Jun 30, 2020 City Council on 2020-06-30 1:00 PM (SPECIAL CALLED MEETING)

Welcome, everybody, to this meeting of the Denton City Council on June 30, 2020. It's about 1.02 p.m. We will now call our special called meeting to order. We do have a quorum. Our first item on the agenda is citizen comments on consent agenda items. And I believe we do have a caller for consent agenda item 2B, I believe, 2B. Okay, we may come back. We're having trouble right now getting in touch with the caller, so what we're going to do is go to clarifications for agenda items, and then we will come back to that consent agenda item comment once we're able to get the caller on. Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, I actually have a couple of questions related to that item. Okay. One is, do we have, we got one letter on it, but I wonder if we have any sort of more comprehensive feedback from the neighborhood about whether they want the, you know, this noise variance? We do have Gary Packett and Laura Barron should be available. Okay. Keely, did you have a comment to his question? No, I just have a comment after. Okay. Yeah, and I have a second question on that item as well, which I could just tee up. In the AIS, it says that the expected attendance is 100 to 300, and I know that Governor has prohibited outdoor gatherings of 100 or greater, so does that impact whether we would make a noise exception related to an item like that? I really don't know, you know, how that stacks up. Is that a question for the city attorney, I believe. Yeah, okay. Yep. So I believe we're getting staff, city attorney staff in the speaker seat. Could you re-ask that question, Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, so the consent agenda item B is looking for a noise ordinance exception, but in the agenda information sheet, it states that the expected attendance is 100 to 300, and we know that the governor has ordered that there not be outdoor gatherings of 100 or more, so does that fact weigh on the noise ordinance or are those completely separate questions? This item was prepared before the governor issued the order on Friday, so it was part of your agenda packet. Since that order was issued by the governor on Friday, it would impact this item. You could still grant the noise exception if you wish to, but they could not have a gathering of more than 100 people unless the mayor authorizes that and has the ability to impose restrictions, so it will come into play. I don't know if we have contacted the applicant to let them know that, but it definitely is an issue. Okay, that helps. I think I'm gonna just go ahead and ask for this to be pulled so that we can discuss how we want to deal with that, you know, at greater depth, but I'm still interested in hearing the responses on my first question, not to you, City Attorney. Councilmember Meltzer? Oh, go ahead, go ahead. This is Sarah Hensley. Gary's trying to call in, but I want to see if I can answer your question for you. I know you still want to have it pulled, but I'll try to answer. Well, if we get it all settled and there's a way to deal with it, maybe not. Go ahead. Well, if you could repeat the first question you had. Yeah, which was just, was there any feedback, broader feedback from the neighborhood about the event, you know, because they're the ones who are gonna deal with the sound not to exceed 65 decibels till 11 p.m. because we did get one letter on it, but I don't know if there's any broader, any other feedback. So Gary's here. Sarah, this is Gary, I'm here. Okay, then I'm gonna let Gary answer it. Thank you. Okay. Councilman, this is Gary Pack and Director of Parks and Recreation. Can you guys hear me? Yes, go ahead. Okay, sorry. Gary Pack and Director of Parks and Recreation. Just to give you an update, we did receive communication from the event planner late last night that went around to the neighborhood and had 50 people assigned. I guess you can call it a petition, letting them know a petition of support that the event would be taking place approximately from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. going past the 10 o'clock park closure timeframe and that there would be a movie playing at that time. And those 50 people signed that, providing support for that effort. And then originally when we were talking to the planner, we found out last week about the event, they anticipated 100 to 300 people. They informed us that 300 would be great, but they would be extremely happy if they only had a hundred. That was before the the limit was placed by Governor Abbott. So when we got this information last night, she said that they were gonna restrict it to a hundred people and then provide, they're gonna do some chalk paint in the grass to provide people for to spread out for social distancing. They are gonna provide masks and that they would tape off the bleachers to spread people out as well that are in that are adjacent to the pavilion where they're going to show the movie at Fredmore Park. Okay, that's extremely helpful to know. I don't need to pull the item. We were going to provide some additional information in the Covid report as well regarding the event. Okay, all right. And so you're still wanting to pull that Councilmember Meltzer? No? Okay, I'm sorry. I had to was taking care of something over here. But all right, so yeah, given that response, I'm satisfied. I don't personally need to point. Okay, all right. Um, we do. We did. We did need to go back to the calls on consent agenda because we do have a call for the minutes on consent. So we're gonna go back to that after we do clarifications. I just want to let the caller and those listening know we will be going back to that Councilmember Briggs was up and then Councilmember Davis. Yes, I