May 29, 2020 City Council on 2020-05-29 1:00 PM (SPECIAL CALLED MEETING)

Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Friday, May 29th, 2020. We do have a work session that begins at one o'clock. We'll begin our work session agenda items. We do have a quorum, and so I'll call this meeting to order. Our first item on the work session reports is agenda item 1A, which is receive a report, hold a discussion to give staff direction regarding an update to the City of Denton's COVID-19 response. Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, Sarah Kuechler, Chief of Staff. This is our standing work session item for staff to provide an update on the city's response to COVID-19. We've held a number of these work sessions over the last three months. And then we, the City of Denton, still have a local disaster declaration and order in effect until May 31st. There is an item on the agenda today under individual consideration to consider extending that declaration and that order through the month of June. So today we have three updates or three sections of updates for you. The first is just a quick update with some noteworthy things from the state and the county. The second section of the presentation will be the majority of the presentation for today to give you an overview of the city's plan and proposal to reopen city facilities and programs. And then lastly, we have a quick update to share in regards to virtual public meetings that are planned for the month of June. So I'll go ahead and jump right into the first section of the presentation in regards to intergovernmental updates. So last week, Governor Abbott issued Executive Order 23, and that was his phase two to reopen Texas, and it allowed certain businesses and functions to reopen and begin again. This Tuesday, he issued a proclamation, which allowed additional things to open under that phase two. They're outlined on your screen here, and it really has four things that it addressed in that proclamation from Tuesday. Beginning Tuesday, driver education programs could resume immediately. Food court dining areas within shopping malls could also resume operations with certain restrictions, as shown. And then beginning today, water parks can reopen at 25% occupancy limitations. And beginning this Sunday, recreational sports programs for adults can resume, but no games or competitions can begin until June 15. And then the other update that staff wanted to share with you is in regards to Denton County Public Health Department. As you know, they've been holding testing sites through various locations throughout the county, and that information and the announcements on their next test sites are available on the county's website here, as shown here. But in addition to those various sites, they also are going to have a reoccurring site in the city of Denton. So every Tuesday from 8 a.m. to noon, there will be a testing site located at the University of North Texas in the Union Circle parking garage. Residents must pre-register to get tested, and they can do so by calling the county health department at the number listed on the screen. They also must meet the eligibility criteria to be tested. This is a drive-through facility, so it is by vehicles. However, if you are pre-registered and you do not have access to a vehicle, they will still test pedestrian and walk-up traffic. And so that is the quick overview for the Intergovernmental Updates section. Any questions from City Council on that portion of the presentation? Council Member Briggs? Is the university going to be sharing that, do you know, with their students? Is there a campaign for them to get that out to students? Or is that just something the county is supposed to do? The county is in charge of communicating that information and education to the community, but we can reach out to UNT and see if they're available to share that as well. Okay, thank you. Anyone else? Okay, so I'll go into the second portion of the presentation. I'm going to turn it over to Ryan Adams, who's going to start the presentation by giving an overview of for general city facilities, and then we'll move into separate presentations from both libraries and parks. Good afternoon, Council Members, this is Ryan Adams, Public Affairs. I just want to share a little bit about some of our general facility reopening plans, and of course, just like Sarah said, parks and libraries also have separate slides that they'll walk through just after this. The city facilities are currently closed, as of right now, to the public until further notice. This, as an exception, is parks, libraries, and animal services are providing limited public access. A great example is the appointment-based services that animal services are providing at the animal shelter. The city manager's office is coordinating and has coordinated reopening planning over the last several weeks. Departments have submitted plans and reviewed them with the city manager's office for how they would approach reopening their facilities and reopening some of their operations that have been slowed or even ceased over the past two to three months. Reopening procedures are being developed and finalized, and facilities are working with departments for modifications to workspaces. If barriers are needed to be constructed, contactless faucets or any other type of physical changes to the structure itself need to be placed, we are working through that process and making sure that we are implementing as many safety improvements as we can. We're also working on making sure that we have appropriate signage, and we are deploying that, not only for the benefit of employees, but for the public as well, so that they know what we are asking of them whenever they enter a facility, but also the precautions that we are taking to consideration behind the scenes to make sure that they have a safe experience in our facilities. We are proposing opening several facilities beginning June 1. City Hall, we're proposing that this facility opens on Monday morning, 8 a.m., with walk-in traffic to the city secretary's office and all other services remaining appointment only for the time being. City Hall East would also open June 1, this coming Monday, with walk-in traffic for customer service and courts, and all other services out of that building remaining appointment only for the time being. And we have plans for the service center to open to the public mid-June. Specific date has not been set yet. And I do want to walk through just a few of the precautionary measures the city is taking for the public and for employees. We are asking all employees to perform daily health checks at the beginning of each shift. This includes a temperature scan and includes a questionnaire, and any employee that exhibits a symptom that is associated with COVID-19 or has been exposed to someone who has COVID-19 will not be able to work that particular day and may only come back to work after they follow a procedure outlined by our Human Resources Department to ensure that they would not pose a risk to other employees or the public. Employees, contractors, and volunteers will utilize masks. This is part of the city's personal protective equipment guidelines that have been distributed across the organization. And they would be required when employees cannot socially distance and in common areas and at any points where they would interact with the public. So as an example, if someone is in their office, they would not necessarily have to wear one in their office. But if they're in a meeting room or they are interacting with a member of the public, they would be required to utilize a mask. We're also regularly disinfecting a lot of our high contact areas. So doorknobs, credit card swipes, everything that might get a lot of contact with employees or members of the public, they're going to be clean several times a day depending on the level of contact. And probably the question that we get asked the most is what are we going to require from the public when they come into our facilities. We are not going to require masks, but they will be highly recommended. What we will ask the public to do is to maintain social distancing. So we have put out quite a bit of signage in City Hall and City Hall East to help remind members of the public that they will be asked to social distance and maintain a distance of six feet. And this goes along with CDC and state recommended guidelines. We are also putting out floor markers in any area where the members of the public may wait or may form a line just to help incentivize them to keep that spacing. We also want to note that city programs, when they do start, may have additional requirements on top of the social distancing depending on that program. And that's something that we continue to look at as we evaluate different programs throughout the city. And departments will continue to utilize telecommuting. I think we have shown that we can successfully have employees work remotely. And to help maintain the safety of our facilities, it's prudent to continue doing that to some degree while still being able to maintain a high level of service quality for those in-person services at these facilities. So I'm actually going to hand it off to Jennifer Becker, who's on the phone. And she can discuss a little bit more about the library's reopening planning. Hello, this is Jennifer Becker, Director of Library. Good morning or good afternoon. Good afternoon. I'm excited to talk about phase two for the library's reopening plan, which is going to begin next week. In phase two, we're going to continue with most of the same services that we've been providing in phase one. And then we're adding two new services. One is the virtual book a librarian service, which we've always had a book a librarian service, but we are now going to utilize Microsoft Teams to be able to have video conferencing with any patrons who are interested in getting assistance. We have an online form that patrons can fill out to request that appointment, and then a staff member will schedule a time to meet with them and go over whatever issues or questions they might have. There's a screen sharing portion of the software so we can do live walk throughs of how to use different software or products. And then we will also be starting our appointment based access to public PCs and the internet in facilities. We're going to open that up to start taking appointments on Monday, the first and the first appointment would be Tuesday, the second. Patrons can call the library to make an appointment up to seven days in advance. And the appointments are for each branch, we will have morning and afternoon appointments Monday through Friday, and morning appointments for North branch on Saturdays. Printing services are part of those PC and internet appointments. And these appointments are specifically for access to the computers or to use the internet on a personal device. We have a limited number of stations, so we can make sure that everybody is spaced out to follow social distancing guidelines. And we're allowing access to just the computers or internet access. We're saving browsing or just coming into the facilities for phase three. And then on the next slide, got some information about phase three, what that's going to look like. I don't know if somebody can advance that. Yeah, they did. Okay. Okay. So phase three is when we'll move into our limited core services, we're going to open the doors on a branch by branch basis, allowing about 25% limited capacity. We think that that's going to be very easy to manage, because we've pulled all of the lounge chairs and seating areas away. And because we aren't doing in-person programs, we usually don't see that 25% capacity at one time in our facilities without programming or the seating. So we will continue with curbside service for those branches that are not in phase three, because we are doing that branch by branch. And we would continue our virtual book-a-librarian services, but people would be able to enter the building to browse collections or just use walk-up computer access in phase three. Any questions about our phase two or three for reopening plans? Councilmember Armitter? Yes, three questions. One, the book-a-librarian, is that something that kids can do, or is that just for adults? And could a kid do that? Would a kid have to do that with a parent? So the book-a-librarian service, we have specific topics that we're able to teach. So it's mostly focusing on things like, do you need help writing a resume? Do you need help with software? Do you need help learning about genealogy services? It's not for youth programming particularly, but if there are any kids who are conducting research or needing to use any of our resources that do need assistance, then absolutely, they can make an appointment. Okay, wonderful. And that's what I was thinking as resource, if a kid is interested in dinosaurs or some aspect of geography or something like that, especially without summer camps and kids are tired of talking to their parents. So that's a great resource, and thank you. Another question about the computer stations that we'll be opening up. Will there be a requirement or a recommendation that people who use the library computers use gloves, and will there be signs that say just remind people not to touch their face by the computer? So Ryan's team in communications has made some wonderful signage that we will have throughout the building reminding about things like social distancing, washing hands, things like that. We have a specific disinfection plan or disinfecting plan for our facilities that includes wiping down all of the computer components, the tables where they are, the chairs, handrails, entry door handles, restroom door handles, those kinds of things between each appointment. So everything will be sanitized. We will have hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes available for members of the public when they come in. We of course recommend masks, but we do not have gloves that we're providing and we aren't requiring gloves being used at this time. What we're hearing from professional organizations and CDC is it's mainly that vapor when we're talking or coughing or breathing, and it seems to be less of the touch points. So we're cleaning thoroughly, but we are not requiring gloves. Okay, thank you. And then finally, if a kid or an adult wants to start a virtual book club, would that be something that the library be able to facilitate or is that something they should do on their own? Again, I'm thinking about a lot of summer plans being put on hold. If anybody's interested in working with us about that, please have them reach out to us and we will put them in contact with either a youth librarian, teen librarian or adult librarian, whatever that age group of interest is, and we'll see how we can work that into our programming coordination. I think that's a great idea. Excellent. And thank you for all you're doing for your flexibility. Thanks. Oh, thank you. We're happy to serve. Councilmember Briggs. Hi, Jennifer. Is there a time limit on the appointments for the devices for the computers? Oh, yes, that is a great question. So we tried to replicate as much as possible a regular time in the library. And in normal times, anybody could use the library or computers for two one-hour sessions. So those appointments, we're just blocking it's up to two hours. If somebody does complete their computer work, you know, in 30 minutes, then at that point, their use of the computer is done, so their appointment would automatically be finished at that point, but they have up to two hours for those appointments. Okay, good. And just one more question on phase three, do you have any idea the date or time timeline for that? We're looking at late June, we're trying to coordinate with the parks department with Gary to see if we can coordinate at least one branch opening whenever they're opening their first rec center. So looking towards the end