. In a couple of different places. Yes, three places. Okay, all right. Three places. So, chair would entertain a motion on this item. Councilmember Davis. I move adoption of the ordinance as has been circulated with the amended Exhibit A as has been circulated and discussed here. Councilmember Meltzer. I'll second. All right. We have a motion to second. I'll start with the polling with the council members on the phone. Councilmember Ryan. Aye. Councilmember Armitter. No, I think this is extremely dangerous and irresponsible. No. Okay, thank you. Councilmember Briggs. No. Okay. Councilmember Davis. I mean, yeah, go ahead. Aye. Councilmember, Mayor Pro Tem. Aye. Councilmember Meltzer. Aye. Mayor Wax is an aye. Ayes have it. The motion carries five to two. All right. We will now, I believe we go on to our next, oh, we got to bring the issue off the table. We made some changes to the ordinance for agenda item one, C and D. We put that on the table so the chair would need a motion to remove it from the table so we could further consider the changes made to the agenda. I move that we take item C and D off the table. And D. I'm not sure we tabled D. I think we opened. If it needs to be D, that can make it better. We tabled both of them. Okay. And I move that we take item C and D off the table. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. Second. All right. We have a second for item C and D off the table. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. Second. All right. We have a second for items, to remove item C and D from the table. So we will consider those as soon as we receive the printouts. We'll take a quick five minute break. There is pizza here if you're so inclined. Excuse me. March 20th, 2020 at 634. We are back on our agenda items 1C and 1D with a revised ordinance for postponing the May 2nd election and adopting November 3rd election with a caveat that we will seek a different date from the governor for the municipal election. All right. We have the red line in front of us. There was in section six, if you'll turn your attention to that, it states the city manager is authorized to join on behalf of the city petition with other municipalities requesting an election date prior to November 3rd, 2020, and reserves the right to further amend the ordinance with a different date, except that if no further amendment is made by May 31st, 2020, the city will cease petitioning for a different date. The only thing I would say about that is the wording of it where it says the city manager authorized to join on behalf of the city requesting an election date prior to November 3rd, 2020. The city council needs to see what that date is that we can't just say that he gets to make the choice, not that there's anything against you, Mr. City Manager, but he'll join a position that is authorized by the city council for a specific date. And then after the November 3rd, 2020, and the city council reserves the right to further amend the ordinance. So, I think those are the changes we need to make there. So, to go back over that sentence, the city manager is authorized to join on behalf of the city a petition approved by the city council. With other Texas municipalities requesting an election date prior to November 3rd, 2020. And then after that, either with the parenthetical, with the and or start a new sentence, the city council reserves the right to further amend, I believe it's this ordinance 2265 with a different date, except that if no further amendment is made by May 31st, 2020, the city will cease petitioning for a different date. I brought up on this, do we need to put in there, we'll cease petitioning for a different date, and the election will be held on November 3rd. But we've already said that somewhere else in the ordinance, you know, up here in the ordinance that we're accepting section four, the candidate filing for election order by May 20th will remain valid for the election held on November 3rd, 2020. Where do we do that? Oh, there it is, section two. Yeah. Okay. Members on the phone, do you all have any questions or comments about the ordinance that we're going to because it'll be just adopting this either. Yeah, your name. I thought that we had a in one of the amendments to the motion was to recommending August 8. Since it was a prior uniform election code date, well, there was originally, but I think Councilmember Davis brought up a good point. And that is that if there was another date decided that then our ordinance has a hard date in it. Is that correct? Councilmember Davis, I believe you made that comment or something similar. I can't remember if I made it or somebody else did, but that's a conversation I remember is that if we say we're advocating for one date, but then the governor creates a different uniform date that we're not aware of, we'd be kind of stuck. Well, and we will also have a chance because if it's in the form of a petition or some other kind of resolution, we'll have a chance to revisit that date if that date is presented by May the 31st of 2020. Okay. Yeah, like I said, I thought it was in there as a recommendation. Right. Councilmember Armitage, any questions about the proposed ordinance? I know that you have strong reservations about it, but any, go ahead. Yeah, I'd just like to hear the city attorney's opinion about why this would not be potential liability for voter suppression, voting rights issues. Okay. If we're authorized by the governor to do this, then I don't think that there's going to be an issue