Apr 30, 2020 City Council on 2020-04-30 1:00 PM (Special Called)

Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Thursday, April 30, 2020. It is 1-0-1, and we do have a quorum, so we'll go ahead and get started. Wanted to also just encourage my colleagues, we've got two work sessions and two regular items for individual consideration, and I've got some plans probably around 5.30 or 6, so I'm going to move the meeting along. Everybody's going to have a chance to speak and answer questions, but let's try to get through this in an orderly fashion. All right, our first item on the agenda is citizen comments on consent agenda items. I don't believe we had any citizen comments on consent agenda items, so we'll move on to request for clarification of agenda items. Request for clarification? I have one, but I want to see if anybody else has one. Paul? Councilmember Meltzer? Yes. No, you know what? I'm not going to do it in this part. That's okay. Nothing. I'm good. Okay. Anybody else? I have one, and it was a response, and my battery's down on my computer, so I'll bring it up. The responses to council questions, I think one of them was talking about the mail-in ballots and about the court order in Travis County, and it seemed like that the response was that that order applied to Travis County. I just want to get a clarification if that order applies just to Travis County or if it applies to the entire state, so Mr. City Attorney, if you could maybe clarify some of that for us. Yes, Mayor. That is correct. It applies to all 254 counties. That was especially provided in the Travis County District Court judge's order, and so a corrected email reflecting that was sent to the council maybe about a minute ago. Okay. Okay. All right. Sorry. Thanks. Okay. Well, I just wanted to make sure that we had that clarification. Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah. As a matter of fact, that was the item I was going to talk about, but I thought I'd do it during the work session since you raised it. There was also a comment in that update from the city attorney that said it would ultimately be up to the county elections administration whether they would open up that provision, so my question is just has anybody been in contact with the county elections administration to ask their position on this? From our office, we haven't, but I cannot speak to the city secretary or the city manager to see if they've had those discussions with the Denton County elections administrator. Okay. Mr. City Manager, you had a comment? I don't believe that we've had any discussions formally, but we certainly can encircle back on Friday. Okay. Okay. Any other clarifications of consent agenda items? Anybody been in contact with the Denton county elections administration? Okay. I'm getting a feedback from somebody. All right. Thank you, whoever that was. All right. So then we're going to move on to our work session reports, which is agenda item 3B. I'm hearing some feedback. So somebody's listening to the meeting that either is too close to the mic or if we could mute your mic. All right. No, I'm still hearing myself. We'll press forward. Agenda item 3B is receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding an update to the city of Denton's COVID-19 response. Hi, mayor, city council, Sarah Keckler, chief of staff. This is our standing work session item to provide an update on the city's response to COVID-19. By way of background, the slide shows the number of actions that city council has taken in regards to declarations and orders. There is an existing order that is in effect until today. There is an item later on in the agenda for council to consider adopting a new declaration and order. During this work session, we'll provide a few updates to city council as follows. I'm hearing some feedback as well. That didn't even sound like what we were talking about. So I'll continue. Just let me know if I should pause. Sure. So we have five updates for you this afternoon and we'll try to go through these rather quickly. The first update will actually be provided by Dr. Matt Richardson with the Denton County Public Health Department. And then the following updates will be provided by city staff and include a summary of governor Abbott's orders from Monday, a couple of city operations updates, a few updates on community resources that we've provided to city council previously. And then lastly, an update from finance in regards to our disaster related expenditures and financials. So we'll jump right into the first part of the presentation. So Dr. Matt Richardson with the Denton County Public Health Department should be on the phone line and he has graciously offered to join us today out of his busy schedule to provide a quick update to council and answer a few questions. So Dr. Matt Richardson, are you there? Mayor and council members. Good afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I'll try to go quickly and I know the Q&A sessions are really some of the most valuable parts of these meetings. So I'll try to go quickly. We have 748 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Denton County with 20 deaths. If you go to our website at dentoncounty.com/COVID-19, you can see our web page. It has real time information, location, zip code, communities, page ranges, transmission type, cases per day, and cases by symptom onset. And I would note that's really what we talk about when we talk about flattening the curve. It's this idea of the epidemiological curve, which is a chart of cases by day. That's a date of onset of illness. We have another chart that is on that same web page that is cases by date reported. The onset of illness is a little more precise on the front end. The cases by date reported, you can track just when we know about cases because of those positive test results. It's not quite as good as the symptom onset because after we do interviews of the patients, then we get a lot more information about their course of disease. And then we chart that with that onset. And that gives you a more precise understanding of what the disease transmission and status was in the community, in the county for that day. The cases by date reported is a little more precise about what we know at the end of every day. So anyway, I don't want to get too technical, but I wanted to show that we have that information is updated daily. We also do a press release with a chart, but that information on our website is updated daily. We also have a COVID-19 testing bookmark on that same website. And we are doing our first mass testing event in Denton County. We're being performed by Denton County Public Health. That site is going to be at Denton County Public Health on the East Loop, so 535 South Loop, 288, at the Public Health Building. That's going to be Saturday from 8 to noon. We have asked the public to register. And to register, you have to call in to our hotline from 8 to 5. We have our Medical Reserve Corps volunteers serving in that hotline capacity as those operators. They do a symptom screen. So we do ask that anyone that wants to be tested, they do need to be screened for symptoms. We're not testing asymptomatic people, but we are testing symptomatic people. And we're going to test up to 200. I think we have maybe pushing 100 already registered. So it's Thursday, 1 o'clock. So we've got tomorrow, the rest of the day today and tomorrow to register. Again, 8 to noon, Saturday, this coming Saturday, May the 2nd, at 535 South Loop, 288. And so that's -- the reason we're doing a mass testing is a very simple one. We now have appropriate amounts of testing supplies. That's both the swabs and the VTM. That's the viral transfer media. And so we have scoured literally the planet for supplies. Our purchasing department at the county has been hypervigilant. We've even used some non-traditional vendors. We've done some quality assurance on the supplies that we have received so that we do know that they are viable. And so we now have appropriate amounts to begin our mass testing events typically in a drive-through format. Saturday is the first one. We are anticipating additional events. And that's really the testing conversation when it comes to the drive-throughs. There's a lot of community conversation, a lot of statewide conversation, a lot of national conversation about antibody testing. And while I'm not going to try to give an immunology class because I'll put everyone to sleep, including myself, I would note that antibody testing is still not as sensitive or as specific as we would like in our current situation in Denton County. To explain that a little bit, the current testing we do is an RNA test. It's the nasal swab. And that is a very, very sensitive and very, very specific test. It's very sensitive, meaning we have very few false positives and very few false negatives. It is maybe pushing 98 to 99% sensitive and maybe even exceeding that. So it is the gold standard of COVID-19 testing. That's what we'll be using in our drive-through mass testing sites and events. Antibody testing is much different. The sensitivity has been reported to be anywhere from -- and it depends on the test. The best test that we have might just be about 70% sensitive, meaning 30% of the time it might not tell you if you had antibodies present. It's also not very specific, meaning it has a hard time telling the difference between COVID-19 infection and typical coronavirus infection, which is the common cold, or one of the coronavirus infections that of the seven known, it might be one of the other six. So antibody testing doesn't have a lot of utility in communities and in counties and even in states that don't have a really high infection rate. Now, there are some exceptions to that. For instance, in New York, particularly in New York City, the infection rate for the community we know is very high because of the RNA test positives. We also know because of the hospital surge. And so you see some community indicators that let you know that there's a lot of COVID-19 infection that's endemic. And so those antibody tests, I think I saw an article two days ago talking about they had done antibody tests in firefighters and police officers. So essential healthcare workers, they've done a lot of antibody testing and that makes sense because there's a lot more community infection. And so you feel better about the difference between a potential false positive and false negative versus having the error rate in a very low prevalence in the community. And again, I'm not a statistics professor, but when you have maybe a 5% prevalence in the community and you have a 5% error rate and on its best day, on the best test in antibody testing, that means if you have a positive result, that's a coin flip on whether or not that's accurate. It's a 50/50 chance because the prevalence and the error are the same percentage. Now in your community where you might have up to 20 or 25% community infections, that antibody testing makes more sense. So again, I know there are lots and lots of questions about testing. It is very technical and I'm basically giving the cliff notes on the immunological facets of the different types of tests and that's because that's about what I know about it, but I'll be happy to answer questions on that as well. When we talk about rollout of next steps, there is some new technology that the state of Texas is rolling out on contact tracing. The state of Texas and the governor's open report, he talked about contact tracing and contact tracers being trained by the Department of State Health Services. We were on a call this morning, not a lot of details, but there is a statewide technological solution that should roll out next week according to the state. I think that's going to be essentially an app that people can download and it will be backstopped with a computer program and public health departments and other health care entities. So we're going to be talking about case management of cases, positive cases that we know, and then there will be contact tracing where a positive individual will let us know as investigators about contacts that they've had and then health departments in conjunction with the state. Those details are yet unknown, but we will either share responsibility or turn over responsibility for tracing those contacts of that positive case. We will share that and either provide that locally or we'll turn over that contact tracing to someone in Austin. Again, the governor announced that they had over 1,000 people trained. I think they were going to add maybe a potentially maybe even as many as 3,000 additional individuals to do the interviewing or to coordinate the data entry on contact tracing. Contact tracing as a reminder is to notify an individual that they have been in contact with someone who's tested positive, to coordinate a symptom screen with them and to triage to see if they need a test and then give them the ability to communicate and close the loop if they do become symptomatic so that we collectively as public health infrastructure can track them over time. So that's the contact tracing. And again, we're doing that to a minimal amount because of the numbers of cases we have. We have been coordinating testing for those who are symptomatic for close household contacts or close work contacts but that's usually a limited number of people per positive case. So we have been doing contact tracing but this would expand that effort. And again, I don't have more details because I wasn't given more details about that today but that should be rolling out next week. We again are doing contact tracing but this would be a much expanded. So for instance, if you worked at a large employer, you might give us names of people and we might contact the employer and have people call us if symptomatic but we might not at public health in Denton County contact an additional 30 people. This new application might change that. Whereas right now we're doing household contacts, close contacts, friends, relatives, neighbors, however that happens, but many, many larger organizations where there might have been casual contact, we have not been tracing each of those individuals. That's still to be decided how the state will approach that. That is, I would remind the council, that is a containment strategy which is difficult because I would highlight there's quite a bit of community transmission. It's no longer travel-associated. The vast majority, in fact, I would just note that all is local transmission by contact to a case. Instead of a travel-associated case where you were in an endemic area and again at the beginning of March where you were in Italy, you were in China, where we were really tracking people by their movements to limited locales. That's obviously changed. So this contact tracing, I want to put an asterisk, that this is a containment strategy that we've never really done in a pandemic. We're sort of going in reverse to try to control transmission and that is a new step. We've never been able to use the staffing resources it would take for a national effort. This is really unprecedented. Contact tracing works best in tuberculosis, for instance, when Denton County Public Health, we have 20 to 25 active cases of TB every year. We do a lot of contact tracing on those cases, but that's a fairly simple and routine matter with only 25 cases. With 738 cases, that's been much more difficult because of the sheer volume of interviews. So containment strategy and contact tracing, while important, and I think it's a great tool, I do want to note that we're trying to contain a global infection at this point and I would just say that that will be beneficial, but it is not going to stamp out the disease. So contact tracing at this point is not going to remove, it is just going to help inform people about the need for testing and it will help us track down additional people to test and to isolate or quarantine if they are positive. I hope that makes sense. So that's contact tracing. I've talked about testing, contact tracing, our current status. Okay, I think with that just highlights, I will open it up to questions from the council, Mr. Mayor, if you choose. Sure, absolutely. Just want to be respectful of your time. So if we could just have a few questions, because I know Dr. Richardson is real busy. If we could pull down the slide that staff has up on the testing, thank you very much. Council member Briggs. Yes, thank you. I just have a few questions. First, I want to say thank you to Dent County Public Health for being very responsive to any tweets, messages, comments, anything that I've made or I've seen the community make. It's been very helpful just to have a response on social media. Council member Briggs, how many questions do you have? I just want to make sure that if we other council members have questions that we're going to get them by chance. I basically have two. Okay, all right. Go ahead. One of them I asked staff and they said it was a question for Dr. Richardson. So of the 26,000 per day testing goal that we heard the governor speak of, how does that break down and what will the city's per day test numbers be? Yeah, unfortunately, I don't know. I will say that testing is still an interesting enterprise in that that is not something that is controlled or under the authority of Denton County Public Health because private providers can provide any testing that they see fit in any situation they see fit. So a private doctor can do an RNA test, the nasal swab, they can do an antibody test and they can follow their own council on what would deem appropriate for that. They can also decide the amount of tests that they perform in their offices. So it's really not a knowable metric for how many tests can be performed in Denton County. It is clear, however, that in the last week, that capacity, the number of tests essentially doubled. So the week before last week, there were about 1,000 tests performed in Denton County. Denton County Public Health was responsible for 100 of those, so 900 were performed across the county in doctor's offices, in urgent cares and in hospitals. That number essentially doubled last week. Last week there were 2,000 cases, roughly, 2,000 tests performed and Denton County Public Health only performed fewer than 100. So the community testing doubled in a week. I don't know why exactly. They may have experienced what I experienced, which is they had access to supplies. Analysis has been online for quite a while. So the ability to analyze the samples I think has been ramped up for about a month, but the supplies have been in very short demand or high demand and in short supply. And so the governor's goals I think are statewide, but the way to achieve those goals on a county-wide basis is not something that is something that can be adjusted or manipulated by our agency. That's just going to be ad hoc. Okay. Okay. Well, I can just assume that though our daily testing goal needed to comply with a reopening safely will be met. Yeah. And again, since we're not providing those tests directly, that goal and the testing is going to be somewhat haphazard and reliant on the providers and the county collectively. Okay. So just my last question, Mayor. Of the Denton County Public Health, how many more increase in positive cases are we watching for before pulling back from phase one? Is there a certain number that marks that risk? That's a great question. And it's hard. So the technical answer is no, there's not a specific number. We're much more concerned in lieu of testing. And here's why. The testing we haven't believed was sufficient. And so we have assumed all along there was more disease in the county than was described by test results. So yesterday we reported, I don't even remember, I think we reported 10 or 11 cases. That did not indicate to me that those were the only cases of COVID-19 in Denton County. That was just the positive tests. So that's what we call in stats ascertainment bias. If you remember your stats class from undergrad, no doubt. But it's ascertainment bias, meaning the information is just what's been tested. I don't think it was only 10 cases yesterday. But that does dovetail nicely into what we're seeing at the hospitals, which is we do not see lots of COVID-19 patients in ICUs. We are not seeing a high utilization of ventilators. We are not seeing a high utilization of overall hospital beds. So we're not seeing in the hospital some of those same metrics that we see in the Northeast, where there were up to 900 deaths a day in New York. We are not seeing those things. And so to answer your question, what we're most concerned about, in addition to tests, and certainly tests are an important metric, but the more important metric is how much disease is happening that is so acute that it requires hospitalization and requires inpatient assistance. And that's, if you'll recall, that's really what prompted the stay-at-home orders statewide was we were trying to preserve hospital capacity and inpatient capacity. And so the very thing that triggered the stay-at-home order statewide, we are looking to trigger opening back up. And the good news is that our hospitals are in great shape in Benton County. But I would note that we are monitoring ventilators, ICU beds, total overall bed capacity, staffed beds. So don't forget, the numbers of beds is