of June. And I noticed mayor just one more follow up. Sure. And I noticed on that when it still had the teen center or the teen area closed, even in phase three, that's the interactive portion. So the teen room with the materials, anybody could grab any materials, but the game stations would be unavailable. Okay. All right. Perfect. Thank you. Any other questions, Council Member Meltzer? Are the computer stations still going to be configured the way they are currently where everybody's sort of elbow to elbow? So what we've done is for those appointments, it's limited appointments at South Branch and Emily Fowler. What we're able to accommodate to maintain the social distancing is three PC appointments plus two internet appointments where people bring their own devices for the morning. And then that repeats again in the afternoon. And then for North Branch, it's bigger and a little bit more spread out. We can do five PC appointments and two study table internet appointments for morning. And then again, repeating an afternoon. So a total of five for Fowler and South Branch and seven for North Branch at a time. So people aren't seated next to each other. Correct. We can't really move the computers very far because they have to have the network wiring, but we just mark some as out of service. I have another question, Mayor, if I may. Of course. And this is for Jennifer, but about city facilities, facilities generally. So sorry, you may want to weigh in. Why would we not require face coverings in those areas where many members of the public are interacting with a city employee, like, you know, at a, you know, at a, like the checkout desk or some someplace where it just seems terribly unfair to put someone in a position where they're exposed to many members of the public without that kind of basic protection. We've gone around and around with this question internally and in some of the other cities that we're studying, about half of them are taking a fairly strict approach and half of them are basically requesting but not requiring them. We've got groups out there, Council Member Meltzer, that are actively kind of pushing this, trying to make an issue of it, similar to the First Amendment auditors. And I think that, you know, we have gone around and around with whether it's worth taking a hard line on that and, you know, getting ourselves and putting our staffs in a position where there's potential conflict versus just simply asking them to wear a mask and requiring social distancing as part of our basic respect for our employees. So that's been what we've been weighing internally as a team. What about erecting, I know it's, you know, an expense and a hassle, but what about erecting like a, you know, plexi shields? It just, you know, it just seems like you're putting city employees in a precarious situation. Obviously you care about that, you know, as much as anyone, but, you know, I'm just concerned that we're doing what we can. We're absolutely putting the plexiglass where it's possible and feasible. There's just some positions in some roles you just cannot, you know, keep those folks away from the public. There's that interaction that's required in some of our facilities for that personal service. And what we're going to ask people is to honor the social distancing. All the directors, the managers, supervisors have been given full authority to enforce that. We've coordinated a plan with Chief Dixon in case we have somebody that comes in and just refuses to cooperate and is disrespectful with the rules, but it really came down to that balance and giving our supervisors and department directors the discretion they need to run their facilities and keep their employees safe. If I can make one more follow-up comment, Mayor, just as a suggestion. I realize all the things you've got to weigh, and I'm wondering if this is one little wrinkle that, you know, maybe hasn't come up yet. Within everything you've already said, what about providing at those sensitive points the disposable mask so, you know, if somebody wants to take the suggestion, they can do it. Each facility, each department director is going to be giving access to those disposable face masks if somebody forgets it or if they change their mind and will choose to wear it. In addition, Ryan and his team have got very clear signage there saying, look, here's the rules of engagement coming into our facilities, give an obligation to keep our employees safe as well as yourselves, so please help us out with this. And that really I think is about as far as we've chosen to go. We're signing it. We're asking people to be respectful and to honor our wishes and our requests and be respectful of our employees, you know, with the full understanding that it's very possible we'll have people pushing that. Okay. You'll have the masks right there. Yes. Thank you. And we do have Plexiglas fields at every service desk in the library. Councilmember Armitage. I have one question about this topic. I'll save my other questions for after other council members have had a chance to ask, but since we're on the topic, I think I know the answer, but for the sake of public or staff listening for the city manager, if a member of staff feels unsafe in their job or has an experience with the public as a part of their job where they feel unsafe, they can send that forward to their director and to you without any fear of retaliation of any kind. Correct? Yes. As with any issue. Yeah. And I knew that. I knew that, but I wanted to make that clear. So any staff listening, please spread that around. Don't be afraid because people really care about you. And same for the public, right? As a member of the public, if they feel unsafe in any interaction with staff, they could report that through Engage Denton. Would that be a good place to report or to express a concern? Absolutely. Or into my office. Okay. Thank you. And again, I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that question, but I want to make sure we talked about that. Thank you. Yeah. And I just want to, I know I'm a little bit repetitive here, but we have gone back and forth on this issue. Erin and I have had numerous conversations about it. We've been watching other organizations, watching other cities, watching this issue be pressed out in public. And I think our final determination is we like the plan that we've got. We're asking people to be good stewards, we're asking people to respect each other's health and ability to keep themselves safe. And we are fully empowering our supervisor and management team to take whatever actions they need. If someone is disrespectful, they feel they're putting our staff in danger. And beyond that, we're going to do the best we can to allow people to be good Samaritans. So Todd, quick question. Back to in those situations where people may be unable to, I guess you were saying being unable to maintain the social distance requirement, because if someone's interacting with someone, and I can't think of too many situations with the public, now staff interacting with staff may have some situations where they can't maintain the social distancing, but I'm assuming that most staff are required to wear a mask now if they're in those situations. But if there's a circumstance where a member of the public is not wanting to respect that social distance, they don't have a mask on, they come in and they want to talk to someone, and that staff member very respectfully attempts to maintain that distance, what I'm hearing you say is if someone insists on sort of violating that after being asked cordially and kindly to please respect that, then you're saying that you've given the authority to the department managers, department heads, at whatever levels of staff is appropriate, that they can ask that member of the public to either comply with the social distancing requirement or leave. Correct. Okay. All right. Okay. Any other questions for Jennifer at this time? Oh, hold on. Council Member Meltzer. Yeah, just one more on this, Todd, PPE, are shields, face shields, not masks, being provided for those employees that are in those high public contact situations where that can provide protection for them against droplets coming in their direction? I'll turn that over to Ryan. Council Member, we developed a set of guidelines that took into consideration the wide variety of staff members that we have. Some staff members will be required to have extra levels of personal protective equipment just depending on the nature of their job, and what we've tried to do in most, if not all, of our public facing positions is to definitely use the mask, but also where we can put up those, say, plexiglass or clear partitions as an added level of safety. We continue to do that, and as we open more facilities, we will look at how we can further create separation in that manner, but we do allow for, in our guidelines, extra levels of personal protective equipment based on the nature of the job. If we had an employee that were to request that type of a setup, we would honor it immediately. You mentioned earlier that there are areas where it's not practical to have the plexi, and the prices on those shields that you wear on your head plummeting. You can get them at Sam's now for $4 for $5, so I would encourage you to investigate that where the plexi barriers aren't practical. I'll talk to Chief Hedges and ask him to talk to Dr. Richardson as well to see if there's additional protections, and if they've got the ability to, and we think it's an option for our employees, we're definitely going to consider it at this point. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions, at least at this stage of the presentation for Jennifer? Seeing none, you can resume your presentation. Chair, Council, this is Gary Pack, and Director of Parks and Recreation. Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about our next steps that we're proposing for reopening of our Parks and Recreation Department. Just as a recap, up until today, all of our parks are open, our open spaces, our trails have been heavily used, our fishing ponds, our tennis courts were opened a few weeks ago, as well as our disc golf course. Our driving range was open on May 8th, that's been functioning very well, we do get a little bit more traffic in the afternoons than our morning shifts, but we're watching that. We opened up our basketball courts recently, and that appears to be going okay. We also still have our Civic Center pool hygiene operations that are open. We have showers that are available for the community to come in and use. We did have a laundry station there, and that closed on May 15th. We are open Monday through Saturday, 9 to 5 p.m. And during the COVID pandemic, we ramped up a virtual recreation center, and that is ongoing as well, providing recreational programs and resources for people that are at home. As part of our phase two, June 1 through June 15th, we obviously continue our tennis court operation, but we'd like to start contract instruction on June 15th, as well as at our driving range. So both our tennis and golf pros, we're working with the city attorney's office on making sure all our liability waivers are written and drafted and updated processes and contracts. Each participant will be required to fill out a liability waiver in all of our programs at this point in time. Our range stalls at the driving range are appropriately spaced. We are ramping up our driving range ball machine and trying to get that going, so that would be a self-service opportunity for people to use in the near future. Some additional sports, our sand volleyball courts and our hockey rinks, are proposed to be open on June 1, and athletic field use and rentals on June 5th. Currently, DBBI has canceled their summer season, but they still are having a number of sports teams participate in select tournaments, and they're anxiously waiting to get on the fields. In addition, we also have a number of tournaments that we host that bring people to Denton in hotels and restaurants that we could accommodate as well. And then additional contracted or fitness programs that take place within our park system would also start on June 15th, so all contract instruction would start in the middle of June. Our restrooms during this process have been closed. We're proposing to open those up on June 15th with daily sanitation procedures. We came to you last week and talked to you about our summer food program in partnership with DISD and our contractor for that service. We are going to have DINYA and MLK open up for services, and that'll be kind of a drive and go type of accommodation, and that would be daily between 1030 and 1230. A hygiene station, as I mentioned earlier, will continue, and then we'll also be launching our inclement weather shelter and having that ready once temperatures hit 100 degrees, and that'll be taking place at the Civic Center. Typically, we have a number of facilities that are available for that service, but since everything is closed right now, we will open that and man that from 12 to 5 during those high heat days. A proposal for phase three, I'm going to go through three different options here, but staff is recommending that we reopen North Lakes Recreation Center. It would be our first recreation center to reopen for general use, primarily drop-in and limited programming. We would have a restructured hours between 6 and 12 and 2 and 8. During that closure period midday, we'd go through and clean the entire facility to provide that extra layer of security, and we'd open on Saturdays from 8 to 3. Attendance restriction is at 25%, so that's going to be broken down by each room, and that'll be monitored. As I mentioned, for drop-in activities, limited programming, we'll do have some facility modifications that Ryan had mentioned, actual physical barriers at the counters, limited equipment or spacing between the fitness equipment, no shower or locker room use. We're moving all our high touch items, brochures, catalogs, those types of things in the lobby, and then we're working with facilities on automating as much as we can as quickly as we can within the facility. Obviously, our PPE that we had just talked about as a whole, staff will be required to have that, and we'll have it available for participants. Depending on the age group, if it's a youth for a specific program, we would require that for them signing up on that. But from an adult standpoint, it would be suggested where. From a recreation center, from a budget standpoint, just to kind of give you an idea. The first column, it's 2019-2020 adopted budget. This is what was adopted last fall. We have a net subsidy of $394,000 as a whole. In April, we went through and rebuilt all of our budgets to accommodate some reductions in cost so we can provide some savings. That was a little bit of a challenge because we were shut down, obviously, and we're not generating revenue. So at that time, we were proposing to be closed the entire fiscal year. That actually cost us $421,000 to shut down, so it actually was a little bit more because we didn't have the revenue that we were generating. Our adjusted budget, if we reopen on June 22nd, we're proposing expenses of $531,000, revenue about $115,000, a subsidy of $416,000. That's a change of about $4,700 when you look at it from our proposed adjusted budget that you approved, which was that $1.9 million in savings as part of our budget cutbacks. So it's actually a little bit of a profit, a net revenue from that perspective. This does include $118,000 in staffing. So what we're proposing to do is move a team of full-time employees over to North Lakes and actually operate that facility full-time. Typically, we only have three full-time employees on property, and the rest are seasonal staff that help run that day-to-day. But since we already have staff on board, we're going to move them over there, and we're not going to bring additional part-time or seasonal staff on board because that's added