May 12, 2020 City Council on 2020-05-12 8:00 AM

All right, welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, May the 12th, 2020. It is 8.04. We will call this meeting to order. And we do have a quorum. And our first item on this agenda is to immediately convene into closed session. Let me read the caption. We'll convene now at 8.04 into closed session pursuant to Agenda 1A, which is deliberations regarding personnel matters pursuant to Texas Government Code Section 551.074 to conduct city auditor candidate interviews and discuss and deliberate regarding the evaluation of candidates and the appointment employment of a city auditor. So we will now go into closed session. And let me shut my door and I'll be right back with you. Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council on May the 12th, 2020. It is 1.03 p.m. We're going to deviate just to, I mean, we're going to go by our agenda, but it's a little bit different than what we typically do. We do have a quorum and so I'll call this meeting to order. Our first item on the agenda, I guess, Mr. City Attorney, the agenda states that because we're looking at an item for individual consideration as our first agenda item, do I need to call this as a special called meeting? That's what it says on the agenda. And then just call the meeting again for the work session and the subsequent council meeting or can I just, okay, I need to do them separately. Okay. All right. So we do have a quorum present so therefore I will convene a special called meeting on Tuesday, May the 12th, 2020 at 1.04 p.m. in the council work session room and also for those that are on by video conference. We've got one item for this special called meeting. It's an item for individual consideration and it's consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, the Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation, extending the effective period of the declaration of disaster concerning green tree estates. And this is being translated. So we'll need to employ the same processes and procedures that we have before to speak a little bit slower and to pause in between sentences. The reason this is first is so that we could give a really hard start time for anyone that wanted to provide public comment. We do have interpretation on a phone line for those calling in who will listen to the meeting in Spanish and that translation is occurring simultaneously as we speak. So therefore that's the reason for the requirement to speak a little slower and provide some pauses between sentences. If there's someone who provides public comment, we also have translation available there as well so that they can speak their native language and that will be translated to us. And then our comments will be translated during the public comment. Otherwise it will be simultaneous interpretation or translation, excuse me, as that I've been told. All right. So I understand that we have a staff presentation and upon the completion of staff presentation, we will take the public comment and then we will have council deliberation. So I'll turn it over to staff. Mayor, members of the council, Mario, city managers, as mentioned earlier, he's running a few minutes behind. I'm also presenting the item. So if you'll give me just a moment, I'll transition from this chair over to the presentation chair. So I'll give you a few seconds. Council members, Mario Canizares, can you see the screen? We can. Okay. Yes. All right. This will be a very short presentation. Basically what we are presenting here is the direction that city council gave last Tuesday on May the 5th, 2020. And then we will also show an excerpt of a letter that was sent to the residents last Friday. And then at the end, we'll ask for your direction and approval of the ordinance that goes along with the direction that's being presented. Okay. So the slide here that is being shown is again, direction that city council gave last Tuesday, May 5th, that the city of Denton would be extending the emergency declaration that was due to expire May 22nd, 2020. The extension will now end or will be extended to July 31st, 2020. Also the city of Denton would waive the $9,204, the cost of the line extension provided that after May 5th, no new customers at Green Tree Estates can establish water service with the city that on June 12th, that city customer service inspections are completed. And you'll note that there are some green text, green font next to some of these items. The intent was to present to city council at the meeting, at your meeting immediately following that deadline, just a quick update regarding the status of that major milestone. Just so you're aware, we would have interpretation services available on all those meeting dates so that it can be translated into English and in Spanish. Also on June 12th, the council directed that a head of household living at Green Tree Estates must establish a city utility account in their name and we would also bring that information to city council on June the 16th. By July 3rd, fee simple property owners of record must pay the $6,938 tap meter and impact fee to connect to the city water system. On July 14th, council directed that we would bring a report to the city council on the progress made up to that point for owners connecting up to the city's water system. Mayor, members of the council, one thing that you might want to know is talking with the city secretary, your schedule shows that the council does not meet on July 7th and July 14th. However, that is one of the earliest dates we could get on the calendar to review this information. So my question to you is, would you want to have a special called meeting on the 14th, specifically just for Green Tree Estates, or would you rather meet until July 21st at your next regular council meeting date? That's one item. Continuing down the page, on July 17th, by July 17th, if all fees have been paid, city staff will have installed the water meters for all those residents and property owners that have paid the requisite fees, the tap, the meter and the impact fee, and we would be able to present to city council at the meeting thereafter. On July 24th, or by July 24th, those residents that have water meters are to be connected to the city's water system, and at that point, a resident will become a regular water customer of the city of Denton. Your next following council meeting date after this date is July 28th, and we would report that information and update to the whole body. And as a result, on July 31st, 2020, at 11.59 p.m., the emergency declaration would end, and water services that have been provided up to that point would stop as well, and we would be able to present and update the council on that milestone at your subsequent meeting, which I believe is August 4th. The last slide of the presentation is just more for your information that on May 8th, last Friday, we sent a letter to all residents, tenants, property owners at Green Tree Estates. It was an English and Spanish translation, and what you're showing here on the screen is just the first page of the letter. The letter was approximately three pages, and it included a summary of what was presented to council last Tuesday, May 5th, the direction that you all gave last Tuesday as well, along with contact information for inspections, contact information for customer service to establish accounts in the residents' names, and lastly, contact information to establish water service and water utilities. With that, I have no further questions, or excuse me, no further information to present if you have any questions. Okay, if you could go ahead and pull the staff presentation down. All right, we do have some people wishing to speak, and because it's being translated, they are allowed eight minutes, according to the law, for that. So even if someone, I mean, each public speaker will get eight minutes because it's all being translated. So our first speaker up will be Elva Hernandez, and we'll wait for Elva to get on the phone. Are we having a technical difficulty? Do we know, Mario? I'm hearing it well. Okay, good. So you may proceed, caller. Okay, after I'm done talking, my daughter's going to translate everything to English, so I just explained to her that I will be interpreting for her. Okay, all right. If you could, yes, she has eight minutes to speak with translation. Okay, okay. Okay. Okay, translator, go ahead. Okay, would you like me to do simultaneous or do you want me to go ahead and wait until she's done? I thought I heard you, yes, yes, go ahead. Okay I also want to let you know how you've made me feel, you've made me and my family feel ever since this problem started. Since whenever we asked you, you know, to fix the problem with the water, your answer was to give us information on shelters and work on where we could end up. After so much effort and sacrifice to for us to try to make a home where my children can be happy. And then you come up with this idea for us to look for a place to find shelter and being that you guys already knew about this existing problems 10 years prior. This is something that you ignored without caring about the well being of the families that live at Green Tree States. And in spite of that, you know, you still feel like we haven't done anything for us to come up with the requisites that you guys are requiring. But it's been very little time that you guys have given us to come up with those requisites according to the law. If you have not been able to do this in 10 years, how is it that you are demanding that we do this in six months? I think that is inhumane, irresponsible, unfair and discriminatory. We have been working on the things you've asked for. But with the problem, the COVID-19, everything came to a stop. And apparently this doesn't seem you guys don't seem to care about this because you continue with a with a very high and mighty attitude. I hope I hope you guys understand. And I also would like to say that is, that is a very little ethic, very little ethic that you guys are sharing the information about our about our addresses. I mean, I don't know what the purpose of it was, but I think it's very your professionalism is very little, you know, according to the professionalism that you are claiming to have. I should hope that you make a take a good decision this afternoon for Green Tree Estates. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Can my daughter read something? Yes. Yes. There's still four minutes. Yes. Okay. I will be translating what my mom said. So here we go. Hello. My name is Elva Hernandez and I live in Green Tree Estates. The reason why I'm talking with you is because I want to thank you for what you have done for us until now. I was raised to be respectful but honest so I want I also want to tell you how you have made me feel and my family feel since the problem with the water began. When we asked for you to help in getting a solution so we could get water permanently, the response given to us was a list of shelters where we could go. After all of the hard work and sacrifice to give my children a home where they can be happy, all the all the city came up with was the idea that we should go to a shelter. You knew about this problem with the water for almost 10 years but chose to ignore it without thinking about the impact that it would have on the well-being of my of the family that live in Green Tree Estates. However, this council seems to think that we have done nothing to address all of the things you are asking us to do. What you have done is given us very little time to meet all of the requirements, something that has not been able to be fixed in years. You are giving six months to accomplish. To have everything done when and how you are asking us to do it is inhuman, irresponsible, unjust, and discriminatory. We have been working and taking steps to take care of all of the things you required in order to connect to the water but because of COVID-19, everyone had to stop and apparently you don't care. The attitude of this council has been arrogant and what we need is your understanding. I also want to let you know that I think it is unethical that our names and addresses were published with the announcement of this meeting. I don't know the reason but I don't think it is right or professional thing to do. I hope you make the right decision this afternoon about Green Tree Estate. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Council Member Armitter. Thank you, Elva, and thank you to your daughter. Be sure and give him time to translate. Gracias, Elva. Y gracias a su hija por participar. Okay, gracias por escuchar. Thank you for hearing us, Elva. I was, as you know, I'm not happy with the decision either. Maybe people will change their minds today but I don't know. But I want to thank you for all the work you've done and your bravery, both of you, and speaking up for yourselves and your community. Also I wanted to let you know that I too was startled to see the names and addresses and property values listed for all the residents. And I have asked a couple of residents what they thought about it, if they would like me to ask for that information to be removed. And they said yes. And as I understand it, you think that it should not be there either. Thank you, and I asked in an email right before this meeting, but there is still time if it can be taken off the public record. Okay, all right. Thank you. Any other questions? Member Davis, thank you, sir. Ma'am, is it correct that you rent from Mr. Saldana, you're a renter in your home? No. Okay, do you own your home? Yes. Okay. Do you know why it is? Our information would indicate that you rent from someone else? No, because I was specific that my husband is the owner. Okay, and I'm asking this question because it's important for some of the decisions we have to make, and for no other reason. But do you know who's currently paying the property taxes on the home you live in? Yes, my husband. Okay. So this is why I'm asking the question. Have you or your husband spoken with any attorneys about, I'm sorry, go ahead. Have you or your husband spoken with attorneys about your legal ownership of that land? Because Mr. Saldana is still listed with the county as the title holder and property tax payer. Yes, everything's been fixed with a lawyer. Okay. And with that lawyer, do you all now have the legal right to run a water line across that property or has that been cleared up? Well, no, because that's why we're asking help from the council. My question's a little bit different. I'm asking about the legal right to put a water line, not the money it would cost or the city making that available, but we're actually doing the work on his property. No, because when we got here, I mean, the water was working really well. Thank you. Okay. We will go on to the next caller now. Thank you so much. Caller. Okay, thank you. The next caller will be Beatrice Martinez. Are you there Beatrice? If you'll state your name and address, your eight minutes will begin. For anything, good afternoon to all the public council that's hearing us out. So my name is Beatrice Martinez and I'm at Green Tree Estates. My address is 4055 Ice Flame, I guess, then Texas 76205. Well, I'm here again and I'm going to be brief. I think I'm not going to ask for anything now. I'm just here to thank you. At this moment, I feel sad and grateful at the same time. For the great labor that up to this moment, the council has made. Since at the moment, you've done a lot for my community. Because your work is to do work for the community and to see for the well-being of each of its residents. Without regard to race, color or sex. At the same time, because my community had to go for help with people that have knowledge to be able to be heard. I think at the moment, that's all. I said I was going to be brief. Thank you for the support of the city of Denton. We have a question. Councilmember Davis. Hello, ma'am. Thank you for calling. Are you currently receiving water from the city of Denton? The deliveries? Yes, of course. In a moment ago, you gave us an Ash Lane address. Are you receiving deliveries at the vacant properties on Ash Lane or at the home you have on Meadow Lane? My property is in 40 Ash Lane and I live in the corner of Meadow Lane. But this property here has always had a problem with the address. So I live in 40 Ash Lane, but I actually live at the corner of Meadow Lane, but we've always had a problem with the actual address here. You live in a home with your husband at the corner of Ash Lane and Hilltop, excuse me, Meadow Lane and Hilltop. Is that correct? Yes, of course, but I have to put down 40-55 so that I can receive all my mail. Sure, sure. Thank you for clearing that up. So the property that you live on is actually owned by Mr. Roddy, the person who turned off the water in the first place. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. And have you gotten Mr. Roddy's permission to put a new water line on that property? No, we have already spoken with the city of Benton about the fact that this year, our plans were to move here in Ash Lane. In fact, we are building, guarding all the things we had to be able to move, but this problem has already happened. Actually, no, we spoke to the city of Benton this year. The plan was to move to Ash Lane. As a matter of fact, you know, we're cleaning up and building and trying to move the things that we were going to use, but because of this whole problem, that's why we have not moved. Okay. So just so I understand, your plan is to put a new mobile home on your property at Ash Lane, and then if City Water is available to connect the new mobile home that's on Ash Lane. Is that right? Okay. Could you repeat it because I didn't necessarily understand, so I may not be able to. Sure. I'll go more slowly. I apologize. No, that's okay. I just didn't understand what you meant. So ma'am, your plan with your husband is to put a new mobile home on the vacant property on Ash Lane and connect City Water to that new mobile home. Correct? So ma'am, your plan would be to move with your husband to the vacant lot that is on Ash Lane, and then in that mobile home, put a new street in the water, right? That's the point we're working on right now. Unfortunately, this pandemic situation happened, and we stopped a little. The city of Vendo says that we haven't done anything, we've done things, but they don't realize it. I have receipts of the things that I've done, if they need proof. This week they started working on what we have to do, and the water point is 40-55 Ash Lane. Okay. Allow me. Yeah, that's actually the issue right there. You know, that's what we were working on, and then the pandemic happened, and I mean, a lot of things have been done. I know that the city believes that we have not done anything, but there has been a lot of things that have been done. As a matter of fact, we have receipts if we need to go ahead and provide proof, and that's what we were doing. We were trying to fix the issue with Ash Lane. Thank you, and is there a septic system available on Ash Lane, or would you have to put that in also to be able to have city water? We're working on that, it's supposed to be installed this week. The city already came to inspect, and that's what we're working on. Thank you very much, I appreciate your call. You're welcome. Thank you for listening. Yeah. One more question. Go ahead, Councilmember Armitage. Hi, Beatriz, this is Deb. Thank you for all your work for your community and for advocating for your community. Thank you for your great work and effort. I wanted to know if you could speak to why you wanted the inspections to be done by a third party instead of the city. Sorry, the preliminary courtesy inspections, not the main inspections. And if you could speak to the confidentiality issue and ... Okay, with respect to this, before the habitat inspections, we had an inspection of the city first. So each case, each family, their situation is different that they have to fix. So before the habitat inspections, I was inspected by the city first. They came. And I'm working right now with what the city told me, but the habitat inspectors also came and told me the same thing, I mean, I don't know what the problem is. Well, as far as the inspections, habitat came before the actual city came, and I mean, each family case is different. So the habitat came before the city, and right now we're working with the city, but habitat also said the same thing, so I don't know what's going on. Thank you. So the other question, it was something about confidentiality, and I said yes. Yes, ma'am, it was about confidentiality. Just about why people wanted it to be confidential, and maybe you yourself did not want it to be confidential, but I was wondering if you could speak to that, why the confidentiality waiver, since you watched last week's council meeting, I believe that some people were concerned about it. Some people were concerned that other people were. Ah, lo que queríamos saber, señora, es que usted habla del por qué el problema con la confidentialidad era un, era algo que la gente estaba este preocupado al respecto, ¿verdad? Este, o sea, y si es que acaso, ¿verdad?, a usted también le parecía que la confidentialidad era algo que fuera pertinente? Claro que, claro que me parece algo, supongo, pienso que para todos, en la mayoría, ¿verdad?, es algo que no, es una información confidencial, privada de cada persona, de cada familia, no sé cómo lo quieran llamar, pienso que no está bien que la ciudad, o no sé si la ciudad o el concilio, hayan puesto esa información al público, o sea, pienso que es algo privado de cada familia. Ah, well, I think that, of course, you know, this is something confidential, this information is private to each person, to each family, and I don't think it's correct for the city to go ahead and include that information as it is something that is private to each person. Thank you, and you understand that the inspection will have to be done by the city, but this process. Claro, y usted entiende que la inspección esa la va a tener que hacer la ciudad, ¿verdad? Sí, yo entiendo eso, yo soy claro lo que quiere. Oh, yes, I understand that, I'm clearing what you want. I know you know, and thank you. Sí, yo sé que usted sabe, y gracias. Por nada, que tenga buena tarde. You're welcome. Have a good afternoon. Okay, thank you. All right, our next caller is Lillian Prado Carrillo. La siguiente persona sería la señora Lillian Prado Carrillo. Lillian are you there? Lillian, ¿está usted? Yes. Por nada, que tenga buena tarde. Okay. I think I'm getting feedback from the meeting. So if you have the meeting on, if you could maybe turn that down while you're on the line. Okay. Okay, and just your name and address, and then your time will begin. You'll have eight minutes. My name's Lillian Prado Carrillo, my address is 6504 Corral Lane, Denton, Texas. Are you going to translate or go ahead and translate that? Oh, okay. Oh, no, no, I'm sorry. They're doing simultaneous translation on the other line. Is that correct? Yes, that's why you got that. But since you spoke English, I was just going to go ahead and let her speak. No, that's fine. I apologize. That's my mistake. So, yes, they're receiving simultaneous translation on the other phone line. So thank you. I'm sorry, Lillian. Go ahead. I'm going to restart your time too. Okay, so I don't have to wait for them to translate? No, just that they are translating. So just yeah, a little slower, but they're doing simultaneous translation on the other line. Oh, okay. Okay. So my name is Lillian Prado Carrillo. I'm one of the advocates that has been working with Green Tree from the start. I'm also president of LULAC here in Denton. I want to thank you guys for your time. There are some things that I want to share, and if there's any questions, please don't hesitate to ask at the end. I do want to just clarify some things. I want to make sure that the council and that the community knows that residents have been communicating from the very beginning and have been more than willing to collaborate with the city with everything that you guys have asked. When Roddy was going to shut off the water, they've attended every meeting. They've given staff options that are more workable than the initial things that were recommended. They've given alternatives by just educating the staff and the community about what really is going on in Green Tree. The example from the very beginning was the portable showers, and they're the ones that came up with the gallons, the 275-gallon storage of water that would work best for them. We do believe that the city has been just misinformed, a little bit unprepared and just lacks some knowledge of everything that's happened, especially since that property was annexed in 2013, advocates have served to fill in gaps and to facilitate communication with residents. This is all volunteer on our part. None of us have said that we are experts in this, and we have done our best to make sure that we reach out to those experts and people that are willing to work pro bono so that we can give them the best information possible. And so I want to make sure that we put that out there because everything that's been portrayed in the media and some of the things that have been said on council have been said that advocates are lacking. And so I do want to make sure that we've never said that we're experts, this is all volunteer on our part. And we've also been trying to communicate all the information that the residents themselves want, not what we think is best. There has been just a bit of a double standard. We feel that the city has been talking for months about Varadie's intention to seize water. Well, when Varadie had intended to seize water, you guys knew way before, but that information wasn't given until probably a week or so before that actually happened. Residents were only given a few months to connect to water. The other big assumption from city council and from community that doesn't know is that the conditions of the home were assumed to be uninhabitable and dangerous. That was based on Varadie's property, not the homeowners. And most of the Spanish speaking residents were assumed to be renters and not owners. I do want to address some things. On the March 3rd notice that the city put together for Green Tree of Sates, I know there's been a lot of questions about the confidentiality