just wanted to clarify because there were some comments about there being a march or peaceful protest associated with this event, and that's not gonna happen. It's just the documentary and then out and leave the park. So I just wanted to clarify that for anyone who had heard that or was concerned. Okay, Councilmember Davis. Um, quick question. And then I may need to pull this item myself. Is Gary still on the line? Yes, Gary is. Is the noise permit absolutely necessary for the screening of this film? Is it possible for the film to be shown in a responsible and socially distant way without having to exceed 65 decibels? Or is there a context that noise level you can give us? Yeah, it's not necessary. The decibel is a concern. It's Sunday. We don't have any amplified sound on Sundays. So that's the reasoning for it. Right. Unlike it was a band or a DJ, then we would probably be concerned about that. But it is just a documentary. Um, so it's the fact that on Sundays we do not allow amplified sound. Right. And am I correct in reading in the A. I. S. That this event was originally requested to go through the normal permitting process and they said no, we're an act of civil disobedience and so we're not going to go through the permitting process. So typically the permitting process is a 90 day window. Um, this kind of like the Juneteenth event kind of came came at us quickly and was a short term event. Um, so there really isn't enough time to go through the event planning process. They did indicate that they anticipated that it would happen most likely. Um, so we decided that we wanted to try to get ahead of it and help them plan it as opposed to deal with something that spurs up at the last minute. Do we do we have a copy of this neighborhood petition of support? Or have we seen that? Yes, we could send it out to you guys here in the next few minutes. If if we could do that in either, um, I'd rather make the decision on whether to pull it or not, you know, before waiting for that. So I think I'd rather at this point just asked to pull that item. Um, and we could maybe have very short deliberation on it if that that neighborhood petitions forthcoming. Right. So you're requesting to go ahead and pull that item. Council member Davis. Okay, you bet. All right. Um, Council member Amateur. Do you have your hand raised for clarifications of agenda items? I did. I was just going going to, uh, say something. But since Council member Davis has has pulled the item, I'll wait till we discuss the item. Okay. Thank you. All right. Anyone. Any other clarifications of agenda items? Mayor Pro Tem? Yes. So I spoke to someone on the way over so late, very late, and I didn't get a chance to talk to anyone. So, Gary, do you, uh, the person I spoke with needs to know the name or what the title of the film is. And so I need to email that, uh, so that they can, uh, then give me the rest of their feedback. So can you share that, please? Um, she did not give us the name of the event as of yet. Um, we could reach out to her and get the name. The title of the title of the documentary. Yeah, again. Yeah, I need it so that I can email it to someone, uh, so that they can give me their comments. So I'm a little hamstrung. Okay. Okay. We will track that. Yeah, I understand. Uh, was it in the I s R from Friday? Did we have an informal staff report with the name on it? There was no name on it. She was working on two documentaries and she was trying to get them delivered as quickly as possible. And she didn't know which one they were gonna be showing at the time. So she hadn't shared that with us yet. Okay. Good deal. All right. Thank you very much. Any other clarifications for agenda items? All right, we're gonna move back to citizens comments on consent agenda items. And since B has been pulled, we will take any comments for that agenda item. At the time, we're discussing it in the items for individual consideration. But we do have a think comment on consider approval of the minutes of June the ninth 2020 Okay, hold on. Hold on just a moment. Council members, I'm gonna stop the video mute myself just to have a slight discussion here. Hold on. Just a moment. Okay, it seems that we've been unable to reach the caller on those after several attempts. So we'll move on to our work session items if we have no more clarifications on agenda items. All right, moving on to our work session reports we have, and we're going to move work session three a to council member Briggs. Yeah, can we get tech to check the live feed? Someone messaged me that it wasn't working. So it may just I just want to clarify and make sure that it is and that it might be there. Is it? Is it the live feed from DTV DTV or from the website for the meeting? Yes. Okay, I'm getting the thumbs up that it seems to be working. Okay, thank you. You bet. Okay, so we're going to be moving item three a which is the covert 19 response to the end of our work session and even possibly depending on how long the meeting goes till the end of the meeting because it's my understanding that the governor has a press conference at five p.m. And we certainly maybe will want to discuss any type of covert response or have any kind of deliberation on that once we have if there's any information, changing information at that time. So we'll move that down to make sure that we have accurate up to date information before we delve into that discussion at any any depth. So we will move on to agenda item three B, which is receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding the proposed prioritization and implementation of the city's capital improvement projects. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council, David Gaines, director of finance. This capital projects update work session item will be presented by both myself and Todd Estes, the city engineer. Um, so we'll have a tag team approach to to the slide. That's obviously these projects impact both finances and then off the operations has been before. Here's a summary of the presentation and the items that will go over. First, we'll look at the bond programs, the obviously completion of the 2012 and 2014 bond programs and then begin a look ahead to the 2019 bond program. Spent some time talking about the street, street reconstruction programs, which are included in all three of the bond programs that we currently have. And then the other projects related to the to the bond programs and those other projects will be focused on the streets and drainage projects within each of those bond programs. Then we'll talk top forward to the small transportation projects, the water and wastewater capital projects that are that are handled by engineering capital projects within the city are major roadway projects. And then finally, take a look at the debt issuance schedule related to those projects and the accompanying tax rate impacts. So to start with the bond programs, you can see here. Here are each of the projects from those streets and drainage propositions over the past three bond programs. Obviously, in 2012, that was just for street reconstruction and to reconstruction again, obviously listed on each of the each of the bond elections are for those local street rehab program, those local streets, the rehab programs that we that we implemented each year. In 2014, there are obviously a number of other projects in streets and proposition one and also drainage and proposition three, which you can see there. And we'll have updates for each of those projects as we go through the presentation. And then proposition one from 2019. In November, obviously, we had $70 million for a new street reconstruction program. And we'll talk talk about our plan for that as we move forward. And then the other projects listed as well, which we'll get an update on. So the first piece of the presentation, we'll go through the street reconstruction programs for each of the three bond pro bond election programs. The first 2012 bond program were 208 segments included in that street reconstruction permits original conception and what went forward to the voters in that total $20 million. And that was our initial estimate. And what we what we've issued in in geo bonds toward that we have issued that entire $20 million up to this point. And you can see there on the left pie chart showing that 151 of those 208 have been completed 33 in construction and 34 in design. Next, you can see the similar similar information for 2014 bond program. We do have our final issuance for the the geo bonds for street reconstruction from 2014 this year, which will round out the $24 million in total. And that was for 195 segments from from the initial from the onset of the bond program. And then you can see there on the left as well. A pie chart with those completed construction sign 137 complete 29 in construction, nine at the bidding awards stage and then nine or 55 that are that have been designed so far. So then the next step in our progression as we're trying to describe how we got to where we are with our street reconstruction programs was in 2018. We did have the CEO issuance in total of $10.9 million, $10.95 million to for two reasons. And you can see those listed there that that total issuance was the majority 6.4 6.5 of that was for cost increases from those initial estimates that we saw the 20 million and 24. And then we also added 37 additional segments which were related to the 2012 and 14 streets that were that were described in the materials for the 2012 and 2014 on programs. But we're those connector streets that weren't necessarily listed. But as we took a comprehensive approach to carrying out those programs made a lot of sense to include as we move forward. So you can see the total there and how how we increase the scope but also increase our costs for the initial initial estimates. And then just quickly on the 2019 program, obviously we have not done any construction on those yet. We do have 1.2 million for planned issuance this year as we were designed for that program. And we'll talk a little bit more about that program here in the coming slides. So we wanted to bring an update for the 2012 and 24 bond street street programs and where we stand now versus where we see ourselves in the next couple of years. And so you can see there the 440 segments authorized and that's essentially the previous size of three previous slides that we have add us up to that 440 the 208 from 2012 2014 195 in those 37 additional segments that added scope to the total program in 2018 of the 440 we do have 100 162 segments remaining in the table to the right. We are laying out where we are with our funding available from the previous geo issuances and CEO issuances and where we are with a gap to to complete the 162 remaining segments. So you can see 40.8 million is our estimated completion for those 162 segments that does include water and wastewater. So you can see moving down 26.1 is our available funding, including water wastewater funding that we have already dedicated to those segments, which leaves us with a gap of $14.7 million. 