expense to our operations. We're already paying these employees. We're just reallocating their time to prop open the operations of North Lakes itself. Operation 3B is the operating of the Civic Center. This would be based on a July 1st opening. That would provide us 49 days of operation. We are limited to 200 people capacity a day. That would be two shifts at 100 people per shift. So our typical capacity is 400. So it would be 100 in shift A and 100 in shift B. And that's at 25%. This budget proposes 100% capacity and no rain dates. So we typically get a handful of rain dates each year. So we could have five of those 49 days that are completely rained out. So again, from a budgetary standpoint, the October budget, we had $173,000 subsidy. Since we're not, since we proposed not open at all and be closed through the end of September in the second column, would actually be a savings, an expense of $52,000. So there's actually a net savings between if we were open all year or just closing at this point in time. The adjusted budget based off of reopening would be $84,000 in losses. And that changes about $31,000 from what we presented to you out of that $1.9 million. So it cost us an additional $31,000 to open based off of the $1.9 million we promised you that we would save. And the last one was summer camps. If we opened, we were proposing to open on July 6th. Again, the startup costs and supplies are fairly minimal, it's just a little over $10,000. And then registration in our scholarship funds that we have is about $40,000. We would have about $115,000 in that full time staff that would be committed to go over and actually run that facility. Again, they're already budgeted, they're already on, you know, they're already working and being paid. We would not bring in additional staff to ramp up the summer camp. This is again, this isn't a recommendation of staff. Our recommendation is to open up North Lakes. That gives us an opportunity to get our first building open and then start chipping away at our other facilities where the summer camps in the pool are summer related temporary activities that will eventually close and we feel like we can make progress if we open up North Lakes and start chipping away and eventually open up all our buildings as we move forward. The next few items I'd like to talk to you about are dog parks and playgrounds. We are getting a lot of engagement with the community on both of these items. The dog parks are, and if you can see this on the screen, it's CDC recommends that you avoid dog parks and public places where a large number of people and dogs gather. At the same time, there's information on their website that talks about it's not a hundred percent proven that it can be transmitted through a dog or that you can get COVID from fur so that they don't have enough information on that. We have a Google Docs sheet that we created with the help of another city where cities around DFW and Texas have been inputting their information in regards to what's open and what's not, so we can use that as a resource to see what other cities are doing. We are one of the few cities that do not have our dog parks open, so other people are going and seeing that, so that's been a challenge. So if we did decide to open it, we would keep all the play areas open, heavily sign it, encourage social distancing, encouraging not to touch other people's pets and pet them to just minimize any risk, and continue to look at industry best practices from the dog park perspective. The playgrounds are another hot button. We have signed them from the day they were closed. Our signs are being stolen. We have taped them on a regular basis. We have staff going out and taping the playgrounds Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Sometimes those signs and tape don't last throughout that day. We'll get phone calls and we'll get staff out there as quickly as we can to redo that. We are ordering some concrete stickers. Hopefully they're not as easy to throw away or throw in the trash to help try to minimize that as well. The CDC does recommend that you do not use playgrounds. The state of Texas order does mention playgrounds in the childcare area for parks, and it provides ways that you can help mitigate any virus on that as well. So the assumption there is that we could open playgrounds if we choose to do so. A lot of the CDC information now is really deferring to local authorities. So we are trying to look at the stricter rule between any of the entities, whether it's the CDC, the state, or something that we have in place, and trying to abide by that. Now obviously in these two instances, there's a lot of conflict and some vagueness in some areas based on how people are interpreting it and how it's written. So a lot of communities have opened playgrounds. A lot of communities have opened their dog parks I had mentioned. So that is definitely a challenge. We'll see other communities where they're doing a tennis program or dog parks open and they wonder why we can't. We're informing them that we're trying to be very conservative and cautious, but at the same time trying to figure out the best ways that we can reopen. So those are two hot buttons that we are working on a daily basis with our staff, our frontline staff, and our marketing staff as well. Some of the impacts that we have to work through and around and with throughout this process has been pretty challenging. Obviously health and safety is number one, whether it's for our staff or the community following those orders and guidelines, PPE availability, make sure we have enough in place, make sure we have enough for our users if they want to come in and they're willing to use a mask or glove, hand sanitizer, disinfectant, all making sure that those supplies are available. Staffing, we cannot staff all of those phases at one time. So we cannot do the Civic Center pool, open up the rec center and the summer camps without bringing more staff on board. We have a number of positions frozen within the organization because of the budget challenge as well as lost employees because of the VSP. So at some point in time, we'll have to figure out once we get more facilities open. But we really depend on our part-time and seasonal staff to do a lot of our operations for our programs and eventually we'll have to figure out how to bring them back when the time is appropriate. So phase one and phase two, we can utilize our full-time and our current permanent part-time staff. If we go option A and C, A or C, we can utilize full-time and part-time staff. But when we want to try to do A, B and C, that's where it really becomes into a challenge that we just cannot prop up all those facilities without slowly bringing more staff on board. So in summary, what we're proposing is opening up North Lakes Recreation Center on June 22nd. We've penciled in MLK Junior Recreation Center on September 1st to open, although it's going to be open next week just as a for the food program, it will not be available for the general public. We will be serving food out of that facility. If North Lakes was opened on June 22nd, and it was very popular and we're getting heavy use, then we would immediately look at opening MLK as our next location. DENIA and the senior center are to be determined, obviously the senior center and the senior population were concerned about that, so we're going to take that very cautiously. DENIA Recreation Center with a loss of a number of full-time employees who are VSP, we are going to need to address that at some point in time and maybe look at some temporary reorganization. Our aquatic facilities, Carrion Park Spray Ground is to be determined yet. We're still researching the best time and place to open that. It is a fairly small spray ground, so six-foot distancing will be very challenging if you have more than probably five people out there, so that's definitely something I'm sure the community is going to want open as soon as it starts to get very warm. The Natatorium, we're planning on August 15th, approximately opening in cooperation with DISD. We've had a couple conversations with them, so we will continue that process. And then the Civic Center Pool and Waterworks Park, we're not proposing to open this summer at all, and that would be next spring of 2021. Summer camps, as we had mentioned earlier, we feel that's probably the highest risk area with the number of kids in one space inside of a building, and we would recommend not moving forward on summer camps this year. We realize that is an essential service for some people. Kids use it for recreation and social engagement and physical engagement, but parents also use it as a child care operation too, so we realize that's a challenge. One of the concerns is if we had to shut down because of someone getting sick, and we were shut down for a week or two, that would really displace everybody else that was in that camp, and they'd be scrambling to try to find something as well, so that is something that we considered. We are continuing to ramp up and be creative with our virtual camp packages for the community, so that'll be ongoing. The dog park and the playground, as I had mentioned, would love to hear some feedback from City Council on both of those amenities. Again, they are both recommendations from CDC not to open. There is a strong community desire to open those facilities, and some other facilities have opened those, and some maybe never even closed them, so that is something that we're looking at as well and welcome your input. Based on your feedback, our next step would be for City Council to adopt a park plan with emergency declaration today or this evening and improve the implementation of the select phases that Council gives us direction on. Mayor, that's all I had. Okay, let's go ahead and clear the screen of the staff presentation, and we'll go ahead and take any questions. Council Member Briggs. Thank you, Gary. I appreciate that, and I appreciate all the caution that the city has taken to protect our community. What about the basketball teams? I know that we passed a contract with UNT. Was that listed in any of those openings? So that was for the rental of the gyms on campus. With the recent approval from the governor both on youth and then just this week on adult, we're looking at now how we're going to start rolling up our athletic programs, our contracted sports are the first ones that we're rolling out, so that'd be tennis, our sport. We do have a sport contractor that provides programming, and our golf would all be started on June 15th, and then we'll be coming back to you on a future phase with the youth and adult sports. Okay, and the ball fields that you said June 5th? Yes. The golf teams, okay, I've been getting emails about the playground and the dog park, and the ones that I have been receiving are from individuals who have been careful in every other aspect of their life regarding the virus as well. So I am okay. I think we could open the dog park at a less percentage, maybe require masks for those who enter. And I would also like to check on, I know that at one time I'd asked about the sanitizer. It's just a container that attaches to the poop bag pole. So it's just, it's an attachment. If we could look into getting one of those at the dog park too, I think that would be very helpful. My issue with the playground is that people are already using it, and it's hard for us to control that. So even if we say open or close, I still think we need to have some kind of signage out there that says COVID risk, play at your own risk. There needs to be some kind of, you know, better signage out there for people that do choose to do it, because I don't know, I don't know how much longer we can keep up the retaping, the signage, the staff time on all of that. So that may be something that you feel like you can handle. I just want to make sure that for those who, if we do decide to keep it closed, those who continue to use it are aware of the risk when they do. And I wanted to take this time to say that I've been getting several emails from parents who are asking us to open the playgrounds. Okay, Council Member Davis. Thank you, Mayor. Gary, a couple of questions. On slide 17, option 3B with the pool, and forgive me if I just missed it, but can you tell me what the revenue line item is? If we open on 7/1, is that just gate admissions or are we, would that, do you have budget in there, some kind of not refunding the rest of the season passes or something like that? So we have, we've refunded, I don't know what the exact percentage is, but a significant amount of our passes, especially at July 1st, you know, typically after July 4th, pool usage starts to dip a little bit as people go on vacation. Obviously, this year is totally different than past history. So people buy those passes so they can go frequently. They would need to make the determination if it would be worth buying one at that point in time. Our pass sales typically slow down at that time as well because you just can't use it enough. Our revenue there is $37,000. That is just gate admission, and that is 200 people per day, 100 per A and B shift. So that's the maximum that we can have. So if we don't reach that maximum, that number is going to be lower. If we have a rain date, that number is going to be lower. So really, that's probably the best case scenario from a drop in daily admission. We did not have any rentals included in that because we're trying to stay away from that at this point in time. We could probably do some minor programming in there to try to fill in some of the morning hours since we'd be open. But that revenue is probably the best case scenario. Okay. Well, thank you for that. You hit kind of the crux of my question, which was about how many of these passes have we not refunded, not necessarily -- I'm not really aiming to reopen. I'm just asking more about whose money are we still holding and what's the best way to get it back to them if we stay closed? We've been refunding quite a bit, a number of passes since this whole thing started actually. My second question has to do with that Google Doc that you mentioned and the collaboration and information sharing you've got with area cities. Some of the ones that I've been hearing about kind of anecdotally, I can tell just from the data, are not as hard hit by the pandemic as we've been. They just don't have the same numbers. Maybe it's populations, maybe it's people who not as many of their folks had to go to work every day. For whatever reason, their numbers don't seem to be in the same kind of realm that ours are. Do you know of any cities that have a similar impact from the pandemic that we have that are opening their pools, opening their summer camps, opening their playgrounds, all that kind of thing? I had a conversation actually yesterday with the director from Trophy Club Parks and Recreation. They have had maybe seven or eight cases I think in that community, obviously a much smaller community. But he had mentioned that they were kind of planning on looking at opening their playgrounds. So I know that's something that they're considering because they didn't have a lot of use. But it does vary based off of where you're at in the Metroplex. It looked like some of the bigger cities were much more conservative than the smaller cities in DFW. And there's really not a lot of consistency across the board, whether it's playgrounds or dog parks or rec centers. Some cities open up their rec center, City of Grapevine opened theirs up on May 18th, the day that the governor provided his open up order, and then some are not opening them. And so there's people really all over the board and even not that far from each other. Okay, I guess from my part, I agree with Councilmember Briggs about the playgrounds and dog parks. It seems like that's the lowest risk service that we can provide during this time. The pools and the summer camps, I know our family is going to have a very tough time with that, especially when we get closer to the school year, I know there are families that just don't have other childcare options. But those just seem like much higher risk areas. With a playground, at the very least, the social distancing onus is on the parents and the families. It's on them to teach their kids what they can do and what they can't do. And if it's too risky for that family, you don't go to the playground with the pool and the summer camps, you don't have that parental involvement right there or the kids are off running around doing their own thing and there's no one there to supervise their interactions and social distancing, that kind of thing. So I'd be okay with parks and dog parks, playgrounds and dog parks. But unfortunately, I think the pool and the summer camps are just a risk we can't take. Okay, Councilmember Armitter. So yeah, I have a number of questions and then I have my opinion on the options. So I'll start with the options as for the rec center, option 3A, I believe that is. I'm okay with North Lakes opening under those conditions. I would not be okay with it under other conditions, but I'm very glad for those conditions. As for the civic center pool, very sadly, I just think that it is too much for lifeguards to monitor, too risky. And I say that with great sadness. Option 3C, the dog park, I would not be happy. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Sorry. Option 3C was the camps. Right? Yeah. Option 3C was the camps. I cannot very sadly approve of the camp reopenings for the reasons Councilmember Davis said it is and the reasons that Gary just gave. It is very risky, you know, not just for the kids and the families, but for the community. But it's a real need for parents to have something for their kids to do in the summer. So I would like to see, and by the way, I'm thrilled with the virtual options that Parks is coming out with, that the library is coming out with, but I would like us to think about some form of substitute, substitutes that we can offer, maybe in kind of small groups, small group nature excursions, you know, something like that with social distancing as small groups of kids. Anyway, I'll leave it to staff and the public to help brainstorm on that, but I am open to alternatives that don't involve big groups of kids together with a very disparate staff to kid ratio. I think Phase 4 was where the dog park came up. Anyway, the dog park, I feel a little uncomfortable about the dog park unless we've got a staff person there kind of watching out. And the splash park, that's a tough one, I agree, that is the splash, the small splash park at the park, I agree that because of its small size, if you get a bunch of kids in there, it's crowded, but I wonder that if we require that, you know, only this number of kids could play in it at the same time, and they had to keep a distance, and if maybe we had a kind of a trial week or a trial two week period, and there was a staff member there just to monitor, and we see how it works, I'd be willing to kind of trying it out. And I believe that that was all that was all of the options that were brought forward for kind of for councils, okay, I'm wondering, and this is just one of my questions I can ask the other ones later, because others still have not spoken, but I'm wondering for the facilities that we are opening, is there a plan in place, whereas if, say contact tracing, you know, leads to one of those facilities, you know, or if our numbers, you know, continue to spike as the state continues to open things up, are we prepared to roll it back after a rollout depending on how the numbers go? So from a facility standpoint, we'll be tracking people that are coming into the facilities, so we'll have a record of that through their membership, through North Lakes, for example. People that drop in to the driving range, or to their tennis courts, the tennis courts specifically are free to use, there's no tracking there, so we don't necessarily know who uses those facilities. But something that's more programmatic, we do have the ability to track that. We did have a question asked earlier this week, and we did put a response in your Friday report that you'll be getting today, and one of the questions was, we'll be able to find out who actually gets COVID at some point in time. We do not have a way to identify who gets COVID if they've been in our facility, other than working through the county, so we would definitely be working with them if something came up for sure, and helping assist them as the lead on that step. Still a quick response to that, what about when people check into their facilities, something that they see in writing, maybe just a little sign saying, if you do test positive for COVID, could you please let us know? That definitely could be an option, yes. Council Member Briggs. Just a quick question about North Lakes, because I'm completely fine with the outline that you have here for reopening, I think it's, is there a way, since the senior center is not open, and I know we have a lot of seniors, is there a way that we can designate a certain time for those seniors at North Lakes, if that's the one we're opening, so that they could come at a certain time of day, I don't know if you can find some time in there, but I think that may be a good kind of median while the senior center is closed. A great question. We actually talked about that. So in the proposal is we have basically a split shift, and then for a two hour period that we'd be cleaning the facility. We talked about maybe opening some of the facility up for seniors at that timeframe, maybe for like an hour, that way we could get that area cleaned up before and after they get in and let them, whether it's the fitness facility for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or an open space meeting room for cards or something like that, where they can come in and have that type of interaction, or even like a senior fit type of program. So we have talked about that, and some we'll continue to look at. If a senior wanted to come in and use it during regular times, they can, we will not tell them they can't. Obviously, we would really strongly encourage them to be wearing masks. But they will be able to use North Lakes anytime. But we have looked at providing that senior time, kind of like the grocery stores are doing to come in in the morning and shop. Well, I would like to suggest that and recommend that you continue to do that. I think it could be very beneficial and help those seniors who may not feel safe coming in during the regular hours feel safer coming into exercise. Thank you. Anybody, any other questions? Mayor Pro Tem, and then we'll go to Councilmember Ryan. Yes, sir. Thank you. So I had a couple of questions. Gary, could you confirm baseball fields? Would that be the June 15th date you outlined? No, it's June 5th. June 5th for baseball fields. We put a plan together for signage. So depending on where you're at and what field there'll be different signs based on entry to the park, the restrooms, where to sit, how to spread out on the bench. So we put a plan together for that last week and we're getting concrete and signage made right now. So we wanted to have a couple days in order to get that together and get it deployed. And then help me, you lost me a little bit regarding the rec center. Would the rec center be reserved for the high temperature days or in your phased approach? Was it open generally for walking, et cetera? I just couldn't track with you. The civic center would be open and be used as a inclement weather station. You know, typically all our facilities are open that people can go in and use. But since everything's closed as of right now, we don't have that service. So we would prop open the civic center from 12 to five Monday through Friday to serve as that cooling station. North Lakes, since it's a limited usage, we would not recommend that be used as a cooling station at this time. Since we're at 25% capacity, we would encourage that the civic center be used as that cooling station. Got it. And so my next two thoughts for the city manager, one, with the civic center in that capacity, my concern would be the current status of the covered area there. I was walking there, you know, and how do we manage that? So is it do we have like a strict clearing out in the daytime? How do we manage those two? So because right now people sleep there. And so we would have to and then you're inviting other people in and we hadn't had time to power wash or whatever we're going to do. How do we manage those two worlds? We have a team right now that is working on that. We've had a number of questions and complaints from the public on that. So we're asking folks to be respectful and not sleep there during the day. We've got an interdepartmental team right now that is managing that as I guess empathetically as possible. But we know that's an issue and something that's being worked on. Okay, I appreciate it. And then I know we have a work session coming forward on the rec centers and programs, etc. Is there any way to have that conversation? My concern is I don't want to reopen, have services then be revisited shortly thereafter and modified if council decides to do so because of cost or issues with recouping that sort of thing. So I'd rather have that conversation in advance of reopening. But obviously it's a short runway. So wanted to get your thoughts. I think that's what you're hearing from both Gary and Jennifer. They're being very purposeful and kind of slow every two or three weeks to open up additional services based upon either the CDC recommendations or as we're seeing the governor loosening up restrictions. But there is that overriding concern that we are consistently being warned about this from our county health department that there could be a resurgence. What does it mean? How do we manage it? So it's why you're seeing us take a very cautious approach, slow approach to managing our budgets, managing, you know, how many folks that we have working at any one point in time and how as we're opening up facilities, we want to be sure that we get more and more data for both how we're doing from an overall COVID perspective, if we're seeing a resurgence as well as we are still 30 days or so away from getting our first real look at our projections that we made in April. So I like the approach that they've both taken. If anything really changes, we'll let you know. I know that Councilmember Armitage asked the question about, you know, is there are there triggers that would cause us to rethink, you know, opening facilities and quite frankly, I don't think there's any science to it quite yet. We're going to be relying and working very closely with our county health officials, our hospitals and chief hedges is right in the middle of it on pretty much a daily basis. So while we're we know people are getting ANSI, they want to recreate, they want to get out of the house. We are balancing the risk, the budget, you know, and this potential threat of some kind of resurgence very carefully. So we don't put you in that position of going back and forth. And then so thank you. And then one last thing, just the overall comments, you know, where I stand mayor, with respect to the dog park, I feel like there's some and you've touched on it a lot. There's some there's an air of just kind of a personal responsibility there. And so I can get comfortable with that with the understanding that I accept Gary's point that if there was something that we had, if there was an outbreak of some sort, that sort of thing, that those open facilities that are self managed, like playgrounds are manageable versus a summer camp where a customer quote unquote has paid for an amount of time. And we're having to come back and say now last minute, you're going to have to find new accommodations for your for your kids. And that would be traumatic, especially in this environment. And so those programs, the camps, etc, I think I take Gary's point, especially with that that I want to if we're going to open, I want to want to want to make sure we're committed to staying open the entire time. And that's the key. And I think we can do that. I wouldn't be supportive of staffing the parks or the dog park. I think it's, it really is a matter of staff would would do their cleaning and treatment. I would I'd be okay with just starting out phase like days. So for example, if the dog parks open on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you know, and that gives it time to for staff to come in on those off days and treat it or that sort of thing. Same with the parks, or the parks a little harder to manage at that staggered rate. But so that's where I am on those two and then okay with the others, like the pool and everything being remaining closed just because we can't commit the entire time it's open. So then you'd have the instance where if someone did buy a season pass late in the season, and then we have to turn around and terminate that and then rebate those funds, it just becomes complicated. Councilmember Ryan. Thank you, Mayor. From a budgetary standpoint on this, are we looking like it North Lakes, that we're going to have more manpower there more staff there to to guide the citizens? Is that the way I'm understanding it? So we're going to staff it based on the proposed hours, minimum of three people at a time, some overlapping so we can have cleaning shifts, and then anticipating some people taking vacation time or day off or if they just get, you know, under the weather type of thing. So we'll be moving eight to nine staff members over there to prop open that facility. And those will all be our full time staff that are already on in budget as of right now that are working remotely will be working that facility. At the same time, we're going to have staff working at Dina and MLK for the food program. And then we still have staff working at the CCP. And then when we need to ramp up the cooling station, we'll have staff there as well. So it's really been a puzzle in trying to ramp up online programs with our staff do administrative tasks, and now starting to deploy them to different facilities and figure on how the how that's all going to work out and provide services to the community. Okay. And so the the two hours worth of clinging I'm sure the supplies can come out of the federal funds that are coming through the county to us, the supplies can are we able to document the time and charge that time back to them as well for for all that type of thing? Yeah, David's got a spreadsheet that they've been tracking or his staffs been traffic tracking since the beginning of the COVID incidence kind of anticipating this so we've projected out through the end of the year, what our personnel costs could be and we're going to end up exhausting that $55 allocation. But yeah, anything that has to do with retrofitting buildings, staff time that's been directly working on COVID related issues, that sort of thing. If we can track it back to COVID, specifically we can get reimbursed through the CARES Act. Okay, just to kind of finish up, I am in favor of opening up the dog parks and the playgrounds with, you know, some good signage out there. Again, if we need to get out there for sanitizing the playgrounds on a regular basis that those dollars can come through that the federal funds to some extent, and just keep an eye on what the CDC says and when they start recommending or pulling back on what their recommendations are so that some of these dates that look like they're way out there may be able to be pulled back. Councilmember Briggs, real quick. Oh, Councilmember Mouser, you as well. Let me, let me. Yeah, I mean, basically, I've, everything you've heard is not contradictory and I'm in agreement with what's been expressed. I appreciate that staff is following CDC guidelines, I think that's kind of terra firma and I appreciate the fact that we're trying to not just have the choice be no safety or no services, we're trying to creatively find ways to have services safely and I, you know, underscore Councilmember Armitage's proposal that you consider ways to have small group activities that can be done safely. I think that's a very constructive suggestion. Councilmember Briggs. Did you have a question? Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah, just a comment on the refund or the payment for the COVID funding. On that, would the attachments to the polls for the sanitizer qualify for that? Can we look into that? Don't we have a presentation coming up on this? Yeah, David will be taking you through that question and we will look into the sanitizer issue with Gary. I think his concern has been we've seen in our restaurants are developing up those types of things leaving on a pretty frequent basis. So we were happy to give it a try, a dry run and see how it goes. As long as we're not having those issues with our inventory walking off, we're happy to make that service. I have no problem making that commitment right now. Okay. And I too would like to see maybe something if there were, you know, smaller groups, something for the summer that kids could do social distancing because, you know, our parks are a source of affordable recreation for many individuals, families and animals. And so if there's something that we can do safely, I think we should explore it. So thank you. Real quick Councilmember Armitage and I'm going to have the last word. Yeah. So three questions. Number one about City Hall reopening. As you know, the county commissioners just started meeting in person. Does this mean that there's some sort of contemplation of council meeting in person over the summer? And if so, could those of us who don't feel comfortable doing that have the option of zooming in, calling in? So let me Erin, could you just sort of review real quickly with us that we're able to do these Zoom meetings based upon the suspension of some of the Texas Open Meeting Act based upon the governor's declaration, is that correct? That is correct. And so if the governor declaration expires or at some point, if ever, he may, the governor may leave some of those in place, but if those Texas Open Meeting Acts provisions that were suspended now become reactivated as they were before the pandemic, does that mean that we're precluded from having these type of meetings or council members are prohibited from having these type based? I know we can do some video conferencing, but it's sort of a weird, it's not a Zoom situation. It's you put a monitor up at somebody's desk, if I remember correctly, when we did at the time before, is that, is it basically predicated upon the waiver or reinstitution of those provisions? On the right institution of the provision, sir, for council members would have to be present at City Hall for the meeting while up to three can actually Zoom in. The law was changed one or two legislative sessions ago to provide for that. Okay. All right. So, yes. Yeah. So, and my question was just more about individual council members not doing the whole thing. But if and when, well, obviously at some time we'll come back to meeting in person, thank goodness. But if any one council member or staff member or member of the public doesn't feel safe doing that, could they call in or Zoom, Skype, whatever, as in the way that Mayor Watts just mentioned when there was one individual on council who was out of town, I think. Well, I think what I heard our city attorney say that regarding Zoom meetings with city council members that the law was changed, that if there's laws there's four, then the others can be Zoomed in or whatever other type of media and platform they use. As far as the public goes, I don't recall, other than the waiver of the Texas Open Meetings Act's provisions currently that allow for that, Erin, if those are reinstituted just back to the status quo prior to the pandemic, then the public would still need to come speak to us in public, is that correct? No, that's just something in the law that's not really addressed, what you just described, Mayor. I mean, we could, or the council could decide that they want all speakers to come into City Hall and speak here. And I don't believe there's anything in the Open Meetings Act that would prohibit us allowing the speakers from calling in, as well as Zooming in. With that said, it would really depend on the technical capabilities that the city has to do that. Right. Right. Thank you. As part of that same question about City Hall, as far as staff in the main desk area, I know we have that glass there now. I don't know exactly how the audibility is through that glass, but are they able to communicate with the public okay through that glass without having to open the door? Yes. Okay, excellent. So my other two questions, one about telecommuting for employees, do all employees have the option of telecommuting and, you know, I obviously say custodial work, you know, you can't do that over the telephone, but all, can any employee who could conceivably do their work at home telecommuting request that? We are taking the position that there are certain employees that can work at home and can telecommute. We're leaving that up to the department director's discretion if they need them in the office for certain reasons, to work that out employee by employee, you know, it has been a huge success in terms of just kind of keeping the, you know, the business of the government going over the last couple of months, our employees have done very well at working at home, and we just recently did a survey of, I want to say six or 700 employees, overwhelmingly positive. I think some of them missed the interaction with other employees, but as far as being able to get their job done, cutting down expenses, that sort of thing, we really haven't seen much of a drop off. Now, granted, our workload is not the same today in some areas as it was in others. So we're going to continue watching that. I think we're planning for at least for the next quarter or two, at a minimum, to allow those department directors to make it, it's their call. And if we, and if we learn that, you know, there's functions that we really don't see any difference in slippage and performance, or we don't see any difference for the end customer being our residents, we're going to allow them to continue making those calls. But if there are reasons that they need to be in, the department head's going to have the discretion to make those calls. And thank you. And thank you for focusing on the ends and not, you know, the meat, putting too much on the means. Finally, and briefly, I appreciated the staff report about the pedestrian buttons on the square. What I'm wondering is, and this was something that members of the public had raised in response to that staff report, are there ways that we could test something like that out on a small scale, even so much as, and this is my example, you know, maybe a sign just saying, use your elbow, you know, press the button with your elbow. That I don't think that would be satisfactory necessarily to those who suggested having a no touch pedestrian button, but people had suggested that it would be helpful to see if the city would be willing to experiment with small ways. We've been speaking with Councilmember Briggs, so I think it has every intention of kind of making that pitch to see if there's other technology out there. So I've asked staff to work with her to understand what that request looks like and see you all can now, you know, if you want to prove kind of a beta test on the square or something like that, we are happy to look into those options. I think the other thing I'd like to just kind of touch on your other question, Councilmember Armitage, you know, regarding the county, one of the things that you saw was that they had those plexiglass, I guess, barriers set up in between the commissioners. So we've got Sarah Hensley is working with our facility staff right now, taking a look at both the council work session room as well as the city council chambers to see what kind of modifications would need to be put in place to bring you back and for us to bring you back in what we feel is the safest manner possible. So we're anticipating worst-case scenario if the governor doesn't extend the order. After June, I think it's 11th or 12th, at your next meeting on the 16th, we're going to be prepared with different setups in both areas to try to address some of those concerns and for both the council and the public. Okay. All right. Yeah, I'm good with staff's recommendations. As far as the dog park and the playgrounds, I'm going to be really do we have hand sanitation stations in our parks in general, other than in the restrooms? I'm sorry, I was muted, we do not. Okay. So if we're going to open up, we've already had our parks opened up, all right, and we've had them open up for a little bit. I don't think there's a need to put hand sanitizer stations in the dog park simply because we don't have it anywhere else. We have it in the restrooms, which I understand is because if we're going to talk about personal responsibility and we're going to ask people to sort of self-regulate within these areas, I don't support putting a staff member out there because then you're going to be telling people you can't come on the playground or you can't come in the dog park. All you have to do is read news feeds and hear different articles about confrontations that have occurred because of that. So if we're not doing that in the rest of the parks, which I don't necessarily promote right now because again, people are out there, they're walking, they can have personal accountability for the hand sanitizer whereas we have it in the restrooms, which we already are starting to have problems with it. But if they want to take the risk to go out to the dog park, if they want to go to take a risk to the playground, that's certainly up to them. I think you will find that the social distancing probably will not be adhered to very often, but it's what I'm hearing from this council is they sort of assume the risk of that kind of environment and situation. So I know that's a minor thing, but if we're going to put hand sanitizers out at the dog park, we need to put them everywhere throughout all the parks and I can't support that right now based upon what we're currently doing and what we haven't done. Council member Briggs, it's going to have to be very quickly because we're moving on from this. Wait, you mentioned restrooms and my comment was for those areas that do not have restrooms. But the restrooms... But the restrooms... You are sort of fading in and out. You're frozen now. Can you hear me? Okay, well, again, I'll just state my comment. I haven't heard a whole thing about the sanitation. We can try it as it is if it becomes a problem. But the hand sanitizer in the restrooms is for the purpose of the restrooms. I mean, I think that's an obvious point. All right, so we're going... Is there any more... We still got another presentation for this particular one. Let's take about a five-minute break. It's about 2.30. Let's come back at 2.35. Welcome back, everybody, to this meeting of the Denton City Council on May the 29th, 2020. It is 2.41 p.m. We are still on our Work Session Report 1A, so we will resume the presentation. Can't hear you, Gary. Yeah. And also, we talked about opening the dog parks and the... What was the other one? Playgrounds. Playgrounds. And so, Council, if we could just pull down this slide just for a moment so I could see the full Council at once. So Gary was talking about opening those up on June the 1st, is that correct, Gary? That's correct. I mean, we could go any date the Council desires, but we can make it happen on June 1st. Is there any issue with that, Councilmember Armitage? So I know I'm probably in a minority on this, but I think we should go by what the numbers are telling us, the positives in our city and region. Okay. All right. So, I mean, does that mean you're opposed to the June 1st opening date? I think for me, that's too early for right now, is my understanding. All right. Anyone else have an issue or opposition to June 1st? Not seeing anybody raise their hand, so okay, the direction is we will open those on June 1st, the dog park and the playgrounds. Mayor of City Council, Sarah Kickler, Chief of Staff. I just have one last part of the presentation to review with City Council. So this is in regards to the conversation that Council just started having regarding public meetings. So as you'll remember, when the COVID pandemic hit in March, staff quickly came up with the solution in order for City Council to be able to hold virtual meetings and allow public participation remotely. We did hold those City Council meetings throughout March and April, and then on April 21st, City staff came back with a recommendation to start with a limited scope to expand that, to also have some boards and commissions meetings be held virtually as well, just due to the staff resources that are required to hold these meetings safely, as well as allow for public participation and get our board and commission members trained. We did start with that limited scope in May. We are proposing to continue to expand that into June for the virtual meetings. As you'll see on the chart on the right, these are the meetings that we have proposed to hold virtually during June, just based upon talking with board chairs and board liaisons for items that they have coming up where they need some time sensitivity to certain items, as well as some boards and commissions that need to meet to review items. This is all dependent upon the Governor extending the suspension of the TOMA requirements, as was discussed earlier. Right now they are in effect, that suspension is in effect until June 11th, and then it may be extended again by the Governor. City staff is preparing to implement modifications to the work session room in the event it is not extended, and we do need to return for in-person City Council meetings. I'm happy to take any questions City Council has or any direction. Okay, let me. Any questions? Council Member Briggs and then Council Member Armitage? So, have we or any other cities advocated to extend that, or are we just waiting to see, have we, have we put any input in from the municipal side? It's likely the Governor will extend that, it's actually part of the state declaration for disaster, and so he has extended it every 30 days, so it's likely it will be extended again, but yes, we can reach out to the representatives as well as the Governor's office to advocate for that. Okay, thank you. What are we reaching out to advocate for? To continue with the suspension of the TOMA meeting requirements. To travel along with the Governor's declaration? Correct, if City Council desires. Okay. Council Member Armitage? Yeah, so I would approve of that. Thank you Council Member Briggs. My question is about the Committee on Persons with Disabilities. I know that the Chair of the Committee had recommended that they meet earlier because COVID really affects people with disabilities. So I'm wondering if there has been any momentum in that area of getting them to meet before I believe it is July, is it when their next scheduled meeting is, or is it June? I do not show them currently scheduled for the month of June. I can check back in with our team. Yeah, if, I mean, I thought that was a good argument, and I think it would be good if staff would check with the committee to see if they would like to meet because people with disabilities have a number of concerns right now and COVID is, our COVID situation directly affects them. Okay, all right. Any other comments? Council Member Ryan? Yeah, have we looked at, because I know with all seven of us, there's space limitations as far as, until we put up some type of a shield or what have you, but when we're talking about subcommittees that are only three people and usually, you know, three or four staff, we'd looked at possibly