and about the city courtesy inspections. But on the FAQ section of that notice that you all published, number 12, specifically asked, does the city need to have a written plan to correct what was found through courtesy inspections? And the answer on that document is no. And so we never thought that you needed a specific plan. I do also want to address that whenever we specifically asked and closed meetings with residents and also in council, I believe it was asked if there is something that is found that is a safety hazard in a home, what was the, what was the city inspector, even if it's the courtesy inspectors, what would they need to do? And the answer was that they would have to report it. If they have to report it, and if they don't, that's a liability for the city. If they had to report it, then that means some of the residents would have to move out. And so because of that, and because of the talk of condemnation, residents did not feel comfortable with allowing the city to conduct the courtesy inspections. I also want to point out that I specifically asked Mario and Ryan with you, they were on the call, and Scott. And you guys talked to Mr. Hoos from Habitat who did the courtesy inspections and tell him what you were looking for, what the city needs, so that the residents wouldn't be surprised later on after we did everything that Mr. Hoos recommended, that we went back in the city with they, oh, we need this and this and this. And the answer was yes, that Scott had talked to Habitat and had told them what to look for. And so that made us feel more comfortable that the things that the residents would work towards are the things that the city was also looking for. I also want to share something that Mr. Cunningside has failed to relay back to you all, that while we didn't give the specific list that had everything that they needed to address, we did share parts of an email from Mr. Hoos saying that on March 7th, volunteers with Habitat did a walkthrough with the homeowners of six residences at Green Tree. This was sent to Mario on April 27th, and they was told that all residents were in overall good condition and well-kept. We identified a number of minor items that should be corrected, but none are a danger to life or safety. This information was shared with Mario and it should have been given to the council and I don't know if it was or if it wasn't, but I've never heard it being mentioned. On that email, it also said that the items could be corrected with less than $200 and only a day of work by a competent handyman and this was something that the SWAT team could take care of once they're able to go back out and help. Mr. Hoos also said that with these items being addressed, he was confident that the city would be able to allow the services to be connected to water from the city. So I want to make sure that we address all of these things and I also want to just to clarify from Mr. Davis, Council Member Davis, you asked her about Olmedo Sandana. I want to make sure y'all understand that's her husband. I don't know if there's something lost in translation, but Olmedo Sandana is on your paperwork, but that's also her husband who lives there with her and he is the one that pays property taxes. I wanted to clarify that. Let's see, there's talk about the easement. We got, which I gave this to the city attorney early on last year, the only piece of information that we could find from the Crowning Clerk's Office that had a, let's see, a list of dedication and restrictions and on that forum, it did say that we do hereby dictate that the streets as shown in the subdivision to the use of the owners of said lots and subdivisions and this was for utilities, reserve all of the easement for utilities for the benefit of the developer, which is also the owners. And so we're working with other organizations trying to figure out what it is that you exactly want, the plot, the utilities, this is all new information for us, but we're trying to do our best to give you what you need and also we understand that it's for the benefit of the residents. But in all of the expertise that you all have, this could be also something that we could accept direction from you all. I've heard Mr. Davis say time and time again that no one else has experienced but him and he's connected to water and all this other things will then help us figure out exactly what it is that we need. Aside from that, I do just want to mention that there's been lots of talk about what advocates do and don't do and how we've helped. I do want to mention that like I said at the beginning, this is all volunteer. We have helped the city coordinate meetings, translation, making sure that there's nothing lost in translation, but what we're really here to do is to support this community on what they want to do. It's not what we think, it's not our self-righteous thoughts of what should happen, where they should go, this is their right to protect their property, this is their right to live where they want to live, and that's their right as taxpayers to have the representation that they need on council. Okay, your time is up, but if you have a closing comment, certainly would like for you to share that. No, I think I just, well, the only thing is, I echo Betty's sentiments that we do appreciate what the city staff has done. There's just been lots of gaps in communication, so we do appreciate everything you've done. We appreciate the way that you've tried to help. We just want to make sure that nothing gets left out and that not one side is heard more so than the other. Okay, and we do have a couple of questions from council members, so I will bring them in at this time, council member Armitter and then council member Davis. Yeah, so Lillian, thank you for speaking and for advocating for the community. I wanted to clarify something and then ask a question of you to share. So you had mentioned that the city, known for years about this, do you remember that city council only found out not very long before, I believe in maybe late October, early November that city council found out, at least that was when I found out through a notice to city council. But I was wondering if you could share, if you could just share in a nutshell with the public about how you got involved, how you found out about Green Tree and how we went and visited the community together just for some context. Sure, I actually found out through a Lake Dallas resident, a member of the city council of Lake Dallas and he asked if there was anything that they could help and I didn't know anything about it so I drove down to the community and I just kind of lurked around and that same weekend you called to ask if I could go with you to translate because it was the first that you had heard about it. And so we met there and we met Edna and we started listening to all their concerns and that was when Edna also shared she said no one has ever talked to us, there was one meeting with the city, there was no translation, but I guess I'm guessing, I did not attend that meeting but I'm guessing that's the meeting where they were told about shelters and everything else and so they were very happy to meet you as a council member and then just to have somebody that could understand them in their need of time. Thank you. All right, Councilmember Davis. Sure, thank you Mayor, just a couple of questions. Lillian, thank you for your advocacy for this community and for bringing us information. I have a couple of questions for you and just want to kind of clarify, see if I can get some clarifying answers. You said something a while ago about habitable structures and habitable homes, are you aware that under the city code, a habitable structure has to have running water and just the mere fact that something doesn't have running water or sewer or power can make it an uninhabitable structure regardless of the condition of the rest of it? Yes, but I do also want to make sure that when you, when the city, the courtesy inspections were offered, it was already known that they didn't have running water, so the city inspector, the city inspections and all those courtesy, it was not addressing a lack of water, it was addressing a lack of other safety concerns and so that's not, that's not the same thing. Yes, I am aware that under city code, safety needs water. Okay, I just want to make sure you knew that so when you hear someone on city council calling a structure uninhabitable, it's usually referring to any of the reasons it can make it uninhabitable, including not having water available. Also, on the topic of those courtesy inspections, I've got to ask my question first. On the topic of those courtesy inspections, you just said those habitat folks, they were looking for handyman kind of stuff, the things that could improve the home, did they look at septic tanks, did they look at water lines, did they look at the condition of plumbing inside the home and the kinds of things that would make a building eligible to be connected to city water, or were they just looking at the things that they were looking at? My understanding, this was not, it was not, it's not cosmetic, it's not anything to increase the property value of the home or of their structure. When I asked Scott and Mario Canisares, did you specifically tell Mr. Hoos what it is that you all would be looking for, so that if the residents take the list that Mr. Hoos is saying that needs to be fixed, after they've fixed everything and then city inspectors come, that it's not going to be a whole new other list, because nobody wants to be surprised. The residents don't want to waste money on things that don't matter. And the answer was yes. And so no, it's not things that are, the repairs are minor, but they're not cosmetic repairs or anything like that. The whole point, and I'm pretty sure that Mr. Hoos and everything from Habitat, they know that the whole point of this was for the water, it's for connection for water, and also just for danger, and so they were also looking for that, make sure that there's no danger or life, you know, that it's safe to live there. And all of the homes were well kept, and they met all requirements. So that's why he said in his email, one of the last things that he said, he said, "With these items addressed, we are confident that the city would be able to allow water services to residents." Okay, but to be fair, Mr. Hoos is not a city inspector and really can't make that representation to the residents, can he? He has, as a volunteer, and for the purposes that we asked him to be there, he's giving us instruction based on conversations that he's already had with city staff. So no, he cannot, he can't guarantee it, which obviously everybody knows that. He can't guarantee it, but he was pointing us in the direction that we could go to, to make sure that whenever city staff came, that there wasn't going to be a big surprise and boom, you're, don't meet here, here, here, and now we're going to condemn your property and you have to move out. And so that was the big, that was the big, that was the big concern for residents, that they didn't want to be told that and blindsided, that they want to have an opportunity to fix the things that they have to fix with the end goal in mind to connect to water with the city. Okay, my last question, my last question for you, my last question for you, and I apologize I have so many, it's just you're, you're the person who's available. I welcome all the questions. So you've talked with us about the people that you've advocated for and the people you've met with, to your knowledge, have any of those folks pursued legal action against their landlords or against Mr. Roddy, the person who turned off the water? I can't say if they have or if they have it. What I will say is that us as advocates, we've connected them with people that if they chose to do that, that they can, but that's not something that's out of our, our, that's out of our hands. We're not going to recommend one way or the other. We've told them what their rights are. We've connected them to experts and attorneys that can recommend and can tell them what outcomes can be. And if they've decided to pursue that, then I'm not at liberty to say, thank you. Council member Briggs. Thank you. Thank you for your advocacy and calling in and all of the, the information you've given us today has been very helpful, but I just, after, after all that, I just want to confirm that the, the residents as, as you know, are ready now for city inspections on the date that we've asked for June 12th, correct? They're working towards that. They're working very hard to meet that deadline so that by the 12th that they can have that. We did talk well, when we talked on that Monday before the last meeting that you all had, we did tell Mario that there was potentially one, one member that's been working really, really hard to say maybe one person that needs maybe an extra time, but I don't know how that can, I mean, that's going to be, have to be individual, you know, an individual consideration case just because of the, they had more things to fix than others. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? Mayor Pro Tem. Yes. So, hello. Thank you for the call and, and I just really, I want to go straight to the fact that there's a new renter there and I want to give you an opportunity to, to just speak on that because that is problematic for me for transparency. Yeah, and, and I will, with that, I'm glad that you brought that up. We didn't know that there was a new renter there until the neighbor in front called me and said, hey, we're worried this is this happen. You know, we want to make sure that city staff knows that, you know, we don't have anything to do with them because I don't, I don't know what had happened there. So I let Ryan know as soon as the day that I found out that there was a new renter there, I let Ryan know with your city staff. The other part of that was I also shared with Ryan and with Mario that from the beginning, we were there to help everyone. It wasn't just the Spanish speakers, but a lot of the native English speakers, they don't, they didn't respond to the calls, they didn't come to meetings, they, you know, and so my concern that I expressed to Mario and to Ryan that I asked, are you communicating with them because they're not responding to us, and so I want to make sure that you all know that we've continued conversation with these families, but we're not the spoke people for the entire Green Tree residents. We tried, we tried to help, I tried to make sure that they knew what meetings were, but not everybody's collaborating the same way. And so I don't have any issue with you all saying that no other residents should receive water. I think that that's the truth. When Congress, or when Councilmember Davis talked about, you know, these people they shouldn't be renting out, I agree. But not all of them are slumlords, not all of them have been bad owners. There's one specific owner who is working diligently with her renter, and she's trying to make sure that her renter has a place to live, but not everybody's like that. And so when you talk about transparency, I've tried to be transparent with your staff whenever we knew, but that's out of our control, like I'm not monitoring that area all the time, you know, finding out who's leaving, who's coming, who's going. But that was, and that was even a concern for some of the, for some of the residents that live there, because one day they just left, the other people left and then new people arrived, you know, a few days later. Right. And so I just, in full transparency, again, that, that's a, that's going to be a pain point for me going forward as I feel, and then there's a myriad of reasons why. Let me slow down. But I feel the city has been kept at arm's length. And again, myriad of reasons why I'm not here to debate those. But what I am wanting to say is, I've not received an email from anyone regarding the, you know, we get a lot of emails about fair housing and what the city's doing and what they're ignoring. And I said this last council meeting. And so while you're here, I, I want you to hear it directly. I'm perplexed as why I understand you communicated with Ryan, but when staff, but when the city council has been called certain names or ignoring certain issues, I would think and kept at arm's length to find out this way is shocking. That's all I'm saying. And I hope we can work better together and not be kept at arm's length. And then I guess my last question would be, well, one qualifier. I want to make sure I echo what the council is kind of said. An inspector is a very different job and there's developers that have paid staff that disagree with our inspectors and have to go back and rework things. So I don't want to communicate to the homeowners that there is an expectation that everything is a, okay, based on Mr. Huss's representation or Mario's representation or anything, anyone outside of an inspector, and I'm assuming Mario and city staff will, will speak to that issue because they don't put themselves forward as inspectors. And so I don't know how they could speak to that reasonably well. May I have clarification? I've never said that Mario has said that they're of what we can expect to expect on inspection. But what I've said was, and what I hope that everyone understands, we've been pretty transparent with the residents. We've told them if this is the deadline, let's say that one of the homes, they get done with all of their repairs this weekend, then we'll schedule the, the inspection from the city to come out, you know, in the next few days so that if something else pops up before the June or the deadline that you all have designated, that they will still have a few days to fix it. They have not been under the illusion or the impression that what Mr. Huss says is what it goes. That was a, that was a, a volunteer that was a person that was just trying to point us in the right direction so that the fear of eviction or condemnation on their home would be a little bit pacified, that it would, that it would go away knowing that they've already, you know, that, that someone with some experience that builds homes has already seen their home and that it's going to be okay, or that at least they're not going to get evicted or kicked out. But the part about the arms link with the city, I apologize. I was under the impression that the communication that we had with your staff was sufficient. I know that some of us have talked to some of the council members. I know that Mr. Meltzer had come out and he made a visit and he took water and he asked clarifying questions. I've talked to Deb, I've talked to council member Briggs, so if there was anything, I mean, you're my friend on Facebook, you could have asked questions just to clarify. But now I know that even if we give the information to the city staff, that we also have to put it in writing for the council so that there's no misunderstanding. So thank you for letting me know that because I was not aware of that. The last thing that I wanted to say is you guys have talked about substandard or an inhabitable home. You have called these homes substandard many, many times, and I don't know that none of you have, well, just with the exception of Council Meltzer and Deb have gone over there. The homes are not an inhabitable. They don't have water. And so that fulfills Mr. Davis's definition of maybe uninhabitable, but other than that, that's the point we're trying to fix, right? But everything else is good with these homes. And so I would invite that if any of y'all have any questions that you would go that you would go ask. Okay, Mayor Pro Tem, just a couple more moments because I don't want to turn this into sort of a work session. If you got just a couple more questions and we've got callers that are waiting on the line, so we're going to wrap up the public comment portion. So it seems like we're just rehashing old things. There's different stories. There's different things. So I just want us to get it through the public comment. Clarifying questions are great, but let's move forward if we can. So go ahead, Mayor Pro Tem. Yes. Thank you. Really, I just want to clarify, I've been out there. I just don't draw a bunch of attention when I go, but I've been out there a couple of times. Just for the record, want to make it very clear. And so I appreciate your clarification today. And I thank you for the work you do. Okay. Thank you. And if you ever got out there again and want us to invite you into one of the homes, please let us know. We can meet you there. Okay. Great. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Lillian. We'll go on to our next caller, which is, I believe it's Gabby Quiroz. Hello, Gabby. Are you on the line? Yes, sir. I am. Great. Okay. All right. If let me, if you'll just state your name and address, your time will begin and you'll have to... Do I have to state my address? I would rather not. We'll need some record of it. So you don't necessarily have to state it here. But if you could maybe email it to someone, that'd be great. So I can email it to someone. Okay. All right. Can I say the, just my street of residence? Sure. Go ahead. Yeah, you can begin anytime. Hello? Hello? Yes, sir. I am. Yeah. Is this Gabby? It is. Okay. Gabby, I think you have your, I think you have the meeting on behind you in the background and there's a little delay. So if you could turn that down, that would be great. Yes, sir. My apologies. Okay. I'm hearing. My name is Gabby Keto. I just turned it off. Okay. All right. Yes. Go ahead. Okay. So I just want to say that I do live on Coit Street in Denton, Texas. I want to go ahead and say that I am in no way an expert in any of these fields, but I am an advocate for this area. I have not been advocating as much as I would like to. I would also, I would just like to first address the declaration of a disaster that was passed. It says that the declaration of local state disaster shall be given prompt in general publicity and shall file. It also just said that it would continue for not more than a period of seven days from the date of the declaration unless continued or renewed. That was continued and renewed, correct? Yes, that's correct. Okay. And then I just want to go ahead and say that on behalf of some of the residents there in the Green Shea states, the people that I was in contact with no longer live there, but they used to probably the summer of '20. I apologize. I actually don't have that correct information, so I will not say it. But they have felt unheard unless someone spoke on behalf of them. They felt like they had to find the correct translator because they felt as though they had left a city council meeting with more questions than answers because there was no translators, so I am very glad that there are appropriate translators now. I want to thank you guys for that. Also I want to address the volunteers and how they have felt like they have done more work than the city. So I want to address something that Don Montoya, the director of the Habitat for Humanity, that whenever they were doing inspection, they were inspecting any "major" issues which would obviously be the water. So yes, they were just checking any major issues, not necessarily any minor ones at that point. Also, I just want to clarify, the roads are still or are not privately owned? Hello? Yes, yes, go ahead, yes, you're on, we're listening. So the roads and the wells are still currently privately owned, correct? I don't know if I can make that representation with actual knowledge, but it's my assumption, yes. I'll move on then, okay, I'll move on then. It's also correct that there are still around 50 or so properties in that area? Yeah, I don't know if we can really answer your questions, this time is for you in comments, so we can certainly take down your questions and get those answers to you after the agenda item. Yes. Sounds good, my apologies. No, you're fine. All right, then I just want to go ahead and move on with my comments then. From my knowledge, Mr. Roddy had been in association with the City of Denton and Water Services since 2013, and has told the City of Denton that he would not participate with the City of Denton since 2013. My comment is it's 2020 now, and it was 2019 whenever the declaration of disaster was declared. I feel like that is a large amount of time to be unaccounted for, and I'm in no way saying that that is the council's fault. I also just want to say that within the declaration of disaster, the mayor determined that extraordinary measures must be taken by providing the citizens of Green Tea Estates with temporary provision of potable water and small containers. I also believe that those extraordinary measures were not extraordinarily taken care of. Also, the potable water and small seal containers for consumption and personal hygiene and non-potable water in larger containers for other use including the operation of toilets in large containers. The water that was used for public and showers obviously was unusable, therefore washing and sometimes for oral hygiene, they would have to use drinking water, which is not acceptable and should never be. Other than that, I think that's about all I have to say. Okay. Any questions for Gabby? Seeing none, thank you so much for calling and for your input. Thank you. All right. That concludes our public comment. We do have, I will read what we typically read. For this item, we had zero persons making comment using our online form. Since there were no persons online using our online form, there weren't any in support or against. Additionally, there were zero people that called in to 940-349-7800 to register their position. Finally, there are five who had requested to speak over the phone on this item and we just heard those. Okay. So, I tell you what, we've been going since about one o'clock. Let's take about a five-minute break and then we'll come back and start our deliberations. Welcome back to this meeting of the Dent City Council. We just concluded our special called meeting. So now we will call our work session meeting on May the 12th, 2020. And it is 2.33 in the afternoon. Our first agenda item for our work session is citizen comments on consent agenda items. I don't believe we had, uh-oh, can y'all not hear me? Oh, no, we didn't take action on the previous item. Oh, then we're going to go