5.5 of that is for water wastewater water, which will be included in next year's CIP budget to go towards those those segments. And then we do have a remaining gap of $8.9 million for what we're putting forward for a possible 2021 CEO which went so this is really a similar conversation that we had in 2018 for costs that have increased over what we anticipated at that time. David, could I ask you a real quick question? Just for clarification. So I make sure I understand and if anybody else has the same question. So the 162 segments are street segments, correct? Correct. Okay. So what what I'm hearing you say is that for the 162 street only, we've got 40.8 million to do those and we're short. I'm just trying to figure out what because you said that the 14 points or the 26.1 million includes or the gap includes wastewater and water projects as well. Right. Is that just to jump in real quick and give us some clarification. Sure. 162 segments are the street segments. But as we over the past number of years have the approach that when we go into a neighborhood or yes, we do the street, we're gonna do the entire water wastewater. So that 40.8 does include water wastewater funding. Okay. So when you say street segment, you mean all the corresponding underground utilities associated with that water and wastewater? Correct. Okay. All right. So then the 5.48 million. Is that a shortfall or is that what you were regularly going to schedule next year for funding that that that was not in our we did have an amount. It was not 5.5 million. So it is an increase of what we had in our previous water and wastewater sky. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for that clarification. Sorry to interrupt you. We just have a couple more slides on this piece and definitely can stop and take any sure. So obviously one of the questions will be what are the what were the cost drivers from obviously 2012 and 14 but also 2018 that have increased those costs and we have some bullet points here and obviously Todd S is here and other staff members as well to answer questions. But they all come back to unanticipated cost increased increases and a few bullet points there, one being design costs were higher than expected. And you know, those were really based on previous city contracts and tried to take those forward of what those costs were at the time and project out what they would be and they came in higher than those projections. Market prices for materials have continued to increase the inflation, which I know we've had that conversation with council member times of how that how we've seen significant inflation and just the construction cost in general. And then also just labor competition over the threat over the past few years that have increased the labor cost. And then obviously all this is kind of a summation of the information that we've seen over the past few slides. I just want to be as clear as possible about how we get to where we are in the in the decisions that we're putting forward to council 2012. We started off with the 208 segments for $20 million in 2014. We added those additional 195 segments for the 403 total and with the 2018 CEO issuance, we did add the additional 37 and also 6.5 for the cost increase and still at that same number of 440 segments but are needing eight from our current estimates 8.9 million to close out that program. I think it's important for us to note right now 8.9 is the best is the number that we believe is true. We are going to bring in an outside consultant that we've been using or go out and find a consultant that can help us verify these numbers to ensure that we're not obviously coming back at any point and having the same conversation. So that is gonna be our next step. You know, hopefully that number comes down or changes appropriately, but we definitely don't want to have to come back and have the same conversation with Council. Okay, that's it for this section. All right. Welcome. Any questions? Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. If we could pull the slide down, please, that'd be great. I didn't even know you could see me when the slides are up. Yep. A couple questions. The 5.48 million from the water, wastewater capital funds. Is that is that an accrued amount or is that an anticipated annual amount of funding that could go toward that? So our current plan as we start to develop the FY 21 budget would be to have right now in our preliminary FY 21 budget, we have 5.5 million in cash funding that we would move out to this project. So it would be included. But it's an annual it's it's it's from a year's revenues. It's not correct. It's not a fund balance. Okay. And the other question is, at some point, maybe further into the budget process, will we see a sort of estimate of what percent of roads that are rated poor or very poor on OCI, you know, we would have addressed kind of, you know, what the before and after snapshots will look like? Absolutely. I think we can as we continue these to do these CIP updates, bring that forward and kind of show it in that manner of here's how many of those those OCI at the various levels that we that we've completed. Great. Thank you. Council Member Briggs. Thank you. So on the on the new ones, we're waiting for we're trying we're approving the street sections. It's a new process so that neighborhoods are waiting for street reconstruction after utility work has been done. And that's fantastic news. My question is, how many of the street segments that we are waiting for or that have not been funded yet, have already had the utility construction done, and have just been waiting for the road to be completed? We know how how many and how long they've been waiting. I mean, that might not be known now, but can we have that information? That would be pretty helpful going forward. Absolutely. We can bring that information back to Council. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else on this portion of the presentation? Council Member Meltzer. I think I stated my ask inaccurately. I wasn't so much looking for I think I said was what percent of the poor and very poor would be addressed before and after. What I meant to say was what percent of our streets would be poor and very poor before and after snapshot if you get the the difference. I seem to recall a couple of years ago that it was about 24-25 percent were poor, very poor, and I'd like to know if we're chipping away at that how fast. Yeah, we used that data last year to put together the 2019 bond program, so we should be able to freshen that up and bring it back to you next time we meet. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else on this segment of the presentation? Okay. We'd move forward in the presentation. I'm going to hand it over to Todd. Thank you, David. Mayor and Council, Todd Estes, City Engineer. Make sure we get bumped forward just a little bit here. Just giving you a brief update much as we promised you we went several months ago on the CIP updates, project in general. We wanted to give you something that we could illustrate both how we're doing and what the current status of the projects are. So just walk you through what you're seeing here before we get too far into it. If you look on the right, you're seeing the year that construction design would start and finish and the year that construction would start and finish anticipated if not already in progress. So if you see it in blue on that right hand side, that's a project that's in design. You see it in orange on the right hand side, then it's in construction. So these are anticipated construction and design timelines. If you see that kind of dark dashed blue line on the right side that runs through about middle of 2020, that's where we are in space and time. So we're anticipating being able to show you this progression of projects as we bring these updates back to you each time. Anytime you see projects that have that kind of purple and have them on hold, that purple just designates that there's some sort of delay whether planned or unplanned. It's here for us to have a place for how we're going to resolve that with that timeline looks like if we know it. If you look on the right, you'll see the entire list of projects that belonged in the 2014 Bond Proposition Award. And if you look just to the middle of there, there's a column of there's some three black columns, scope, schedule, and budget. The three legs of the stool so to speak for almost all projects. So if it's in green, then we're pretty much exactly where we thought we'd be. So if it's in yellow, then there's something that we're working through. We don't know if it's really going to have a material impact to the project, but it is something that we're working through and could have an impact to the project. And then anything that you see in red is it does have an impact to the project. And then you'll be seeing an action potentially coming forward or through resolution by staff on subsequent updates on how we resolve those issues. If you just look at this slide here, you also see one other thing if you see on the far left in your project name on any of these subsequent slides. If a project is highlighted in orange, then it's a project that's actively bidding. If there's, and you'll see it on some other slides, if you see a project that's highlighted in a light green, that just means the project's complete and we're going through the closeout process. As you look through this slide here and there's a lot of projects, the first two that you see right at the top are those Quiet Zone projects. Really what's got us on hold and not really any idea what the schedule is, is we're waiting on UP to do their piece of this project. So they have to widen the concrete panels at those crossings. We are working through our partners at COG to make sure that we get some kind of push and forward momentum on this. We can get those Quiet Zone projects moving forward. Until we know when they're going to do their work, we really don't have a construction schedule. These things are really ready to go. They've been designed. We have, we're ready teed up and ready to move with a bid and award for these projects, but until we know the schedule, we really can't let them go. Of course, as time marches on, budget could be a problem for some of these projects. It just depends on how quickly we can get this moving. As you move further through that list, you've got the 2020 street bundle and we have that one highlighted there from a schedule standpoint. That's about 65 segments are the remaining segments that are being designed in house and that was a decision made instead of going out for almost, it's nearly three million dollars in design. We brought that in house to ultimately save somewhere around 1.2 to 1.5 million in design costs and do that in house. Now when we do it in house, we have a much more limited staff, so it will take longer to get to some of these segments. We're working with some alternative strategies for delivery that we'll bring forward in subsequent updates on how we're actually going to get these projects out the door and minimize those construction cost inflations. If you move a little bit further down that list, you've got Creek Creek Road phase two. That one we're nearing the resolution on that issue. The issue that we have there on the budget side is a traffic signal. That funding just has not been moved into the project and then we had some unforeseen utility issues that as we're working through these issues could impact some of the budget to the project. That is something we're working on actively now and the next update will have a better idea of exactly what the resolution of that issue is. As we said before, Hickory Street is bidding. It actually the bid opened today, so we anticipate that going to construction here in the next 45 days. Moore Street, that project you'll see both reds on the schedule and budget and the on-home. The road itself is in pretty good