taking those back to live so we can save some staff time for having to do the Zoom on those? We have not yet. I think something we can give consideration to as we're preparing with all the facility modifications that we're doing currently, we can bring back some options. Yeah, we're taking a look at the council work session room right now and what different modifications, what different tables, you know, could be put in place and that, if we can get a solution quick enough, that's definitely possible, Council Member Ryan. Okay, and that would be my preference was that at least, at least those subcommittees that are smaller groups, we would try and get those started as quickly as possible. Okay, any other comments? So just for clarification, the TOMA waiver is embedded within the Governor's declaration, correct? That's correct. Okay, so if he extends it, it usually goes along with that unless he specifically excludes it. Yes, unless he were to modify the language, but the language has been consistent throughout the last couple extensions. So if he, if and when the Governor's declaration expires, then the TOMA requirements will return to the status quo prior to his original declaration. Correct. All right, so I'm not quite sure what we'd be reaching out for. I mean, we're not asking them to extend it beyond his declaration. He hasn't pulled it out and made an exception in his, in his, you know, continuing declaration. So what is it that we're saying we want to ask the Governor for? Staff would be happy to take direction from City Council. We can reach out and ask for the continuation of the suspension of the TOMA meeting requirements and extension of the declaration, or we can stay silent. Well, okay, and because I know Councilmember Riggs, you asked the question. So I guess if it's been, if it's happened in the past that it's been extended, we're not asking them to extend it beyond the declaration once the declaration expires. We're not asking them to extend those waivers beyond that. We're just asking that he continue to move that forward with the continuing extensions of the declarations. Yes. Which is what he's doing now. Well, I don't know why I think we just, okay, let me back up. Okay, so the Governor is, in all these declarations, since he waived the TOMA regulations, those have been continued to, those waivers have been extended at the same time that the declarations have been extended. Because they're contained within the declaration, is that correct? Yes. Okay. All right. I think so. Does that answer your question, Councilmember Briggs? It does. So to staff, was that, are there any municipalities reaching out to the Governor's office to extend that declaration in case he's deciding, he decides to not renew it? So that was my question. Okay. All right. So then that's a policy question for the Council that, I mean, if people want to weigh in now, so Councilmember Briggs wants to ask the Governor to extend the declaration past June 11th. Is that correct? Councilmember Armitage? Yeah. I would like a declaration that mentions that please make your decisions on opening by the numbers. You know, go by the numbers. And we believe that right now the numbers, you know, suggest that we should be extending this. Who is we? I'm happy for any word, whoever would sign on to resolution. Okay. All right. Okay. Anybody else? Mayor, sorry. Can I add one thing? I just, another staff member who advised me that TML said that they expect that the suspension would go throughout the summer. Okay. All right. Yeah, I'm okay with letting that be up to the Governor. I mean, I don't necessarily, if the majority of the Council wants to send some type of letter or something encouraging to extend it past the June 11th deadline, I mean, certainly okay with that. Is there, we've got Council Member Briggs and Council Member Armitage. Now Council Member Armitage's comments were more based upon, I think, numbers and things such as that. I mean, if that's, if Council Member Briggs or whoever else would want to sign, I wouldn't agree with that wording, that would be fine, but I agree with an extension regardless of the wording. If there's a decision to put a reason in there, that would be nice. Anybody else? Okay, if you're not, if you're not wanting to express support for that proposition, then that's what I'm looking for, because if we're not, let's just move on. So okay. All right. Okay. Go ahead, Sarah. That is the end of the COVID work session update presentation. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Council Member Briggs, I thought earlier we were going to talk, there was a comment about later on in the presentation about funding. No, that's the next agenda item. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's the next agenda item. Okay. Anyone else on the COVID-19 response presentation by the city of Denton? All right. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. This session reports 1B, Receive a Report, Hold a Discussion, and Give Staff Direction Concerning COVID-19 Expenditures and Funding Opportunities. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, David Gaines, Director of Finance. I have a short presentation to go over our COVID-19 funding opportunities and the costs we've incurred so far related to the pandemic and that we anticipate over the coming months. So we'll go through a number of those funding sources and updates regarding them and any of the restrictions or guidance that we have regarding each. Some of the objectives as laid out, review those opportunities. First, we're going to talk through the county CRF funding, which obviously has been a point of note over the past couple of weeks as that program has been established and funds have been identified for the city. We're going to touch on the CARES Act CDBG funding, which is something that, an item that's been discussed with council a few times, but is important in our overall context of our COVID funding, our FEMA reimbursements and the guidance that goes along with those. And there are other opportunities for funding which are not quite as significant as those first three. And we'll talk through, review our current and projected cost, and then discuss a plan for utilizing those funding sources that we review. So the COVID relief fund, the CRF funding from Denton County, was touched on last week. Some of this is a recap, but to lay out the program that Denton County has approved so far, they've approved the guidelines of this program as they continue to move forward with the specifics of how it will look. The county received approximately $148 million from the initial CARES Act and the funding that went directly to them, entity, local governments over 500,000 received that funding directly from the treasury. So obviously Denton County received that funding and the city of Denton did not. So we worked with the county and the county set up a program to distribute funds to all the cities within the county that did not receive direct funding from the treasury. And you can see that there in the first bullet point of $45 million reserved for distribution to Denton County cities. And that number was derived from an allocation of $55 per resident for each of those cities that would be distributed funds. And that number is consistent with what the state is doing with their allocations to cities that are going to receive funds directly from the state. The county has also identified other buckets, other programs for the entire $148 million. So outside of the 45 million reserve for cities, you can see they're going to set up a $24 million for local business grants, $20 million for housing assistance program, $10 million for food programs, $6 million for expenditures they've already incurred, $2 million for nonprofits and then $20 million for those ongoing COVID expenses they have. Number of those programs, they're still working through local business grants, the housing assistance program, county still working through what those are going to look like as they approach it from a county-wide perspective on each of those. So more detail about what that $45 million allocation means for us. As I mentioned, a $55 per capita, that should be approximately $7.5 million for the City of Denton. As Denton County established this program, we did work with them, we worked with a number of other cities to come up with some options that would work for all cities within the county and the county laid out these three options, understanding that each city, depending on their size and their needs, is going to have a different model that works for them. So the first option, which is the one that we've identified and have sent a letter to the county to move forward with, is full funding, which would send us the entire approximately $7.5 million upfront that we would have in a separate fund and then administer appropriately. And we'll talk a little bit about that in the next slide as we look at what expenditures are eligible, what costs are appropriate for this funding and then work with the county and their representatives also in ensuring those costs are spent appropriately. They did lay out a couple of other options for other cities, for supplies only, that they just reimburse for supplies that are purchased or work with the county to purchase supplies and then a combination for some cities that want a reimbursement for some of their expenses but also to purchase supplies with the county. The county treasurer will submit that payment to the city once an ILA, once an interlocal agreement is executed. The county's working on those ILA's right now, so that should be an item that comes back to council relatively soon as they work on the details. And then we'll submit or retain, and I believe the guidance we've gotten so far is that we'll retain that documentation or work with the county to retain it for any future audit that may occur. So what are the eligible costs and the restrictions that are associated with the CRF funds? The, to begin, the overarching principles, they need to be incurred due to the public health emergency. These are expenses that were not accounted for in the most recently approved budget. And they're expenses that were incurred between March 1, 2020 and ending December 30, 2020. So that's an important consideration as we're anticipating our expenses over such a long timeframe, we have to make some assumptions on what that might look like over those months and then ensure that any of those expenditures happen in that timeframe. So you can see a number of the examples that we've laid out here for what those expenses can be used for, and I'll go through those, but I think it's important to note that we're still getting guidance on what these expenses can be and what specific examples can help us determine which costs are eligible and which costs aren't. We're continually getting updates from the Treasury. Even up to today, we got an updated FAQ on, here's some additional guidance on how these funds can be distributed or used. So continuing to follow that to ensure that we have a good system set up once we receive these funds. Payroll expenses can be put towards these funds, and those are payroll expenses that are dedicated to mitigating the response, dedicated to COVID response, expenses or in actions to facilitate compliance for the public health emergency, emergency medical response expenses, expenses for the acquisition of medical and protective supplies, disinfection of public areas and other facilities. So a lot of those expenses are ones that we've been tracking as we've come forward with that additional emergency budget authority, and a lot of those expenses also, as we talk about the FEMA funds, are expenses that are eligible also for FEMA reimbursement. And then that last one increases expenses to increase COVID-19 treatment capacity and also mitigation measures for including related construction costs. As we look at those costs, that's going to be a significant one for the city as we look at current buildings, buildings under construction right now, renovations ongoing, how can we take measures to ensure that we put those mitigation efforts in place for each of the facilities and make those improvements. As we had the conversation just in the last item about the work session rooms and the different parameters or things that we can put in place from sanitization stations, that's something we'll be looking at each of the facilities in the city for options that we can do. And that also, you know, doors, entrances to the buildings, bathrooms in the buildings, a number of different, a number of options we can look at. So quickly touch on the CDBG funding because obviously we've had that discussion with council a few times now, but we did receive the $618,000 in CDBG COVID funding to prepare for and respond to COVID-19. A lot of the costs here are similar to the costs that we can use for the CRF funding from the acquisition, reconstruction of facilities, building improvements, and many other tools that we can to move forward and deal with the crisis. Finally, I do want to touch on the FEMA reimbursement as well. FEMA reimbursement is, as most FEMA reimbursements are, this is a 75% reimbursement based on the federal cost share. So you identify those eligible costs that we have in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and 75% of those costs based on some restrictions would be eligible for reimbursement and those could range from medical care and transport, transporting of equipment, a lot of the other items that we talked about with the CRF funding from PPE to other mitigation efforts. So another option that we have at our disposal for moving forward with reimbursement. A few of those other pieces aren't quite as large, but other avenues that we're going down for reimbursement opportunities. The first one is a grant we've already received, a CARES Act EMS grant for $60,000, which goes to really the same kind of criteria that we talked about for the COVID response for EMS related expenses. We did get airport funding from the CARES Act, $157,000, which has less restrictions on it than the CRF funding and some of the other funds, and we're right now looking at the best way to utilize that funding. And then for the Bureau of Justice supplemental funding, again, $82,000 that goes to public safety reimbursements for COVID related expenditures. We have a couple of other opportunities at the bottom there that we're exploring right now as they're being established, public safety office CESF grants funds from the state, and then a COVID-19 supplemental grant for firefighters from FEMA as well. So this chart is intended to show our total costs right now, what we're tracking, what we project forward with costs related to COVID-19, and then look at those two big buckets of funds that we have and how we would allocate those out and use those to offset some of these COVID-19 costs that we've incurred. Since the beginning of the pandemic in March, we've been diligent about setting up tracking measures for both personnel expenses and other expenses so that whenever we get to the point where we have these funding opportunities, we can appropriately apply them and have a system in place. So that's how we've gotten to that first section there, the eligible COVID-19 expenses incurred through March 20th. Those are the buckets that we've been tracking all along from the public safety personnel costs, which we've had about $580,000, and then you can see the others there. Other personnel costs, we've had personnel throughout the city that are working on COVID-19 efforts that are not public safety, but definitely spending significant portions of their time toward COVID-19, and we've tracked that at about $1.1 million so far. We don't anticipate that we'll, through any of these opportunities, offset that entire amount of those costs just because they're not going to meet all of the criteria laid out, but it's important that we track those so that as we get more information