back and do that. Sorry. I was wondering, oh my gosh, what did I do wrong? All right. So, let's go ahead and restart. I'm going to go ahead and do another countdown, Billy, just for the record. Thank you all. We need a major blunder, so we need to go back to our special called meeting on the 12th of 2020 that we started about 1.05 for item for individual consideration. Item 1A, Mr. City Attorney, have I followed the necessary procedural items to recall that agenda item based upon my calling? You have. Okay. Thank you. All right. So we'll go into items for individual consideration. We have heard the public input on that. And so now we will have council discussion and then possible action on this agenda item. So I'll open the floor up to my colleagues. Council Member Meltzer. I hope that, you know, everyone's had like a more time to reflect since we last discussed this item and to consider patiently just the plausible math, and I don't know what any of these folks make, but you know, just for argument's sake, if someone's making, say, bringing home $2,000 a month, you know, think about what it would take to save $1,000 a month after mortgage, groceries, utilities. It's a tall order, something you'd remember for the rest of your life. Now some folks may have made some progress since we laid out, you know, what kind of money would be involved in doing this, but I'd argue that it's very likely that whatever start on savings was accrued probably got tapped into, you know, during this shutdown period. So if we look going forward, what is it going to take for someone to realistically have this option in all good faith and save $1,000 a month, you know, it's going to take them every bit of the time until November. So I would suggest that we keep the substance of what's here, keep the May 5th and the second two milestones, I'd keep the July 14th report to City Council on progress, but I'd encourage you to just consider the reality of what I've just described and consider moving those other three dates out to the November dates that were offered by the City as a Compromise measure last time. I'm not going to put that in the form of a motion, you know, at this point, I'd like to hear discussion, but, you know, I'm ready to, you know, at any point. Okay. Council Member Davis. Thank you, sir. I'll be brief because we talked about this quite a bit the last time, but my hang up with the, continuing the resolution of the declaration, excuse me, isn't so much the timeline. You know, I think we can all agree that the COVID-19 crisis has to have impacted people to some degree. My hang up is with some of the things we talked about the last time that we're talking about waiving a $10,000 cost to the City and to the ratepayers to extend a waterline for what are five owner occupied homes. We heard from one of those owners today. I've never heard from or met or heard comment from the other four in our many, many council meetings on this subject, the communications we've gotten from people and the rest are all renters who don't have a right to run a waterline to their home, even if we make the meter bank available like we're talking about. So to spend $10,000 of City money to make that happen when in all likelihood what we're doing is spending money on behalf of a future developer or the people who are renting the landlords who are supposed to be providing water to their tenants. The dates and the timeline, I'm really less concerned about those. To council member Meltzer's point, we've had since November to have some indication of forward movement and what we've had so far has been what council member, excuse me, Mayor Pro Tem Hutzpeth has called arms length. And I think that's the perfect way to characterize it. We've not been treated as a trusted partner. We went into this with compassion. We went into this with substantial capital outlay. We regraded roads, roads so that we could bring water to these homes and we've been left at the door and so I can't support an extension of the disaster declaration as presented today. >> Okay, all right, council member Armitage. >> Thank you. I strongly agree with council member Meltzer's representation of the timeline just from a financial perspective. I disagree with council member Davis' representation just now. I see the residents as having really worked on nothing but this and their advocates. I would encourage that anyone who doesn't think that the timeline is an issue, anyone who has other issues with this ordinance other than the timeline, consider then extending the timeline if the timeline isn't an issue and maybe at some other point taking up whatever issue you want to take up with the understanding that because of the financial effects of the what I would call the inability to save, I myself can't, given my expenses, save that much under this time and I think that we need to consider that if people can't pay, if homeowners can't pay, and if the small landlords who own the properties can't pay, then we've got a community displaced, which I would hope we could all agree is an unfortunate thing to have happen, especially under COVID situation. My question for staff is I would like to know more about this July 31st date. Why July 31st? Because for me the date is crucial and I haven't heard, or I didn't hear at the last meeting, any concern from anyone that we couldn't afford to do this financially. A number of us were willing, I think maybe even a majority, I'm not sure, but myself included to raise the cost for water, to include the service charges, sorry, the cost of service. So if staff could just explain why the July 31st date. Before staff answers that, I'm going to answer that question because I don't think they need to answer it because it wasn't staff's proposal for July 31st. They had recommended or had suggested the November 31st date. I then said, why don't we do August 31st keeping all the dates the same? Council member Ryan brought up that, well, if we keep all the dates the same, then we just got a month and a half of dead space. And so I'm the one that moved it to July 31st. When you look at the, when you look at the, from March, April, and May, when you look at that two months that was lost because of the shutdown, basically we're adding two months to the deadline. In other words, if nothing had happened and we didn't have the situation that we're in, it would have been up for the expiration of this declaration at the end of this month. So, so there, so I would say thank you for your answer. I would like to hear staff's answer as to why, and so maybe it was the June 30th, whatever it was that was on the presentation last time before our discussion, but it was an early summer date. Well, Council Member Armitage, I'm going to let him, I'm going to let him answer the question, but the point is... No, no, no. Sorry, just to say that you're describing kind of the deliberation at the, the habit at the council meeting last Tuesday, I'm talking about the presentation. I understand, but please, but you have to, you have to admit that and represent what the facts were at that presentation, that staff may have presented the July 31st date originally in its draft presentation that was sent out to us in the backup, but after going out of meeting with the residents, they came in and proposed a November 30th date. So if staff, I mean, I guess I'm just going to tell staff, answer that question, but you don't have to go into a whole lot of detail because that's not the number or the date that you're holding to. You recommended the November 30th date. I'm the one that brought it forward on the July 31st date. So there was the, the recommendation and then there, there was the compromise that was offered, which was the November that, that I preferred to what was on the table. So yes, I want to know, I'd like to know about, about both dates, if staff could speak to... Staff, if you could make that brief, please. As I understand it, the November was staff's attempt to, to compromise, to come up with a compromise. Mayor Massey. Yes. Okay. Go ahead. Well, what staff had, what staff had originally included in the packet, the Friday before the May 5th meeting was to end it on July 31st. We then subsequently had a community meeting on the fourth, the Monday, the day before the May 5th council meeting, just to explain to the community what staff was recommending and presenting to city council. At the time, the residents suggested adding an additional year to the declaration. We were hurriedly calculating what that would be as far as cost, because there were to be an additional 40 to 45,000, an additional cost above the $100K. Mario, Mario, if you could make it very brief, this is almost verbatim what we talked about last week. And I'm not, we're not going to have, if we have new information, if we have new questions, I'd love to hear them, but we're not going to rehash the whole thing that we had last week. Well, but you just, so I'm sorry, but I asked him for new information. You put him in the position of now having to explain what I already knew, which was in my question. No, he is not presenting any new information. He is going over information that we went over last week. You had asked for it just now. When I am asking, and thank you so much, Mario, when I'm asking is, so everything you're describing it is, as I understood it to be, when I'm asking is why that date July 31st, what was the original, the reason for coming up with the date? I understand the reason for their November date. I'm just curious if you could say something with the background of that, how that was arrived at or what the reasoning was for the July 31st date. The pure and simple reason on the July 31st date was we knew that we had lost approximately six to eight weeks of time due to the COVID pandemic. We understood too that the items that were originally identified by Habitat seemed to be simple in nature based on their general description because they were not allowed to disclose that information. And so we thought extending an additional six to eight weeks of time would afford the residency opportunity to connect the city's water system, pay the requisite fees and do all the things that were required as part of the original end of the declaration, which would have been May 22nd. And July 31st was just a clean date because it believes a Friday. And thank you so much for that explanation. I believe we heard some of that last week as well. Well, anyways, some of that is new to me. I appreciate the explanation. I myself would agree with that if it weren't for the fact that people don't have the time to save up the money, the saving of the money for me is the big issue. And so that's why they would need more time. But I do appreciate your explanation. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else? Council Member Briggs. Well, if we're just, we're talking about the November 13th date, that was the original date last meeting that I was in favor of because it gives them a little bit more time to come up with the money, but it doesn't, it accomplishes everything that we can within our spending authority that we pass. So it's not going to cost any more. And with that caveat, I would like, if we did do that, or if we could get consensus on that, to increase the water service that they're getting, get the water payment that they're making, include the cost of service so that it doesn't cost the taxpayers any extra so that it's a full payment for that time period. That would be, if we were to do that, that way they're paying the full rate and cost of service as everyone else. Okay. All right. Anybody else? I'm not sure, Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah. I just have a couple of questions for staff to help give me some guidance and forgive me for this, but hopefully someone can source it pretty quick while the rest of the conversation goes on. Two questions. I want to know the average amount that a household receives from, from when that applies for interfaith assistance, and during this COVID-19, just recently, not exhaustive research, just kind of what the most recent average is, and the average United Way rental assistance or assistance generally, what that average is, and then how many times you can apply for either of those. Okay, and I'm assuming that's pursuant to this agenda item issue because... It is. Because I was the only one, last time we spoke about this, that was advocating that we recoup our costs, and I still stand there that it's unfortunate that the rate payers are subsidizing this neighborhood, and so I just want to continue to highlight that we have to, extended or not, I can't support it, extending it at the cost to the rate payers. Okay. All right. All right. Hold on, Councilmember Armitage, let me see if anybody else has a comment or a question. Yeah. Go ahead. Krista Foster's got the information on the average interfaith assistance, and I think that we're trying to get a number on the United Way, see if we can get that done too as well. Okay. All right. All right. So customer service, if you give me one moment, I can tell you in the month of April that the average assistance that was provided by interfaith to residents during the pandemic was $304.98, and then we'll see if we can get numbers on the United Way. Is that just for utility assistance? Yes, that is just for utility assistance. Okay. All right. Okay. Anybody else who hasn't spoken before I recognize Councilmember Armitage? Okay. Councilmember Armitage. So I just want to correct again Councilmember Hudspeth's perception that he was the only one last time who talked about recouping the cost. I talked about it last time, and there was, and you did too, but others did too. Councilmember Briggs mentioned it just now. This is what we're talking about when we say adding on the cost of service to their cost, if that's a concern. That is what we're talking about. So I want to, I would like to make a motion to approve this with the extension of that, you know, all the dates as listed with the extension of that final date to the November compromise date worked out by staff, and with the addition of the cost of the water service being factored into and added into the regular cost for the water. I would be open to, if that's what it takes to get four votes, even to postponing the discussion which appears to be for Councilmember Davis, the one, as I understand the one sticking point of, you know, the city putting, you know, that initial, the, you know, roughly 10,000, you know, for the city's part of the connection. I would be willing to even take that out of this for now and take that issue up at some later date. I really want them to have more time right now, but I will just leave it like that now. All right. We have a motion before we have a second staff. Could you refresh our memory? What that cost of service is per resident per month? You just, you gave it to us last week, I thought it was three hundred and something dollars a month per resident. So while we're waiting on that, we have a motion. Do we go ahead? I'm sorry. My mic was on mute. Okay. What I've been told is approximately three hundred eighty five to four hundred dollars per month for the service that's being delivered at the moment for the 14. Is that including the water or excluding the cost of the water? That includes us. That's that's everything. That's turnkey. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Councilmember Meltzer. Let me just make a clarification. I'm willing to second, but Councilmember Armitter talked about just moving the last date out. I just want to point out, I think the key date is the middle date. The July 3rd date is the must pay the six thousand nine hundred thirty eight dollars date. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. When you said that I was looking at my notes and not at the at the screen. Yes, absolutely. Exactly. The date that the fee is due. Yeah. That is the date. Thank you. Good. All right. Well, the motion on the floor right now is the ordinance as presented except for the changing of the date and taking out the tap fee. But if you're what you're suggesting is that ordinance get changed to move that date that you described, the chair is certainly open to hearing procedurally how we want to do that. No, that's no, I'm taking that as a as a friendly amendment correction to my motion that when I said the last date. So I mean, the key date is, as Councilmember Melcher mentioned, it is actually not the the late July date. It is that the date that the money is due. So I would have to go back to the timeline for November from last time. And you know, that November timeline that we want to plug in. But I am fine with having the other July dates remain the same except the the July dates beforehand. You know, including even the one the July 14th date about an update. I'm fine with that, but we need the payment in other words, there'll be two dates change the payment date, or actually three that the date of the payment, the date of the water. Okay, Councilmember Armitter, what information do you need? First of all, you have a motion on the table. Are you withdrawing that motion? Or you what are you doing? I'm amending it. I take it this was meant as a friendly amendment. Well, okay, I need we need to follow some proper procedures here. So I need somebody to state Councilmember Melcher, if you're making a friendly amendment, I need for you to state that and state the dates you want it moved to. Sure. Well, okay, I'm going to need a little help from staff, but but to do it because I don't remember what all the dates were. That I would the amendment would be to keep the May 5, June 12, June 12, the first three dates and keep the July 14 day, but to move the July 3, July 17, and July 24 dates to the corresponding dates that were on the November timeline, then also just make a comment that I think it makes it it's a little bit of cross purposes, it makes it more difficult for people to save the money, if they've got to pay this now, you know, full recovery cost of water, but if that if that gets us to a consensus, I'll support that. So I second that the motion as amended. So staff, if you could give us those dates, please. So I accept that amendment and thank you. And I feel the same about the about the service cause. I'm also heartened by there's a GoFundMe fundraiser and people have been raising money for them that could help out with it. Councilmember Briggs has it right there, you know, November date, November dates. Okay, so I need somebody to make a motion that we can vote on. So I just accepted his friendly amendment. We still have no dates, I can't take a picture. So Councilmember Briggs, if you could please make a friendly, friendly amendment to supply those dates that it seems like we're taking five or ten minutes. The dates after the July dates that were mentioned October 5 2020 is when the property owners would pay the $6,938 tap meter and impact fee. October 23 is when the meters are set for those that have paid the city fees. November 13 is when the residents are connected to the city's water. And that's exactly November 13 is when the declaration would end. Okay. All right. Yeah. That is exactly the dates that were recommended by staff. Okay, so Councilmember Briggs, you make that as a friendly amendment to fill in the blanks on the dates. Is that correct? Yes, sir. Councilmember Armitage, do you accept that friendly amendment? I accept and thank you Councilmember Briggs for looking that up. And Councilmember Meltzer, you accept that friendly amendment? Yeah. Okay. So we have a yes Councilmember Davis. I was just getting ready for discussion on the motion. Okay, you've got okay, go ahead. Okay. So if I understood the motion correctly, we changed the dates and the motion would also remove what I had objected to earlier, which was the provision of the water line extension and that we would take that up at some hypothetical future date. The problem is twofold. One, the whole point of the dates is that the city would not provide the extension until those dates and all the conditions precedent that would occur on those dates. So the dates are meaningless unless we're extending the water line. They're just they're just dates. The second problem is what y'all have done and put staff in a terrible position because we gave them direction last week. Well, y'all did. I was going to vote against it if it's been presented last week. I'm going to vote against it today, but y'all gave them consensus direction on how you wanted this ordinance to read and what this resolution was going to be. And they went out and told you did everybody did it was a consensus. And they went out and told the residents we got that in our backup material. They translated into Spanish direction. The stat was given on May the fifth and here we are rehashing that whole work session and rewriting the resolution on the fly so that we can then adopt it. And so we're going to ask our staff to go back out to the residents they've been trying to build trust with and tell them actually the City Council has a completely different resolution than the one that we brought to you a little while ago. So I don't support the amendment. I don't support the extension. I think the whole whole effort is becoming very misguided at this point. Okay. Anyone else for discussion? Then we'll we'll take a vote. Councilmember, Mayor Pro Tem. Yes. Thank you. I mean, I tell you, I didn't have it in my notes, but Jesse's point about consistency, as you know, rings true for me. And I think we were a month within the date to expire understanding the COVID thing pandemic, it's undeniable to impacts. But the fact of the matter remains that we have not been engaged as in two months ago. And so to then move the data, I mean, we've not held true to any deadlines. And so here's here's my point, just for for the record, so that those that are listening don't have to wonder, my hang ups are these one, there's no Mayor Watts makes a great point last last meeting, you put this in November, it's in the middle of school year, I've heard no one that supports this come on the record and say they're okay. But this family, these families being put in a position to either succeed or fail in the middle of the school year when when when they may have to deal with not having water or having to move until no one said I'm okay with holding the line in the middle of a school year. And that was what what precipitated a lot of this conversation. Another thing that's noted is, I don't support having future meetings on this topic, I figure we should get Friday updates, and not allow ourselves to continue to be inconsistent Friday staff can take it from here we set clear objectives clear policy and get updated but we don't have to revisit to then invite the opportunity to move the goal line again. And then I the other thing that I have noted is no one noted in the amendment, or pardon me in the motion, when the last date to apply, because Mayor Watson and was was clear and made a good point we have to then at some point in the time to have people come in, we have this new renter that's there that's take benefiting from all the the the assistance that's only been there a month, and we're going to extend that out to to half a year so those are those are the problems I have with it. I thank staff for their information on the interfaith note, and I'll note that we're directing other families to contact interfaith but this these families are benefited by us doing it for them, and they're getting monthly assistance, versus I would I believe to be a one time assistance for these other organizations. And so, the inconsistencies, and I think I'll end with again circling back to Councilmember Davis's point. I voted against this he voted against this initially, there was a consensus amongst all the other council members to support it to support staff going out to taking this message forward, and then to walk that back a week later is is disconcerting. All right, we're going to Councilmember Armitage real quick because you've, you've had a lot of comment on this, I don't need to debate on other council members response. If you have something to add to the motion. That's great. It's represented so I want to explain, explain. So as far as consistency goes, you know, the reason why I voted, I ended up voting for the July, or sorry giving direction for July 31, being part of that consensus, as I made as I thought was perfectly clear to anybody who was here or watching. It was because it was clear that if we didn't have the numbers for that it would have fallen back to me. My job as I saw what I was trying to do in representing was to give them as much time for me it was a vote, where somebody says, you know, we're going to cut off your left arm and your right arm, and then somebody says well how about we only cut off the right arm. We don't have any arms. Okay. Advocate for the lesser of the evils. And so that's what you appreciate that I want to say a couple other things. Councilmember armature councilmember armature concept councilmember armature. You have made your point about your explanation of consistency. We are going to hear from Councilmember Briggs, and we're taking a vote. Councilmember Briggs, and also we have no new renters Councilmember armature, you have made that if you have something that you want to add to the time Councilmember armature. Please let me finish. If you want to add something to your motion that you think you left out real happy to hear that I'm not, we're not going to keep rehashing everything that we've had, you made a very good explanation you're absolutely correct on why you voted for the July 31 date. I remember that conversation very well. And that's what you were trying to correct in the misrepresentation. So do you have anything that you want to add to the motion. Thank you. As a matter of fact, I do. Also, the no new renters provision that was added, I believe, I believe that's in the current. That's what I thought I just wanted that's in the current motion that I wanted to address Okay. Councilmember Briggs. I'll be I'll be quick. So I just wanted to also add that in that current motion was the, the, the original timeline for the, the inspections and the switching over the accounts into into individuals names. So, those dates stayed consistent with the on July 31, it was just the last few dates that changed to give a