condition. It's not one of the worst roads that we have out there and originally it was going to be an expansion project, but some of the demand in that area is not near what the projections were going to be. So one of the things that staff wanted to do was be able, we still want to do that project. It's still on the books, but we're holding off on doing that project to a later date so that we can let some other projects in this bond program get done. So that's where we're trading these things off. And then if you roll down one more to a Roodale extension at Mingo, if you recall about a year and a half ago, we talked about moving the design money for that project into a more holistic project and looking at the entire corridor of Mingo from Bell to Old North and then including that Roodale realignment in that in that same project. Currently that project is finishing up the transportation analysis of the area and they'll tell us exactly what that needs to look like. So we should be engaged in preliminary design. So Todd, what I'd like to do, because as I look through the slides, at least we've got several that are in this format, this kind of chart template. There's a lot of information here, so this is sort of deviating from our normal process, but I want to take each one of these that have a, this is a lot of information, just to see if there's council members that have any questions about this slide and the next. I think there's three more coming up that are smaller than this, but they're the same format. So council member Meltzer? Yeah, how long have we been waiting on the railroads, you know, to make their move related to the quiet zones? This one's been in progress for quite a while. They were part of the 2014 bond program, so at least since 2014. As far as the actual date, I'm not sure. Yeah, because I mean, my impression is it's been at least two years. I think it was a long time when I first heard about it, and I wonder, you know, there's some different avenue to get at them. I mean, it's kind of, it's almost absurd to put it on a chart and say we're just waiting for that one step, when there's no evidence that that step's ever going to happen. Council member Meltzer, we had been pretty close to this a couple of years ago, and then Union Pacific laid off a significant number of their staff, and we essentially... Like everybody but one, right? Yeah, so we essentially took a step back. So we've engaged some folks from the COG, the council governments, to help us reach out to Union Pacific. They deal with them pretty frequently on items to see if we can't leverage that relationship and get this off the dime. But quite frankly, that is the issue that we've been dealing with. Yeah, I'm aware. All right, thank you. Council member Briggs. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, I did just have a comment about the quiet zones. Just I know that that was in discussion when I was elected over five years ago, and so just to give you a timetable on residents asking for it and the city working towards it, it's been a while. And I do remember a couple years ago when we thought we had to go ahead and it was something was going to get done. So I like that we have it and that we can keep looking at it so that we're reminded constantly. My other question, of the 65 segments in the 2020 bundle that we're doing in-house, how do these break down per area? Like is it one certain neighborhood or how did you do that? How did you decide? Was it just the the difficulty of the project or was it the connectivity of them? I would have to get you more information on how they were actually broken down. So like so much of the 2014 and 2012, everything was picked in those projects or in those programs based on low OCI scores. It was purely OCI. So what we have been doing is working through the sequence of how do we bring the utility work that needs to be done in conjunction with filling in the gaps of those roadways where the utilities need to be completed so we have a whole project. We impact those neighborhoods once. A lot of this had to do with over time. It's just the other franchise utilities in the area that had to be moved out of the way and then the sequence. We just there's only so many projects that could be done at any given time. So these are the ones that we're getting to last. They typically had the most issues and now we're moving through those issues to get them out to construction. Okay my question was just basically because you said it was going to take a little bit longer because they're in-house and so I was wondering if it was certain areas or all areas that would be experiencing the same delay. My next question is I think I heard you say construction on Hickory will begin in the next 45 days. You will be saying as council where our target to bring to council the contract for award is the end of July. So as early as in August we should be saying construction go forward unless there's some issues through the contracting process but that's already moving forward. So my only comment is yay. Sorry mayor my last question is in regards to Mingo and Redel. I know that we had different discussions on that area throughout council. It seems to come up. But part of the discussions we had regarding Mingo are side paths or sidewalks. Is pulling this back is that in in the scope of that or is that something separate? This is absolutely a complete streets analysis of Mingo. So yes all modes of transportation pedestrian bicycle roadways those are incorporated into that analysis. That's that's part of what it's taking a little while. It's also going to incorporate traffic calming in some of those pass-through streets you know that as you move further east between Redel and Old North there's a lot of traffic that