not as important as the numbers of beds that can be staffed by the hospital itself. So we're monitoring staffed beds with our state partners that have that information daily. So those are going to be the metrics and red flags that if we see, for instance, ventilator use double in a day or two days, that's going to be a red flag. We're going to be cautioning our decision-makers from the public health perspective and emergency management perspective that that's a real problem. And then that dovetails, of course, and marries with the testing rates themselves. So if we see a doubling and a tripling of positives, if we see additional mortality and we see the fatality rate really increasing, I think we're going to see that in concert with the hospital utilization. And so we're watching all of those things concurrently. But I don't have a specific number for you, a testing number that would trigger a regression at stay at home. And I have not heard that number, I've not heard that number either at a statewide level, a national level, or a local level in any community. Although I have been talking to Dallas County and Tarrant County quite often, but I have not heard a specific number that would trigger it. I think it definitely triggers conversation, testing positives, fatalities, hospital bed overall capacity, ICU capacity, and ventilator use. Okay. Thank you very much. That's very helpful. Yes, thank you. And I appreciate the kudos to the staff on the social media. I saw a metric that we have responded as a communication staff to 98%. This came from Facebook. So Zuckerberg sent us a little metric, right, as a business, but I think we've responded to 98% of our queries during business hours with under an hour. So over 98% of the questions to social media under an hour on Facebook. And I think we have over 30,000 followers. So we're really proud of that. And we're spending a lot of resources trying to keep the community informed. So thanks for your acknowledgement on that. We're really trying hard. All right. Councilmember Armitage, yes. Yes. So my question is essentially about the logistics of the dry food testing. And I wanted to thank you and the county for having that in place at a time when people who are concerned about the rollouts happening at the state level are saying, we need to have the testing in place. We need to have the tracing. So I'm pleased that we're at least getting that. Should people expect to come wearing a mask? Should they expect to be parked in a parking lot and have the staff come to them? Or should they expect to more like a queue for a McDonald's drive through, where it's more literally a drive through? Sometimes that term is used liberally. And also when the time hits noon, if there are still people who have registered, should they expect to leave at noon? Or will it be everybody who is there by noon will be seen? And then finally about the triage, I understand that you're prioritizing for people who are symptomatic in the ways listed, but for those who are symptomatic, will there be consideration and prioritization regarding who is essential workers, who is immune compromised, also the duration of symptoms? I know that only people who have been symptomatic within the past seven days will be considered, but say somebody reports that they've been symptomatic for two weeks. So if you could comment on each of those things, whatever else you want to throw in about actually what people should expect who are planning on pre-registering or who are already pre-registered. And we're going to let this be the last question for Dr. Richardson in respect of his time. So I appreciate you coming on, and thank you for your time. You bet, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. So Councilwoman, yes, the registration, there is pre-registration where we do the symptom screens. The good news is as of today, I think we have fewer, well, I shouldn't speak to her, but it's 1.30, but before lunch we had fewer than 100, so there's still plenty of capacity. That's good news. The registration, it will be a drive-through, and we have a map on our testing site. We do have a map, so you can see the footprint of the testing event. Lots of signs, lots of signage to make sure that the flow works properly. They are going to be in their car. We do ask that they wear a facial covering. If not, we will have some face covering available to those 200 individuals, but we would prefer that they have face covering. Our staff will be in -- Dr. Richardson, Dr. Richardson, let me -- somebody's got the meeting going on and their mic is unmuted, so are you -- There you go. Okay, go ahead. All right. So we will be in full PPE. We do have tents set up. It will be a queued line, so there will be registration verification, Q&A stations, and then we will have a line around the building that will go to the testing area. The testing is very quick, so the swab itself takes very little time. I do believe that the bottleneck is the registration, and we're going to have multiple -- and I say registration, but registration verification, and we will have multiple venues for that that then funnel into the drive-through. So it is a drive-through specifically. I do believe our -- because we're staggering those, we're asking people to come within a one-hour window, so 200, so it's really 50 an hour, and it's not precise, but we're asking them to come within those hours. So there should be no problem, and at noon, if we still have people that have registered, you know, I'm going to say that they don't have to be here by noon sharp, but we do plan to end fairly quickly. But because those are registered and because they've been staggered, I don't anticipate there to be a problem. I don't think we're going to have to turn registered people away, so that should be a smooth -- that should be a smooth process. And we've done very limited drive-through for the testing we've already done at Denton County Public Health. This will just be the most that we've done at this facility so far, but I think we have adequate staffing and an adequate ingress/egress plan for the facility itself. I don't anticipate any problems. And you might clarify, I hope those were the details. Oh, and because of essential service workers, again, that's part of the screening, but I have plenty of capacity. I still have 100 slots left, so there should be no problem with capacity today. But we do require people to be symptomatic. That has been one of our requirements. Otherwise, just about anybody would qualify. But essential service is great, but symptomatic community members in general with symptoms appropriate. And then offline, we've been working with agencies, if they had health care professionals or if there were fire police, EMS, I think Chief Hedges could tell you, we have worked with them individually as agencies to coordinate testing for our essential workers. Did you -- was there another part that I missed? That's fine. That's essentially it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Dr. Richardson, thank you so much for your time and appreciate the job that you're doing. And you have always been responsive to us and based upon the statistics you quoted. Obviously, you were being responsive to the entire community. So thank you so much for your hard work. Mr. Mayor and council members, thanks for the opportunity today. Please call, email me at any time. I remain available to you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. I appreciate that update. Thank you. Okay. So staff, you want to resume your presentation? Yes. Let me pull back up the presentation. One second. Okay. We'll move into the next section of the presentation, which will provide a brief overview of the three orders that Governor Abbott came out with on Monday. The first order is GA 18. This is the expanded reopening of the state and it announced phase one. So he does to intend to announce additional phases. This phase one begins tomorrow and it reopens certain businesses and services. And this is following the work of his strike force. The strike force also worked with the department of state health services to issue a report. And that's shown on the right hand side of your screen. And this report contains a number of recommended minimum standard health protocols for all businesses and individuals to follow. The governor recommended that everyone in the state review this report for guidance and recommendations. And we'll be talking about those further throughout the presentation. But this report is available on the city's website as well as the office of the governor's. So moving into some further details about GA 18, what it does and what it allows to open is retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters and malls will be permitted to reopen beginning tomorrow at only 25% of their listed occupancy. Also, it stipulates that within shopping malls, the food court, dining areas, takeaway areas, and any interactive areas must remain closed within shopping malls. It also allows for all museums and libraries to open under the same 25% occupancy limitation. And again, interactive areas of those museums must remain closed. The governor did specify that any state libraries and museums would open beginning tomorrow. However, the decision for local public museums or libraries will be left to the local governments to decide when those reopen and how they reopen. So going into the next slide, it also specified some things that must remain closed for now through this phase one. And that includes public swimming pools, bars, gyms, salons, massage establishments, and so forth as listed here on the first bullet point. It also said that individuals may engage in outdoor sports. In the governor's report, DSHS had guidance that any sports should limit or should not have contact with other participants and have no more than four participants at any time. So the governor referenced by way of example, this may include golf or tennis. And this phase one will continue until at least Monday, May 18th, and then he'll evaluate next steps moving forward or potential future phases of reopening. The GA 18 also announced some other steps that will be taken. One of them is the contact tracing, which Dr. Matt Richardson provided some more detail on. And it is going to be done in phases as listed here on the screen and also included in the governor's report. So that first phase was really setting up kind of the base for that program. So they could stand up the center and stand up this program. And then it will continue into future phases here to get it fully staffed and deployed and out to the local public health departments to be working in partnership with. And then a few other components of GA 18, which are worth mentioning. It does contain language that every person in Texas shall minimize social gatherings and minimize in-person contact with people who are not in the same household. It also contains a recommendation and strongly encourages people who are over the age of 65 to stay at home as much as possible. They're identified as a highly vulnerable population and there's special guidance for any Texans that are over 65 contained in the report. In addition, it also encouraged all individuals to wear appropriate face coverings, but it does not require face coverings. And it also stipulates that a jurisdiction cannot impose a civil or criminal penalty for failure to wear a face covering. And then lastly, it states the same language that has been contained in orders in the past, that GA 18 shall supersede any conflicting order issued by local officials. And city staff have been working on a number of communications and graphics to kind of help distill and share publicly to help inform all of our residents and businesses, a number of the recommendations that were contained in the governor's report by specific industries or for individuals. So we'll continue to develop these communications and help to push those out to our public and community. So moving into an overview of the second order, this is GA 19 in regards to healthcare professionals and hospital capacity. So under GA 19, it does remove some restrictions that the governor had in the past and it allows all licensed healthcare professionals to continue with their practice, but they must comply with any rules and standards that are put forth by their respective licensing agencies. So for example, dentist office can reopen as long as they're following the guidance and standards put forth by their licensing agency. And then secondly, it also addresses that every hospital shall reserve at least 15% of its hospital capacity for treatment for COVID-19 patients. And then lastly, the third order was GA 20 and this expanded some travel without restrictions. So previously there was an order that if you were coming from the state of Louisiana, you had to quarantine for 14 days and that was mandatory. This order eliminates that for the state of Louisiana if you traveled there. However, it does leave in place that mandated 14 day quarantine period for a number of areas and they're listed on the screen there and these may continue to change moving ahead by future orders. So that is the summary of the orders. Happy to take any questions on this section or continue on in the presentation. Sorry, mayor, you're still muted. I don't see any questions for this part, council member Briggs. I can hold my questions till the complete end. Okay. All right. Yeah. So go ahead and move forward, Sarah. I appreciate that. Continue on. Yes. So the third section is a couple of updates for city operations. With these orders that were announced on Monday by the governor, staff has been working with that inter departmental team to prepare for a number of concerns or complaints that may come in. And so we will be prepared as of tomorrow to respond to any questions or complaints regarding building occupancy or the eligibility of certain establishments to reopen. In order to do so, we have been compiling the data that will be necessary. And really there's two data points and lists that we've been putting together. The first is occupancy data. So we have been reviewing all of that and getting a list that will have columns for 100%, 50% and 25% of occupancy for all of the businesses and restaurants in town. We will place that online so it is transparent and available to the public as well. The second set of data is in regards to if an establishment is classified as a restaurant or a bar. So there is a difference as outlined in GA 18. Only restaurants are allowed to reopen at that 25% occupancy. Bars will not be allowed to reopen to customers inside of their establishment or at their place of business. And bars are defined as anyone that has to post the 51% sign required by the TABC. And what that means is that 51% or more of their revenues are related to alcohol sales. And so we're preparing to monitor those complaints this weekend. It is broader than just bars and restaurants as this bullet point shows on this slide. We're prepared to respond to any complaints that come in and we'll have a team actually of not only development services and code officers, which we've been using, but also fire inspectors and police as may be necessary. And we've set up the processes to handle those. Moving into the next slide is just kind of the general procedure that we have. A complaint will be received. We're encouraging residents to submit these through Engage Denton app or through the website, engagedenton.com. However, if it is called in through one of the city's phone lines or into dispatch, we've also worked with staff. So staff can input that and it will be routed then appropriately through Engage Denton to make sure that we are handling these and that we can keep all of the data statistics and make sure we're having consistency between all of the businesses. Once that complaint is received, it will be reviewed to determine if the business is essential and can be open or if it's eligible to be open under GA 16 or 18 and then under what parameters or recommended standards that were put forth. Once that determination takes place, it can kind of move into the next steps. So if it is easily identified as essential or eligible, we can either close the loop with the complaintant or if it's maybe in regards to concerns that a business is not following the minimum standards and we can go out to that business, observe, perform some education and outreach, and kind of review with them what are the checklists of the recommended standards so that they can maintain the safety for their employees and customers as well. If it is not easily determined, we will ask that business to apply to the Texas Division of Emergency Management and ask that they give us proof within 24 hours that they have at least submitted that inquiry to TDM and we will wait to enforce until we get an opinion back from TDM. And this has been our practice that we've been doing now. There has been some businesses where it's unclear if they are allowed to be open as an essential business or allowed to be open under GA 16. So we've been asking for the state's assistance in making some of those determinations when it is unclear. If it is easily determined to be non-essential or ineligible, for example, a salon which the governor has clearly said cannot be open, we'll educate the business on the orders and ask them to close. Depending on the circumstances, a citation may be issued. So that is kind of the overview of our business outreach and enforcement. And we will be using the checklists. If you've seen the report from the governor, there are a number of these checklists by specific business type or industry that we can use to do some education on the recommended minimum standards. So I want to move forward to the second part of this update on city operations, and that's in regards to city facilities and programs. City staff have received a number of questions and wanted to provide some initial information today. As of right now, city facilities will remain closed to the public until further notice. However, we have formed a staff team to evaluate and develop a strategic phased approach to reopening facilities in the coming weeks. We really want to take some time to be thoughtful about all of the considerations, including staffing, standards for cleaning, safety measures, access logistics, what guidance are we going to put out, what communications will we put out. And so we are currently in the stages of doing that to develop a more detailed plan that we can bring forward next Tuesday to the council meeting and present that to city council. It will also include specific plans for parks and recreation and libraries. And although GA 18 allowed for some of those activities to begin to take place again, really want to have that thoughtful strategic approach to how we reopen things, what parameters need to be in place, make sure that all of those things are set up so that we are maintaining the safety for both our employees and our public. And then quickly, I just wanted to go over for the library and parks what is currently available and some of the creative programming that they have done and continue to do. So for Denton Public Library, they did begin curbside pickup last Friday when the retail to go model was allowed to take place again. And as you can see on the right hand screen is just one example of some of the communications we've been doing to kind of promote that to our residents that we do have contactless curbside pickup for our library branches. In addition to the retail to go model and that curbside pickup, the library has done a number of other online programming events such as online book clubs, virtual story time, and so forth. And then parks and rec has put together an entire website in a short period of time to create a virtual recreation center. And this is just a screenshot of that rec center. You can see there's many things that are outlined here, many resources available, and a large selection of online programming, videos, blogs, and other opportunities for our residents and families to engage in from from home. Sarah, I have a real quick question. Yep. Who's the likeness or image of the nice young man welcoming us? Anybody in particular? That would be Director Gary Packins. Okay. All right. Just checking. All right. Thank you. And so they'll continue to put together online programming and events, and then they'll present to council next Tuesday on their recommended strategic approach to reopening certain facilities, amenities, and programs and how they have come up with those recommendations based on a number of guidance from the CDC or from their best practices of their respective industries. So moving into the next section, community resource updates, staff has given a number of updates to city council in the past. So I'm going to try to move through this rather quickly, but did want to provide a brief update on the COVID relief fund. And this is the fund to provide housing assistance to those that may be facing a housing crisis as a result of COVID-19. This is the chart that we have reviewed. I did want to point out that Denton County made an allocation of 260,000 on Tuesday, so that enhanced the level of funds that are available. And you can see here Denton, the first column has assisted 63 households and still has a current balance of 70,000 as of right now. As Denton and Lewisville may draw down on funds, Denton residents could then use the allocation that is for Denton County wide. So just wanted to point that out. Another update is the recent program we launched over a week ago with the United Way of Denton County on the information referrals program to help both our individuals and businesses navigate all of the resources that are available or if they needed some guidance in regards to the CARES Act. United Way has a number of resources available that they could pull upon from legal or accounting professionals. So in the first full week of implementation, some just statistics to provide with you, there was over 85 service contacts. 