little bit of time for the individuals to come up with the money due to coven issues. So I just wanted to, to clarify that that's what we're talking about here. Correct. Okay. Okay, listen to my colleagues. Listen to me, please. If you're going to make a motion, please have an understanding of the motion you're making. My understanding is, we are starting out with the recommended ordinance that is in our backup. That's what staff has presented. Now it doesn't seem like people who've made the motion know what's in that current recommendation from staff. So, what has changed in that the amendments that have been made, and if I'm incorrect and I miss a date, somebody can correct me. But the amendments that have been made is we extend the date to November 13 for the final expiration of the declaration. And then the dates of October, all those dates, two, three dates back that council member Briggs had made those dates that she added into there that we have on record, are the only dates being changed. Everything else in the motion and the ordinance submitted by staff is what remains. Is that correct? That was my understanding. I was willing to change it if I had made a mistake about the renter's issue. But if it's incorrect, I don't need an understanding. I need to know that, yes, that is the motion that I am making. Yes. Okay. Council member Meltzer. Yes. The one piece that you didn't mention just now, that I heard as being in this motion, is the increase in the water. Cost of service. Yes. I appreciate that clarification. Thank you. And that's a new one that was not in the ordinance that's before us that was drafted based upon council direction last week. All right. So we're going to take a vote now. So does everybody understand the motion enough to make a vote? City attorney doesn't. Does not? Does not. I want to make sure that I understand exactly what is in here. You're changing the July 3rd date to October 5th where it show in the whereas clauses and in the sections below the July 31st date will be changed to November 13th. There was a October 23rd date mentioned by council member Briggs that I'm not seeing what that's tied to about meters being set. This ordinance was contemplated if landowners paid the appropriate fees to connect to the city water by July 3rd or whatever date it's going to be, then by the end of the declaration period, the city will have extended the water line and they would, we'd set the meters and do all that. I believe the October 23rd date is substituted for the July 3rd date. Is that correct? Yes. And Larry, if you go to, and it took me a while with doing the zoom on this computer looking at my other screen, if you go to the last city council meeting, green tree work session presentation, it has a list of these dates. They're all written out. It's on the, it's slide for some reason it's not showing the numbers on these slides, but it's towards the end of the slide, the slide presentation. It's the third to the last slide that says alternative solution extend declaration to November 13th and there are a list of dates and that's where that October 23rd is that councilman, that's where council member Briggs was getting that from. So you'll see all of those dates. So July 3rd is actually moved to October 23rd and there's no October 5th date. You're talking about on, in the motion or, okay. In the presentation from last time that October 5th date is the second date that's listed. Okay. And that, that was the key date. Councilmember Armitage, please just for a moment. You're conflating and confusing saying the staff presentation of all the November 3rd dates. What I've heard from the two friendly amendments is what's changing is, as council member Melzer pointed out, we have that the residents will pay their full costs, cost of service. And the only other changes that I'm aware of, are these dates that council member Briggs stated. And that is council member Briggs, do you have those dates right here? Well I'm, I'm asking council member Briggs. She's the one that made the friendly amendment. Do you have those dates? Yes. Okay. I'm going to enumerate those for the city attorney. Larry, are you listening? Okay. So June 12th will be the inspections are completed. And then the next would be March 22nd property owners pay the $6,938 tap meter and impact fee. March 22nd. Oh wait. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. No, October 5th, owners pay the tap fee. October 23rd, meters are set for those who have paid city fees. And then November 13th, residents are connected and the declaration ends. Okay Larry. So in the current ordinance drafted by staff, those are the only dates that change. And she told you what the corresponding date was in the ordinance to change to. Some of those dates listed are not changes. Some of them are it's remain, no, I tell you what, we're going to take a five minute break and I'm going to get this organized. We've got to get through this. We're taking a five minute break. Everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on May the 12th, 2020 it is 321. We are still on our special call meeting on agenda item 1A for individual consideration. I'm just going to tell my colleagues, I'm not recognizing anybody at this time. We're going to set it up for the motion. And then if there's any discussion on what the motion is, then we're going to have a discussion but we're not going to go through this kind of circus that we went through over the last 30 minutes. Because it seems like it's not democracy if people aren't informed and if they do not have information to make a motion. So if staff could put up the motion, if staff could put up the motion that was in our backup on the screen. Now Council members, do y'all have access to that motion in the backup? I can't see it. No, I'm talking about in your own backup in our backup. Okay, so that's agenda item. All right. So this is the motion that was recommended or that was direction was given last time. So these are the dates that that we have currently. So my understanding is, and we're dealing with this current motion. All right. So the date of July the 31 2020 is going to be changed to the date of November the 13th. All right. Now this is for the motion. This isn't if it doesn't pass, this is all mute issue. July 3 2020, Larry, what July 3 2020, I believe that was changed. Is that to the October 5 date? Is that correct? Is that what we decided? That is the that's to pay all the connected fees. Is that correct? Yes. Okay, then the where's the date for the meters to be set? That was implied that it would be done by the end of the declaration period. Well, but I think there was a hard date. They're not in the ordinance. It's not in the ordinance. No, we can we can add one if we need to. Okay. All right. So is that from my understanding, it was the meter were to be set by October the 23rd. Can I make a point very quickly? So if these dates, if the date of the 23rd and the date of the 13th were not in the original ordinance, we could just keep them in the timeline and not change it in the ordinance if that's not a sticking point for people. I don't mind including them in the ordinance. Okay, no, we got to vote on this. We have a motion on the table, and I'm just simply clarifying what that motion is. Yeah. All right. And so then the declaration ends instead of on July 31. It ends on November the 13th, I believe. And I believe that July 3 date was October the 5th. You've got it, you've got one more down in the body there. Yeah. No, I don't, Larry, I don't think I don't. This is the October 23rd date and getting the meter set. Right. And the July 5th date was the July 3rd date. So you've got to go down in the ordinance and make that correction. July 3rd goes to October the 5th. Now my understanding is those are the only dates changing. What we need to add is that, oh, go ahead. No, no, Larry, that's to have the meters paid by. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. You're adding it from the top. Gotcha. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. But if they've paid for it by that date, then the city is going to do this by October 23rd. Yes. And then we need to put a provision where the residents will begin to pay the full cost of service for the non-potable water. Now one thing that hasn't been discussed is when that begins. And I believe Councilmember Meltzer, you made that friendly amendment. So do you have a date that can be accepted by the movement for when that begins? What would the next billing date be? We're getting staff to answer that question. So hold on just a moment. And Larry, we don't have to necessarily wordsmith that right here. I mean, I think that's pretty easy fix that if we just give you direction. Just say at the next billing date. Okay. At the next billing day. Okay. All right. So that is my understanding of the motion on the table that has been seconded. Larry, if you could go ahead and just pull that down and hold on Councilmember Armitage. I want to be able to see everybody without toggling over. There you go. Okay. All right. So that's the motion Councilmember Armitage that we've all discussed. So as far as the date goes for when they begin paying the cost of service, I would be fine with that date. If that's what I could get consensus on, I would prefer for that date to be in July because that was the date at which we were originally going to have a consensus on Councilmember Armitage. You do know, you've been on Council long enough, that we need a date. Whether you get consensus or not, we're fixing to take a vote. That's when we're going to determine what the consensus is, but we have to have a date. So Councilmember Meltzer made a friendly amendment with the date and my response is... Are you okay with that date? My response is... Are you okay with that date? I would prefer a July date. Are you accepting Council Meltzer's friendly amendment on the next billing cycle? I would prefer a July date. No. So, no, I would prefer a July date. Okay. So you're not accepting his friendly amendment on the date and so... Because the next billing cycle is, I believe it is week by week. It's done a little differently at Green Tree. Is that correct? No, the next billing cycle starts June 13th. Okay. It's June 13th. And that is around the date, the original date where we had said... Councilmember Armitage. Councilmember Armitage. I'm trying to answer the... No, it's a very simple question. Are you accepting the date that the billing cycle starts around June the 13th, according to Councilmember Meltzer's friendly amendment? If not, you're free to make a date that you want in your motion. I would rather have it be July 24th. Okay. That doesn't tell me anything. That doesn't tell me anything. What do you want in the motion that we're fixing to vote on? I want July 24th. Okay. All right. So Councilmember Meltzer, your friendly amendment on the date is not accepted. And so her proposal is starting in July. I believe Councilmember Meltzer, you seconded the motion and are you okay with that as a seconder? Yes. Okay. Are there any other questions about the motion on the table? I have a question about the motion for confirmation, and that is if this does not pass, if this motion doesn't pass, then will it roll back to the July date, the dates that were highlighted in yellow? I have no idea, somebody will have to make a motion of that, and there'll be a vote, and we'll decide that when we move down the process. Can I get an answer from, I just want to answer from the city attorney just to clarify. Well, I can tell you, if your motion fails and no other motion is made, the date is the end of May. Right. Well, that was my question. That was what I wanted to know, because I- And this is the exact conversation that we had last week. I thought because we had July on the table today, that it would roll back to July, and that was what I wanted to confirm. No. Council member Armitage, again, you've been on council two years. If you make a motion and it fails, the only other way that another item gets passed is if someone makes a motion. We can present all the ordinances, draft ordinances, and a backup for council all we want until somebody takes action on it. I thought that the date we had up there was the June and July dates, that's why. So, apologies if I misunderstood, but because we had that up there in the ordinance, that's why I thought it would roll back to that. We're going to vote on this ordinance. So, if that's the case, then I vote no to this motion if it would roll back to a May date. Well, council member Armitage, I don't know if it rolls back to May, because we have to see- If it fails. My question is, if it fails. If your motion fails and no other motion is made to accept any other date for the termination of the emergency declaration, which is the draft ordinance in our backup, then nothing changes. Okay. The emergency declaration stays the same as it is today. Okay. Got it. So, then I will have to then vote no for this, because based on what everybody is saying right now, I don't think we have the numbers. So, you're telling me that we just spent probably 45 minutes on a pretty basic procedural matter. Yes. So, are you withdrawing your motion? Yes. Oh, okay. All right. So, we have- No, no. Council member Melser. Okay. So, I'm going to move the motion exactly as discussed. Which one are you- Okay, so you're moving the one that we just talked about with the extension of the November dates. Okay. Yes. And, you know, if that doesn't pass, then someone else will make it happen. Okay. We'll figure it out. We'll do what we've done. We'll do what we've done for the last two, five, 10 years. We moved down the chain of our process. And if no ordinance passes today, then what we have in place stays in place. Because we're making, we're here to consider, do we change what's in place? I don't know how this has been so complicated. It's pretty fundamental. So, we have a motion on the table by council member Melser. Do we have a second for the motion that we just spent 35 to 40 minutes discussing? Council member Briggs? I second. All right. So, we have a motion and a second. Council member Melser, how say you on that motion? Aye. Council member Briggs, how say you on that motion? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem? Nay. Council member Ryan? No. Council member Armature? I will vote yes because I'm strengthened by my colleagues. Thank you. Council member Davis? No. And my vote is a no. So, the motion fails three to four. Okay. Any other discussion on this item? Council member Briggs? I would like to move approval of the ordinance as it's presented in our backup. Okay. Do we have a second for that motion? Council member Armature? Second. Somehow, this seems like Groundhog Day to me, but I could be wrong. Council member Briggs, how say you on the motion? Aye. And this is a motion to accept the ordinance as drafted in staff backup with no changes? Yes, sir. All right. Council member Armature, how do you say? Yes. Council member Meltzer? Yes. Council member Davis? Nay. Council member Ryan? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem? Nay. Mayor Watts is a yes. So, that motion carries four to two. We're going to take another five minute break. We'll be back in five minutes. Welcome back to this meeting of the Dent City Council on May the 12th, 2020. It is 340. Before we go to our work session, I just want to reiterate for the record because make sure that we got the vote correct. I don't know if I said the correct vote count. The vote count was five to two in favor of the motion. And it's my understanding that council member Davis and Mayor Pro Tem were the two opposing votes and everyone else voted for the motion that was made by council member Briggs. Is that the understanding? Okay. I just wanted to clear that up because I think the attorney needed some clarification on that vote count. All right. So we have concluded our special call meeting. So we will now call council into order for our next meeting, which is our work session meeting at 341 on May the 12th. The first item on this agenda are citizen comments on consent agenda items. We have no citizen comments on consent agenda items. The next agenda item is request for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda. Are there any clarifications? Council member Briggs. Thank you, Mayor. I haven't been in questions and had a few of mine answered in detail, but just a couple of follow ups to that on item on item C. So it says my first inclination was that it was just for the labor, but at the response back from the city, it said also for the... Council member Briggs, are you on consent agenda C? Yes, sir. Okay. All right. So it was also for the product. And I noticed that the product is a dyno dirt and sand. So my question is, are we charging the company that we are paying to purchase the dyno dirt at our cost or are we increasing the cost, which is increasing the cost of the contract for them to purchase it? Like if we were doing it ourselves and Parks is doing the top dressing, would it, the dyno dirt be the same price as if this outside company is coming and purchasing it and then we're paying them to buy it? It was a little bit confusing to me. I'm just trying to understand if they're getting a higher price and it's reflecting at a higher price of the contract for us. Does anybody, do you understand? Yeah. I think we're waiting for someone. Yeah. I'll ask Tony or Cassie is on the phone. Okay. Mayor and council, this is Kathy Ogden, director of procurement and compliance. So in the bid that documents actually state that the city will purchase the dyno dirt compost. So we are purchasing it at our cost. Okay. It said in my, in my answer today that I got that, that the contract is for the labor and the product. So, so I was just, yes. So the quote is for the labor, the pickup and the product delivery, as well as the actual cost of the, the compost, but the compost is at the city's regular rate that we would pay to purchase the compost. We're not paying an additional charge. Okay. Good. Thank you. And then on mayor, may I continue? Of course. Okay. On item B, I did get confirmation that we, we had a consultant for the last 400 million of CIP projects. And so I just want to clarify, was, is this the same company that our consultant that did our last projects and, and also it said in my answer that most of this is for detailed transmission design. And so I'm just clarifying that that's what they've done before for us. So this is a DME question. Yes. Yeah. Turning Terry's mic on real quick. I'm on a Terry Dalton, the assistant general manager, DME. Yes. This is the same firm that was involved in much of the prior work. The bulk of the work that they're doing is in project management of these projects. We have some $200 million worth of additional projects that we'll be doing over the next five to six years. Yeah, it's just, the contract is about for a million a year estimate. And so I didn't know if that was similar to the amount that we had before or if it had increased. No, that amount is similar and it is a, a contract that we only use the services that we need. So we will do everything we can to minimize the amount of expense that we're going to spend on this particular contract. Okay. Thank you, Terry. And my last question is, I think this, does item B coordinate with item A, is it in connection? Because the same company was mentioned in my answer to B and we're approving the contract in item A for easement consulting. That is correct. Seven Arrows is the firm that helps us to procure easements for the transmission lines that the, the power engineers Inc will be managing, helping us manage those projects. And just to follow up, is that, is that something that our real estate division and our legal department cannot do? No, council member, that is something they can do, but it's such a large amount of work that they don't have the staff to fully support it. All the documents are prepared by the consultant and then processed through the city real estate department. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else? Clarification of agenda items. Yes. Council member Armitter. Sorry, my, this computer is about to cut off. So after this, I will switch. I wanted to pull. Council member, just to let you know, we've got about half of your face in the, in the screen. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Yes. All right. Just wanted to let you know that. This is about to shut off and I switched to my other computer. I'll speak quickly. A, B and C. I want to pull for individual consideration. I'm going to vote no. Okay. So you don't need a staff presentation on that? I would like that. If possible. I mean, I like to have a discussion. Do you want to, do you want a staff presentation with the council can discuss it, but yeah, I don't need a presentation, but I would like for us to be able to answer, to ask questions if staff is available. If they're not, that's fine. Okay. It's about to go blink. Okay. So I'm going to leave. I'll be back. Yeah, sure. No problem. All right. Any other clarifications of agenda items? Mayor, I just want to clarify one item on the seven arrows. Legal is still preparing the underlying documents on that. They're not, they're not engaging separate outside council. That's all being done in house. Okay. All right. All right. So we're pulling A, B and C. Any other clarifications of agenda items? All right. Seeing none, we'll move down to our work session reports. Work session three A, receive report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding an update to the city of Denton's response. Good afternoon, mayor, city council, Sarah Keakler, chief of staff. One second while I pull up the presentation. Okay. So this is our standing work session item to provide an update on the city's response to COVID-19. As a reminder, the city does have a current disaster declaration and order effective until the end of the month through May 31st. We have two updates or two parts of the presentation today to provide updates to city council. I'll try to make this quick. The first part of the presentation will be a few state updates. We'll quickly review governor Abbott's executive order from last Tuesday, as well as two announcements he made yesterday. And then the second part of the presentation will highlight a couple of news items from Denton county that we would like to share with city council and the public. So I'll jump right in to the first part of the presentation with some state updates. So last Tuesday, governor Abbott issued a new executive order, GA 21. This has received a lot of media attention and press attention, but I just wanted to outline some of the main components of this order. So as he issued the order, he made a couple pieces effective immediately. And this is really for clarification. I think on questions that the state was receiving. So it specified in the order beginning on Tuesday, May 5th, that the 25% occupancy limit for restaurants did not apply to the outdoor areas of restaurants. So that 25% occupancy limit for restaurants only applies to the indoor areas. Secondly, he also specified immediately on Tuesday, May 5th, that wedding venues and services may open at 25% occupancy for those taking place indoors. However, if the wedding venue or service is outdoors, there are no occupancy limits, but social distancing is still recommended. Second part of his order, he announced some services that could begin last Friday, May 8th. And that was cosmetology salons, hair salons, and so forth could begin their trade and begin seeing clients at their establishments on Friday, May 8th, as long as there are six feet of distance between the workstations. Secondly, he also allowed for swimming pools to open subject to certain limitations, including on the occupancy generally at 25% occupancy. The second slide highlights some more components of that GA-21 order. So beginning on next Monday, May 18th, three additional things may open. Office buildings may open with the greater of five or less individuals or 25% of the total office workforce. And this is for office buildings that have been closed if they are a non-essential business. Secondly, he allowed for gyms, exercise facilities, and exercise classes to begin to open at 25% occupancy and specified that locker rooms and shower facilities should remain closed at these facilities, but restrooms may be open. And then lastly, he allowed for non-essential manufacturing services facilities to begin operating at 25% occupancy inside of those facilities. And the last main part of the order addressed school graduations, and he kind of relied upon the guidelines from Texas Education Agency in terms of how the school graduations may be conducted. There's four different ways that are specified in the TEA guidelines, but did want to highlight that outdoor in-person ceremonies are allowed in any Texas county after June 1st for school graduations. So moving on, yesterday the governor had a couple of major announcements. The first was he provided direction to a few state agencies, including the Health and Human Services Commission, the Division of Emergency Management, and the Department of State Health Services to test 100% of residents and staff in Texas nursing homes. And this was coming out of guidance from his phone call with the federal government that a plan needed to be developed and implemented to test residents in nursing homes and focus on those highly vulnerable populations. Unfortunately, this announcement was very brief and was just providing direction to these state agencies. So we will share more information as details are made available in regards to how that testing will be conducted and in what timeframes. And then the major announcement coming yesterday from the governor's office was the announcement on how federal funds would be distributed from the state to local jurisdictions. So this is in regards to the federal coronavirus relief funding that the state received. These funds can be used for coronavirus related expenses incurred before the end of this year, calendar year 2020. However, it does specify that this CRF funding cannot be used to fill revenue shortfalls. It must be used on COVID related expenses. So in total, the state of Texas was allocated just over $11 billion of CRF funding through the CARES Act. They have decided that of that $11 