tries to adjust between University and Mingo and that increases speed to the neighborhood. So that's also incorporated in that way. Okay thank you. The only question I have is on Moore Street 288 to Mayhill. Yes sir. I remember specifically when this bond program came up that I I was concerned or I didn't think that that was going to be a good use of funds because it just there wasn't a lot of demand there. And so now that there's the it seems there's not the demand but when you say we're still going to have it on here but does that mean that the money that was allocated to that project goes towards some of these other projects that may have a shortfall or how does that work? That's what our goal would be is to move that money from say a project that needs money to move forward like the Hickory Street from Welch to Carroll. As it had street lights added to that project if you recall we had that conversation about a year or so ago we had street lights to the project there was also drainage that was found to need to be upgraded through the design process. So that project needed an extra source of funding and a project like Morse that could wait the decision we made on our side was to work with finance and say we still want to do the project but it definitely doesn't need to go this early. I would rather get Hickory done which is really in bad shape. Right okay great. Fantastic. All right any other questions let me sort of peruse down this yes Mayor Potem. Thank you yeah so but Todd can can I hear you on that segment of loop 288 and Mayhill projecting forward again let's let's start at the obvious I don't want to divert anything from Hickory that needs to get done but this area looking forward does generate a lot of traffic. Understanding that the jury selection process now transitions to that building you have the county courthouse it's going to be activated soon and at some point obviously we've had an application come to us and go through various iterations but the 94 acres across the street is trying to get activated that would generate traffic and so I think there are some things forward looking that would say do I want to leave this area and go west towards loop 28 or do I want to go east towards Mayhill and utilize a brand new road to get to where I'm going and also understanding we'll have the flyover for 24 you know to connect ultimately so there's there's there's a lot of future traffic for this road just I want to hear you on your analysis of that and the timing and that's that's a very good point that you bring up which is none of those factors were put into place when this project was put together so the project as you recall when we discussed this in January or February we were actually talking about that Morse at the time we didn't realize there'd be that kind of demand on the road and our projections were very low for this segment of Morse we were trying to find a way to just reconstruct that road and then rebuild another piece of the road that was just to the west that's the loop 288 piece over to about the midpoint that road in itself was never incorporated in the 2004 bond or 2014 bond that segment was left off it was purely just that thing it's Kimberly it goes from that roadway the north south roadway back to Mayhill that's what was actually in the 2014 bond we'd ask council if we could consider finding other funding sources to do this other piece of roadway what you're addressing right now would absolutely be something we can incorporate into what would the future project look like based on some additional traffic demands that we didn't know at the time when we first started down this pathway so if i could yeah yes of course yeah so i i would just ask for your analysis on that i guess just because so that we can make a decision forward looking if we need to reconsider based on that input so just your input on the county courthouse traffic the aesthetics of people coming to the county courthouse and that that odd little jog right there and i'll take your word at Kimberly or whatever that is just kind of understanding that the traffic that's pending give us your feedback and and thoughts we can bring that forward it's not something that we'd be able to do today but that's something that we'd be happy to look into and come back with and if i could interject mayor pro tem we have been working closely with the county on that on that road as well and they've asked that that you know we include them on any future planning obviously more of an office space is starting to change the the nature a little bit of that road we actually did a very interim traffic study and shared it with them a year ago and if i recall Todd they did help pay to redesign the access onto mayhill so we're on top of it and working with the county as far as when that gets widened what their needs are and really monitoring that traffic together but if it becomes a need we'll move it up excellent okay any other questions on this slide we'll go to the next one because i'm trying to peruse okay i don't see any okay i don't see any all right todd thank you all right i'm gonna skip the next slide because we just talked about everything that's on right jump forward so the next slide this is another component of the 2014 proposition our bond it was proposition three which focused primarily on stormwater improvements so as we talked about before you see on the far right eagle drive and magnolia phase two hinklin windsor those that magnolia drainage project was large culvert that's complete so those two projects have been finished uh oh the only reason you still see a little bit of orange on the right is that we're wrapping up the close out of those projects you do see a yellow under the budget there is a final change order that