with voting or a claim of voter rights suppression brought against the city because we would have done it according to the process that is set forth in the election code. All right. I guess the, I don't know exactly what the cause of action, I know it would be voter suppression, but what exactly would be the legal cause of action that somebody would bring forward to try to stop this or claim that us, the city of Denton, as being approved by the governor, getting a different date for the election, which is authorized under statute, how that would be considered voter suppression. I don't see it. Yeah, and of course, go ahead. I'm still really concerned about, the other thing I would say is I would like to see action in writing for the public and also for myself as to exactly why mail-in ballots can't be available for everyone in May. I'm not saying that that's not the case, but it would be good to have a really clear explanation as to why that's the case. All right. Councilmember Briggs, any comment? No. Councilmember Meltzer? I would like us to, I would also like us to advocate for changes in the election code allowing broader use of mail-in ballots whenever it's going to be. We don't know what the future is going to bring, you know, what things are going to look like by August or even by November, and I don't know if that fits in this or if that's a separate action, if others are in agreement with that. Yeah, I would say for me, that really is a legislative act to change the election code, so I would certainly encourage anyone that feels that way to contact our legislative delegation. I think here, it might be a little bit beyond this because November 2nd, if the election is November 2nd, there's certainly plenty of time that if he wants to declare an emergency to allow mail-in ballots for everyone, that certainly can be done. I don't think, well, based on the conversation I've had with the City Attorney, I don't think he can. Okay, well. So, but I mean, take your point that it would be a legislative issue, but apparently he can only, I forget the exact term, but waive certain laws. Suspend. Suspend. Okay, instead of creating new ones, okay. Yeah, so he can suspend the entire mail-in ballot thing, but not tinker with it. Okay. All right, any other questions or comments? Okay, the Chair would entertain a motion on this matter or action on this matter. Council Member Davis. Procedural question. Yes. We had a motion and a second. We tabled the motion, which is why I phrased my motion to take it off the table a little differently earlier. So we still, I think, have a pending motion that is now off the table. I think we either have to dispense with that or amend it. Okay, who made the motion? I agree with Council Member Davis. Okay, who made the motion? Council Member, Mayor Pro Tem, would you be amenable to the amendments made by me regarding the two amendments in Section 6 saying that the City Council reserves the right to further amend Ordinance 2065 and also that we authorize the city managers to join on behalf of the city as approved by the City Council a petition? Yes. All right. Council Member Ryan, I believe, did you second it? Yes, I did. I'll continue to second. All right. So we have a second with those amended changes then. All right. So we'll take a poll from those on the phone. Council Member Ryan? Aye. Council Member Armitter? No. Council Member Briggs? Nay. Okay. Council Member Davis? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem? Aye. Council Member Meltzer? Nay. Mayor Watts is an aye. So the motion carries 4-3. I believe that concludes our agenda. Am I correct on that? Oh, no. We've got to do agenda item D, which is the same motion, but we've got to vote on them separately. That's correct. So agenda item D would address the special call to elections. Do we have that ordinance in front of us, or do we just know we're just going to change it to special call to elections? And the whereas, instead of place 5 and 6 and Mayor 7, those are the specialist election districts, districts 1 and 2? Districts 1 and 2, and you do have those ordinances. Oh, okay, sorry. All right. I think they're the ones that have the blue-red line change. Oh, there it is. Yep, okay. Got you. Blue line change. So we wanted to make a motion on this, and if we wanted to include the same amendments that were made in the prior motion, we could do that. All right. Chair would entertain a motion. Mayor Potem? Is it a motion again, or do I just accept? Well, this is a motion for a whole new -- it's agenda item 1D, which is the ordinance for the special elections, because we just passed one for the general elections of place 5, 6, and 7. So we also have an election for districts 1 and 2. Move approval for 1D? Is that right? Yes, and including the -- we need to include those same amendments from the prior ordinance, though. Yes, including the amendments as discussed in 1C. Okay. Do we have a second? Councilmember Davis? Second. Discussion? All right, we'll poll in the work session chamber room first. Councilmember Davis? Aye. Mayor Potem? Aye. Councilmember Metzler? Nay. Mayor Watz has an aye. Councilmember Briggs? Nay. Councilmember Armitter? No. And Councilmember Ryan? Aye. Okay, so that 1D passes 4 to 3. I'm looking for my agenda. Is that it on the agenda? Yeah, here it is. All right, I don't believe we have any concluding items. Let me look. Nope, that -- we have no concluding items, no further agenda items. So we will adjourn at 6 47 p.m. We'll stand adjourned.