about what can be applied, what funding can be applied toward those costs, we have all the backup that we would need to justify those expenditures. The next criteria there is the COVID sick leave and EFMLA. Those really relate to our employees throughout the city that we gave additional sick leave time related to COVID, and that could be for employees themselves who get COVID, from relatives who get COVID, or from having to deal with daycare issues related to COVID closures, and also different changes to an emergency FMLA, which expanded FMLA and the costs associated. There's certain employees, those costs can be reimbursed. Right now it doesn't look like that would apply to all employees in the city, but it would apply to certain that we could be reimbursed for those costs. The next few are the ones that we've seen throughout as we've been tracking it and reporting to council on our spending authority from the PPE, first responder equipment, $155,000 that we've incurred so far, the homelessness assistance, which is really those hotels and security and associated security, which has been coming to council each week that we bring these updates, the utility assistance program, obviously increasing that $50,000 for our existing program in response to the pandemic, our United Way assistance for $150,000 total, and then just $45,000 of other materials and supplies that we've tracked toward the pandemic. The next category, we've taken those expenses and essentially just prorated them out for the rest of the year, knowing that we can track expenses up through December toward the CRF funding. The best we can do right now is say, here's what we spent so far, and if we continue spending at the same rate, here's what it would look like through the end of the year. That obviously could change, and it's possible we don't spend all that at the same rate that we're spending now, but I think it's appropriate for us to plan for that or to look at it in this manner for somewhat of a worst-case scenario and what those expenses could be. So you can see those lined out on each of those categories moving forward, and you can also see that we've zeroed out the utility assistance program and the nonprofit assistance program as we saw earlier, the county has set up their separate funding programs for each of those in addition to the small business program, so we wouldn't anticipate contributing any more strictly from city funds outside of that county reimbursement. The final category, additional COVID response, is really the capital costs that I talked about in an earlier slide, those mitigation efforts that we can make at our current and facilities that are currently under renovation. We plugged in a number right now for $4.5 million. We're working through the detail on that, looking at the city hall, looking at our service center, looking at the new development services building, the Luke 288 building, and really all of our facilities to see what mitigation efforts we can put into place. So we'll definitely be providing more information on that as we move forward, but that will be a tight deadline to plan for those, design those, and get those in place before the end of the year so that they are eligible expenses for the CRF funding. So if you add all those expenses up through the rest of the fiscal year, you can see that they total $15 million based on those projections, which even with the $7.5 million that we're anticipating for CRF funds wouldn't cover that entire $15 million. And we think about 10 million, 10.8 million of that 15 would be eligible for CRF funding based on our understanding right now. And again, that could evolve and change as we get more guidance, which would have us exhausting the entire 7.5 million with some leftover. That additional 3.3 million, some of that could be applied to FEMA reimbursement, so we could be further reimbursed for that 3.3 million. So we're going to be taking a strategic approach as to the funding sources that we go toward, how we use those funding sources, and really tracking what's eligible and not in the different buckets. The CDBG funding, $618,000, really can be used in a number of ways. Obviously there was a recommendation made at the last council meeting that had some programs identified or at least broad areas identified, but those funds could also be used for a number of these other categories you see on this chart. That's all for the presentation. Welcome. Thanks for the question. Yeah. If we could get the full council up. Council questions? All right. Councilmember Armitage? Yeah. So did we get an email with that presentation? If so, I apologize. I couldn't find it. And if not, I assume it's been posted on the website or will be sent to us? It was on the agenda that was posted on Friday, but I think there was just an issue on it and it's not showing on the website right now. So it will be posted just-- Okay. Okay. Thank you. So I support using the CDBG funds in the way that the Human Services Committee recommends. I think that we've got lots of good reimbursement strategies mapped out in what I just saw from the funding that is coming down to us from the county. So I just want to say that I support using CDBG funds for those purposes and not for reimbursement. Again, I'm talking just about those CDBG funds, and I'm especially eager about the new facility, the new daytime/nighttime center, whatever we're calling it, on the loop to serve our homeless community and was wondering if staff could speak to what kind of timeline are we looking at for that, since that was one of the major recommended uses of that CDBG funding by the Human Services Committee. Todd, if I could, Council Member Armitage, I don't think they recommended. What they recommended for those CDBG funding was rental assistance, which the county has allocated $20 million for, and what they also recommended, I think, was utility assistance or something like that, which is what the county is, that's part of that assistance. So we had a discussion with the council about that, and so the council, there was sort of a council direction to wait and see if we can use that on the day center, then we could do that and maybe use some other funding for those items that the CDBG funds were slated for by the committee, and I believe the council gave direction to not make it a major amendment to the plan. So the original recommendation was not for the building. The council sort of thought, and didn't really necessarily give direction. I sort of started out the conversation on this last meeting regarding this, that we could possibly use that money to help with either the purchase or the remodeling of that, where some of these COVID funds, the county funds, we could not, but the county funds could be used for what the human services had recommended, so we were trying to maximize the use of our funds, no sense using our money if the county money is going to suffice. We should use the money that we are only restricted to using on our projects, whereas some of those that the community recommended, the health services committee, excuse me, recommended, could be funded and having a lot more funding, I mean, there's $20 million for housing assistance that the county's allocating, so they did not make that original recommendation, I guess is what I'm saying. Okay, thank you. So as far as the day center goes, what is the projected timeline, or does that depend on what council decides about funding, as I support? We currently have an assessment being done of the building we've got, and we're in the process of trying to fast track an architectural proposal to help us evaluate what all would need to be done to the facility, both Sarah Keickler, Danny, and Sarah Hensley have been working with our Daily Bread MKOC, trying to understand what their needs might be as well so we can try to understand, sync their concerns up with the overall assessment from the architects and come up with a budget, but our goal is to try to have that facility built out, those improvements made by the end of the year if possible, it's just a matter of how quickly can we get everybody on board and synced up with a vision. If there's any ability to utilize some of these outside dollars to help with those improvements there, as Mayor Watts said, that is absolutely our goal, is to try to retain as much federal funding in this community as we can. Oh yeah, and I absolutely support the funding of that, regardless of what source it comes from. So thank you, that's good to know, end of the year projection, again, I understand that that's just a projection, a goal, but it's a good one, so thank you. And David has projected out in his pro forma there that we would renew the hotel deep into quarter four in order to make that happen, so I think we've got a pretty good plan at this place. Council Member Briggs? Sorry about my comment earlier for this presentation, the previous presentation was loaded up under this agenda item for me on my iLegislate, so I hadn't seen it, and I didn't know it was here, so that was where my confusion was, I apologize. I have two questions, one on the last, or the TML update, it says that the CARES Act appropriated $1.5 billion to the Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration to be used on economic development programs to help communities recover and that all cities are eligible, are we looking into that, and how we can use that assistance for our small businesses and our economic development? We are, we just had a meeting on that yesterday with Jessica Rogers, Economic Development Director, so kind of coming up with a plan right now, we're bringing that back to council on what the best use, what we think the best use of those funds are for and what our best opportunities to move forward are, so yes, yeah, exploring that right now. Okay, and I just have one more question, it's about the disaster, the declaration of disaster, and I know that we've applied for FEMA and we had a conversation earlier about its extension, and I know that part of that, the reason it's been extended is it allows cities and other entities to be eligible for funding, so is that just tied to the start date or would it also be tied funding, tied to the end of that disaster, so I'm just, it's just a question I'm curious about. It's a good question. I'm not sure I fully understand the question. Okay, well, the governor has a declaration of disaster and as long as that's in place, entities, cities, counties can apply for funding through that disaster for relief, and it has a, it's in effect, and so my question is kind of referring to the other question we had about his extension, so if it doesn't get as extended, does that affect the date where cities and counties can apply for funding? Or is it just, or does that December 2020 date, is that the end date no matter if it's extended or not? Typically, the disaster declaration would be for a finite period of time, a cost occurred within that period of time. What we're being told, and I understand, what we're being told is on the CARES Act hours, you must have them spent by the end of the fiscal year. So what we're trying to do and what David's trying to do is to coordinate if there's any opportunity to utilize the full $55 allocation and CARES Act dollars and still also apply for the FEMA dollars, that's exactly the exercise we're going through right now is how do we maximize both plots of money with the FEMA dollars only being a 75% reimbursement. So it's going to, I think we've incurred enough costs that as long as we feel comfortable that we can expend the whole $55, we're going to be trying to direct as many eligible costs into FEMA too as we can. Is that kind of where you're going? Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that if for some reason it didn't get extended and we hadn't applied, the FEMA money hasn't come in yet and we still had cursed occurring after that disaster expired, is there any possible way to get reimbursed for that? Right now I don't think we could exhaust both pots of eligible dollars, but the longer this goes on or if we get hit again or if there's costs we haven't seen, it will definitely allow us to balance both plots of money and access both plots of money, but as it stands right now, I'm not sure we're going to be able to exhaust both avenues with enough costing at this point. Thank you. I would also add the FEMA reimbursement was driven by the national declaration of emergency, so a little bit different conversation in the state. And she raises a good question. So if we could find out the answer to the question, that is when the disaster expires, the national declaration expires that activated the availability of FEMA funds, are those funds – are they available for projects and costs or reimbursements that are only incurred during the time period of the emergency declaration, the national emergency declaration? Or once it expires, if you still are incurring costs, original costs, after the expiration, are those funds still available, are they cut off with the date of the expiration of the national disaster? Right. Okay. We'll get an answer. And I think the other caveat to all that is what are actually allowed as, you know, eligible expenditures, which is typically the roadblock we run into. Okay. All right. Okay. Other comments, questions? Councilmember Meltzer? I reviewed this earlier in the week, and I get the overall concept that we have our list of needs and trying to maximize the FEMA funding and the CARES Act funding and the CDBG against, you know, as they can be applied, but, you know, I'm a little spoiled in that usually when staff is seeking direction, you kind of package the options for us, you know, very clearly. And I thought that, I didn't see that, and I thought I might get that here, but I'm not really clear what direction you're seeking. I see that our list of needs is longer than the total source of funding. So are you asking us to find, I forget what it was, like the $3 million that gets left out, or what is the direction that you're seeking? No, I think at this point, the way to put all this in perspective is we're still trying to figure out how to access some additional FEMA dollars to whittle down that $3.5 million deficit, as was previously asked, but this is more of an update on where we currently are, what's eligible. The county did us a huge favor by going ahead and fully seeding those business assistance programs and housing programs. In some other cities, they're actually having to ask for direct allocation of those dollars because they can't come anywhere near the $55 per capita cost. So by the time this is done, we probably will be exceeding that $55 per cost on an aggregate basis when you add in those other programs. So they actually helped us quite a bit and saved us the conversation of making choices. That's great. Thank you. So and Councilmember Meltzer, thank you for that question. I think that's a good question. I'll be a little bit more specific in my direction, which I don't think it's any secret, that if, I know we're showing a shortfall, but those are based upon projections. And when we look at the count of the city facilities and what upgrades we're going to do and all those kinds of things, like for instance, if we needed to retrofit the city council chambers to accommodate phone in or Zoom meetings, which probably cannot accommodate right now, then those types are the changes or the expenses that are eligible. And I appreciate, Mr. City Manager, your discussion on the Loop 288 building that we're going to try to get it up and going by the end of the year, which that'll be a, I mean, we need to make sure we manage expectations. But I think part of the reason for that kind of elevation of the completion of the project date is because we may be able to use a substantial amount of those remodel costs or those enhancements to address the pandemic from these federal funds. So I would say, I mean, we've got to look at all of these things and look at city