billion in funding, 45% of it would be made available for cities and counties. So that equates to about $5 billion as shown on the screen here. That $5 billion is then broken up into two categories. The first is actually has already been distributed directly from the US Department of Treasury. They allocated $3.2 billion directly to six cities in 12 counties in Texas with a population greater than 500,000. So therefore the state is going to take that remaining $1.85 billion and distribute it through a grant program to cities and counties in the rest of the state that do not have access to the funding that was distributed directly by the treasury to those six cities in 12 counties. So just to go into a little bit more detail, kind of what that means, the city of Denton would fall in this first category as Denton County has received CRF funds directly from the US Treasury. So cities below the 500,000 population with counties exceeding that population would have to go directly to the counties to seek funding for COVID expenses. And the reason the state explained for this taking place is that when the treasury dispersed the money to the 12 counties, so take Dallas County, for example, it was estimated on a per capita basis. However, the city of Dallas's population was backed out of that per capita basis because the city of Dallas was over 500,000 and was receiving funding directly. So the expectation, according to the governor and through his letter that he issued yesterday, is that these counties that had received direct funding are expected to use the funds that they received directly from the treasury to address expenses incurred by the incorporated areas. So those municipalities that are less than 500,000 as well as the unincorporated areas of the county. And there'll be more discussions. City staff will certainly reach out to Denton County to understand how and the various details if they will distribute and how to cities within the county. As for way of public information, the second category is really the state's program that they announced yesterday for the remaining 1.85 billion. So those counties that are below 500,000 and the cities within them. So they're eligible to apply to the state for a per capita allocation. Again, county allocations will be calculated on the population in the unincorporated areas of the county. And the state has announced that the first allocation of the funds will be made on a $55 per capita basis, and they'll actually release 20% of that amount just directly to counties and cities that are applying as soon as they certify that they'll follow the grant terms and expend the funds on COVID related expenses. And then the remaining portion that they may be entitled to would only be released on a reimbursement basis. So that is a quick overview, and I'll answer any questions on that, but did want to just go into the next slide to let city council know that we will have a standing weekly ISR in the Friday report to explain the grants that we have received, been awarded or applying for, or the various advocacy efforts that are taking place to try to get as much funds as we can here to our city and our community to assist residents and businesses in need, as well as help the city operations that have been impacted. So I'm happy to answer. Okay. Sure. If we could pull the staff presentation down and then we'll stand for questions. Council member Briggs. Thank you, Mayor. Just Sarah, can you clarify some things for me? I know I heard you say on the funds, but anything that we just heard, can any of that go for revenue shortfalls or is all of that funding off the table for that? Even though we basically know that we can prove it's a direct loss of result of COVID? Is the money that the federal government so far that is giving cities, is it just to repay them what they've spent on COVID? It cannot be used for revenue shortfalls and that has been very specific. It can be used for COVID related expenses or to respond to the COVID emergency. So there is some more information that we can include in your Friday pack about what qualifies as an eligible expenditure and some examples that have been put out as far as what would be a COVID related expenditure. Okay. May I, Mayor? Yes, of course. So it doesn't have to be spent, I saw an article, the reason I'm asking is because I saw an article about Dallas and I think they got $12 million to spend on rent and utilities to help their residents and small businesses, but I'm just trying to figure out how that fits in if they haven't spent it already. That would be an eligible expense for the guidance released from the federal government. It can be expenses associated with the provision of economic support in the connection with the public health emergency and then there's a few other areas where it would fit that definition as well. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Council member Armature. Yeah. Thank you to staff for all the applying you're doing and the following the ever-changing rules about all this. My question is about the 100% testing on nursing home residents. Are you able to answer when he is able to guarantee that that will be able to happen and also whether that applies to nursing home staff as well and state home living, state supported living center, residents and staff, and also whether he has any plan to extend that to health workers and all the essential workers in the essential under that category. Unfortunately, I do not have more details to share at this time. He issued a press release late yesterday afternoon and it was only about a half page just kind of announcing that this is the direction he wants to take. So as we learn more details, we'll certainly share those with you, but I do believe that he shared on the call yesterday that it would include not only the nursing home residents, but the staff as well. Okay. Yeah. And thank you. I wasn't able to find that information either, so I'm not surprised. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? All right. Okay, Sarah. Thank you for that. Okay. And then I'll just quickly go into the second half of the... Oh, sorry. Okay. I thought that was... It'll be quick. Okay. I just wanted to share two other updates from Denton County. They did announce last week a new grant program for small businesses. Last Friday, it's called the Open Grant Program, Operational Plan for Economic Normalization. It is offering grants of up to 10,000, and it will be awarded based upon those that have been closed the longest and negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. They're making available a total of $2.2 million in funds in this program, and it is actually being funded by accumulated co-serve capital credit funds that I guess have been accumulated over 20 years. So that's how it is being funded by the county. Applications will be accepted beginning tomorrow at noon through the following week, Wednesday, May 20th. More information with eligibility details, the application can be found at DentonCounty.gov/Open. And then they also have a phone line and email address where businesses can reach out for questions they have regarding the program. And then secondly, Denton County Public Health Department has continued to do drive-through testing locations as Dr. Matt Richardson discussed with city council a couple of weeks back. They have held one in Denton at their facility on Loop 288, as well as one in Lewisville. Their next upcoming location will be this Friday, May 15th at Roswell High School from 8 a.m. to noon. Like the events before, attendees, those wishing to attend should pre-register or must pre-register by calling the phone number listed here on the screen. And the eligibility is for only two things, for individuals with COVID symptoms within the previous seven days or for critical infrastructure workers that may or may not have symptoms as well. And then I also listed the Department of State Health Services site again for other locations that may be providing testing outside of the Denton County Public Health Department's free testing sites. And then lastly, just wanted to communicate to city council that we as a staff here are trying to continue to share various resources and opportunities that are available to residents or communication, such as how to properly wear a mask, how to dispose of the mask, as well as just trying to promote what we are doing as a city to respond. So we'll continue these communication efforts. And that is the end of my presentation. Council Member Melser. Thank you, Sarah. Do you by any chance have an update you can share on the court cases progress related to ballot by mail, opening that up for people who want to avoid COVID-19 risk during our local elections? I'm actually going to ask Catherine Clifton with the city attorney's office to address that question. I'm sorry. Could you repeat that? Yeah. Basically, what's the status of opening up ballot by mail for our local elections for people who are concerned about congregating in order to vote? There have been actions filed in both state and federal court in Texas on that question. There have been no decisions made at this point. The first hearing in any of those cases is this Friday. Okay, great. I appreciate it if we can be kept apprised. Sure. Okay. All right. Any other questions? Seeing none. All right. Thank you. Okay. We'll go on to our next work session report, which is 3B, Received Report, Hold Discussion, Executive Staff Direction Regarding Emergency Credit Collection Measures and Reopening Strategy. Mayor, Council, Krista Foster, and Council Member, I'm sorry. Mayor, Council, Krista Foster, Customer Service Manager. Give me one moment to get this pulled up. And I'm coming in to give you guys a little bit of an update on where we are with credit and collections and some of the outstanding balances that have been accumulating since the COVID pandemic began. So I'm going to start with kind of reviewing all of the active accounts that have past due balances, look at where we are in the current state, and a proposed reopening plan as we move back into kind of our new normals. Then we're going to look at other collections activities primarily related to closed and finalized accounts, looking again at the current state and what we're proposing in terms of reopening our business models. Then we're going to look at the customer service recommendations, and I'll have an update on other collections activities. So during the pandemic response, the first thing that we did is suspension of any collection activities on active accounts. We've charged no late fees or interest since March 1st, and we've had no interruptions of service since March 13th. We are no longer taking any kind of collections activities on closed accounts, so no customer is receiving a call or a letter. We've done no referrals to outside collection agencies. We have, however, gone to many great lengths to make sure that all customers who have contacted us during this time are able to get utility service access. So we have not denied anyone services. In addition to what customer service has done internally, we also as a city have partnered with the United Way to give a helpline that residents and businesses can call to get referrals and answers to questions related to the CARES Act. Businesses, they actually have subject matter experts who are volunteering their time to help answer business owner questions. So if it's not something that's very simple, we're actually, United Way is actually working with those experts to get assistance to them. We've also added $100,000 in emergency COVID funding to the United Way. Of those funds, $48,000 are remaining available for assistance for utilities and housing, and we've assisted 86 families thus far through the pandemic. An additional $50,000 in emergency relief was issued to interfaith ministries, which brings our current year total to $185.5 thousand that we've allowed to go to interfaith ministries. During March and April, 68 families have received assistance, and there is still $112,000 remaining for our residents to receive assistance on their utility bills. Part of the reason that we're here discussing this with you today is because with state and city charter, municipal utilities are prohibited from forgiving any form of utility costs. So if we're continuing to allow these balances to grow unchecked, we're placing our customers in an even more tenuous situation by not having the ability to recover once things go back to normal. So we're going to look at the delinquent accounts. This is looking straight at accounts that are currently eligible for interruption of service. There are 2,600 accounts on the post-pay programs that could be interrupted if we reinstated that today. That is approximately 4.5% of our accounts. You can see the dollar amount at the $921,000 mark, where normally we run in about the $200,000 range on a monthly basis. The $921,000 is purely the past due balances. Once you look at any customer who is eligible for interruption and their total past due and current balances, that reaches $1.5 million. We have 29 residential and multi-family accounts that have current charges and past due of over $1,000, and we have some that are nearing $2,000. We have 175 accounts that have made no payments in over 90 days, and we have 215 past due accounts which have never made a payment. Did you, I'm sorry, what do you mean by that, the last one, the 216? The 215? It means that from the time that 215 of our customers initiated service, they currently have a past due balance and they've never made a single payment toward their utility costs. Okay. All right. Of our prepaid customers, 160 of our prepaid customers are currently eligible for interruption payments. It is nearing 30% of our prepaid accounts. It accounts for $22,000 in overdue payments, and 41 of those accounts have over $200 due, and we do have several of our prepaid customers who are nearing $500 due. And again, you can see in terms of the impact that is versus our month over month, it's fairly significant. So we're looking at trying to phase in a 60-day plan. If it was reinstated June 1st, then we would recommend that in the month of June, we would simply provide a message on all past due bills. We would send the courtesy and friendly calls, but instead of the standard message, it would simply let customers know that they have past due balances. If they still have a past due balance on the July bill, they would be eligible for interruption, that they should call to work on payment arrangements. The type of payment arrangements we're planning to work within is first we would like to try to help someone move toward the pay as you go, because if they have a deposit, that will immediately help to relieve the outstanding balances and bring them closer to current, so it would put them in a better position. If the customer is not wanting to go to the pay as you go program, that we will work with them to work within a six-month window for a payment plan to get them back on track. And if they need more than six months of time, then we would require that they go onto the pay as you go program so that they can pay much smaller amounts of that debt back and give them a greater length of time. We will still encourage customers to contact Interfaith or the United Way for assistance, because lots of funds are still available, and we would process no interruptions, we would assess no fees, and no interest. I also wanted to make sure that everyone does understand, at the point a customer makes an arrangement on their account, the balances that are part of that arrangement are not eligible for fees and interest, so they would never receive late fees on a valid pay agreement. In the month of July, of course, we would still continue encouraging customers to reach out for assistance as needed. We would return to a normal bill message, and we would do interruption of services for past due balances. Unlike normal, where we would expect that once you're interrupted, you would need to take care of paying up front all of your past due balance, we will allow them, at that point, if they hadn't made contact with us before, the opportunity to be restored with a pay agreement so that we can get them back on track. And because we're wanting to get all of these customers on their agreements so that they can get current, we're not going to assess fees or interest in July. But then, as we move into August, on top of continuing to encourage them to look for assistance as needed, we would go back to the normal processes that we have traditionally done, and fees and interest would be assessed for any new past due balances or interruptions. Do we want to stop for questions, just in case? How many more slides do you have? Looks like there's maybe five. Let's just go ahead and finish it out, and then we'll come back. All right. Yep. So on other account collections, the activities that we do on closed accounts is once a bill is produced and the final bill is due, for instance, the ones that we have in January, 16 days later, we're giving them an automated call, letting them know that their bill is past due and they need to take care of it, then we go out and send the collection letter allowing them the opportunity to call in and either pay or make an arrangement on that balance before we would send them out to collection at 90 days. So you can see any of the areas that are the dates that are read. These are target areas that have already been missed for customers whose final bill was due in January, February, or March. So you can also see on the right-hand side, the total count of accounts and the total dollars outstanding. So you can see the difference that that automated call and the collection letter makes in terms of helping people to remember that they need to take care of those balances. And finally, we have return payments that we have not done interruptions for. We have $32,000 in outstanding return payments with two-thirds of those being commercial payments. For a 60-day plan on non-active collections or non-active account collections, for return checks in June, we're just going to send the standard return check letter, but we would not interrupt them. But we would begin interruptions for return payments in July. For the collection activities on closed accounts, even though the January and February customers did receive a collection letter, I would recommend that in June, we send another collection letter letting them know that they would be going out to the collection agency, and then on July 31st, send those balances out. For the March and April customers, then we would do courtesy calls in June, collection letters in July, and send the collections on the noted dates. Then with balances, final balances due in May, we would return back to our normal operational processes. So our recommendations is that we recommend a phased reintroduction that we would like to begin June 1st, that we would only do courtesy contacts throughout the month of June, that interruptions of service and collection agency referrals would not begin until July, and fees and interest would resume in August, as would regular normal operations, that we would be offering pay agreements for up to six months for post-paid accounts and utilize pay as you go debt recovery for longer arrangement needs, and obviously handling other situations on a case by case. We did take this to the Public Utilities Board yesterday, and they supported the recommendation, but they additionally recommended that we may want to do separate consideration of accounts that have past due balances prior to March 13th, and to those where they've never made a payment to their account. Then just real quickly, I had owed you a follow-up on debt performance right about the time this hit, and so I wanted to make sure that I at least provided that back to you. COVID impacts were not going to be reflected until at least six months from now, because that's the process for write-offs, and it looks like right now the debt growth has slowed somewhat, but we're still monitoring it very closely. As I look at the trend within the bad debt, as well as the trend within late fees and interruptions prior to March, you can see the same forms of trend, and they follow the same rise in customer base in our pay as you go program, so it looks like early on that may be a positive indicator, but it's not quite definitive yet, so we're going to continue monitoring that. We still recommend continuing our current deposit and collections processes so we can focus on the growth of pay as you go as a debt containment strategy that doesn't put undue financial burden on customers. And then for other departmental collections, just to make sure that we are providing a consistent approach throughout the city, I've been working with Fire, EMS, and with the municipal court to try to streamline our reopening, Fire and EMS did suspend all outside collection activities in April and are able to follow whatever reintroduced practices customer service follows. Municipal court, on the other hand, falls under the jurisdiction of the Office of Court Administration and the judge. Court proceedings were already suspended by OCA and they're not allowed to reopen until at least June 1st, and at that point they will be following the recommendations of the OCA and the direction of the judge. Okay, we could pull the slide down and then we'll ask for questions if we need to. We'll go back to the slide. Yes, Councilmember Davis? So this may be getting at what the PUB was recommending, but on those 215 counts that never made a payment, do we have a general sense of when most of those accounts were opened? I mean, surely they're mostly before the March 13th onset of the COVID closures? I don't have the specific numbers on that in front of me. I can pull those and have them sent over to you. A lot of them were prior to the March 13th. And then I think you said the PUB's recommendation was to adopt the staff recommendation, but with some changes for what I just mentioned and then also the accounts that went, can you clarify that for me, accounts that were already past due when we were in January and February and before the closures? Correct. The accounts that already have had no payment in more than 90 days means that the balances were already present prior to the changes related to the pandemic. Thank you. Councilmember Riggs? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Krista, for your presentation. And I really like the phased approach. I think it's the way to go. I do have a couple of questions. Councilmember Davis asked the one of them that I had about the 215 customers. So how many prepaid customers do we have now? We have 586. Okay. So that's a pretty good number. We've increased that. I saw the number that was behind and so I didn't know what percentage that was. Now on the Mayor Pro Tem asked earlier about utility payments and how frequently someone can get help with the interfaith ministries. Do you know if they can do it two times a month or every month? Or what is the... Interfaith is able to provide assistance twice in a 12-month period of time and they can cover up to two months of bills and/or a deposit. Now I will say that for the $50,000 that was added for the emergency funding, because that's COVID-related, they have had the ability to loosen some of the financial income restrictions so that it can impact and support a greater number of people. That's kind of my next follow-up question to you because we just heard about funds that we were going to get. And if we can prove... I mean, if this is directly COVID-related, the federal money can be used to... Can the federal money be used to help with this debt? We are currently investigating that. We've got a team set up that's going to be working with a team from Louisville in creating a framework and a formal request for both cities. But I think, to be honest, I think the county is waiting for us to build this framework to sort of assess it and then kind of figure out how they're going to spend it. So I wouldn't take for granted that any of these costs are necessarily automatically eligible. We will build and defend the model that we think we can explain simply and get their feedback on it. But right now, we... Until they assess our request, we don't know how they're going to view it. Okay. And Krista, just... Mayor, just a couple more. Sure. On the commercial versus residential, do we know the percentage of delinquent accounts? I think I heard you say something about commercial, but it was collection activity. So I didn't see anything specific on delinquent accounts. Sure. Right now, of the 2,600 accounts that are past due, 14% of that is commercial. Of the balances that are owed, and that 921,000, about 41% of that balance is actually commercial funds. So 41% of the balance? Yeah. It's about $378,000 is commercial. So that more than likely could be attributed to what we have going on right now, I think. Okay. Well, thank you very much. And I'm okay with your recommendations. Council Member Meltzer. I definitely appreciate the input of PUB and the client to look at that group that really has less to do with COVID-19 to look at them differently. I'm supportive of the idea of the phased approach and the general structure, but I would suggest that the messaging might be a little different, let's say, in the next 60 days. You're not talking about sort of garden variety delinquent behavior. We've extended this liberality, and now we've got to reel it back in. I would just suggest that the language shouldn't really talk about eligible for shutoff, but that you just say even to be glad to have been able to extend, to not charge during this period of time, not to not charge, but we've been happy to have been able to help during this time, but now we need you to contact us so we can work out payment arrangements to get you back on track, period. That's great feedback. No charge for that. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Barmiter. So a number of things. First, I want to say that I, too, prefer the phased approach. I think that's fair, although to me, June 1st feels rather soon. I'd be curious to know why that date was chosen. I do feel that because government is the one, not just city government but at the county, state, and federal level as well, since we're the ones telling businesses that you can't operate for public safety, since we're the ones telling people to shelter at home, because we're a government utility that is owned by the people, I do feel a special responsibility to, you know, not expect them to pay with money that they haven't made because of our actions. So that's just how I see it. I also support the Public Utility Board recommendation that these two different kinds of delinquent accounts be treated separately, you know, the pre-March 13th and the post-March 13th. I want to say that I'm very heartened to hear and excited because you know that I love Pay As You Go, and you know that I hate our credit-based deposit system. I've made no secret of either. So I'm really happy to see that, as I was predicting and hoping but did not know, that the Pay As You Go would do a better job of paying down our debt. I realize it's too early to get too excited about it, but it does make sense because people can't pay money that they don't have, no matter how much you charge them. So I hope to see, and will be very interested to see the numbers as we go, of how many people moving to Pay As You Go we have. I've been trying to promote it as best as I can, especially as we phase things out. So again, I want to know about the June 1st and why the June 1st. I would also like to see that for those people who have had to move apartments, who have left their apartments and/or are going to be soon for whatever reason, but related to COVID, I would hope that we could also have a grace period or an extension of some kind on the new payment that's required to people when they change residences to start up a new account. It's something that homeowners don't necessarily know so much about because homeowners tend to move less, but every time you move into a new apartment, you need to pay a fee to start up a new DME account instead of having the account transfer with you. So I would like to see us move towards that period, and I've mentioned that before, but if we can't, people don't want to change the policy now, at least I would like to have that factored into the phased in approach, if that makes sense. And then finally, it's no secret that I don't think that utilities should be shut off for anyplace where there are people living, especially under COVID, but again, I've always felt that way. I'm not going to belabor the point now. I'll let Chris answer the second question, but the first one in terms of June, it was simply about trying to control the trending of the delinquent payments in the last three months. As you can see, we've gone from a little under $200,000 outstanding to almost a million, and another 30 to 60 days of this, you're going to be pushing two million. And it gets a point where people get so far behind on their bills that they just don't pay. And so we're trying to control that behavior and not have to raise rates on everyone else if we can't bring that past due balance into some reasonable amount there, or at least keep it static. So that was the reason to not continue seeing that upward trending there. And I think it's more to try to help folks say the more we don't make people pay, we're seeing a lot of folks there just taking us up and not paying anything because they know that there's going to be no shutoff. And that's really, the discussion is, is that really fair to the rest of the rate base? And thank you. And so pay as you go is a great solution to that for people who aren't already on it to come back to paying on pay as you go. I would like to, I'm sure staff is already thinking this way already, but that when it comes to this federal money that we can't use for a city debt reduction, if we give that money to people, for utilities, either through some third party or however, then as I understand it, that would be a reasonable use. And if it ends up being paid back to us, because now people can pay their utility bill and they're getting utility assistance, then it would indirectly have that effect of debt reduction. So we should think of as far as overall economic health, the ways in which we can follow that rule and just through having a healthier economy by helping people, it will lead to debt reduction, that plus the pay as you go. So as we answer to Councilmember Briggs, we've been keeping meticulous records, payroll records, expenses, all the programs that have been set up. We've got all that ready to go. We'll go ahead and put together a proposal for the county. It's ultimately their decision on how they're going to assess the request from the cities within the county. If that becomes an eligible expense, we'll see what we can do about working that through and be back to you to refine this process. But I just don't want to draw any conclusions right now and guess at how they're going to be assessing that pot of money and all the municipalities requests. A lot of us have different programs that have been set up. A lot of us have different kinds of expenses and there's X amount of dollars. They're already starting to set up programs on their own, which means it's not all coming back to the municipalities. So as we get additional information over the next few weeks, we will certainly come back to you with it. And if this is an opportunity to maybe rethink this particular area, we'll certainly share it with you. We just cannot commit to you right now that that's going to be something that's acceptable to the county. We know that if they've got $140 million, they may end up with $300 million of requests. We just don't know at this point. Thank you. Council Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. One quick question or a few quick questions. On though, well, let's start with the return check payments. Can you walk me through staff's kind of position because there's no reason to do that. That's why I'm more apt to reach out to them. We're not disconnecting. We weren't requiring payment. So there's no reason to write a bad check. You know, and so I just want to understand why we wouldn't at least take some action to that group to say, Hey, this wasn't necessary. We're not disconnecting. We're not. Here's an avenue to work with you on these. So just segregating out that return check segment. What are our thoughts on why we wouldn't contact them now? Well, as a general rule throughout the community, we have put very, very strong message out that we don't call trying to collect funds and do those things with your account because of the number of people that have been masking city phone numbers and making calls saying, Hey, we're your electric company. You owe us money. Give me your credit card. So we're very hesitant to do that. Um, and as we weren't doing an interruption anyway, you know, we can't give them definite timelines. That's part of the same thing with, um, why we need to get back into normal practice. I can't help someone get back on track with a formal arrangement if we're not moving back to normal because they're continuing to build balances and I would have to continue trying to reach out and figure out what new balances would have to go in an arrangement. Um, so it's very similar to that. Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Good, good perspective. And I guess so those if I'm fine with, uh, pub and staffs recommendation, if there's a push to push that back, uh, which I don't think there's a majority, but if there were, then I would take exception to those, to the group that has the final bill due. Uh, that to me is a concerning group just as the return check payments group. Uh, I, I, so those two just for what it's worth. Uh, and then I had a suggestion going forward, uh, because the way it's laid out, you put people live in the middle of the summer in July where we're back at it. And so I would advocate that we almost in that letter that says we're, we're ramping back up, provide the customer with a estimated bill or estimated amount they paid last July or even if it's a resident. So, so then, and so it's, Hey, we're getting back on track. Here's the things going forward. We're back live in July and last July your bill was X amount. And I'd almost advocate for giving them the kind of the full month of July, uh, you know, split it up almost a, I guess better, better said, here's your estimated bill in July. Please contact us if you want to make arrangement payment arrangements. So we have guaranteed payment for July to stagger it into two pieces or something. I know you're talking about a payment arrangement that they can make for six months. My, I guess my only concern is that we give people advance notice of, Hey, this is the middle of the summer. And traditionally this is how much your residents pay. And if you want to make a payment arrangement, if you can't catch up on the past due and whether the storm of this amount, please contact us to make a payment arrangement and we can kind of walk them through July so that we're, we're flush and back up and running as normal in August, which is another big month. So after August, September are obviously going to be the highest bills. And so trying to ramp them, give people time to ramp up to those coming out of this in the two busiest months of the year. Sure. And we, that's a great suggestion. We can go ahead and look at some of the opportunities. It may not be something we can place on their bill, but it may be something we could do as a separate letter campaign. So we will look into that. Thank you. And then I'm going to go ahead and answer council member Armenters other question. And not necessarily the question you asked, because if you guys are interested, I mean, we can certainly bring something back to where you can discuss things related to the deposits and the process with that. Um, so if council does desire to do that, then we'll be more than happy to provide that information. But I did want to make sure that it's clear that right now of all of the outstanding balances and customers that are impacted in, um, past due accounts, only, uh, 17% of our balances are multifamily. It is still going to be close to 30% of the customers, but it is a much lower balance amount. Right now we only have a couple of, um, multifamilies that are high, but we do have one, one multifamily account that is nearing $2,000 in total charges. And that's one of the reasons that we did want to move toward that June date. You know, Todd answered that beautifully, but you know, for us, we're looking at that rate of growth and looking at the point of where is the breaking point for these customers. I can't just let your balance go, but we want to make sure we can help them. Council member Briggs, when a situation is, is that, is that much, do we reach out and give the customer information on where they can find help to pay their utility bill? Or, I mean, is there, is there a process by which somebody can do that or do they have to reach out on their own? Um, any point where they contact us, then we're absolutely sharing that information. During the pandemic, we've actually created some email templates that have attachments already on them for all of the different assistance agencies that we've received, you know, assistance from on behalf of residents. And you know, we are proactively sending that when a customer indicates, yes, they're interested in the information. So those are conversations we have, but again, we don't do like proactive call out campaigns so that we can help make sure that customers are not confused when it comes to someone who's not the city representing themselves as such. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. Council member Meltzer. Either in that note, the template or in the kind of consultative process when you're working on payment arrangements, um, and possibly referring them to something like interfaith ministries, have we included a dialogue about whether the person has applied for unemployment benefits or not? I feel like I keep running into people who didn't realize that they would qualify, didn't realize how much it is, didn't realize that it would go all the way back to, you know, March 13th. Uh, and, you know, they could very well bring themselves current if they, uh, if they went ahead and did that. My staff would not give recommendations or information related to unemployment because we're not going to understand enough about it and we don't want to give misinformation. Um, but we are absolutely making sure that they know that if they have been financially impacted because of COVID, that there is a greater amount of assistance that's available to them. Again, part of the wanting to go earlier than later is right now we do still have so many funds available to help get some of these folks back on track before the balances go sky high. Um, so let me just, if I could interject, let me just suggest that in that piece of the dialogue that we refer them to the United Way team that, um, is, is serving as a navigator to help people figure that out. Uh, I just, you know, I think back on the, uh, uh, young man who called in for public comment on an unrelated item, uh, talking about his anxiety about paying rent in the, uh, he'd been furloughed by UNT and the mayor asked him if he had looked into unemployment and he said, you know, after like a long talk about how worried he was about rent, he said, well, that's, yeah, that's something I have to look into. You know, I just think, I just think it's not a routine go to place for people. Well, I will say that, um, we have been working with communications for a, kind of a blurb in the citizen connection for the upcoming one on the pay as you go and how it can help with the debt recovery. And also in that mentioned both the United Way for referrals on heavy health, as well as interfaith ministries, um, in the event that a customer has experienced a hardship, but we can definitely, uh, start working on making sure that we're pushing some of that message. Great. Thanks. Any other questions? I've just got a couple. Any others? All right. So I'm looking at slide five of 14. I just want to understand. I mean, I see all the specific details. Um, so right now our, um, yeah. Oh, I'll get it. Okay. Right there. Uh, one prior. No, is that, is it that one? Is that slide five? Yes. Okay. So the, what do those graphs, right? Okay. FY 19 and FY 20. I couldn't see that on my screen for some reason. All right. And what this is telling me is, so this is different than the amount of uncollected debt that we have. Correct. These are just past. Do you know just, I mean, if you don't have it, that's fine. What the amount of our uncollected debt is. I missed it. I missed it in the back. Um, we looked at the past, but again, anything related to the pandemic bills that would be, you know, accounts that would finalize in March, it's going to be six months before we will know what those outstanding balances. Yes. No, I appreciate that. I was thinking before we entered into that period in March, you know, we have before then, do we, did we have a, uh, an idea of what the, the bat, the debt performance is? So, um, yes, we ended the year, um, at about $493,000 where we had anticipated we could have gone as high as, you know, five, six, 700, but you can see through, you know, from June, July, August, September, that this year's uncollectible debt went down over the previous year. Um, so we are trending a little on the downward side, not quite in a place where I would say that we should be comfortable enough to just not worry about it or monitor it, but it does appear to somewhat be stabilizing. Okay. And then on that slide five, what, what I'm hearing you say is right now we've got, and this is all, this is all delinquent accounts, the bad debts not included in this. These are delinquent accounts, commercial, residential, anything is as of May is, uh, approaching $1 million. Correct. And it looks like it's, uh, um, let's see for the month of April, it looked like the largest jump was in February to March. Of course. When did we Institute the non shut off declaration March 13th? Is that the first one we did? Okay. Uh, so this graph of March where we see from February to March, and that looks like it's about 600 and maybe $25,000. Um, is that do these dots on these months represent the first of the month? It represents the end of the month represents the end of the month and then current the end of the month and then correct. Okay, gotcha. All right. So it seems like our, the payment delinquency has at least for the last 30 days, sort of flattened a little, um, a little bit. Yeah. Now when you say multifamily, uh, you can, you can pull that screen down. Thank you. I appreciate that. So in the past, what has been the percentage of our delinquent accounts that turn into bad debt or that is not a number I have in front of me. I'll be more than happy to get that number though. Yeah. Cause it's just, it'd be interesting if, you know, let's say 20 or 30% does then when we're looking at a million dollars to see if that, if that pans out when we're talking about multifamily delinquencies, are you talking about people who are living the residents living in each individual apartment? Are you talking about a multifamily owner like let's say pays for water or electricity or something like that for the complex and it's their bill that's is referred to in these multifamily accounts. Multifamily is any individual apartment. Okay. All right. So whether that's the landlord who might be paying the bill or whether that's the apartment dweller, it's, it's the apartment is what's there. Okay. All right. Um, I'm, I'm okay with the, uh, the phased approach. I think it's going to be, um, I mean, we knew we would have to get to this point at some time. And I think that it's important because like council member Meltzer, I mean, I've had, I just say it, I mean, I've had some people that I do business with who were unaware of the unemployment benefits and that, you know, they didn't apply because they thought that they weren't enough, you know, given the normal unemployment benefits that the state is paying. And once they found out the information, really information is key here. And I know we've got it plastered everywhere we can. So I just truly try to just tell people personally like that young man that called, uh, that one time. I mean, there was a perfect example. We spent, you know, 20 or 30 minutes talking to him about things, but then it's finally like, Oh, have you, have you thought about this or have you done this? And that's really what we can offer people. So I'm, I'm in support of the phased in approach and with, uh, pubs recommendation. I'm a little, I'm a little concerned with people who have on those accounts that have not paid one thing, would you say the majority or most of those were opened prior to our March 13th order? Yes. Um, if you open your account in March, you would build sometime in April. So your bills would just be becoming due and turning into past due. Okay. Well, one thing I do know is that, uh, customer service historically and just time and time again has done what they can do to help our customers. Uh, I mean, obviously we can't forgive debt. We can't say, well, you owe us $700 and you know what? Kings X, you don't need to pay it, but we certainly can find ways to work out an arrangement that's a win-win for both the city utilities and for, uh, the residents. Now, if people, you know, have an interruption or if people move and to address the moving issue, it's my understanding. So correct me if I'm wrong. And we're not talking about deposits transferring because sometimes deposits can transfer if there's not a delinquent bill left at the old account. Uh, the connection fee is how much for residential and how much for multifamily Um, it's the same for both, but it is $26. Okay. So that's really the additional, I mean, if I moved from one apartment to the other and I'm in good standing with the utility company, number one, I may not have to pay a deposit or my deposit may transfer over, but that's really the hard costs associated with, uh, the move is that $26 fee for, um, just turning on the account. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Yeah. I'm okay with, uh, staff's recommendations together with PB recommendations. Council member Ryan, did you have any comments that you wanted to add to this? No, I'm okay with those recommendations. All right. Is there anyone that that's, uh, hold on just a second. Council member, is there anyone that's, uh, or how many of us are okay with the staff recommendation and, um, pubs recommendation just to get, to get a consensus. Okay. Raise your hands. Okay. All right. Uh, all right. So council member armature real quick, we have a consensus to move forward in that direction. So, uh, if you'll just take the last second question. Um, so I really, uh, yeah, I just gave a mixed review because there are some things I love about this, other things I really don't like other things. Um, so, so, but, uh, again, this, to the members of the public who are watching now is a really good time to start looking into pay as you go where there are $25 minimum credit balance is all that's needed to restore services. And I just wanted to get confirmation from Krista that can small businesses, uh, do pay as you go to, um, a couple of things. First, it's a $50 minimum credit. That's about for a lot of users, that's about three to five days of service. Um, but it is not open to small business or to businesses at this time. Okay. Thank you. That's right. So, so it's $50 to open, but then once your balance, but to start it back up, you need a $25. Um, if $50 minimum to open the account and then you'll receive your daily notifications on your balances. If you reach a negative balance, you'll receive notification. The following day you would be interrupted and you to be restored. All you would ever have to pay is a $25 balance plus what you were in the negative. And if you have debt recovery, your debt recovery portion of that, instead of having a $400 restore, you're like a $35 or $40. Thank you. And so I want to, um, really plead, you know, with my colleagues to consider opening up the pay as you go to our small businesses because they need it right now. And the fact that they are, if I'm understanding correctly that 40% of that uncollected, uh, no, sorry, 40% of the accounts that are subject, that would be subject to shut off. Is that correct? I'm kind of mixing up my statistics, but a big percentage more than usual are our businesses. And so I think we really need to, even if only temporarily consider opening it up to pay as you go, because pay as you go will help, uh, residents get back on track. Um, and I don't, I, I feel like there's not a similar thing, uh, safety net, if you will, that's a sustainable plan for businesses, small businesses. So I'm worried about that. Unfortunately, um, businesses aren't eligible, not because of a council direction, but because of a metering and billing situation, the way that the, they have only a single phase meter can be placed on the program and businesses use a much larger meter and we can't place them on the program for that reason, because we can't build them accurately. And thank you. And I would love to know, I, I know that I'm not the one to come up with it, but I know that I would love for our creative minds, um, uh, and staff, if there's a will on council to try to think about how something similar, uh, could, could be made a similar kind of program using the meters that we, the metering system we have for businesses. Council Member Armitage, I would suggest just making that, uh, one of the council requests for a minute. Uh, and then, you know, you can get, uh, you can get information on that. Okay. Any, anything else on this agenda item? So I think the direction is to move forward with staff recommendation and PUB recommendation. Let's take a five minute break. We'll come back and start into our internal audit reports. Okay. We're back with the Denton City Council on May the 12th, 2020. The time is five oh eight and we're moving now through our work session reports. We are on agenda item three C, which is receive a report, hold the discussion and yes, give staff direction regarding an internal audit of capital projects, administration, planning and design. Okay. Hello. Madison Rorschach, a staff auditor for the city. Um, and I'm here to present our audits, uh, capital projects administration. So pull up the first presentation. So let's begin. So do the size and complexity of the capital projects process. Um, we've divided this audit into three reports. Uh, the first one is planning and design. Uh, second is property acquisition and the third is construction. I'm going to cover all of these reports to get today, but I'm going to start with planning and design. Uh, so as the title suggests, this report focuses on the planning and design processes of four capital improvement project programs, as shown in the slide. This presentation will focus on the following three areas. Uh, the first, uh, the project planning process, second, the design review process and third, the procurement process for design services. So in order to evaluate the adequacy of project planning processes, we reviewed all the amendments made to the selected CIP programs, design agreements while amendments may sometimes be necessary. They may also indicate potential issues in the planning process. Um, so as you can see from the figure, the majority of amendments were caused by planning issues in the previous administration's processes. These issues generally included delays in construction due to underfunding redesigns, due to inadequately planned scope and additional work that should have been anticipated, uh, such as asbestos services when demolishing houses or testing of construction materials. Similarly, the current engineering department had to issue second design agreements for three projects, uh, in order to correct planning issues in the original agreements. That being said, we did find some planning issues in the current engineering department's planning process. These can generally be broken into two categories. Uh, the first is the addition of right of way acquisition services to several contracts. This was caused by unanticipated staffing shortages and the real estate division, um, which also manages property acquisitions for the entire city and not just engineering department. And two supervisory issues caused by a lack of established communication processes