38 of those were Denton residents. A number were from residents in Denton County or experiencing homelessness. And there were for a number of different needs they were looking to locate assistance on as seen here in this box. The majority of the contacts have been from an individual, not many business contacts so far. When we did a staff call this week with United Way of Denton County, we are going to work on promoting this program more heavily through our various channels and make sure that both individuals and businesses know this is an available resource to them. And then lastly on the alternative shelter arrangement, the hotels are still operating. Do you want to point out I made one typo at this first hotel that MKOC is managing for individual clients should actually be 75 clients are currently staying at the hotel, not 65. And so these rooms at both hotels are currently rented until May 10. At this time, staff has been working with our nonprofit partners closely and we're recommending as a team to extend those hotels until Friday, May 29. This allows us more time to give thoughtful consideration for a transition back into shelter, but maintaining the appropriate safe distancing for clients during the month of May, especially as we see services to be reopened and to understand what may happen during these next few weeks. We thought this was the best approach at this time was to keep the hotels that we have. It also, the nonprofits are also struggling with volunteers yet and to manage multiple locations. For example, if we started to transition back to shelter and the hotel and our daily bread, it would be difficult to manage at all of those different locations. At this point, as volunteers or individuals may feel more confident coming out, that will help us to staff additional locations and to staff back up to operations as they were beforehand with all of the respective safety protocols and social distancing in place. I do want to mention as well that we took into consideration that we need to bring the Salvation Army into this conversation and understand at what capacity and when will they begin to reopen up or allow more individuals to stay with them so we understand if we can help transition more from the hotel back to both the Salvation Army and MKOC and get those appropriate social distancing protocols in place. In addition, our daily bread is doing kind of a phased approach back into providing meals on site. And so they're actually going to begin tomorrow to serve some meals on site using both the outdoor parking lot as well as the gymnasium and following all of the recommended protocols for restaurants that the governor has put out just to make sure for the safety of clients as well as their employees and volunteers. So we want to see how that operation can roll back out and take that first step so there is somewhere during the day at least for individuals to be. And then the last update we have for you is in regards to the disaster related expenditures and David Gaines, our finance director, will provide an overview for you of that. Good afternoon, David Gaines, director of finance. I have just a few slides here to go over where we stand with expenditures related to COVID-19 and a couple of other slides to talk about our reimbursement opportunities for related expenses. So this is the dashboard that we've shown a couple of times now that we've updated as we've gone forward with expenses related to the emergency funding that's been provided. Initially that funding was set at $500,000. It was then increased to $550,000 for the first payments United Way and at the last meeting regarding the application it was increased to $750,000. So today we've either spent or encumbered $588,000 toward that $750,000 and there on the left you can see that about $290,000 of that is spent and $220,000 is encumbered. On the right, the right column, we've listed out kind of the major buckets of funds that have been used toward that $588,000 from first responder equipment to PPE, personal protective equipment for employees throughout the city to disinfectant and sanitizers, the hotel rooms which obviously Sarah just discussed. In addition to that, those hotels specifically discussed also quarantine hotels for any public safety employees that need them, security to go along with the hotels, and then our contributions to United Way and the increase in the interfaith ministries funding for utility assistance that was approved at the last meeting as well and then additional materials and supplies. So you can see where we stand right now in relation to the $750,000 allocation. For the item for consideration later in the agenda, we are recommending an increase in that $750,000 to $850,000 and really the intent of that is we think that will get us through the end of May. So once we step at $850,000, we should be in good position to get through the rest of May and then reconsider at that point and also take into account us extending those hotels through the month of May and then any other expenses we might incur, increase PPE, things like that. It just gives us that room to work with throughout the month. So the next couple slides, I did want to just give an update and provide some context for where we are with our reimbursement opportunities. The largest one being the FEMA reimbursement for our emergency related expenses. I know we've talked about this at a high level of what the process is to get reimbursed, but wanted to provide a little more detail of what staff is working on right now. FEMA will reimburse up to 75% of expenses related to the response to COVID-19 as it's been declared an emergency. This is obviously a different situation for FEMA than what they are normally responding to. So we have been working with the state and all the information that comes out from FEMA itself to identify what expenses would qualify. The way that we've approached this is we're tracking every expense so that we can apply those expenses that ultimately do qualify for the reimbursement in our submissions. The initial guidance from FEMA is listed there from increased labor costs to costs for our EOC, disinfecting of facilities, security and law enforcement, medical sheltering, and then purchase and distribution of food, water, et cetera listed there. So again, this is an ever evolving process to determine what ultimately will be eligible, but we are staying on top of that and coordinating with state officials and any guidance from FEMA to ensure that we get as much reimbursement as we can for the expenses that we have related to COVID-19. Again, we don't have to go through this in too much detail, but this is essentially just showing that process that we're going through with FEMA and really coordinating directly with the Texas Department of Emergency Management. They're our main source for any applications or how we ultimately get distributed funds from FEMA. We have submitted our request for public assistance and are working currently with them to start getting those reimbursement requests submitted and ensure that we have all the appropriate documentation. There obviously have been a number of different reimbursement or funding opportunities that have been discussed over the last month or so. I thought this would be a good way to lay that out for everyone so that we could have something clear that we could reference in future meetings and clearly show where we are with various grant opportunities. So you can see those listed there. The first couple being grants that we've already received or awarded where we're just awaiting receipt of funds and really related to that initial CARES Act funding, $60,000 for an EMS grant that we have already received that funding. And then the next two grants that have been awarded, we haven't received the funds quite yet from an airport funding and then CDBG funding, which I know we have mentioned in previous meetings as well. The next three there, you can see grants that we're currently applying for, ensuring that we have all the appropriate documentation that will really, all three of those will go toward a response and preparedness of public safety expenses. And finally, the FEMA reimbursement funding. You can see the kind of the total amount that we have listed there and a range on that bottom row of expenses that we could be reimbursed for. That does include our overtime expenses for fire and police, which is not, we're not including that in that $750,000 allocation, but is part of the possible reimbursement. And that's it for the finance section, but I'm happy to answer any questions. - Okay, if we could pull the slide down and then we'll, if we need to pull it back up, we can. Council Member Briggs, I believe you had a question. - Yeah, just for the finance part, right? And then Sarah can come back. - Yeah, or just any of them actually, yeah, but you're right, since David's got the floor. Go ahead if you have a finance question. - Yeah, just for some clarification, I think you mentioned it, 'cause I did see in the Friday report that the 60,000 came in. So the money and the funds that we're approving, I think up to 850,000, the grants that we saw are to reimburse our expenditures on the COVID-19 that we've approved so far. - Correct, obviously, each one of those grants is gonna have different expenses they cover. That 60,000 in particular is really kind of any expenses that we, any expenses we had in response to COVID-19 that were not initially budgeted, so that would fall in those expenses that you saw in that 850,000, moving up to $850,000 allocation. - Okay, thank you. - Any other questions on the finance portion? The memorometer? - Mine is not about the finance portion, but about the state ordinance. - Okay, yeah, let's go through the finance. Anybody, any other questions on the finance? I've got one. David, if you could pull the slide back up showing the summary of what's encumbered, what's been spent, and so forth. - Thank you. On, let me pull, I gotta be able to see the side here. So on the right-hand side of the screen where it says major expenses and contracts, that, I haven't done the math real quick, that adds up to, is that the 588, 875? - Roughly, it's pretty close to that. - Okay, so some of these have been actually spent, and then some of them are contracted to be spent. - Correct, yeah, that portion, a little more than half has been spent, and the rest have just been encumbered to be spent. - Okay, and so we still have a hundred and basically almost $70,000 that is unencumbered. In other words, it's four additional expenses that we've not identified yet, is that correct? - Correct. - And I know that the hotel seems to be, at least currently, the largest portion of the ongoing expense, 'cause it's, how much is that running? - The non-quarantined hotels are $93,000 per month, so if we move forward to that for another, just looking at the entire month of May, it would be an additional $93,000. - Okay, and, all right, which, that would be covered on what we still have left. - Correct, we kind of did a quick analysis of adding the 93,000 to the rates that we've been spending on PPE and other supplies, and just kind of just basing it on the past couple weeks and that additional funding, we end up around $800,000, so the idea was give $850,000 just so that we don't have to come again next month and have some room if any other things come up that necessitate funding. - Okay, all right, you can go ahead and pull that slide down. Thank you so much on that. I think that was, as far as additional sources of funding, if you could have someone send out, and I know that I've talked with or sent emails about this, and we're probably gonna be able to get some more information or clarifying information, 'cause I know that the state received their large amount of CARES Act funding, which was, I believe, in the billions, and I'm not quite sure how they're charged to distribute that, if any, to local municipalities, or do they keep it all for themselves? So if you could, as soon as y'all find that information out, just, you know, I know you'll forward it to us, 'cause I think that's gonna also be another potential source of funding for us as well. Any other questions on the finance? Council Member Melser, finance. - It seems like the obstacles to moving people back into the shelter are two, if I'm right. This is all sort of a question. Well, one is the cost of testing people, which, so that's one question, is what does it cost to provide a test? And then secondly, the volunteer force. So now, and I don't really know what the answer is on that, but my question is, would it be feasible to test our way into moving out of the hotel business? 'Cause that's over a million dollars a year if we were to sustain that. Whereas if you could determine that folks are negative and come back frequently enough to determine that they're still negative, you could have greater confidence in having them, you know, living in the shelter environment. - Sorry, I just heard the last part of your question there. In regards- - What's the cost? What's a test cost? I have no idea. - Yeah, so I can address just a little bit more about how we're thinking, you know, just to extend it at least through the month of May. We have 75 staying in the hotel right now. If MKOC were to return to operations, we could probably only do 25 or so in that facility at most to get the appropriate social distancing. We'd also maybe, and that's what we're working through, is would it be a mandated they must stay and shelter in place? Or does it go back to that nightly operating model? So there's a number of factors. But even at only 25 people in that, we wanted to see if the Salvation Army will also have some additional capacity to add additional clients back to their facility so that we can hopefully get to more of the clients going directly from hotel to shelter. And then once they're in shelter, while we can, you know, if we can volunteer and staff up to have that shelter available kind of in that 24/7 to help limit the contacts in and out of the shelter. There still may be reasons why an individual needs to leave for work or for a health care appointment or so forth. So testing all of the time would be very difficult, as you heard Dr. Richardson talk about, although it would be, we can certainly initiate conversations to have their partnership when somebody is at risk or showing those immediate symptoms so that we make sure that there is not a outbreak further in the shelter. Well, okay, but this leads to a broader topic. I don't know if you want to go beyond the finance yet. Well, and also this is a very specific topic that I don't know if we need to go into it in that depth today because I know staff is still trying to formulate a plan and they've already told us that the hotel rooms are going to be extended through the end of May and it's going to take several conversations with our partners and the health department of the county and things such as that. Because I understand what you're saying, Councilmember Meltzer. If we tested people, could we get more people in there if they were tested than just the 25? And of course, that is a cost analysis. But yeah, I'd like to save this conversation for when staff can get a little bit further down the road of the conversation where they can have some more information for us. But I certainly would encourage questions along those lines to be submitted to staff so that probably sometime in a week or two we'll come back with a little bit more definitive conversation about how we deal with this. Right. Okay, so we're still, I think all the financial questions have been answered or at least asked. And so we can now go into the presentation, Sarah's presentations. If you have questions for, I can thank those sections one through five. Feel free to ask me. I think Councilmember Riggs, you had one or some and then Councilmember Armitage. I had a few, but following up on the FEMA declared federal disaster funds and this may be for the city manager. I was, I listened to a podcast and it said that local restaurants can be included if they are feeding meals for personnel or crews for overtime hours. So you set up a rotation of local restaurants that feed and then those funds can be applied back for refund from the FEMA federal disaster funds. Is that something we're doing to help our small businesses? We have been utilizing some of the restaurant chairs on each Sunday since our daily bread is not open to do so. We've been rotating restaurants at that point. We can certainly check into these types of programs, but it's not been something that's been done on a frequent basis. It's been something that's been done on kind of more of a fill in basis. Well, I encourage us to look into that if they're willing to reimburse us. Okay. May I have a few questions? Should I just go into now for the present? I have to tell you. Yes. So I can manage it. Maybe five. Okay. All right. Yeah. Depending on the length of each question and the answer, I may move on to a couple other council members if they have questions and come back to you just so that we can sort of split the time up. Some of them are mostly clarifying questions that I've heard. It's, you know, the stay at home. Is this still a stay at home order? It says minimize social gatherings, but the number 10 isn't in there. Are we still focusing on that? Is the governor of the city, the county on 10 being the number in the gatherings in the governor's order? There is no number. It just says individuals shall minimize contacts that is not within their household. Okay. And I'll just I'll keep going down. I actually have less than I thought. The other one is a it's another clarification kind of I've had from a few businesses in Denton. They are not necessarily restaurants, but they're not bars. They're bar and grills. And most of our smaller local places operate operate as that. It's a big question, because on the TV on the TV site, I have it has something different. It says that a restaurant or dining can open as long as your alcohol cells do not reach over 51%. So even if they have that sign, it's a little bit of confusion. Can I get some clarification for those bar and grills that don't necessarily fit into one of those categories? Or do they actually have to apply for the? If you can direct those to staff or through Engage Denton, we'll be able to work with the business directly. We have been putting that list together to understand so we can work with that business directly. Okay, it says they can reopen if alcohol cells do not exceed the 51% of gross receipt. So there was I'll send that to you. Okay, sounds like there may be more detail. I just want to make sure we can confer with legal on that. Okay. And the next question I have is about enforcement. I'm wondering how much extra staff time we've already spent on on these requests that we're getting and enforcement. When this came out, there were a lot of questions in the community about can the city even enforce the 25%? Is that going to be an issue? And if you could just speak to the authority the city has and and what happens if someone is in violation? Sure. So we can issue a citation if they are not following what is a must underneath the governor's order. So if they have over for example, if they have over 25% occupancy, and we will work with that business to inform them what their occupancy is, what is the limitation. If they do not comply, you know, we do a follow up inspection and they're still not in that compliance, a citation may be issued. Obviously, as we do with any citation, a number of factors are taken into consideration. But that is an enforcement tool we have if a business is not complying with the governor's orders. Okay. All right. I'm done, Mayor. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Armitage, were you did you have your hand raised? Yes, go ahead. So thank you. So one of one of Councilmember Briggs's questions was one of mine about the number to piggyback on that. I understand that the governor doesn't mention a required number. But also, as I understand it, there's no language in there that explicitly prohibits cities from coming up with a number in the same way that for instance, or I should say as opposed to the new order on masks, which explicitly says that now cities cannot require masks. So is there is there debate on I guess this is more of a legal question. This is just one of several questions. I guess you could say I have three. But you know, is there any sort of definitive legal opinion on whether or not cities can require a specific number under this most recent ordinance from the state? This is Catherine Clifton from the legal department. To answer that question, there probably isn't anything that specifically prevents cities from establishing a bright line rule of with a number of persons. However, it would also have to allow for all the any exception that specifically covered in GA 18. And so your exceptions in that case might actually swallow the rule. Meaning the restaurant, the 25% capacity, for instance, right or the specific provisions they have for religious activities. There are so many different things with essential businesses and so forth, that allow exceptions to gatherings that there may be so many exceptions that there would be no room to enforce such a rule. So yeah, I would be curious to know. Not necessarily right now. But if there's a number that the city could set, you know, especially in conjunction with with public health experts, as far as what they would recommend, because we're essentially going from zero to an undefined number. So if people are not at a venue, is there a number that we could safely set, which even if the enforceability of it is debatable, if it would put us in legal jeopardy and would help us to protect public health, I would like to know what the possibility of that would be from a from a legal point of view. And secondly, I want to ask about about masks. So obviously, under the new order, cities no longer have the ability to enforce the use of masks, they're only recommended. And that's unambiguous because it's it's in the letter of the law now. What I'm wondering, though, is can private businesses make a rule for themselves as a private business that customers need to wear a mask, except say in the case of restaurant, you know, except when you're eating, when you're not eating, put your mask on, or can they make a rule about employees in the same way that now, you know, there are enforcements about dress code that there are rules about dress code that private businesses can make that a public entity can't make. So could you speak on that where the legal room is on that from a private perspective, including nonprofits? What the governor has put in there as far as prohibitions on let's say masks, it only applies to local governmental units. Businesses are free to establish their own personal protection guidelines or restrictions, and you know, up to a large extent. But and so for example, Costco wholesale starting tomorrow, everybody who comes in is required to put in a mask, it's a private business requirement that has nothing to do with what the governor's order has. But but I do want to go back to the early the first question you had to make sure I'm clear that what you're asking, you know, you're asking about whether the city can impose some number 1012 as part of a mass gathering prohibition, even though with age passing or the governor issues, more and more exceptions are basically undermining or undoing that that limitation. But I can tell you right now, the 10 person limitation is still there. It's part of the CDC guidelines and DS DSHS. About all that really applies to now our backyard gatherings, parades, festivals. But every all these other businesses are all these business activities are starting to be allowed to occur. And the 10 person maximum of a set social gathering no longer applies. And so that that I'm just trying to determine what number are you seeking? And if we could, I think what she was asking for is also, if we could, if you could come back with something, I mean, I think she's just saying, is there any way we can restrict any number? Now, the question that the observation I have is, he has not opened up certain things like entertainment venues that were typically these large gatherings of people occur. Those are still closed. Some of the public parks he has talks about social distancing. So I don't want to get into a necessarily naming, trying to figure out a number if she can remember, if you have something you'd like for them to take a look at, email the city attorney with a couple of options or propositions, and then he can do some research and get that response out to the entire council. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? Councilmember Meltzer. Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. Don't give up. I was just trying to unmute. All right. You just really enjoy it when I phone with my phone, don't you? No, it's just never mind. I'm happy. It's cute. I enjoy it. Yes. Thank you. My pleasure. So sorry, you showed some public communication intended to tell people that recommendations, things that are not requirements of law, but that people are still encouraged to do. And my question is, I guess this is to Aaron, is there anything that would prevent the city from requiring signage in public places, in place of business, and also just, you know, that we can put in public areas, to reinforce those messages related to staying at home, wearing masks in public. And I don't know if I noticed this on your list, but not, but a nurse mentioned this one to me, handling merchandise and stores to avoid that. So is there, so my question to you Aaron is, would the city have the power to have signage, posted signage requirements regarding these recommendations? With that, I would prefer to answer that in a attorney client privilege communication to council. They're both. Okay. To identify the legal risks waiting in implementing that kind of a requirement citywide on private businesses. Okay. All right. Thank you. Good question. I'll wait for that. And, but now, but if I could just parse it a minute. Of course. Yeah. So, so I'll wait for your, you know, kind of a prior communication about that, but then regarding public spaces, city property where the public passes, even along sidewalks and whatever, is there, is there anything that would prevent council from, from creating and displaying signage about these recommendations to be in public places that are not in private hands? Certainly as a, as the owner of the property, a parched property in this case, or any other public property, we can implement that. In fact, you know, the parks and rec department and with various city individuals are working on the signage to advise people of different, you know, the equipment isn't being cleaned every, every hour, those kinds of things to associate, to advise people the risk of actually going into the parks that we can do. It's no different than a private property owner would do. The other one, I'd prefer to do that in a legal communication. I took that point. Okay. Okay. So, so we could, as a body have, pass a ordinance to have signs along sidewalks encouraging the wearing of masks in public places, just to put a fine point on it. In the public places that we own, our parks, public facilities, yes. Sidewalks? If they are public sidewalks possibly. Okay. And it sounds like you may want to get further guidance on that. I'll look forward to that. Thank you. Okay. Any, any other questions? Mayor Pro Tem? Yes, sir. So my question is for Sarah regarding our daily bread. I really want to get out in front of this. So you mentioned there'll be opening up for services there in the parking lot, et cetera. What number constitutes 25% or better said, what number are we comfortable with? So for example, a citizen's driving by and they see a group of people and they report, I see this many people at this location. I think we really need to get out in front of that and make sure we have a set number or measurable that then allows us to answer that question quickly. But I'll take your guidance on that. Sure. And we can put a recap in the Friday report tomorrow with some more details of our daily breads plan so you can share those. But they do plan to serve outdoor in their parking lot as well as indoor in the gym. They will be using the occupancy cap for that gym area. So it will be capped at 57 and that includes guests, staff, and volunteers. And then they would have anywhere from 20 to 30 or so in that parking lot spaced out. But we'll provide more of those details to you through the Friday report. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Council member Meltzer. You need to unmute council member Meltzer. See, I did it without the phone falling. So what I'd like to address is kind of seeing what's left given what the orders are in terms of what needs to be done and at least to introduce maybe as a topic of conversation. We know that the testing protocols only test for people who have symptoms. We also know that people who have no symptoms, who are young, ostensibly healthy, in every other way, can have and shed this virus to others and nobody knows for how long. And we know that we're going to have more activity now, more interactions, not less. So we're in a more dangerous environment, not less. So unless we do something different. So we've talked about, you know, getting word out about how people can kind of protect themselves and others. But testing on a broader scale could increase confidence and let people know that in fact, they could make the environment less dangerous. And I don't see any rule that says that we can't have broader testing. The question is availability of testing. And I noticed that other metropolitan areas that are no better than DFW in any way are doing that. Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they're creating broader testing regimens. And I guess my question to staff is, are there relationships that we can forge across the DFW Metroplex? Or is it even doable within the scale of Denton, given the university resources we have for us to produce enough tests locally, at least to be able to test those who have had contact with confirmed cases who don't have symptoms? You know, right now the testing regimen that's laid out in the governor's handbook says if you had a contact with a confirmed case, and you don't have symptoms, you quarantine. But we don't know that's for 14 days. But we don't know what the shedding period is. There are instances of people testing positive for far longer than 14 days. So that's my fundamental question is, is that even something to explore? We know others have done it. Aren't we as good as those others? Couldn't we explore that as well? Well, I will tell you that we're on weekly calls with Dr. Richardson. And I don't think it's a matter of whether we're as good as anyone else. I wouldn't put it that way at all. In fact, I listened to him advocate strongly with the governor's office and with our elected officials to try to get more tests here. His concern and just kind of listening to him over the last month on these weekly calls, it's a continuity of the testing. There's been a lot of tests that have been rolled out. We had a city down south, the largest city in South Texas that decided they were going to antibody test their residents to try to do something similar to what you're asking for. Turned out that test was anywhere from 68 to 90% accurate. And by the time you put statistical probability in it, it was basically they spent a lot of money, a lot of time testing residents with no statistical evidence that it was worthwhile. One or two people out of a group of three throw the entire test out the door from just a basic statistics perspective. So his point has been there's a few tests that we can count on. They have a very high level of accuracy. I think the better question is not whether we're as good as some other part of the country, but can he get his hands on a number of the enough tests that we can continue expanding those protocols? And when we are testing folks, are we giving them a high degree of confidence? You know, just just to give you some other insight, I mean, we've explored this for our first responders when we initially found out that there were some of these other testing, private testing kits coming onto the market and that the hospitals have gotten some access to those. And in my discussions with the hospital administrators were look, we were very concerned right now with anything that is not being standardized that the health department is using these types of tests because there's so many false negatives. And so I think that we've got to be very careful with this. Dr. Richardson has been very good about advocating for us about helping us build kind of a model that we can work within. It's going to be a matter of how many tests can he get here? I can tell you he yells every Tuesday, and he's getting more and more tests on our behalf. But I think it's the reliability issue. It's getting further complicated with these private testing groups that are, you know, coming out with tests, some of them are not valid. And so we really need to work with him to see who do we believe? Who do we trust? And what's what's a reasonable next expansion if he can get more supplies here? My question, Mr. City Manager was, could we locally or regionally produce more of the good kind that we feel are reliable? So we're not just in a position of competing with the rest of the world. And I think in my and what I'm telling you is we can certainly talk to him. He is the only one right now that I would trust to help answer that question. So we're happy to have that conversation with him. Chief Hedges talks to him every day just about what you know, what are some possibilities? Could we set up that kind of an alternative business model? We can certainly ask that question. Okay. All right. Anybody else? Councilman Briggs and real quick, we're going to wrap this conversation up here shortly. Yeah. And I know that we've all gotten the question about the tennis courts. And I just wanted to give the city manager just a quick comment because that was in the governor's order. Is that something we're going to be discussing on May 5th? Yeah, we will probably make the decision to open up some of these non contact areas a little bit sooner than that. That's, you know, with with very specific signage that we're working through with legal right now. So there's a few there's Gary's Gary and his staff are are working with us and the legal team to kind of identify those areas that we feel like we could open up to be in accordance with, you know, the governor's orders. There's a whole nother layer to this, which I've shared with some of you individually with the that have written me in. And that is we are really needing some time to parse through where our liability ends and stops and starts with some of our programming, especially the high contact areas, you know, is it reasonable to really enforce six foot spacing distances on four and five year old kids and, you know, the swimming pools, that sorts of things. So it's going to take we're probably going to be recommending to you on Tuesday. In fact, I know we're going to be recommending to you on Tuesday that we just kind of take the month of May to think this through a little bit. How do we have to restructure any programs if if and when we do even open those for the summer to make sure that if there's any tracing back to one of our events that we've identified the city to the extent possible. And one of the things that our city attorney is doing is really kind of studying at what point our tour immunity is stays intact. So we feel like right now stage one that you're going to see, we'll give you a primer in the Friday reporter in the packet is just those areas that we think we can open up with proper signage, asking people to use common sense and that sort of thing and letting them know that, look, we're not making any promises that we can come out and decontaminate these pieces of equipment on a frequent basis. I've had the same conversation with Superintendent Wilson about the playgrounds, both with DISD and the city playgrounds were in absolutely no rush right now to open those back up for that very reason. And then we've got this third layer being, you know, those really interactive sports where we know there's high touch areas, high contact areas. And I think this is going to be something where we do have a section of the population wanting to get out and use the facilities right now. There's this whole other discussion that we need to have with you as a group over the next two or three weeks is at what point do we feel comfortable pulling that next trigger to, you know, and opening up that next iteration of programs. It's all going to revolve around how well can we make safety concerns, legal concerns and disinfectant type concerns. So it's a good question. And that's kind of how we're approaching it right now. So I appreciate the opportunity to answer that. Council member Armitage. Real quick, you'll have the last question. Yes, a follow up question to that. And you don't need to go into detail. I just want to know if, if staff is considering in sports that are not contact sports that are not sports that involve touching with hands, but where for instance, in racket sports, where there's no official use of hands, but where there's a lot of touching the same ball, you know, in a tennis pickle ball, squash racket ball situation, if kind of that's being considered, if there are measures being taken, you know, elsewhere without having to reinvent the wheel, you know, what can be done. But I think that that's an area where people could get really sick where they're not really thinking, you know, that we are even though we're not using our hands, our bodies aren't coming in touch with each other. We're constantly touching the same, the same, the same ball. I think two quick responses. The governor's office contemplated that and gave us some direction. You know, he in fact even cited tennis as one of the things that, you know, you could open up. And as long as there weren't more than four people playing. The other thing is, is our park and rec directors, a member of a number of very strong professional networks that are sharing best practices right now. We're by no means the only municipality or with the park department that's concerned about this. So as he continues to learn, you know, what some of the other cities are doing, we're kind of vetting those through legal, making sure that they feel comfortable with the actions we're taking. And that's going to basically be how we develop this phase plan and approach for you. Thanks so much. Yeah. So I'll have the last comment. In all these, I appreciate all these questions. I think one thing that we can't forget, which is the most important part of all these questions, and that is people's sense of a personal accountability. If you're handling a tennis ball, you can wash your hands, you can have your hand sanitized, you don't touch your face. So we have to rely upon the responsibility and also the accountability of each and every one of us to use best practices in our own individual lives, which will do more to cut down the spread and infection than anything we can do as policymakers, because otherwise we'll just wind up keeping everything shut down to where nobody can touch anything. So I just appreciate the questions. I just want to reemphasize that we're told the things that we can do as an individual to really make a big difference in this. And that is the wearing of the mask is a recommendation. The washing of the hands, the don't touch your face, sanitize, just be mindful. So, okay, it's 2.39. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a seven minute break, come back at 2.45 to go through our second work session item. Thank you. Welcome back everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council on April the 30th, 2020. It is 2.48. We're moving down through our work session reports agenda portion of our City Council agenda. We're on agenda item 3B. Receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding a policy request to create special districts within the city and the extraterritorial jurisdiction. Richard, are you there, Richard? Can't hear you. Are you there, Richard? Are we having technical difficulties? Yes, just one minute, Mayor. Okay, you bet. I think it's corrected now, if you can hear me. I can hear you fine. All right. And yeah, if you'll go through the whole presentation, if we could save the questions for the end, you may proceed. Richard Canone, Development Services. What I'd like to do today is go through a presentation on special districts with more of a focus on MUDs or municipal utility districts. And sort of the first question to really start off is, you know, why are we here? Why are we considering this now? And it's really a number of reasons. The first being changes to the annexation law. During this last legislative session, our authority was stripped even more in what we can do with annexation. In the 2002 DDC, we had a peripheral development annexation regulation. And essentially what that meant was, if we were extending any utility water sewer out to your development within the ETJ1, you were required to annex into the city. As a result of this last legislative session, even from 2017, for the most part, we no longer could do that. That essentially stripped our ability. And so when we updated the 2019 DDC, that did not carry forward. In addition to that, the powers of MUDs have been expanding exponentially through the years. When these first started off, they started as a water district for water and wastewater. Now they really function to a certain extent as a general purpose government. They have the ability for roads, parks, and trails. As granted, they have the ability for eminent domain, as well as annexation to bring other properties into a MUD or annex another MUD. And where this has really come to a head, and this already needs to be updated, in the past six months, we've had three MUD requests. If you recall, in February, we had the Denton County MUD 11, number 11 that we had considered. We do have two others, Legends Ranch Municipal Utility District, Lala Ranch Municipal Utility District, and we had another one that was just submitted today, Municipal Utility District number 16. The majority of these are in our ETJ2, with the exception of Legends Ranch. And I'll kind of go through all of that so we all have a good understanding of what that means. And so looking at our jurisdiction, it's essentially twofold. It's our ETJ, which is really established through the Texas Local Government Code 42.021. And it really depends on the number of inhabitants or population of the municipality. And so if you're 50,000 to just under 100,000, your ETJ extends out three and a half miles. If you're 100,000 or more, your ETJ extends out five miles. Denton is a little unique in that we have an interlocal cooperation agreement through Denton County which is authorized by the local government code, just a different chapter. And when we first entered into this, we were just getting to the point where the city had about 100,000 inhabitants. And so we were still at our Division 1 or three and a half mile distance from the municipal boundary. And so what the interlocal did is it essentially capped our platting authority at that three and a half mile, which in some instances it doesn't quite extend, but the area in blue on the map is what is our existing ETJ Division 1. And for the most part, it follows what our CCN is. And I'll go over that in the next slide. And then our Division 2 runs from three and a half miles to five miles. And so under the local government code, because our ETJ, that authority is granted to go out to five miles, that's why we're seeing these mud consent requests come in in our Division 2. And so if we did not have that interlocal, and not saying we shouldn't, but if we did not have that interlocal, in addition to that consent requirement, our platting authority would also extend out to Division 2. But again, we have this interlocal that sort of draws that line in the sand. And so if you look at our two CCNs, or Certificate of Convenience in Necessity Service Areas, for the most part, it follows our ETJ Division 1. There are some small exceptions to the south and to the north. Around us, and mostly in ETJ 2, to the north, most of it is Bolivar. I think Aqua Texas has some area throughout there along 380. And then to the south, we have Argyle. Even within our CCN to the south, Argyle does still serve some of the unincorporated properties properties. But as those properties redevelop or plat, they need to then move over to the city as the water and wastewater provider. And so it kind of puts us in a predicament when we have the development kind of almost this leapfrog development, because we essentially can't refuse service, but it has to be in accordance with any local code or the extension policy. And in addition to that, it doesn't necessarily obligate the city to have to pay to extend those lines. That obligation would fall at the cost of the developer or requester. So just a quick little summary slide. Division 1, Division 2, mud consent in both. Platting, we have authority Division 1, not in Division 2. Water and sewer provider, the majority of Division 1, not in Division 2. So again, just wanted to kind of wrap that up and just kind of as we move forward through this, have that kind of in the back of your mind. And so the next slide, I wanted to really touch on special districts that are currently throughout the state. And I really focused on three, the PID, the MUD and the MMD. I think overall there's almost 14 different types of districts throughout the state that can be authorized. These are obviously the most common. We have two, the MMD just recently and the PID. And now the mud requests are coming in. Just looking in Denton County, there are essentially the same types. You'll also see freshwater supply districts. Blantana and Savannah I think are both freshwater supply districts. And then there's a few water control districts a little further east closer to the lake in and around Crossroads, Oak Point and that area. But this gives you an idea of where they can occur. For the most part, PIDs are really in the city. They can go into the ETJ, but it really doesn't make sense. Same with MUDs. Mostly that's a tool to develop in an ETJ, but you could have them in the city. Obviously MMD is within the city creation. The only difference between MUDs and MMDs, the city creates the PID. The MUD can either be created through TCQ or an act of the legislature. Debt issuance obviously is the district if you're a MUD or MMD, city with the PID. And then how that functions really as an assessment district and you see how that filters through for MUDs and MMDs. Governance, the legislation that enacted those. And then the ability to have eminent domain. MMDs do not have that. Obviously PIDs through the city and then municipal utility districts have that if authorized. And again, so really what is a MUD? Again, it's a special district and really the main purpose is for an alternate way to finance the infrastructure costs. And really that the way it's financed is it's reimbursed. And so rather than issue bonds upfront, they're essentially reimbursement bonds that are managed by an elected board that are initially elected by TCQ, but then ultimately managed by a board with property owners within the MUD. And just to kind of give you a snapshot of where MUDs are within the state. This is a map on the right is just a map that I had pulled from TCQ. And I think it's something somewhere around 65% of the MUDs are in and around the Houston Harris County area. The next large amount is again around Austin. And if you look even to the north of us, why it looks like there's a lot of MUDs up there. That's all I think the Texoma utility district. There's a number of different MUDs, but they're all under control of that municipal authority or sewer authority. I can't remember the greater Texoma utility authority. And so in creating a MUD, you may recall this slide, we had went over this with that first MUD that we saw back in November. There's essentially two ways to create these. The first being a bill that's sponsored by the legislature. And the second, which is probably the most common within the ETJs is through TCQ. And that TCQ process requires a consent by the municipality whose ETJ they're proposing that MUD to be in. And the main sections of the code, both water code and local government code govern these. But then in addition, there's the Texas government code that governs how the bonds are issued by these MUDs. So there's a multiple layer of regulations and it can be complex at times. But again, just trying to provide and boil this down to a simple snapshot. And so when we get a MUD request, what options do we have? And really there's three. The first being an unconditional consent and it is just that. The MUD that we initially consented to, MUD 11, while it was a conditional consent, it can kind of almost be looked at as an unconditional consent. The consent was that if we felt as though the city wanted to enact a development agreement that could be considered, typically when there's a conditional consent, there's a consent agreement that spells out a number of terms that's authorized by both local government code and water code. And then the third, you can either refuse to consent or fail to act and consent. Once that happens, you kind of go into this 120 day period of negotiation for contracts. And if that doesn't happen or if that fails, you then go through a TCEQ process. And there's essentially this reasonableness test that they look at. And you can see the two bullet points on the slide to the left that kind of outline that. I won't go word for word. But we tried to capture a graphic that kind of shows you what happens when that comes in and kind of the flow of that process. And ultimately, depending at whatever happens at that TCEQ determination, there's the ability then to appeal, which goes through an administrative hearing down in Austin. I haven't seen too many, at least the research, limited research that we've done. We have, the only one that I did look at was one in Collin County that went through an appeal through a hearing and that mud was ultimately created. So I don't know all the parameters around it other than they did not rule in favor of Collin County in that regard that was objecting to the creation of that mud. The other thing I just wanted to touch on really quickly, I have in parens the 30% rule. That's a requirement when a developer is proposing a mud. They have to provide 30% of those utility costs through a letter of credit or some other means. So there's a little more skin in the game. That was something that I don't remember the year exactly that that was written into the statutes. But that was not sort of initially in there, but it was fairly recent, at least within the last 10 years, I think. And then PIDs, obviously we have one, they're authorized under a completely different chapter, Chapter 372 of the local government code. And again, they're really confined to a geographic area. And typically you'll see two types of PIDs, one for capital and one for sort of maintenance and operations. So you'll see a down, I think Fort Worth has a downtown PID that handles the maintenance of the downtown streets or you'll see capital obviously for public improvements similar to Razor Ranch. And as we looked at kind of processes throughout the state, what other cities are doing, particularly Fort Worth, Georgetown, some of the others that have mud policies, kind of how are they handling this given the recent changes from the annexation laws? And really a lot of them, at least Fort Worth and Georgetown, are really looking at using PIDs as a tool to encourage annexation and get sort of in city development as opposed to having a mud being created in an ETJ. And so rather going through the process of unconditionally consenting, consenting or going the other route, they're giving an option to provide a developer a consideration of would you consider annexing if there was the opportunity for a PID? And then really analyzing that almost identical to what we just did with the MMD and how does it make sense financially and what are the parameters? What is the developer bringing to the table? And so that really brings us into kind of our first big policy question is really the first one is should the city adopt a mud policy that provides some at least general conditions and restrictions to include into a consent agreement or related agreement, meaning a development agreement? And then part two is really should the city offer a PID through a development agreement if annexed, really to dissuade that mud being created in ETJ Division 1? And you can kind of see the scorecard, if you will, of mud versus PID. Obviously the mud gives a developer full control versus a PID, which does not, is one of the big ones. The other something to consider or think about is public safety. Obviously if it's in the city, police and fire provide for that as part of the ad valorem. If it is in Denton County, obviously that falls in on the county and the sheriff's department. And so if you look at some of these PIDs, they're quite large. And I don't know if our, again, I don't want to speak for our sheriff and our sheriff's department, but there would be quite a strain if they are not, staffing isn't ramped up. And then again, since some of these would be in our ETJ, we could possibly deal with requests for annexation in the future. And so again, these are just a number and multitude of issues to kind of think through and try to forecast. But we just kind of wanted to hit on some of the big ticket items in looking at the comparison of a mud versus a PID. And we do, as I'm sure you're aware, we have a current PID policy that was done in 2018. - Richard, real quick. Okay, so you gave us, in the last slide, there was a policy question. Is that, are we going to take these, I mean, are these policy questions exclusive of one another or are they all tied together? - Sort of all tied together. So I thought I would get through and then kind of we can go back. - Okay. All right. You bet. All right. You bet. - Because I think it'd be good to see the whole- - Sure. No, I just didn't know how the, I didn't know how it was structured. You bet. Thank you. Yep. - And so our current PID policy, and really the intent would be to gain that land use control in the ETJ and plan for long-term annexation. And so we do obviously have policies in the comp plan that support that, not necessarily the PID, but really to gain that control in the ETJ as part of that long-term annexation policy. And then really looking at that policy that was adopted in 2018. So there was some language that required sort of two parts. One being this, it needs to demonstrate that there's a public benefit. And in the list of public benefits, one of those, and I pull that bullet point out, is that the development is in the ETJ and the owner's willing to voluntarily annex into the city in exchange for a PID. And so we kind of left that in there, I think, when we adopted that policy in 2018. And so it's just a matter of, as we look at creating this one policy, again, going back to that part two of that policy question, do we want to offer that and kind of relook at, maybe relook at this PID policy in the near future? Division two is a little bit different, given that we don't have plotting authority. And so really that first policy question, again, kind of dealt with division one, where we have, again, going back to that jurisdiction, we have plotting jurisdiction because it's an ETJ one. We have water and sewer jurisdiction because it's in our CCN. Division two, we don't have plotting authority. And in some instances, we may want to provide just an unconditional consent. Depending on the size and type, council may not want to provide consent or, as a condition of consent, really defer to Denton County and let them weigh in on it. Again, it falls under our jurisdiction because it's in our ETJ, but again, it might be from a policy matter in these MUDs in division two, making sure that the county is fully aware, understands the impacts, and defer that consent to them. Or really look at whatever issues may arise and try to work through that. And so this one we kind of left a little open because, again, we don't have much jurisdiction right now in ETJ two. But again, I think we built it so that there's a number of different options and really look at it on a case by case basis as they come in. And so just to quickly go through the two pending MUD requests that we have. As I mentioned, we have the Legends Ranch, which you see is in the general area north of 380 and just east of the 156 Santa Fe tracks. And then Lala Ranch, which is in our ETJ two, just north of that area. We also have, while I didn't have a chance to update the slide, the Denton County MUD number 16 is right on the other side of the Santa Fe tracks. And so it's essentially in this area within our ETJ two. And so it appears right now, again, we just got it today, so we need to dig in a little more. But it appears that it could be outside of our CCN. But we'll, again, look at that and ultimately come back at a later date. But these are the three MUD requests that we have currently pending. And so just to give you an idea of the Legends Ranch. And again, we're not here to discuss giving consent or not consent. We'll be bringing that back at a later date. But I at least wanted to give you an idea of what they're proposing and the magnitude of this. And so it's roughly 532 acres. Approximately 36 acres are actually in the city. And it is in this area that you can see here. This was part of that, one of those strip annexations that the city did some time ago. Right now it's zoned and comp planned for rural or low density residential. And so we did let the applicant know that if that's something they still wanted to pursue commercial, it would require both a comp plan amendment as well as a rezoning. And so for the approximately 496 acres that they're looking to include into the MUD, it's roughly just over 1600 single family units. And you can kind of see the mix of lots with 50 foot wide lots, some 60, and probably the majority close to 40, if not 50, but the majority of the lots being 50 foot wide lot and 40 foot wide lots throughout there. In addition, there's approximately 26 acres of multifamily. They have not indicated a number of units that they're contemplating there yet, as well as eight acres of commercial again. And that's outside of that doesn't include the 36 acres that's in the city. What's most noticeable as you look at this are the two large flood plain areas and ESA areas that run through there. Particularly this is the North Fork of Hickory Creek. And if you followed through the years, you've seen where this road floods quite a bit. I think in the past, we talked earlier in the week, I think in, I don't know if it was in 2015 or 2012, the National Guard had to rescue some folks because of the flooding of that creek. And I do know that that road does close quite often during heavy rains. And so there would obviously need to be some improvements that would have to go along with that. But again, we would need to, there's a multitude of complexities with that floodplain. But again, they would be required to go through our platting and subdivision review and meet all of those technical requirements. In addition, this development is within both the water and sewer CCN. And so we would provide service as well as receive impact fees for that water and wastewater connection. Lala Ranch is a little different. This is one, the parent track was a 656 acre tract that was really split between ETJ, our division two and unincorporated Denton County. And in 2019, House Bill 4719 created Lala Ranch mud, the 345 acre mud. And so what they're requesting is an expansion of an existing mud. And so we do not have a plan that shows any development that's being proposed. I don't know if they have one. They just have not shared that yet. So what had happened was this again was all part of a parent track. And so what they did is essentially carved this acreage out, had the bill passed to create the mud. Now they're bringing the rest of their property within the mud. And so that's allowed under TCEQ, again, to expand that. But that's why it's in front of us or will be in front of us to consider because it is within our division two. We do not serve that area either for water or wastewater. But again, you can see really this, the way they cut that line is right essentially where our five mile radius extends. And so that's why we were not aware or contacted when that bill was created because it was outside of our jurisdictional area as authorized by the local government code. And so quickly on the interim mud policy document, just kind of give you a kind of go over the framework. Obviously purpose and intent, applicability, and we kind of touched on that if you're division one or division two, how that works. And then the policies, we included some broad policies and then below each of those policies just some general conditions and restrictions that we would ultimately translate into or transform into a consent agreement. In addition, we wanted to make sure that we had some application requirements. So when these applications come in, particularly in the ETJ1, we have given the complexity, the large scale review that would essentially be done. We had some parameters as well as a fee to really analyze these correctly. And so this provides, the slide here provides those eight broad policies. And the diagram that I have to the right just gives you an idea of how that's set up. So with each policy, you have kind of those conditions or restrictions. If applicable, that would essentially filter into a consent agreement. Not all of them may, but again, these are just areas to consider. You can see even the first one is really hits on public safety, public service, looking at who would serve some of these, particularly for fire service. I did speak to Chief Hedges prior to this and it could be something where again, some of these particularly as we go further west, it may be closer to crumb to serve some of these, but again, I think these are as these applications come in or requests come in, these are things we just need to look at as a city, but also make sure that we're talking to both our neighboring cities, our counties and neighboring ISDs, whether it be Sanger, Crumb, or even Argyle should we receive one to our south. And I put this up also kind of a kind of setting the stage for some future policy discussions. One is really looking at an annexation policy. We really haven't had a formal annexation policy update for some time and given the changes in annexation law, this is something we really need to probably revisit sooner than later. While I have a