facilities, but the city facility chunk was $4.5 million. So I think as you begin to identify specific facility needs, and as we get a little bit more detailed work on the Loop 288 building, either through plans and bids and contracts that are coming back, bid specifications, then there's probably going to be some desire to begin to talk about more specific items to be funded as we get an update. Because I mean, you're going to give us an update periodically on, okay, now these are the actual expenditures, here we are, sort of a rolling update of actual expenses and how much we have left in those funds. So I think that was a good question, but what I'm hearing is we're going to get updates moving forward to where the direction you want may require more specificity than just today with sort of a here's where we are, here's our overarching theme and goal, and as we move forward, we'll need to get a little bit more specific based upon the numbers. Absolutely correct. And just kind of remember, everyone, it's been about 10 days since we've even known that we had this money to work with. So we're putting the best plan in place that we possibly can, and we are also aware of at least one or two other pots of money that we might be able to potentially bring forward to you to discuss other programs with as well. So I would anticipate every couple of weeks having this conversation with you until we get a firm plan. Okay, great. Councilmember Meltzer? Yes, go ahead. Yeah, so is there any direction that should be given to the public as far as they've got urgent needs regarding utilities and rent and so on as far as approaching the county for consideration, for help in that area? Yes. In order to get the program kind of streamlined on both the business assistance and the utility, the rental assistance, I went ahead and offered our services to Judge Eads and his staff. So Sarah Kiegler and Danny will likely be helping administer some of those programs. I think they're going to probably funnel them to United Way since there's already a pipeline there around the county to do it. And as soon as that has been confirmed, we will go ahead and really push out the message so all of you can share it, and we'll get it out on Facebook or wherever else we need to get it out. But they're right now finalizing their plans, the ILAs with all the cities, and also try to figure out exactly how they're going to administer each of these programs. Once that's done, we'll get the word out. Okay. Thank you very much. Yep. All right. Other questions, comments? Seeing none. Okay. I appreciate that. So I believe that was the conclusion of the presentation as well. So we've concluded our work session reports 1A and 1B, and pursuant to our agenda, following the completion of the work session, the city council will convene in a special called meeting to consider one item that we have, and we will call that meeting to order at 329 PM. And the item for individual consideration in this special called meeting is consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, a Texas home rule municipal corporation, extending the effective period of the declared state of local disaster, superseding and replacing the fourth order of the council of the city of Denton. I tell you what, let's take a short break because we do have a public speaker. I think we needed some time to get that queued up as well. So let's come back at 335 or close therein. Welcome, everybody back to this meeting of the Dent City Council on May the 29th at 342 PM. I apologize for the delay. We were just getting out some changes to the ordinance based upon the feedback that staff received from the work session report on openings and things such as that. So we'll go ahead and call that item again. Agenda item 1A is consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, a Texas home rule municipal corporation extending the effective period of the declared state of local disaster. And we do have, I believe, one caller. So after after the presentation, we will we will bring the speaker in after staff questions for the presentation. So staff. Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, Ryan Adams, Public Affairs, see if I can pull up our presentation real quick. So this is just a brief presentation on the updated disaster declaration and order that is before you for consideration. A little bit of a summary of previous actions. Of course, we we first began our disaster declaration on March 13th and have continuously updated it and amended it and superseded it since then, with our most recent actions coming on April 30th and May 5th. As a very brief status update on what has been going on with actions at the state and how they affect the city of Denton, of course, the state disaster declaration is effective through June 11th, 2020. Recently Governor Abbott issued executive orders GA 21 and GA 23, which greatly expanded the number of services and businesses that can operate in the state of Texas. To the side, I even did a quick screenshot of some of the new businesses and services that are effective and will be effective as of future dates this weekend. The most, pardon me, most previously restricted services at this point, such as beauty services, bars, they are now permitted to operate, a complete list is available at texas.gov/opentexas. So the current order of council references GA 18 and GA 19, but not the more recent state actions and the, of course, the disaster declaration and order of council are only effective through the end of May, those that we currently have on the books. The draft that is before you extends the declaration of local disaster through June 30th. The order of council supersedes all previous orders and is also effective through the 30th, through the end of this month, and it states that businesses and services must abide by GA 23, which is the most recent action by the governor related to businesses and services, and continues on the provision that medical procedures must comply with GA 19, which is reflected in our current executive order and disaster declaration. It continues several previous local provisions with respect to public meetings. Nothing has changed on our updated order of council. And applications remain the same from May 5th. The same is true for purchasing authority, utility disconnections for nonpayment, and court proceedings, although the red line version does have a slight amendment based on some information that was gathered and communicated to us today. The updated order also adds a provision that applies to businesses with more than 51 percent of sales from alcoholic beverages. This allows a little bit of flexibility with related to food permit expirations and prorations for those businesses that have 51 percent or more of their sales from alcohol that were not able to operate for a considerable amount of time over the last several months. And we have included, if you look at the copy in front of you, under O, it includes information on the direction that we received today related to parks and library openings. And that is the presentation. And this updated order of council and disaster declaration orderance are ready for your consideration and discussion. Okay. If we could clear the... One question I have because I wasn't able to pull up all of the modified ordinance and I remember looking at it before today, but couldn't refresh my memory. Are the utility disconnects still moving forward with this declaration? I know we talked about returning to some type of normal collection effort. I thought that was in the 1st of June is when or was it July? I can't remember. Okay, all right. That's what I need to know. Thank you for the clarification. All right. Any questions, comments? Because this is an action item and if we don't have any, we'll listen to the public speaker. Council member Briggs. Have the businesses referenced the 51 percent who weren't able to be open? Have they gotten notification of this? Are they aware? They are in communication with development services, although we do have Scott McDonald on the line and he can probably address that question for you a little more directly than I can. Council, Mayor Scott McDonald, development services. We have not had, we've had a couple of complaints of individuals that have been required to pay their permit fee and ultimately not being able to be open for business. We have not put any announcement or broadcast any information to any of these establishments until council action on the topic. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Council member Armitter. I have a question for Scott based on that. I hadn't heard those complaints and I find that interesting. Are these permits to the city or are they state permits? There's two, there's a license through the state and the city permits as well. And so these specifically address those establishments that are 51 percent alcohol sales that were not allowed to be open and that we're just doing a good faith effort that we shouldn't be charging for a service that we're not providing. They're not able to operate under. So really this is just the city's component. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? All right. We do have a speaker. And for this agenda, item 1A, we've had zero people making comments on our online form. There was zero in support or zero against. We've not had any one call in to our 349-7800 number to register position. So there weren't any in support or any against. We have one speaker and we will bring the speaker in now. I believe Stephen Dillonburg. Mr. Dillonburg, this is Chris Watts. You are on with the Denton City Council for your public comment on agenda item 1A. When you state your name and address, your time will begin and you have four minutes. Perfect. Can you hear me okay? We can hear you fine. Thank you, sir. Go ahead. Okay. Great. My name is Stephen Dillonburg. I reside at 1004 Abbott Blaine here in Denton. I just wanted to kind of weigh in on a couple of things that obviously – or, in brief, I will provide you guys some resources related to this commentary, so there'll be links to different – Mr. Dillonburg, if you could – if you could – you're fading in and out, so if you could speak a little bit closer into the microphone of whatever device you're using. Is this better? Yes. Okay. Great. So I'm going to provide you guys some linked resources related to the commentary that I'll make, but I'm opposed to this order at this time, or really any order suspending any rights normally granted to the public until an independent confirmation of numbers of these cases per councilwoman or mentor are confirmed and the death rate, and the reason being is there's a letter from the CDC – from scientists within the CDC claiming corruption in addition to them owning those, like, 54 patents on drugs that are 50% granted patents. So again, I'm going to send this to you guys for you all to review, but I just want to read a couple of excerpts from this letter to you guys to let you all know we're relying on information from what the public in general believes is a state agency that's acting – or a government agency that's acting independently and fairly, and this letter was sent August 29th, 2016, to the Office of the Director's Chief of Staff, Carmen Esparza, at the CDC. We are a group of scientists that are very concerned about the current state of ethics of our agency. It appears that our mission is – it seems that our mission in congressional and through our agency is being circumvented by some of our leaders. What concerns us most is that it's becoming the norm and not the rare exception. Some senior management officials at CDC are currently aware and even condone these behaviors. Others see it and turn away. Some staff are intimidated and press not to do things they know are – or press to do things they know are not right. We have representatives from across the agency that witness this unacceptable behavior. Moving a little further down in this letter, most scientists at the CDC operate with the utmost integrity and ethics; however, this climate of disregard puts many of us in difficult positions. We are often directed to do things we know are not right. For example, Congress has made it very clear that domestic funding for NCCDP, HP, and other CIOs should be used for domestic work, and that the bulk of this funding should be allocated to that program, not research. That says, "Why in fiscal year '17 are we diverting money away from our program priorities that directly benefit the public to support an expensive research that may not yield anything that benefits the public? These actions may not serve the public well." So this was over three years ago, and none of these things have been addressed in the public's eye. And this is in addition to facts that – and I'm going to put you guys onto these studies that say that wearing a mask in public can cause respiratory problems, including a decrease in blood oxygen concentration by up to 20 percent within just one hour of wearing that mask. Not to mention that (inaudible) an increase in likelihood to contract an illness by wearing those masks by a 34 percent, all the way up to 6,000 percent in some studies. So these are things that I think, even though we have seen a declaration of emergency on a national and state level, I think the local government should be making considerations with respect to what the actual data suggests and who it is that is providing the data. Mr. Dillenberg, yeah, I appreciate that. Your time is up, and if you have that where you can send that to us in a digital format or get that to us, we'd certainly appreciate it. I do, yeah. I have several things that I'll send to you guys right now, okay? Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Okay. I believe that was the only caller that we had. So Chair would entertain either discussion or action on this item. Council Member Davis. Move approval of the drafts we've been presented with. Council Member Briggs. So this order, just to clarify, it allows individuals to continue with a no late fee if they cannot make their utility payment up for the time of this order. So that's the extension. So it's not just taking away someone's rights, right? You're allowing some financial help to businesses with the permits and utilities with this order? Yes. With respect to the utilities, this continues the waiving of those fees that were previously waived in other ordinances and other orders, and we're just continuing that on through June 30th. Okay. I didn't see a red line version. You said that there was one? Or no? I believe it was just emailed to the council. Yeah, before we reconvened, I believe, for my break. Yeah, I didn't get that one, but it was just the changes that we discussed earlier. Oh, wait. Okay. So just the two changes that we discussed earlier? It was the changes discussed earlier with regard to parks and libraries, but there was also, and this is recently as today, there was a modification to the municipal court provisions under L, and that is redlined as well. That gives a little bit more flexibility so that we can react if courts are opened back up before the expiration of this ordinance and order. Okay, gives flexibility to the council or to the city? To the city. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Meltzer, I believe I saw your hand raised. You're on mute. You second? Yes, I'll second. Okay. All right. We have a motion and a second for Agenda Item 1A when I'll poll the council. Council Member Davis, how say you? Aye. Council Member Meltzer? Aye. Council Member Armitter? No. Mayor Pro Tem? Aye. Council Member Briggs? Yes. Council Member Ryan? Aye. And the mayor is an aye. The motion carries to extend the declaration for the City of Dent Emergency Declaration to that stated in the order, and the motion carries six to one. Okay, I believe that brings us to the end of our agenda. We don't have any concluding items, so we will stand adjourned at 3.58. Thank you all. Have a good weekend.