between project managers and engineering management. These two issues generally appear to have been resolved. Um, engineering has begun better planning for right of way acquisitions and has established needed communication processes within the department. These communication processes should ensure that project scope decisions are made at the appropriate level and that the required documentation is maintained. Now for design, uh, the current engineering department has implemented a 30, 60, 90 design review process, which requires stakeholder review at 30, 60 and 90% of the design. Documentation of stakeholder reviews has increased with the implementation of this process. However, not all required reviews were available. The involvement of stakeholders in the design process is, is essential to ensure that the product meets the needs of the users and that the construction process runs smoothly. Without proper documentation, it may be difficult to determine if all stakeholder comments have been adequately addressed, which could adversely impact the quality of the product. Uh, now I'll discuss procurement. The professional services procurement act of the Texas government code requires governmental entities to follow the process shown on the right side of the slide, uh, when contracting for the professional services of an engineer. The city has currently complied or compiled a pre-qualified design consultant list based on, um, vendors RFQ responses. Engineering services then reevaluates the list to determine who the most highly qualified provider is for each project. We found that there is no documentation of why the selected consultant was considered the most highly qualified, uh, for some of the projects reviewed without documentation. Uh, there is less assurance that the current procurement practice complies with state law. This being said, uh, we found that all reviewed design agreements and their amendments were appropriately approved, um, by the city council, um, and the city manager based on the applicable policies and regulations. Uh, finally we evaluated the budgeting and performance reporting processes for each project. While many of the projects reviewed were originally under budgeted by the previous administration, the current administration has implemented a budgeting process for new projects that appears to be effective. The city is also adequately evaluating its capacity for new debt issue, uh, new debt before issuance. Finally, the department has made significant changes to the monitoring and evaluation of the performance of capital improvement projects. While these changes are likely to improve the department's effectiveness, uh, they had not currently been in place long enough for us to determine if they were, um, operating effectively. For this reason, we recommended that, that the department continue developing these processes, um, which will be evaluated during our follow-up work. So in summary, uh, we made a total of seven recommendations and the department can, uh, fully concurred with six of them and partially concurred with the remaining one. Based on management's responses, we believe all the recommendations will be appropriately addressed. Uh, however, this will be verified in the follow-up report. So now I'll open the floor to questions for this audit. Sure. If we could, uh, yeah, pull the presentation. There we go. Thank you. Uh, thank you. Councilmember Briggs, I think I saw your hand. Um, and this, this may not be a question for Madison. It may be, but who is supposed to make review comments? Because I saw in the percentages on both of those listed, um, from, from the older, older staff to this, there was an, uh, an increase, but it still wasn't, uh, as significant. So is that something that y'all looked at or is it something that is an issue that is being addressed? This taught us to city engineer. So all of these projects have been reviewed internally. So it's generally through the water, wastewater department, streets and drainage are in all on in the house engineering staff. It also does that review to make sure that the consultant plans confer conform to what we would have put out in the field. It's also public works inspections engaged. In our opinion, what, what you're seeing the most, and I'll let Madison chime in as to what her feelings and interpretations were. We didn't document that as well as we could have. Um, and we need to make sure that that does happen going forward. And those are the things we're putting in place now. Okay. Okay. Council member Amater. Yeah. If you could go back to the last slide that had all the recommendations and then that concur the concurrence or partial or partial concurrence. I wanted to ask. So yeah, the number, so for number seven on the following the state regulations that you were just talking about, um, there's partially concur. And by the way, since this is, it's a response from management, I'd be happy to hear from, from management or the audit or, or, uh, from Madison, whoever would, would rather speak about it. But does that partially concur mean that there's partial concurrence that this is a problem that needs to be addressed? And, you know, if, if so, I'm wondering if that could just be flipped out a little. I just want to make sure I understand what, what that partial concurrence is, what's being agreed on and, and what it means that that, um, that particular item is, is, is in flux. It's been amended moving forward based upon the input of the internal auditor. There was initially a process a couple of years ago, if you recall, where the, uh, the capital projects department asked council to, um, basically ratify a number of engineering firms that have been pre-qualified by discipline. I think the step that had been missed or, you know, or they wanted better evaluated was that even though you've got, uh, disciplines that have been vetted and approved, there still needs to be a kind of a pocket process set up for lack of a better way of explaining it and documenting why those firms might be chosen. Who was, you know, who's reached out to and why they were chosen, even though they were pre-qualified. So because of the input of the internal auditor, because of their internal and external review of legal, we've been able to, to kind of pivot again, to make sure that we're more in compliance with whatever, but all three areas would consider best practices. So it's just another area where it's, um, it, it's changed and evolved over time because of various ways of looking at it. But the idea had been trying to get speed, spending more time getting projects to design less time, um, going through RFQ processes. I think everybody's kind of met in the middle and will be ready for the next round of, uh, auditing here in the next couple of years to see how it's going, but that's really what it meant. Okay. Thank you so much. That's helpful. And if I could just add, I think Todd did an excellent job explaining, um, their, their response as far as I understand it. And I think based on the management response, I think, uh, we'll be satisfied when we come back in a year or so to look at what they've developed. So, okay. Um, I thought I saw another hand. Councilman Briggs is your hand up. Go ahead. It is, but I was waiting to see if anyone else had a comment. Anybody else have a comment or question? Okay. Seeing none. Oh, Paul, Councilmember Astor did you? It's not more, I don't know why that'd be more urgent than Kelly's, but well, yeah, go ahead. Just an observation that, uh, I mean, I appreciate all of a sudden, especially the fact that there was concurrence on the, uh, with the observations, uh, but just as a stylistic point for me talking about this was past administration and this is current administration reflects, uh, over much concern with who might be considered at fault. I'd rather hear about this practice wasn't good. This other practice is better. That's for me. Okay. I think, I think moving forward, that's, that's a fair comment. And I think moving forward, that's probably more of what you're going to see. Todd and his staff have spent his entire tenure here trying to get those 2012 and 14 and 2005 projects kind of pulled up process is fixed and put in place. So at some point now that we've turned the corner and started to get caught up, he owns this and so do I. So I think your, your point's well taken. I feel your pain. Yeah. Okay. Councilmember breaks. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you Councilmember Metzler for, uh, for saying that that's something that I was going to bring up too, but, and this, this may be, um, then and now, but the, there was an issue still from what I read about, um, the actual purchase, leaving out the, um, right away and amending that in different, um, projects. Is that, how are we addressing that? Is that something that, um, we're looking into now to, to fix? Is that a consultant issue or is that a, a design where, where is that coming in? It's purely a management issue. Uh, moving forward, we've built in design, uh, right away acquisition, inflation factors. Those were huge selling points. We just made to the 2019 bond committee, uh, variables that have been overlooked. And when you compound inflationary costs on them, why we've seen those 2012 and $14, uh, in timelines get eroded so fast. So that's again, another area where staff has spent the last couple of years, kind of, uh, I guess the engineering, lack of a better way of putting it, our processes and putting it back together, we lose a ton of time when the right away is not ready to go. Um, the design is not ready to go and the pre-qualified contractors aren't. So it's just areas that Todd and the staff are fixing moving forward so we can keep, we can keep our timelines and costs more under control. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Anybody else? Okay. Want to move on to the next report? All right. Uh, so then, uh, the next report covers the property acquisition process. Uh, so we evaluated controls over the property acquisition process, including compliance with applicable laws. Uh, this function is primarily managed by the real estate division, um, of, of engineering services and about $2.7 million in property was acquired for their construction projects during 2018 and 2019. And I just want to point out in the previous presentation, there were those four kinds of programs that we were focusing on for this particular report. Uh, we were not focusing on those programs. They were at some points included, but because of the way real estate works, it's just, um, more property parcels than just those, those programs were involved. So the property acquisition process, uh, can be simplified into three steps. Uh, first, the division must perform due diligence and have an appraisal conducted in order to learn more about the property and make a, and prepare an offer. Second, they negotiate for the property, which could result in the use of eminent domain. And finally, the property is acquired and capitalized through the project closeout process. In general, we found that the property acquisition process complies with all applicable laws. Uh, in addition, current real estate management have improved the tracking of acquisition projects and develop procedures to report progress back to the project managers in engineering. A formalization of these acquisition procedures and policies has also improved communication between real estate and engineering. This being said, uh, some of the new processes had not been fully implemented. In particular, the new policies requiring a service requisition form to begin the acquisition process was missing in several cases. Um, these policies include, uh, sending a project introduction letter to individuals whose properties will be acquired. Uh, that documentation was missing as well in some cases. Um, and so these documents should improve communication between real estate, the project manager, um, and affected residents. Um, so additionally, the city had not established required qualifications for appraisers. Establishing these qualifications, um, will ensure consistency and appraisal practices in the future. And it's my understanding that real estate has begun developing these qualifications, these appraiser qualifications, uh, through the procurement process. Um, so despite the development of the new processes, uh, negotiation with property owners was largely left to the discretion of real estate staff, which out, without much formalized direction. While flexibility in the negotiation process is necessary, we identified three elements of the process where formalization could improve consistency, transparency, and accountability. Uh, the first would be discussing the property acquisition process with property owner owners before sending out an offer letter, which we believe would improve communication and may help expedite the negotiation process. Uh, the second would be establishing negotiation authority limits for real estate specialists, which would provide greater accountability. And the third would be formally documenting the outcome of negotiations, uh, which would provide a clear, concise record of how the price was agreed upon. Finally, uh, all purchased properties were appropriately capitalized by accounting in the city's financial documents. However, we found that there was no process to communicate the acquisition of donated properties to accounting. We estimated that this, uh, has resulted in the city's assets being understated by about $72,000. We recommended that a process be developed to communicate these donations to accounting, uh, in order to avoid this issue in the future. So in summary, uh, we issued a total of five recommendations, all of which the division concurred with, um, and we'll verify the implementation of these in the, in a future follow-up audit. Okay. Uh, questions? Council member Briggs. Um, yeah, I don't always have to go first. If anybody else wants to ask a question, feel free. Um, so I know later on we're approving a contract with seven arrows that has, uh, something to do for real estate, um, acquisitions and I don't, and I know that we've had them before and seeing this with the issues has, has that been discussed with them on ways that we can improve? And are we talking about just our real estate, our real estate specialists and consultants? Are we also talking about our internal legal department? Um, so that's one, one or two questions. And then the next question, I know that we just approved a contract for a rather large recent donation, and I'm just wondering if anything, if that had been implemented before that purchase so that it's a proper, it's properly counted for. The documentation I think is being locked down a lot better by our, um, by Larry Colister and trade, um, from our legal department who generally work with us. So that process is improving. They're pretty much more scrutiny on the kind of documentation behind these, these acquisitions, um, and the, uh, on the appraisals. And I think, uh, again, a Cody who you've met, who's was brought on last year to help improve and streamline this process has been working very well with them in order to more formalize a real estate acquisition, um, processes. So the, in the outside, um, consultants would be held to the same standards legal at the end of the day is the one that is going to sign off whether or not they agree that we are properly acquiring, executing and implementing the documentation. So this is an area that I think if anything legal has helped us significantly step up our game by pointing out to me, uh, area and Todd, uh, areas that needed to be improved. So we're in complete agreement with more formalization in this area. And we've been pretty open with the council about that. And to your, I think third question, my understanding is that the, the donated, um, properties process hat was in place by the time by recently after the audit, I think by March, my understanding. Okay. Anybody else? All right. Thank you. We'll go on to agenda item three E receive report, hold discussion and give staff direction regarding internal audit of capital projects, administration construction. All right. So this is our last audit for the evening. Um, so as its title suggests, this report focuses on the construction processes of the four capital improvement project programs as showed in the slide. And these are the same programs that were, we discussed in the first report. Um, so this presentation will focus on the following three areas. Uh, one, the procurement process for construction contracts, two, uh, construction management processes and three, the inspections and materials testing processes. So to begin with procurement, we verified that six of the seven construction contracts reviewed had been procured appropriately procurement discrepancies with the remaining project. Um, McKinney phase one were investigated by our office and disclosed to council and a separate communication. These seven construction projects had 13 associated change orders. And based on our view, 10 were appropriately approved based on state regulations and city policy. However, the remaining three were approved by city staff and they should have been approved by the city council. This change order issue should be resolved in the forthcoming procurement manual update. So next I'll discuss, uh, project management processes. Construction projects are managed by one of engineering services, project managers. These employees are generally responsible for ensuring that a construction project runs smoothly by providing a central point of contact for the project stakeholders, the inspectors and the construction contractor. So we found the following all construction invoices were appropriately reviewed and approved of the 56 invoices we examined. Uh, we found only one where the contractor was paid incorrectly. Um, in addition, we found that some construction work was performed prior to being authorized by council, allowing the contractor to perform work before receiving authorization may put the city at risk of legal action. If authorization is denied. That being said, uh, there may be operational risks associated with halting work, um, to receive authorization. So based on management's response, it seems like engineering services has been working with the city attorney's office to develop a process that kind of balances these two risks. Um, and finally during construction projects, the plans and specifications may not always adequately address every issue that arises on site. These discrepancies must then be resolved. Um, we found that the process for resolving these, uh, had been performed inconsistently during the projects reviewed recently. This process has been standardized and formalized as shown on the right of the slide. Uh, this formalization should promote consistency and help ensure discrepancies are resolved in a timely manner. And finally, I'll discuss inspections and materials testing construction sites are inspected daily by the city's public works inspections division to ensure that the construction complies with the project's plans, specifications and standards. City has adopted the North North central Texas council of government's construction standards. Um, and is currently in the process of preparing city of Denton specific construction standards. Adoption of specific standards facilitates inspections, um, as it means that there are fewer differences between how projects are supposed to be conducted. Results from these inspections are generally recorded in a daily work report. Based on our view, we found that what is recorded in these reports is largely at the discretion of the inspector and varies across projects. In addition, while nonconforming inspection results are recorded in the report, there is not always a clear record of how they are resolved. These issues make it difficult to determine if all necessary inspections were performed and to verify if all issues were resolved appropriately. Public works inspections has since been, uh, since developed processes to guide the completion of daily work reports and to track nonconforming inspection results. Finally, construction materials such as asphalt and concrete, uh, must be tested to ensure they meet standards and specifications. Uh, the city may allow these tests to be performed by the construction contractor under supervision from our inspectors. This testing method, while not inappropriate is more risky since the contractor has an incentive to ensure the results are positive. So randomly testing, randomly retesting materials would help prevent contractors from taking advantage of the situation. Public works inspections has recently developed a process, uh, to ensure contractor tested materials are retested. Uh, in summary, we made a total of 11 recommendations, all of which the department concurred with. And based on management's response, we believe all recommendations will be addressed appropriately and we'll follow up in a follow up report. Okay. Uh, questions. Yes. You mentioned that in one case there was a contractor that was paid inappropriately. Can you speak about that a bit and say, you know, how that happened and, uh, what's done outside of what, you know, what you've already said or what specifically of what you've already said needs to be done can be done to ensure that won't happen again. Um, yeah. So that one particular invoice, the contractor, we underpaid them about $18,000. Um, and from the way it looks when I reviewed it, uh, it just looks like it was, um, a miscalculation, like the spreadsheet that they were using just didn't capture that one section of the invoice. And, um, and then I guess when it went through all the reviews, that was not caught as well. So, um, I, I believe that's kind of an older invoice and I think that they have processes in place to catch most of those, most of those issues. Um, in addition, accounts payable also goes through invoices to try to make sure that those, those kinds of issues don't occur. So I think it, it's just kind of a fluke this one time. And I believe they're taking steps to ensure that they are paid their correct amounts. Thank you. That's good to hear. It's, it's interesting to hear that it's an underpayment usually, or I'm saying usually I would think that in the case of an underpayment, it would be the recipient of that payment who would point out and notice right away that there's an underpayment. Um, it is generally, you know, overpayments that, that people, that the public tends to be worried about, you know, in, in audits, but that, that is good to know. Okay. Council member Briggs. Not really a question, just more of a comment that I'm glad to see that testing material and retesting material was in there and it was concurred. Um, I know that in the past we've had presentations, um, from our, um, street department where that had been an issue. And so, um, inspection inspections are really important part of the process to make sure in the end we get the result that, that we want. So I'm glad to see that that was in there and it's, uh, being worked on. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Uh, thank you, Madison, for those three reports and that will bring us to the conclusion of our work session, uh, agenda. Uh, and following the completion of the work session, the city council will reconvene in a special call meeting and we are doing that now. I'm calling that special called meeting to order at five 36 on May the 12th, 2020. Our first item on that agenda is the consent agenda. Uh, chair would entertain action on the consent agenda. Council member Ryan, move, move approval, uh, except for items a, b and c. Okay. All right. Do we have a sec? Council member Briggs. A second. All right. So we have a motion and a second for approval of the consent agenda, except for consent agenda items a, b and c, which will be considered for items for individual consideration immediately following, uh, this action on the consent agenda. So we will now take a vote. Uh, council member Ryan, uh, council member Briggs, council member Melcer, council member armature. Yes. Council member Davis. Yes. Council member Hutzpeth. All right. And mayor is an eye. Anybody I miss? We will now, uh, so that motion consent agenda, uh, is approved seven to zero. We will now take up the items that were pulled from the consent agenda for items for individual consideration. Uh, our first item is an agenda item that two a or, um, one a considered option of an ordinance of the city of Denton, a Texas home rule municipal corporation authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with seven arrows land staff LLC. Any questions on that? We had some questions in the, uh, work session council member Ryan. I move approval. All right. We have a motion for approval. Council member Melzer. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Any questions? Council member armature. Uh, can staff just explain the need, the need for this, the expense and why it is and why it is, uh, capped at that amount? Yes. Uh, good evening, Terry Nolte, assistant general manager, DME. Uh, the need for this, uh, this work is that we have a lot of upcoming transmission and substation development work and we need to supplement the city's real estate department with an outside contractor that's familiar with our processes to ensure that we're able to acquire the easements necessary to make the capital investments in a timely manner. The amount was, uh, uh, based upon our, uh, our estimate of the level of effort would take over the next, uh, the term of the, of the contract. Thank you. And I think this, the same number of substations and transmission lines mentioned, these are the same substations and transmission lines that have been, uh, planned for the past, uh, uh, four years or had there been any changes recently? Uh, no, uh, Council member armature. No, these are the same substations, uh, under the same transmission and substation development plan that you all have seen in the past. Okay. And when was the last time an assessment was done? Do you know seeing, uh, whether or not there is still the need for these, uh, substations? Uh, we are always reevaluating our, our need for substations and for transmission line builds. And that's an ongoing process. Um, you know, we will, if we have a change to the current plan, we'll be bringing it to council for approval. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else? Is that a hand council member armature? I mean, customer breaks. You have a question? Yep. I do have it just a clarification question because you may have answered it earlier. Um, I know that item B is only as requested. Is this the same, um, kind of contract? So if, if our legal department can handle it and doesn't need the outside expertise, um, and if this is only going to be used when called upon or is this a guaranteed, um, amount or no council member Briggs, it is a as needed basis. So we'll only can, we'll only use the services that are required, but we do anticipate with the large number of easements that are needed, uh, that we'll be using this contract pretty significantly. Thank you. Just a follow up question just for the public for clarification. So if there are any issues with easements or individuals not wanting to, um, if there's any complicated situations, those will come back to council, even though a consultant is handling it. Correct? Yes, ma'am. Uh, every, every, uh, agreement that we enter into would be approved by council. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Well, uh, we have a motion and who seconded it? Anybody second it? Council member Meltzer. Yes. We have a motion and second on agenda item one eight. How say you council member Ryan? Aye. Council member Meltzer? Aye. Council member armature? No. Council member Briggs? Yes. Uh, council member Davis? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem? Aye. Uh, mayor Watz is an aye. The motion carries six to one. Uh, agenda item one B is consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton a Texas home rule municipal corporation authorizing the city manager execute a contract with power engineers inc for program management construction inspection services and professional engineering services for capital improvement program for dent municipal electric. Uh, Terry Nolte again. Uh, do we have questions or do you want to see a brief presentation? Yeah, no. Yeah. Any questions? Council member Armature? Yeah. If you could just speak to, uh, they the kinds of projects that this guidance is is needed on and explain why it can be done with who we have in house and then just say something about the the the the price the price tag on that. Uh, yes ma'am. Uh, so this this work is to supplement our existing engineering staff with this level of effort required and to control costs and ensure adherence with budget and timeline. We need the assistance of professional project management people and power engineers is a a firm that has a great deal of expertise specifically working on these types of projects, one of which is a gas insulated substation, a a type of technology that we have not installed before. Um, and so this firm brings to, uh, to DME a level of expertise that we do not have and that is needed in order to control costs. The cost estimate is based upon the historical project management spend that we had during the prior substation and transmission line build out. Thank you. And can you, uh, has there been an assessment of kind of comparing what the cost would be of of hiring somebody, uh, permanently to do, I say somebody, however many people, because we're, you know, five million dollars, um, you know, how, what would, what are the relative costs of hiring someone to to join our engineering staff full time versus this consultant firm? Uh, yes. So we have not done a detailed price comparison, but we believe that the services of this organization will only be needed for the next four to five years where we to offer someone position, we'd be carrying that cost for the life of their employment. Um, and that's the reason why we supplement our staff with these professionals. Um, we, we would, uh, have to go out and hire someone with the same level of expertise. Uh, quite frankly, that would be outside of our current pay scale outside of the, even the five million. Well, it wouldn't fit within the currently defined pay scales that we have for the level of engineers that we see. I see what you mean within our HR pay scale. And I would just state, it's not a five million dollar a year. It's a one million dollar a year for five years. So he's talking about maybe being able to add four or five people, six people fully loaded under, under that versus a short term contract where they've got a level of expertise that we don't have currently on staff. You. Okay. Anybody? Council member breaks. Thank you, Maria. I had some questions earlier and just to some follow up before. Um, so it is mostly with the work they're going to be doing is detailed transmission design. Is there other, other things that they're going to be doing? Most of the work that they're going to be doing is actually project management related. Uh, the detailed design of the transmission system is done by a firm called SGS and they also assist us in our substation design. So the primary focus of this work is, is project management tracking reporting and support that we need in order to keep, uh, everyone informed about the progress and adherence to budget for these projects. Okay. That's interesting. I detail transmission design was one of the main things I saw earlier from my answer. Um, and this is just as, as needed. Um, is it normal for in the, in the pricing for a vendor to, um, not put a price in a competitive bid? Uh, council member Briggs, this was done as a RFQ, a request for qualifications, not a request for proposal. And we then select the most qualified firm and negotiate rates with the firm. Uh, that is what was done in this particular case. And we were able to negotiate favorable rates. Okay. So when it says Burns McDonald pricing not provided, but it has, um, it has a scale there. We still scaled it, but they didn't give a price. Not for the overall work, but the contract includes an hourly rate that each of the professionals that will be working on our projects will be allowed to bill at. Okay. It was just a different, I hadn't seen it listed like that before for both of these projects. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Uh, chair would entertain action. Council member Ryan, move approval. Have a second. Council member Davis. Second. All right. All right. We've got a motion and a second for agenda item one B, uh, customer Ryan has say you. Aye. Council member Davis. Aye. Council member Armitter. No. Council member Meltzer. Aye. Council member Briggs. Uh, yes. I'm sorry. Could you repeat that? I didn't hear you. No, I'm serious. Yeah. Okay. Uh, mayor pro Tim. All right. I had mayors and I, so the motion carries six to one. Uh, let's move through to agenda item one C. I believe we do have a one caller for agenda item one C. So I will, uh, we will, I'm not sure how that happened, but we will call the item and if there's any questions, uh, staff makes a presentation, then we'll go to public comment considered option of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, a home rule municipal corporation authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with master turf products and services. Inc. We, we talked about this in, um, our work session. Any questions, additional questions for staff from the work session? Okay. Then we'll go on to our public caller and if they could put the caller through. Uh, caller, are you there? Yes, sir. Yes. If you could state your name and address and your time will begin. And it's a four minutes. Thank you. This is John Homan, 3212 Holly Creek street. I'm calling about this master turf deal. Um, so what we're doing when we apply the dino dirt to the fields where our children play, um, is that's sewage sludge and it's over 80,000 manmade chemicals in it. I just sent y'all an article, uh, so you can check it out a little further. Um, also the reason why we're doing it is to replace microbes. Um, but then you gotta wonder, well, where did the microbes go? Well, we killed them with all the fertilizers we put on, which we also paid to do. I'm sorry, I can't find the document, but that's yeah. Um, as organic matter and microorganisms back into the soil, promoting a more balanced growing environment for turf. Yeah. So if we didn't put the fertilizers and pesticides in the first place, more of a, like the denny approach, which is very cool, right? That we're looking into. And I haven't heard a report back on how successful that's been or not, but I know it's a successful all across America and, uh, all kinds of parts everywhere going organic and it's ends up being cheaper in the long run. So of course I'm here promoting that. Um, so if we just went organic, we wouldn't be killing the microbes that we're trying to put back by paying, uh, what 400,000 to a master turf, right? And then all the money that we spend was another 400,000, uh, on the fertilizer that's killing the microbes that they're trying to replace. And then we replace the microbes, but then they're going to be killed off right away. Anybody by the fertilizer, then the biosolids aspect, uh, this is what the Sierra club considers the most dangerous manmade, uh, product on earth. Um, as I mentioned, let's see what they said. Yeah. The most pollutant rich manmade substance on earth, according to Sierra club. Um, so it's sewage sludge. Uh, it's, uh, we, it's what comes from our wastewater, right? The toilets and everywhere. It's also industrial waste that goes into the gutters, which, you know, every business is allowed to throw some industrial waste. Uh, I don't, I'm not sure what percentage, but they're allowed to dump industrial waste into the wastewater. So that stuff, uh, is now, then it gets composted after it's a biosolid. They take the sewage sludge and they composted at the dino dirt facility, but so many, most of those chemicals do not compost out such as pharmaceuticals, morphine, uh, PCBs, endocrine disruptors, uh, the forever chemicals that are so predominant in the news these days, all these things are still in there and, and, and do not get filtered out. So I don't know if we want to study it a little more before we go ahead with dumping this where our children play or not. Okay. Thank you guys so much. All right. Unless you have a question. Anybody got a question? Okay. All right. Go ahead. Councilmember Briggs. Is the dino light, is that the, um, the soil made without, without the biosolids? Yes ma'am and they're putting both. Okay. Okay. Any other questions? I'm sorry. Is there any other questions? Okay. I see none. Okay. Thank you, John. I appreciate you calling in. Yes sir. Thank you. You bet. Okay. We have no more callers. I believe, uh, we've got, uh, for this item, we had zero people making comments using our online form. Additionally, there were zero people that called in to 9 4 0 3 4 9 7 800. We did hear the one caller who'd requested to speak on this item. Yes. Councilmember Briggs is, is there, maybe staff could address it. Is there a way just to do, um, dino light on, on this as the, uh, instead of the, the regular dino dirt for now? Is that, is that a possibility? We have, uh, Drew Huffman on the line. Yes ma'am. This is Drew Huffman and park superintendent. Uh, this contract is for lava sand, USDA sand, dino light and dino dirt. We do not anticipate using this contract this year due to budget restraints and we can further, um, come back to you on using the dino dirt versus the other products. Yes. Councilmember Briggs. Drew, is there, is there a reason why it was on the agenda? Does it need to be approved now? It was part of the IPM program that we brought to you last year, dino dirt, dino light, the USDA sand and lava sand. All, you know, this was brought last year. We intended on using the lava sand at Dina and Mr. Holman spoke about, uh, but like I said, due to budget restraints, we hope to use it next year. It just won't be used this year. And then of course the USDA saying we'll go on our ball fields and then the dino light and dino dirt will be used as necessary in other areas around the city. That's what is intended. Useless. Okay. All right. Any other questions? Council member armature. So, uh, can someone from, from staff either drew or Todd explain then why this is coming to us this year? I mean, why it's coming to us now? Why not just hold off on it? Okay. So let me make a sort of a clarification question on that as well, because I understand that, uh, the comment was made that due to budgetary constraints, we may not use it, but I think that there were some of the components like baseball fields and things such as that. I mean, next year is like next summer. So I think that probably this is going to be used prior to our next budget discussion in 2021. Is that, is that correct? That's right. Okay. All right. And is there, there's labor that goes in that we're paying for to not just the product that's our own product, right? And other people's products. Yes, ma'am. It's labor and equipment and the product for USDA saying and lava sand, the product we would pay at our rate for any of our any of the dino products and to be applied by other labor. Yes, ma'am. By outside labor. Yeah. So that's the, you know, the, the other side to it. Uh, I, I, I won't belabor the point, um, but just to say that, um, you know, I, I would rather use our own labor, uh, especially now and I'm concerned about, I have, I have various concerns, much like what the caller expressed about, uh, the safety of these, these kinds of, of products. So I'm, I'm going to be, be voting on this. All right. Uh, chair would entertain, uh, action on this item. Council member Ryan, I move approval. All right. Do I have a second? Council, uh, mayor pro tem. I'll second. All right. Uh, we have a motion to second council member round. I say you. Aye. Mayor pro tem. Aye. Council member Briggs. Uh, well, I, I had a clarification question. Um, but my, my, um, my vote would be nay. Okay. Council member Melzer. Uh, nay. Council member Armitter. Nay. Council member Davis. Aye. Uh, mayor Watson's an aye. The motion carries four to three. All right. That concludes our consent agenda and also the items pulled for individual consideration on the consent agenda item. Uh, so we will move on to items for individual consideration to a in our agenda. Uh, consider approval of a resolution of the city of Denton regarding the creation of the legends ranch municipal utility district of Denton county, encompassing approximately 496 8.136 acres. We have a staff presentation on that, I believe. Yeah, you're on mute. Good evening, mayor council. Richard can only development services. Okay. Can you hear me fine now? Yes, we hear you loud and clear. All right. Uh, just have a short presentation. I'll go through rather, rather quickly. Feel free to answer any questions or I'll be happy to answer any questions on the request in front of you is a, uh, to consent to create a municipal utility district by legends ranch development LLC. Uh, the, the area that they're seeking the mud is, is just over 496 acres. I can see on the map, um, on the map in front of you. It is just north of three 80 and just east of one 56. Um, there is a small area, um, that I'll show on their development map that is in the city. Uh, but the, the area that's being proposed for the mud is all within our ETJ to, uh, within their, within their petition, uh, they have a total cost of improvements, um, topping almost 55 million. And so that would be for all of the roads, um, water sewer, water and sewer lines, uh, drainage and a number of other, um, uh, general, uh, improvements that they've identified the, uh, the conceptual, uh, development plan that they had put together, uh, as you see is a little bit larger. Um, this is a, a 532 acre total development. So of that 496 is, is the mud. And so the area that's highlighted, um, or outlined in red on the bottom, uh, those are the areas that are currently within the city limits. Uh, those have a, a land use of, of rural as does most of the site. Uh, and then the zoning on that is, is R2. What they're proposing is, uh, at least under this plan, uh, just over 1600 single family units with a mix of, um, 60 foot wide, 50 foot wide and 40 foot wide lots. Um, the line share, those will be 50 and then, um, uh, close second would be, uh, a number of the 40 foot wide lots. So it's the, um, on the map, the area that's sort of teal, uh, those are the 40 foot wide lots, 50 in yellow and then 60s in red, uh, that kind of hug around the, uh, the amenity center. They don't have a, uh, a square footage for the commercial or retail or a total number of multifamily units. Um, but under their plan under this concept plan, um, they're designating that, um, 37 acres of retail and then 20, 28 acres of multifamily. Again, we don't have a density or, or, um, height or any of that information at this, at this preliminary stage. Um, and this, this site is, is served by, uh, by the city or at least through, through our CCN for both water and wastewater. Staff made a number of findings. I won't read, um, every line here, but just wanted to touch on, on the actual, uh, staff findings. The first is, um, the petitioner did not appear to be signed by the property owner. Uh, it was submitted by, uh, Legends Ranch LLC. However, when we looked at the, uh, property appraiser, um, records, it shows that the property is, is owned by Wise Asset 1 LTD. And when we looked at the, uh, state filings for Wise Asset 1 LTD, it was not, not a entity controlled by Legends Ranch LLC. Uh, the petition did not comply with the interim MUD policy. Um, the third, um, the creation of the Legends Ranch MUD will affect the city's ability to implement the comprehensive plan. As I mentioned, this area, um, as you can see in green is designated as rural areas. Um, that's anticipated for, for a, a low density single family development of one unit per five acres. Uh, one of the statements that they had made in their petition in, in section, in section seven is that, um, that the area will experience a substantial and sustained residential growth within the foreseeable future. Uh, again, that could not happen, uh, without a, uh, without a land use plan amendment, number one, and number two, a rezoning, uh, that small area is zoned, um, is zoned R2. The fourth, uh, the petitioner is requesting, um, to consent to allow sub standard, what we would consider substandard road types for development of, of this high, uh, number of vehicle trips, as well as in there, uh, they had the ability to create a turnpike. Um, just looking at the single family, uh, number of single family homes using ITE, um, they're at over 15,000 average daily trips and some of the road material that they're looking to use or at least being allowed to use under this petition would be gravel, um, or, or, um, or the like, uh, while they can do paved, it's, it's not a requirement under this, uh, under this, uh, under this consent request. Uh, and lastly, the petitioner is requesting to create a separate water utility within the city CCM. And so there's, uh, council has essentially three options. Um, the first is to consent, um, consent with conditions or the third, uh, refuse to consent. Um, if, uh, if council does, uh, refuse to consent within 90 days, which would be May 14th, um, then the property owner may petition city to make water and sewer available to the pros, to the proposed development by a mutual mutually agreeable contract. And then that must be done in 120 days. If you recall, we had gone over that, um, if this doesn't, if consent doesn't occur as part of the mud policy, what staff is recommending is based upon those five findings that council refused to consent to the creation of the legends ranch, uh, municipal utility district of Denton County. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. Okay. Uh, if we could pull the presentation down. Thank you. All right. Uh, council member Armitter. Uh, so I want to move to refuse consent on this and I want to thank for the reasons stated so well, um, and a couple other reasons too. Um, but I really want to thank staff, uh, for doing such due diligence on this. The, the detective work you did, the looking out, uh, for the greater public good. So, you know, anybody who might be under the impression that, you know, our development staff just wanted to rubber stamp all growth. You know, I recommend that, um, that, that people look at, at this presentation, you know, the work you've done. Uh, and anyway, I, I, I thank you for it. I know a lot of work went into that, um, and you're, you're really looking out for the public. So I, I moved to refuse consent for those reasons. Okay. Council member Davis. I'm on a second the motion, but I also had some, some staff questions, some brief ones. Okay, go ahead. Then we'll recognize council member Briggs. Um, the first one was, uh, Richard, you used the term turnpike and you're talking about gravel on mechanized roads and, and so kind of subpar. Could you, could you clarify how you're using the term turnpike? Certainly. If you look in and it's very vague how they've included it in their, uh, in their request to consent within, within, um, article five of, of the consent, um, that's, that's included as part of that exhibit. It states the proposed district shall be organized for the following purposes. And then there's essentially five purposes that are five, five, um, items. Number five is to construct, acquire, improve, maintain, operate macadam, macadam, macadam, sorry, macadamized, um, gravel or paved roads and turnpikes or other improvements in aid of those roads. And so it's not clear that through their request, whether their intent is to actually seek a turnpike, whether that would be through the North Texas toll or some other turnpike, but that was something that we, that struck us as odd as being in the request to consent. Okay. It struck me as odd as well. My second question is, uh, you did a good job when we were talking about the interim policy of kind of walking us through the next steps. What happens after a city refuses? Um, can you tell us kind of what our recourse is when they go to TECQ and ask for, um, for them to initiate the mud process? What involvement do we have in that? Um, and then assuming that we aren't able to negotiate a contract under our CCN, uh, what steps can we take with TECQ to prevent this, um, at our back door? Council member, I'm going to actually have, um, Cynthia answer that from legal. Cynthia from the city attorney's office. The answer to that question is once the petitioner files a petition with the TCEQ, the TCEQ has to publish a notice. And during that notice period, the city can submit comments and that's essentially the next step for the city. Okay. Is that helpful council member Davis? I mean it is, but I guess it's kind of like, uh, there's notice and comment, then there's notice and comment. There are some of those processes that can be very fruitful for us. There are some of those that, you know, we send a letter off and that's about all we've got. Um, do we have, you know, solid recourse during the rest of that process or can we pretty much expect that if they follow what they're supposed to TECQ, there's going to be a mud created regardless of what we do tonight? Council member Davis, I think I would have a hard time responding to that in open session, but generally that's the process is they, they submit this petition to us to get our consent. We act on it. They file the petition with us, the TECQ and the TECQ. Um, it's up, it's up to them whether they, uh, will create this, this, uh, this mud. So there's that 30 day notice period that they can receive comments. Okay. Thank you. I think that helps. It does. And I understand your response and I guess we'll take up next steps as they develop. Thank you. Council member Briggs, did you have a comment? No, I was just going to second that council member Davis did. Okay. All right. We have a motion and a second for agenda item two a, uh, council member armature has say you. Yes. Okay. Motion to deny a council member Davis. Yes. Council member Briggs. Yes. Council member Melzer. Aye. Council member Ryan. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem. Aye. Mayor Watts is an aye. So the motion to deny carries unanimously, uh, seven to zero. That brings us to concluding items. Uh, council member Davis. I've got a short one. I'll also be submitting one of the online request forms and if I need to do a one minute pitch, I can, but it may just be as simple as an agenda committee thing. You know, for our regularly called meetings, um, one thing's kind of been missing from what we normally do in the council chambers and that's the pledges. And I see one behind city attorney's station. I see one behind the mayor's station, but it doesn't seem like it would be too onerous to add the pledges to the flags back into our, at least our regularly called meetings, the six 30 meetings that folks tune into on a regular basis. I think it'd be a nice kind of, uh, stepping us back to normalcy. So I'll be submitting that in the online form as well. Okay. All right. Council member Briggs. Yeah. So we missed one of my most favorite events that the city hosts and that's the service awards banquet. Um, and I really enjoy that every year and we get to stand up and shake everyone's hand and tell them, thank you for running our city. And, um, and we didn't get to do that this year. And so I just want to say thank you for your five, 10, 15, 20 years of service to everyone, uh, in our, in our, um, on our city staff. You guys mean a lot to us and sorry, we couldn't be there to tell you that in person. Okay. A council member armature. I will just add to that now more than ever. Thank you. Okay. Uh, anybody else? I've got one, but, uh, is there anybody else? I just wanted to express my condolences to the family of Jean Gumphrey. I learned that he, uh, passed away today. And of course, Jean was the creator of the shallow gardens, which over the many years I can't even comprehend the amount of pounds of food that Jean and his volunteers created and grew, uh, for the families in this community in need. So, uh, he will be sorely missed. He was a great member of this community, a great man, a great man of faith. So I just wanted to send my condolences out to his family and just really honor him with, with those statements. So, um, I'm sure we'll hear later on about any type of pending arrangements for services. So anybody else? All right. Well, we will stand adjourned at 6 13 PM.