gray non-annexation agreements are a component of that and we kind of have talked through that and so we have at least some guidance on that, but really need to also look at as we start to get these voluntary annexations coming in that aren't part of a non-annexation agreement, how do we want to treat those, what parameters do we want to look at ahead of time, and again really formulate some policies that can assist staff in looking at these as they come in and bringing those in front of council. And lastly, looking at the current ILA or ICA that we have with Denton County with respect to plotting authority in Division I and Division II, not necessarily advocating that we need to extend our plotting authority into ETJ2, but we are seeing development occur within ETJ1, not in a PID or a MUD that really are I don't think our ICA contemplated with respect to roadway design and maintenance and so there's just some inconsistencies that need to be cleaned up and so that's something that we would ultimately bring back as well as the county has since that time put in a zoning overlay around Lake Ray Roberts and with the county, we've kind of worked internally of how to deal with when we receive plats within that area, making sure that it's consistent with that zoning ordinance and then also have a policy discussion on whether or not we want to look at tree preservation in the ETJ. Again, the legislation, when it got put into the local government code, it was put into 212, which is these subdivision regulations and there was a recent case out of San Antonio where San Antonio enacted their tree preservation requirements in their ETJ. So again, not really for today's discussion, but sort of still somewhat interrelated to how we handle these MUD requests, particularly within ETJ 1. And really the intent is having this interim policy immediately to deal with the current pending requests, getting through these additional work sessions, coming back and then seeing if anything ultimately affects what we put in place as the interim MUD policy if council does so, direct us to do that and then really formulating then additional standards or regulations with respect to this in the development code. And so that's sort of the plan of action moving forward. And that's really all I had and I'd be happy then, I guess, we can go back or open up the discussion here, Mayor, and however you'd like to proceed at this point. Okay. All right. If we could pull this slide down. Thank you. So help me understand, Richard, what exactly are you wanting from the council today? I guess the first question, one, should we have a MUD policy in place as drafted with sort of two parts, one being those broad policies and then as well as the application requirements. The fee that is in that application, if you recall, with last year's budget, we had Matrix do a cost allocation and time study. And so as we're looking at these, they're really akin to a PD, what we do with a PD. Okay. All right. And so the fee is based upon what we currently charge for PD. So that's sort of the nexus around as to where that fee came up with. And so that would be sort of question number policy question number one. And then number two, does council want to consider offering a PID as an option for annexation instead of a MUD within our ETJ1? Okay. All right. If you could go to the slide for option one, that is when I sort of interjected into the meeting, if you could put that up just temporarily. Okay. Maybe this, maybe it's not this one. It might've been where you had this specific, there was one where you showed what the city could ask for. I think maybe it were those requirements or, let's see, let's see. No, not that one. Keep going. Keep going. It's, no, it's further into the presentation. Yeah. I think it's, go back one slide. There was one, no, go forward. There was one where it said that the city could require, okay, this may be it. Yeah. So here it is eight broad policies. Well, when I see the words require, when I see from six and seven, it says require development in a MUD to exceed minimum DDC, require development in MUD to exceed the city parkland dedication requirements. These are MUDs that are outside of our city limits, correct? Correct. So yeah, so the assumption part of the, and I should have mentioned this also, one of the, part of this, part of this policy also is to not allow MUDs within the municipal boundaries. And so really rather than having a MUD within the municipal boundary, it's really that part two, which would be annexation and a PID. Okay. So, and so let me sort of get through this. So you've got MUD policies, eight broad policies. These are the eight broad policies of, if we go back one slide, of this draft municipal MUD, go ahead, say that one more time. It's a, so there's the eight, there's the eight broad policies that's contained within that draft interim policy document. That's correct. Yes. And then under each policy are restrictions or conditions that we would look to put in place if applicable. Yeah. I guess my question is, I thought the only authority for regulation we had in our ETJ, and I'm going to say, is it level one? Is it tier one, level one? How do they refer to that? You got one and two, I guess. Division one and division two. Division one and two. I thought we had subdivision authority, which is platting authority. We could, we could regulate the platting of subdivisions. Correct. But not much of anything else. Unless part of a MUD, I think the water code as well as local government code provides some additional allowances. Okay. And so these policy six and seven, let's say, those are allowed. In other words, if they're outside, if they're in our division one, because they're asking for a MUD and they're in our CCN, I believe, we can require certain things that extend beyond subdivision authority. Correct. And again, it's really looking at it as if you're going to create a MUD, it really should be an extraordinary, an extraordinary development. And kind of look, going back to really that purpose and intent and going above and beyond or at least at a bare minimum meeting some of the minimum policy or minimum standards that we have in our codes. So if it's in our division one and it's a MUD, then we can have an interim or we can have a MUD policy that goes into these certain kinds of requests or requirements. Correct. Now, and let's say it's in our CCN. Okay. Say it's in the CCN. So they can't go around and get, if we don't consent to it, they can't then come back around and get legislative approval. There's there's been one instance. You can pull that slide down too, if you want to. There's only been one instance at least that I've been able to find where a, and again, it was around the Austin area where a city, they entered into a consent agreement for a MUD. And I think it was part of this last legislative session. And although they entered into that consent agreement, they then essentially wanted to renege on that and requested a, that the legislature pass a bill, sort of usurping that what the city had agreed upon. I did not see that that bill, I don't know, I don't believe it made it even out of committee, but it definitely was not part of, at least in everything that I reviewed, it was not in that, in a bill that was passed or a, a MUD that was created as part of this last legislative session. Okay. So I guess my question probably wasn't that clear. So I can sometimes only think in hypotheticals. So we've got one of these MUDs who are coming in. We have an Indram MUD policy, let's say, that has certain requirements that we want to have met if there is a MUD going into our division one ETJ and it's within our CCN, right? So if, if they say, we don't want to abide by your rules for your MUD policy in division one ETJ, we don't want, the MUD says that there's, we don't enter into an agreement. They say we're, we're not going to do that. Can they then go to the legislature because we don't have a consent, we don't have an agreement and petition the legislature under some body of law that would allow them to circumvent that and allow them to develop within our division one ETJ? I believe we would still require consent, but my understanding is once they start that TCEQ process, if we go back to that, that, if I pull it up, if that helps. Sure. And I guess the thrust of my question is do, do our regulations in our division one ETJ, if they're MUD regulations based upon state law, provide us with that abilities to stop the development of a MUD if somehow we don't come to some type of, if they don't agree to our policy, our MUD policies, and we don't come to some type of other agreement, does that basically halt the project? There's no other way for them to get approval to move forward with the development without us consenting. Mayor, this is Aaron, the city attorney. I, I can answer that question under number three of the city's options and we don't enter into an agreement or we refuse, then the applicant will take that refusal along with the package of documents necessary and file it with TCEQ. They will, they will notice out a hearing process where they determine whether or not the applicant has met all the statutory requirements that set forth in chapter 54 of the water code. And so that would be the opportunity for us to try to argue or fight the creation of this. However, it's, it's a, it's not an easy process, but there is an avenue for the city to fight against the creation during the TCEQ hearing. Okay. And so that, that's helpful. So what I'm hearing is we can have this interim MUD policy, but that really doesn't give us any more power than what we have today as far as either preventing the development within our division one ETJ or moving forward. Today, without any interim MUD policy, we still had this same kind of process, either consent or we don't. And then if we do, great, we move forward. If we don't, then they can go through this process. Is that my understanding? More or less, that is correct. So then somebody helped me understand what, what leverage are we gaining or what are we gaining with a, with a MUD policy when we re it really doesn't provide an enforcement mechanism to ensure them complying with what we're asking them to do. Like in that list where it says require and then the additional language in those bullet points, I think it's six and seven. So help me understand that. I'm not saying yes or no. I'm just saying I want to understand what are we gaining from this? Well, I think that's why we're bringing this to you is do you want staff to start considering in instances in our district one boundaries where we're seeing these MUD requests to start, to instead direct them to more of a PID to control the development, ensure compliance with our subdivision regs, avoid fights down the road with TCEQ potentially. You don't have the issues in terms of these MUDs getting created, strapping all kinds of debt on folks that are right outside the boundaries and then trying to force them to negotiate public safety agreements. So the PID is far cleaner in terms of long-term planning as the city continues to expand. And quite frankly, so that's why you saw the PID side. Why is the MUD here because we don't have, we don't have a framework right now for you to, for staff to even work through. So we're really just trying to get your take on how you would like us to assess these MUDs that are coming forth. Okay. If we could pull the, if we could pull the slide down. So it sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, that, and when you say PID to direct them or try to guide them more to a PID structure, is that also with the understanding or the agreement that we will annex them in after a certain predetermined time? I mean, does PID and annexation go together? We're not going to give them the PID without them giving us the annexation. Is that correct? The answer is yes. Okay. So go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah. And what we're trying to do long-term is, is then continues to grow is, is, is avoid some of these issues you're seeing outside of Houston, San Antonio, Austin, where you've had all these MUDs created. They start annexing various separately elected boards. They're fighting with city councils over tax rates, service levels, that sort of thing. So it's an important discussion. I know it's a bit esoteric, but it's an important discussion in terms of when you see these types of developments in your ETJ1 in particular, because they typically go hand in hand with your CCNs, do you want the city to investigate directing them more towards a PID for long-term, I guess, stability of services in avoiding legal battles, quite frankly? Okay. So, and I can answer that question for me. I guess then I'm a little, I don't know if confused is the right word, but so the presentation seemed to be primarily about getting direction on. I think one of the question was, should we have a policy, an interim MUD policy with certain fee? And then the second one, does council want to consider a PID or other options? But it sounds like really what I'm hearing is we don't really want people to put MUDs in our division one ETJs, especially if it's in our CCN. That's not something that we want. Is that? I think there's two answers. The first answer is yes, that's true. Of the PID versus the MUD, the PID is definitely the lesser of two evils from a long-term planning and control perspective. But from the reason the MUD policy is in front of you right now is not having one does not make Aaron's job any easier in terms of us having a rational basis to go through and evaluate these MUD requests and then basically handing you the evaluation to say yes or no and giving him basically that logic and thought process to protest. So it's that first step there. So that's question one. The question two is do you want us to consider these PIDs from a long-term perspective? So they do merge into each other, but that's really about as clear as I can be. I'd ask Aaron to jump in. No, I think I understand it now because what I'm hearing you say is a MUD policy, whether it has much teeth in it from the standpoint of preventing it. In other words, if they go petition TCEQ, they can get around having to comply with our MUD policy. However, the MUD policy provides a little bit more. I'm going to say legal arguments. If case, we have to go down to the hearing compared if we have nothing. In other words, if we have nothing, then there's really nothing to evaluate. If we have a MUD policy, if for some reason we don't have an agreement and if for some reason they do go to the legislature and they get a hearing, then we have a little bit better argument to go down and say here's our policy, here's how we evaluated it. In other words, just sort of lay out an argument. Is it more just a legal tool? It's something to help us if we ever need it from a legal tools perspective? It's much less arbitrary was our goal and I'll let Aaron weigh in as well. Okay. And that is correct and it's also to help us with the planning aspect, you know, that guide the development and to something that we eventually if we were to annex that in the future that it would conform with our what you find in the city of Denton and the regulations that we apply within the city limits. But that's only if they agree to it. That is correct. I mean, that's not, I mean, that's, I mean, we're basically asking for voluntary compliance based upon some other discussions. And that's correct. But as Todd mentioned, it gives us something to be able to sit down with them and discuss according to our policy, but ultimately you are correct, Mayor. Okay. All right. So council member and I've got some other comments, but I'll move on. Council member Briggs and then council member Armitage. I'm okay with the mud policy. I still need to think more about the pit. I don't know if that discussion needs to be today or if we can talk more on the fifth when it comes back to us in more detail. I had a question though about legends, how part of it, 36 acres is in the city and then the rest of it is in the mud. How, how does that work when you have two different, I guess one would be city of Denton utilities and the other would be the mud. So for, for water and wastewater for retail, we would provide, we would be the service provider where it gets a little, where it gets a little sticky is primarily for public safety because you have those, that front commercial part, assuming the land use plan and rezoning is approved would be under, under city jurisdiction. And so these are things that again, as part of that consent agreement would need to be, would need to be flushed out whether or not the city provides that for a fee. But again, these are, it's sort of that intent to, as Todd mentioned, to really at least have some general parameters to work off of in looking at these. Okay. Thank you. Council member Armitage. Yeah. So I appreciate this conversation and I understand it's a necessary conversation to have. I learned a lot while preparing for it, especially from looking at the kinds of problems that other cities have encountered. I found that very, very helpful in thinking this through. I wanted to note, so first of all, it's one of the things that I learned over the weekend while preparing that I hadn't quite understood is that MUDs have the legal ability to annex land themselves. And so I was wondering if someone from staff could, you know, could speak to what exactly that means, how that works and how that has factored into what is the considerations before us today? It's a major factor and it's the thing where the MUD, you've got this independent government set up in your town. I'll give you a good example. We had a development, they just assumed the city would be interested in a PID. And this is just north of the city, north of CH Collins, up in that area of town. And their plan was to go in, set up a MUD because they're within our CCN, they can easily extend water and wastewater to the site. Felt like that would get through TCEQ. And once the residents who were in the same school district, all the other kids in Denton complained enough to council, there'd be this, I guess there'd be this force placed on the council to bring them in. And so you've got this independent district now operating within the city, basically, without perhaps city roads, people a couple blocks away that don't have police and fire. So it's a strategic tool that we need to think about. And long-term, some of these developments are a couple miles away from where you think, well, we would be out there in 10 or 20 years. Well, when you are, and you've got all these independent governmental units that are within your city boundaries or right next to them, wanting city services, have we planned for them accordingly? And it really is a difficult conversation to have. It's something you've got to look well into the future, but it's a strategic tool for a developer who doesn't believe that the city council will work with them on a PID. And that's how we're seeing them used right now. And it's been interesting in the last couple months, we've had three more heading our way, which includes a couple thousand acres at the end of the day. So we just want your feedback on what do you think about this? We think you're probably better off, you're not talking about a staff here that's dying to get into the annexation business, but from a long-term governance perspective, you're probably better off, you know, at least having the conversation on a PID, getting those police fire issues out of the way and avoiding as many fights as you possibly can, because eventually they're going to be using our roads, parks, those sorts of things. And are you better off trying to craft an agreement up front, or do you want to deal with a governing body down the road that you have absolutely zero control over that's right next to you, and maybe even within your city at some point? Thank you. And I'm definitely in favor of having something up front. So anyway, I appreciate your answer to that question. My other question was, is there anybody who is here either on the line or kind of on standby from the water department, or maybe from our, you know, maybe Deborah Vieira or somebody like that, who could kind of speak about from a water resource planning point of view, what the considerations are from that perspective? I think we have Kenny Banks and Frank Pugsley. Are they both on the line? Okay, great. Yes, yes. So whoever would like to speak to that, I'd be concerned about how you're thinking through this issue from a water point of view. Sure, this is Frank Pugsley, Water and Wastewater Director. And from a water resources planning point of view, we do consider our entire CCN when we do our master planning. While some of the areas that are being developed weren't anticipated to be as dense as they may be, we do have those areas considered, and we can adapt as we move forward throughout the years. So you mean under the current scenario or under an interim agreement? Correct, we would have, we would evaluate and ensure we have capacity, but the extension policies would be where that capacity would come from. Presently in those pressure planes within the distribution system, we do have capacity to support, for example, Legends Ranch, if that answers your question. Okay, yeah, that does. And so one follow up to that, what about the issue of cooperation with the county specifically regarding water? We do have a good relationship with the county as far as them supporting the construction of our infrastructure within their right of way. And we work closely with them whenever developers have a need to install water or sewer within a county right of way. Thank you. So do you feel that continuing to work with the county in this regard, that was one of the options for us to consider. It wasn't specifically just about water, but I'm just, I just wanted to ask specifically about water, that that is to our advantage. I forget if it was regarding. Yeah, they very much impact our planning assumptions, impact fee assumptions, those sorts of things. They're, they absolutely have an impact on, you know, the size of the equipment, the treatment plants that we need, those sorts of things. So it's a significant policy concern. As far as the county goes, the idea was to try to get your feedback today on where you are. I mean, Aaron's concerns, it has been several years since the city council had this kind of a conversation. Once we had your general feedback from the day and got an idea where the majority you'd like to go is we do very much intend on sitting down with the county, making sure that there's no concerns with our policy, and then bringing something back to you to officially adopt that we could use to analyze these other requests that are coming in. So thank you. So as far as as far as my own personal direction goes, I support coming up with an interim agreement along these lines moving forward, I support working with the county and coordinating whenever whenever we can. And I'm, I'm, I'm comforted to know that that staff seems to have or these people who have spoken, looking at the same kind of issues, the same kind of concerns, some kind of things that I'm concerned about seeing the, the, the problems posed by mud, the problems posed by annexations on both ends, the city's end and the muds end, but knowing that we have to have something in place. So, so I approve of this conversation going forward. And I'm, I'm wary, but my wariness is not about the fact that we're having this conversation and that there's an interim, we're talking about interim agreement that actually gives me comfort. Councilmember Davis. Thank you, Mayor. So I agree with what Todd said earlier that we, we don't have a framework now and we need a framework. Staff doesn't have kind of parameters and policy guidelines to work inside. So I agree that we need a draft or interim policy. I agree with the policy statements that have been laid out in the draft policy that we have in front of us. I don't have any specific concerns or edits. I think we just kind of have to get into that and start using a policy and, and see where that gets us. I kind of want to remind folks too, that staff has been thinking about this for a long time, not just the need for a policy, but this free rider problem you have with muds on your boundaries and in your ETJ, you know, our police and fire are going to respond to emergencies as they come up. The county only ever has, you know, less than 10 deputies, typically closer to five deputies patrolling at any one time out in the unincorporated county. So the, the need to have some front end conversations about public safety and city services of different kinds being extended out to these muds, Aaron and Richard both alluded earlier to the, the Houston area where Houston has started annexing up tons of these muds and, and it causes no end of headaches as that process goes forward. So being able to have these conversations with an eye toward public service provision and then also possible future annexation, not that we would have that as a goal, but the, the idea that standards have to be up to our own because these things could be inside of city limits within some, some time period. The question about pids versus muds and encouraging pids that, that to me just seems incredibly case by case. You know, you gave us two good examples today. Legends. That's a good one for a conversation about a pit because it's, it's on our doorstep. It's part of a, we've already strip annexed a good portion of it. We would expect that being on our doorstep, they're going to have some calls for public service at some point, but, but then the other example, the La La Ranch, I mean, that's a good example of something that doesn't make a lot of sense for a pit. It's not contiguous. It's pretty far out there. It's generally unincorporated area right now. It just doesn't present the same issues, but I also want to point out that we just recently avoided some of the headaches that we're talking about today by having conversations with the developer about the MMD. Our big concern there was, at least mine was, that all that area had been involuntarily annexed and it could have been annexed and then they could have gone the route of a mud. So we could have had pretty enormous mud just right on our doorstep and that's kind of what we're talking about avoiding today. If we do extend some of these, these PID conversations, so I'm okay with those conversations going forward. I would just be, I don't know, like Todd said, I'm not real annexation happy either. I don't, I don't know that there's a lot of need for annexation in Denton right now, but that could certainly change in the future. Anybody else? I've just got a couple of comments muted. No. Okay. And I don't, I don't disagree with any of those sentiments. I mean the conversation moving forward is fine. I guess I'm just, I just want to, I just want to point out that this conversation, first of all, I need to have some understanding. If, does our police department have jurisdictional authority to respond to a call that is outside the city of Denton city limits? Generally no, unless we've entered into an agreement with the county to provide certain police services in certain areas. Okay. So as far as, okay, same question for our fire department. We have, if I'm not mistaken, an actual agreement where we provide fire support services to the county in county areas. I don't know all the terms, but it looks like we do have an agreement to provide certain services out there. All right. So, so those, I mean, I understand those two, those two issues have been raised as a concern, but number one, police do not respond unless we have an agreement with the county. It's not with the mud. It's with the county. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. All right. So that, that's how we resolve that issue of whether we want to respond or not is based upon our agreements with the county, the same with fire support that we, so we do have agreements with the county to provide additional fire protection for some of those areas that are outside of our, our city limits, but maybe is it, is an agreement with division one properties or is it specific to geographical areas or, or is it a blanket one for division one or is it more specific than that? And I, that's just a general question on that. Oh, you're muted. I don't know, mayor. We, that's fine. We can, we'd have to ask chief Hedges, but they, they, we also, they, they pay consideration for that agreement. In other words, they pay, do they pay for that? Or do they, it's a, it's a very small amount. They pay for that service. Okay. All right. Well, now that to me is just as important. If we've got muds coming online that we can't really stop. I mean, what I'm hearing is we can't stop them. So we need to make sure that our agreements with the county, if we don't want to provide these services or we don't want to provide them for free outside of our jurisdiction, we need to, those are the, the county is the one that we need to also be talking to. So this conversation to me is about having a mud policy, but it's, it's, it's much broader than that. It's, it's almost a policy to try to move people towards pids with the, with the plan of future annexation. Well, we have yet to do other than the MMD, which you know, that, that wasn't, you know, that was, it had its opposition. We haven't had a residential PID that we've approved. I don't believe in this city other than maybe some PIDs. I don't even think razor ranch had a residential PID. I mean, there were some residential components out there, but I don't know if it's part of the PID. So I just want to make sure that we're clear that what I'm hearing is we want some policies for, for interim mud policy to give us legal leverage in case we have to protest them going around us. But it sounds like the thrust of that policy is to try to funnel them into a discussion of look, instead of a mud, let's talk about what if we were to agree to annex you and give you a PID, can we start working out some terms in that regard that would help us in the future have more control over this development outside our city boundaries? Is that, am I totally off on that? Yeah, I would, I would say that you're generally accurate. I wouldn't say the thrust is to try to, I think it's more of a question for council is, is that control of these potential developments that are heading the mud direction right now, where you have far more control in a PID worthwhile where you want staff to have those conversations. That's really the question and as council member Davis said, it really only makes sense in those jurists, I'm sorry, in those developments that are really adjacent within our ETJ1 and our CCA. It doesn't make sense to have these kinds of conversations that I can think of in ETJ2. Yeah, yeah, no, no, and I, yes. So I understand what you're saying. It is the purpose, thrust may be too strong a word, the purpose is to have another tool that we can offer them that gives us more control because we have no control if it goes the mud route. I mean, in the end. That's right. All right. Okay. So I'm okay with that conversation moving forward, but I think we've got to also have continuing conversation of, I don't know, I mean, the council, this council, what this council's philosophy is on PIDs coming into the city via annexation anyway. I mean, we saw the opposition to the MMD because of the additional tax rate, which seemed to be one of the major stumbling blocks for the opposition. Well, the PID does the same thing. It's just a different, it's a different animal, but it does have a separate assessment on land, just as the MMD did as far as just on the taxes. Mayor Pro Tem, you had your hand up, I believe. Yes, thank you. You hit on something, Aaron or, I'm assuming it's Aaron, it's a legal question generally. Where do our rights to control police and fire balance? So for example, Mayor Watts' question earlier was regarding kind of the ability to prevent the development from moving forward, but to take a kind of another smaller look at that, what are our rights to say, if we can't agree, that's fine, but we're not going to provide these services? Do we control ultimately our fire and police services to communicate early and often? If you move forward without agreeing with the city, that's fine, but we're not going to provide these services nor negotiate to provide these services. For the most part, yes, because our police department doesn't have authority out of the ETJ, that would fall into the county sheriff's department. And so if they're completely inside the ETJ, we don't have that responsibility to provide them service that would fall under the county sheriff's department. Okay. And so I think that's really, if that's a point that has not been a power that's not been diminished, I really would like to emphasize that component because we have seen issues along certain quarters with, you know, crime issues, et cetera, et cetera. And especially the fire, it would give me heartburn to have our fire department, which is already pretty stretched, going that extra mile without some sort of compensation. And I hear you Mr. City manager, and that's something I'd look forward to having a conversation going forward. We need to do a cost analysis of that. If we're not recouping what we should, then that's a hard conversation we need to have with the county, et cetera, especially with an increase in this activity. It's one thing if it's one off, but if more people are going that way, I think it's important for the city to have that conversation and say, hey, it has to make sense because ultimately today we're looking at $8 million for fire station today's dollars. Looking forward, if we have to build a fire station, I would think the fees currently almost no different than what we did with the MMD should accrue enough to pay for that by itself and not punish the citizens and the core of our city to provide those services in different areas. And then I had a question regarding just kind of our experience and our knowledge base on what drives the TCEQ's decision analysis, et cetera. Do we have a feel for that? >> Just what's actually listed in the statute, there are certain criteria that TCEQ is supposed to consider during the petition hearing process that I mentioned earlier during this work session item, and that's basically it. >> Absolutely when we get there, our policy should have a straight line to each of those kind of elements, if you will, so that we can speak directly early and often to say here's what the TCEQ requires, here's our policy matches up with that one for one. Because I think that then would provide value assuming people would ultimately try to use that as a work around to say we'll just go this route. Our policy lines up well to set us up for that argument. And I'd like just kind of preferences, I'd like to have some kind of trigger meeting-wise or public hearing-wise that then also almost by default sends letter of correspondence to our state reps. And so they have that information early and often to say we had this hearing and it's kind of just part of the process. We have a hearing, we talk to them, we negotiate, we send a letter. Just because I think it's -- that's -- I agree with kind of the sentiment that I think people will try to work around us to go to Austin, and so the more we can have our city representatives at the state level in tune with what's going on, maybe we can increase our position that way. Yeah. And I think that's the gist of it. I think I support it generally going forward and having that conversation. I just -- I think there's some details that we could put in to help us understanding people will try to work around us. All right. Anybody else? Councilmember Armitage? Oh, I'll go to Councilmember Meltzer because he hadn't spoken yet. Yeah. I mean, just briefly. I may not especially like it, but if the choice is framed as no control versus a tool where you might have to be able to exercise some control over that. So I'm definitely interested in seeing if this sort of paid alternative could be developed into something palatable. Yeah. Councilmember Armitage? Yeah, I was just going to say -- I'm just responding to what Mayor Pro Tem said about communications with the state. I know that every legislative session, it seems that -- at least in recent memory, that there are increasing powers being given to MUDs, and so I assume that -- and obviously the future is uncertain -- that I assume that staff is aware of that, and I was just wondering and want to request if council could be briefed moving towards the next legislative session as there are -- because there are so many bills that are always being considered. It's hard to keep track of. If we could have a special eye out for what are the newest increase of authority for MUDs and subsequent decrease of authority for cities and regulating MUDs, what's coming up so that we can -- best as we can to try to be one step ahead. This is not instead of what Mayor Pro Tem was suggesting. I agree that it's a good idea to lobby, but in addition to that, just being aware of what is out there. Okay. All right. It sounds like the direction is to move forward with furthering the conversation with the draft policy, and we'll move forward with that conversation. Now, I believe the closed session item is on the emergency declaration order, I believe. Is that correct? I think that's right. Yeah. Okay. And so is that where you would address Councilmember Meltzer's question that you said you would rather -- because I know sometimes we put these things as placeholders, or do you want to have more time to research that, or do you want to address it, or does anybody have -- outside of Councilmember Meltzer's question that City Attorney had said that he'd rather answer in closed session, is there any other questions that they would want to have answered in a closed session? Mayor Pro Tem? Yes. I do have a question that I think falls under -- Okay. So all right. So we'll go ahead then and move into closed session. So I will now convene the closed session at 4.03 p.m. We will consider the following items, consultations with attorneys under Texas Government Code, Section 551.071. So anyone who's not necessary for the call, if they could go ahead and disconnect, and we'll make sure we verify that, and we'll come back in five minutes at 4.08 to start the closed session. We won't have a countdown, so I'll just come back on and gather everyone up. Welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council, April 30th, 2020. It is 4.30. After the completion of the closed meeting and the special work session, the Council will convene in a special call meeting to consider the following items. We're convening at 4.30. We do have a quorum, so I'll call this special call meeting to order. Our first item on the agenda is the Consent Agenda. We didn't have any Consent Agenda items pulled, so the Chair would entertain action on the Consent Agenda. Councilmember Armitage? Yeah, I just wanted to say that I'm going to be voting for this, even though I oppose the recommended dates for the special election. I agree with the rationale stated in the ordinance behind it, so although I still prefer the November 3rd date, I still oppose the recommended date. I decided not to pull it. Okay, thank you. Councilmember Ryan? I'll move approval. Do we have a second? Councilmember Briggs? I will second. All right, we'll go ahead and take a poll. So I have a motion and a second for approval of the Consent Agenda, Agenda Item 1. Councilmember Ryan, how say you? Aye. Councilmember Briggs? Yes. Councilmember Meltzer? Yay. Councilmember Armitage? Yay. Councilmember Davis? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Hutspeth? Aye. Mayor Watz has an aye. The Consent Agenda passes unanimously. We'll now move on to our items for individual consideration. It looks like we have one, and that is Agenda Item 2A, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton and Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation, extending the effective period of the declared state of local disaster, superseding, and replacing the second order of council of the City of Denton, issued April the 6th, 2020, approved by Ordinance 20-812. Is there a staff presentation? Yes, sir. This is Ryan Adams, Public Affairs. Yes, Ryan. All right. This will just be a brief overview of the draft disaster declaration and order of council that were presented in your backup for consideration. So just an overview of previous actions. March 13th was the date where we had the first mayoral declaration and order. That was subsequently extended on March 17th, and the adoption of another ordinance, which amended that previous extension, was passed by council on March 20th. On March 24th, a second mayoral declaration and order was delivered. That was our stay at home order, and that was superseded on April 6th by another stay at home order by the full council. Just in regard to timelines, the current order that we were under, the one that was adopted on April 6th, will no longer be in effect beginning tomorrow, May 1. I will give, again, a very brief overview. You got a lot of this information from Sarah earlier in the meeting. GA-18, the governor's executive order, is effective May 1 through May 15. Of course, in it, all retail stores, restaurants, theaters, malls, museums, and libraries are permitted to reopen beginning tomorrow at 25% of their listed occupancy with some other provisions as part of that rule. Businesses and services that were previously determined to be essential may operate without those restrictions. Public swimming pools, bars, gyms, salons, massage establishments, and a few other types of businesses and services are, pardon me, do continue to be prohibited by GA-18. And GA-18 also recommends that those providing or obtaining essential reopen services should at least follow the minimum standard health protocols that are recommended by the Department of State Health Services. Also within GA-18, nursing homes and other similar long-term care facilities remain closed to the public except for critical care. Religious services may be conducted, and that is in accordance with previous guidance from the attorney general. Golf course operations are allowed. Local government operations are allowed. And services that are provided by a single individual working in an office are allowed. And this was addressed by our city attorney in a greater degree. It does not prohibit a local order provided it is not in conflict with GA-18. On Tuesday, April 28, the county passed their own local order. It extends their emergency declaration through the 15th. It references GA-18 provisions and states that to the greatest extent possible, all businesses and residents shall comply with social distancing guidelines set forth by the CDC and the governor's report to open Texas. And, of course, we've discussed this in previous meetings. The city cannot implement an order inconsistent not only with the state but also with Denton County. The draft order that's before you actually extends our local disaster period through May 31. The order of council, which would supersede all of our previous orders, supersede and replace, is effective through May 15. So it lasts the same term as or essentially the same term as GA-18 and the county's order. Major provisions of the city of Denton order of council are that businesses must provide or probably must abide by the provisions of GA-18, medical procedures must comply with GA-19, and it continues previous local provisions with a couple of modifications. The public utility board meetings are permitted to meet no more than twice per month. Civil service commission meeting will be able to meet as needed. Other boards and commissions can meet as necessary to consider time-sensitive items that are critical for city operations. And it does provide a small increase to the spending authority for the city's response to COVID-19. Currently the authority limit was $750,000. The new limit in the updated order is $850,000. And that was placed in there to account for expected expenditures through May 31. Happy to answer any questions that council has. All right. If we could go ahead and pull the presentation down and we'll start going through the questions. Councilmember Meltzer, go ahead. Why is it necessary to cite specific parts of the order to say that they must be followed? I mean, they must be followed whether we have that in a declaration of ours or not. So what is the purpose of that? Aaron, you're going to answer that or who's going to? Katherine Clifton will be answering that question. I'm sorry. You were asking about the specific purpose of referring to sections of the governor's order. Well, I could understand sort of if there were a general statement that governor's orders apply but why even have that or why have these specific recitations of parts of the order that must be followed when whether they're in our declaration or not, they must be followed? The reason why we include that kind of provision is that not only to let the residents know that we are abiding by the governor's order but also if there are any complaints as to what we are doing that are raised to the AG's office, this is something that we could provide to the AG's office that no, we are following the governor's order. That's basically what we're doing. Okay. I mean, I don't see that it causes harm if you see some benefit. A further question is it's kind of a peculiar provision to say that the POB must meet no more than twice per month. Why is that important to that if there were a third meeting that it would be prohibited? I just don't understand the rationale. I believe, I'm sorry, this is Katherine Clifton. I believe that that is limited to what is required in the charter for POB. So we have to do what is in the charter and no more is the purpose of that. I see. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Council Member Briggs. My question is about our order number 4D about the development applications. Can somebody remind me what those are and if that's been an issue or you see that as being an issue with it extended this much? We don't have a development services person here. I know there's a list of applications that are set forth that we don't have that table handy before us. Okay. Is that? Oh, okay. Go ahead. If I can respond, this is related to the issue that was previously described relating to flats and so far and we've consulted with development services and this is not going to present any problems extending this provision through May 31st. Okay. All right. Thank you. Anyone else? Council Member Armitage. Yeah, I have a question about motels. This is under 2A and this is about something that doesn't appear, a question that has come up to me that doesn't appear to be covered and that is the question of what is the status of people who are staying at hotels for long-term stay for affordable housing not through the city. This isn't related to the city putting people up at hotels but if somebody is staying at a hotel or a motel in a long-term living arrangement for affordable housing, if they are told that they have to leave for failure to pay, it's my understanding that that's not considered a violation of the eviction order and I was wondering because I'm concerned about the fact that for those people the motel is essentially housing, can we get that covered in there under this emergency ordinance? I realize that we can't do anything about when the county decides to lift, about whatever they decide to do about evictions but I'm wondering if we can get that defined in there as housing for long-term stay or if this would not, this ordinance would not be the place to do that if that would have to be a separate order. I'm trying to understand the exactly the question that you're asking. I'm sorry, so people who are being kicked out of motels who were there, who are staying at the motels long-term because it's their form of affordable housing, they can be quote evicted even though the term eviction doesn't really apply, they're just being told to leave for non-payment and that can be enforced by law enforcement. Can we get that covered and protected so that that counts as a form of housing for long-term stay under our emergency ordinance? Are you trying to prevent a hotel or motel from asking them to vacate the premises if they fail to pay? Yeah. Now the relationship that hotels and motels have with their guests is not a lease arrangement, it's more of a license and so the law doesn't even protect them at all and you're wanting us to include a provision in here that protects them from having to be asked to depart by the hotel or motel for failure to pay their nightly fee. This is for the, not for nightly stays but for the long-term which is I understand it, that they don't pay by the night. I'm not sure it's by the week or the month, it depends on the arrangement. Right. So you want us to insert or you're asking your fellow council members if they're amenable to including a provision that provides some protection from being asked to leave for failure to pay. Yeah. According to the week or the or month arrangement that they have. Or simply to, another way would be to simply include long-term motel stay as you know just to mention that long-term motel stay counts as housing and so eviction, whatever the rule is on eviction applies under this emergency ordinance. I should say I was contacted by Northwest Legal Services who had a question for me about that they were concerned that this has been happening and they were wondering if this could be included in an ordinance and I said I would bring it up. It seemed to me that this was the first opportunity. I didn't think it was pertinent for the closed session, but apologies if I should have asked then. Okay. All right. Any other questions and we'll take that up. Any other questions for the ordinance? Okay. So we have council member Armitter has, I don't see that anybody's made any comments about changing something materially in the ordinance as it's drafted. Oh, council member Meltzer. Yeah, I didn't know when sort of when would be the time to introduce it. Now would be the time. Okay. No, no, now's the time. Yeah, let's move forward with this. Okay. So I would propose adding in the sort of whereas section something along the lines of whereas the governor's orders contain recommendations for individuals in the interest of public health including the wearing of masks in public places and, you know, and other recommendations and then in the action section including an item saying that the city will place conspicuous signage in public places encouraging following recommendations including the wearing of masks in public places. And I'm leaving, you know, a little room there for sure, you know, other other items. Okay. All right. So we have two two proposed additions. Anybody else? Council member Armitter. Yeah, just to say I support that recommendation of council member Meltzer and I would also like to include a number that we can agree that we can agree upon that we can put as a recommended do not exceed this number for social gatherings in public. Again, we can't under the new under the new state order, we cannot regulate the the private sector, but we can still have a recommended number on for social gatherings in the public sector. And I mentioned that because there's this there's this big opening where we're going from at the state level from totally restricting and saying you have to shelter at home to don't when you're out and about don't be in groups that are too large, but there's no number being given to help people make that determination. So I think it would be helpful to people as I understand the public and good for public safety without contradicting the state ordinance if we do that. Okay. Anybody else have any more? We're going to take these individually. Councilmember Briggs, are you still there? Okay, there's one more. I'm sorry. Okay, let's let's get them all out on the table. We're going to take these very quickly. Is that so for those businesses that choose to reopen under the 25% again, it is it is totally up to businesses, they don't have to reopen. But for those that do, I was wondering if there was anything that that that any of my fellow council members would be willing to look at as far as a reduced reduced utility rate. If indeed the purpose is to stimulate the economy for businesses that that choose to do that. Okay. All right. So we're going to take these one at a time. We'll try to take them in the order in which they were presented any other comments about the draft order. Okay, seeing none. Okay, the first one was to add to the order to the effect of that a long term hotel is unable to remove the occupants of a hotel room for lack of payment, that it would be considered as an eviction, which is prohibited under a current Supreme Court order extending I think through May 18th or 15th, I can't remember but alright, so we have that one. If you're if you're in favor of that, just raise your hand and and we'll we'll add it in. Council member Meltzer. Yeah, just are we putting a definition of of what long term is. That's up to Council member armature think I believe that there's an official legal definition, I can look that up. But I believe that there is an official definition of what long term stay is. Okay, it has to do with how you're billed. Well, I think you can. Yeah, I think it's just a matter of you can pay daily, you can pay weekly, just depending on the contract that you sign. I assume I've never I've never had any experience with those. Alright, so on the long term, it doesn't seem like it's based upon the definition of long term stay hotel. So who's in favor of including that in the order? Council member Briggs. Is that is that something that we could do and enforce as a city? I mean, it sounds great. And I would really like it if we could. But I mean, we didn't have that discussion in the closed session. And I don't want to put it in just for the sake of putting it in if it's not going to help if we're not defining long, long term stay hotels or not. And I and I'm gonna let him answer that question. But also, I've seen that at least two have have approved that. And you're sort of trying to decide if you want to based upon enforceability. So let's have that answer because we got four others who haven't weighed in and if the four go a certain way that could make this discussion that so I think it could be could be problematic because we're now involving ourselves in a private contract between the hotel and the the guests, where we've never had any type of involvement in the past, or any kind of authority out there under state law. And so for us to try to go forward and enforce that in in court, which we won't be able to enforce because we can file a petition, but no hearings are being held. I think it can be very problematic trying to enforce it. I'm not saying it's impossible. But it is problematic. And we don't have the authority and we talked about this earlier in this discussion early on we don't have the authority to to even extend an eviction deadline for real property. So to say that we can extend an eviction deadline on this particular set of circumstances when we don't have the authority to do it period. I just don't even see how we can do that. I mean, and I don't even see it I don't even see it as an eviction because it's not even defined as that in prior to this. So it's a it's a totally different type of contractual arrangement. So so I want to I want to go ahead and go back to trying to get the consensus or not because I don't want to get bogged down and all the debates of these different types of things. I just want to see if we have a consensus and we need to get some more details we can move forward on getting the details. But if we don't have a consensus, let's move on to the next one. So we've had so sorry, I don't know if people are aware that that what what tends to happen is that people get criminal trespass by the hotel. So it involves in indirect way but but Denton City Police will end up kind of picking up people on a criminal trespass for not paying so in an indirect kind of way the city does get involved. Well, okay. All right. So who's who's in favor of adding this to the current order? If I could see the show of hands again. Okay. To does that mean the ones that didn't raise their hand or not in favor of that I'm going to assume that unless I hear something which means this will not be included in the order. The next one is the signage requirement that Councilmember Meltzer had placed forward with a addition into the whereas clause and then signage placed and his terminology and conspicuous places with certain type of language on it. Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, just a question for the city managers to decide my vote. Is this something you're comfortable working on without it being in an ordinance? That's a hard place to put the city manager in. I mean, this is a policy question for the council. I mean, I just don't know. I mean, well, no, you can wait. But here's the thing. I just don't know what what's the purpose. What's what's the difference in this being an ordinance and having a conversation with the city manager on an aside and say, hey, is this something we're willing to do? For example, the grocery stores, we didn't have an ordinance. We had a conversation. So I just I'm just I don't understand. Okay. I'd like to address that, Mr. Mayor, if I could. Sure. Yeah. The reason I propose it and if there's another way to do it, I'm wide open is I felt that the city manager probably want to know if there's a consensus of council to do it. So if this is another way to say there's a consensus of council to do it, and we don't have it in the ordinance, that's fine with me. But I would imagine if I were Todd, he'll tell us speak for himself. I'm sure he'd want to know if we want that or not. Okay, so I think we have enough details. Who's in favor of the proposal by Councilmember Meltzer on the signage requirements? Just go ahead and raise your hand. All right. Seeing no other hands. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. All right. The next one is I wrote them down. What was the count? There was two there were two is you and you and Councilmember Armitage. Oh, okay. Yeah. Let's see. I think another one was Okay, y'all. Oh, here it is. Reduced liability, a reduced liability rate, utility rate for commercial businesses. Okay, who's in favor of that? Councilmember Armitage, Councilmember Briggs, anybody else? I'd be open to hearing about, you know, the costing of it. I need more information. Okay, so so no right now. Okay. All right. So that that will not be are you asking a question Councilmember Briggs? Are you saying you're you're you're you're in favor of that? Okay. All right. All right. So that won't say okay, so just just to say that for a lot of businesses, it's not economically viable to open up at 25% capacity. And I understand that. Yeah, and a utility utilities are the least of their concerns on that. I mean, it's one it's one of the few things that we can control. Okay, all right. So we'll move on to the last one. We'll move on. Okay, well, we'll go on to the last one, which is a number of people limit on congregation in public spaces. I guess my question is, did the CDC still have this recommendation of I think it was 10 or five or something like that? Does that still is that still applicable on the website? I think my hunch is they probably do. Go ahead. I thought I heard somebody chiming in. Okay, I was on mute. Mayor, this is Ryan Adams again. Could you repeat the question? Well, yeah. Does the CDC still have a recommendation on the number of people congregating in any one place that are that are not family related? And so I'll go on to Councilmember Briggs while we might be looking up that answer Councilmember Briggs. Go ahead. Yeah, I was gonna say if it's not I mean, can we add that that we're still following the I think we do. That's in there. Yeah. Mean that that would follow the 10 in the guidelines. Whatever's Yeah, whatever's in the guidelines. And I don't know if we can. So yeah, and I think the governor's order talks about the guidelines as well. So if we go outside the guidelines, I don't think that that would be consistent with the governor's order. Councilmember armature. Yeah, I would I would like to see that put somewhere on a sign. If people are out in public or seeing these these signs a sign that Councilmember Meltzer is talking. Well, that didn't get it. That didn't get approved. Yeah, the signs that Councilmember Meltzer proposed. They're not making it in the order. Well, but if we could have a sign along those same lines. Okay, we I think we've already dealt with the sign issue on a different subject. Well, I think well, Councilmember Briggs. I was just clarifying. I wanted to make sure with Ryan that it does refer to the CDC guidelines in the governor's order. It does. Okay, I'm pulling it up right now. But but it does. And it also refers to it in in our as well. By reference. And does that mean that it's enforceable? That number? Or is it's a recommendation? Yeah, that's what my understanding that it's not enforceable. So I think whatever whatever we can do to advertise that recommendation that already exists because I think your average Denton resident is not going to be go getting their information directly from the CDC. So if there's anything we can do at no cost in an ordinance, if we could maybe add some language specifying exactly what that number is, then that is it in no way contradicting the state or the federal government, but the only problems the only concern is when they change that number. I'm really okay with the way it's staying. We Councilmember Armitage, please. We we have been in this state for one and a half months or almost two months. One one for sure. Longer than that. These guidelines have been out there. They've been at certain levels. They've gone up. They've gone down. Never have we decided to put signs out advertising this to our citizens. This is all over the social media. It's all over our website. It's all over the county's website. It's all over CDC. It's all in the news. It's everywhere. So it sounds like what we have is we have the draft order is on the table. There were there is no there wasn't any approval for any additional terms to the draft order. For this item, we had one person made comments on our online form and they were against it. So unless there's any more comment, the chair would entertain action on this item. Councilmember Davis. I move approval of the draft ordinance with the draft order referenced. One question does and I don't have the draft ordinance in front of me. Does it include the additional funding for the hundred thousand dollars that the city manager requested? It does. Okay. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Davis. Councilmember Briggs. I second. All right. So we have a motion and a second. Councilmember Davis has say you on this for agenda item. I believe it's 1A. I Councilmember Briggs. Yes. Councilmember Armitter. No, I can't support it without additional protections. Okay. All right. Mayor Pro Tem. Councilmember Meltzer. Aye. Councilmember Ryan. Aye. Mayor Watts is an aye. The motion carries 6 to 1. We do not have any concluding items. I just do want to say that Councilmember Meltzer, it would be nice if we had a little bit more current picture of the council behind you on the dais. I think that's about a four year old council, right? That's okay. I can take that. I wanted to go back in time to when it was safe to go into the chambers. Okay. All right. Got you. All right. Okay. Well, that concludes our council meeting. So we will adjourn at 5.02 PM. Thank you all very much.