will be coming to you in the next 30 to 45 days to wrap up the final closing cost just like we talked about with mayhill these are some of the cost overruns cost underruns there was rock that was encountered when nobody expected it so there were some things that changed right at the end and this closes out that piece of the project some of that 586 is already in the budget for the project but there is a little bit over that that we're looking for the funding so that's part of the reason why you haven't seen that yet uh as we work through that that'll be coming back to you for that day the downtown storm sewer trunk line that one's going to construction this year that will be bidding later this year uh should be later this summer and then of course phase two you've got a couple of issues that have gone on there we had some issues dealing with easements that we needed to get the storm sewer line within the up right away and we can't do that work without the up easement so that's definitely caused that project to slow down it's also part of the reason why some of the funding is not adequate to complete that project that's something that we're working on and again working with our regional partners to help us move that goal a little further but it is designed and ready to go uh real quick question on the magnolia phase two and this is probably a question in general on contracts uh you know that we're you know putting in underground utilities does the contract specifically state a uh a schedule of charges if they encounter rock in other words is it is it the additional time billed at a certain rate or is it just i mean how does that get determined not just with this project but i'd probably say it's more of a general question is it typically contract specific or is it i mean how do they do that usually we do it through the change order process it is the change order process that requires that normally you want to do as much upfront work so you've paid for enough geotech that some of these issues don't escape your attention so finding rock where we found the rock we found it a lot deeper than what we expected out there well we had an open trench and you had an open line that was sitting there so to continue the process we authorize the contractor to move forward knowing that we would have to get the final pricing on what that excavation was going to cost and again we did look at multiple alternatives but once you have that much pipe in the ground and you've run into unexpected conditions you almost have to just get things back in so that it's working no no i understand that and i don't have any issue with that i've just mine was just more from a how are those costs determined but i what i think i'm hearing you say is that the content there's really it's not contractual in other words you're not saying hey if you hit rock it's so much per hour for this or that it's just a contractor will come up and say this is what we're charging extra and you have to determine either start negotiating or something along those that sort of the process it is a negotiated price we don't just take it for granted what they say and part of that reason is just types of kind of rock that you run into vary even in dentmore you would think well we got just clay soils everywhere rock of different kinds entail different different ways to handle it some rock is harder some rock is not some of it's very easy to just dig up with a backhoe others you have to explore some more extreme measures like diamond cutting drills and different things to try to get through the that particular type of rock it just takes longer so it's an adjustment based on what we actually find just to give you an anecdote of course when they were putting in the bonnie bray and this is about drainage so i want to make sure i'm not we're talking about rock costs and things such as that so i'm not out of posting when they were putting in the bonnie bray water line of course they were coming in front of my house and they hit a tremendous amount of rock and in fact to the point where the gas line and when they got that excavated and exposed the gas company had literally taken a saw or something and just sawed a square trench out of the top of the rock to put the gas line on and they literally had to pull it out from underneath the gas line so i've gained a greater appreciation for those charges because it does take quite a bit and it does slow a project down tremendously to when when they encounter rock where they're not expecting it so appreciate that that uh those perspectives and that information any other questions on the um uh this portion of the the proposition 3 2014 bond with the sewer line sewer trunk line and the eagle drive and magnolia phase drainage okay okay all right moving on to the next slide this is the 2019 bond proposition 2 so this is the bond just passed in november the street reconstruction program you see in purple not because it's technically on hold but you have a couple of things going on at one time we're doing a lot of programming there are a lot of street segments in that that proposition almost 70 million dollars worth of work that involves that holistic neighborhood approach so we do anticipate by the end of this summer we have that program laid out will be complete with the 2014 and 2012 projects uh by 2022 towards the end of that year so with that being the case we are fully anticipating that we'll be in full design later this year on the 2019 segments and be well in advance of when we have to start construction we should see the first of those rolling out no later than the end of 2021 beginning 2022 but we'll have a better picture of that later this summer you'll also see on this slide here there are a couple other projects the sidewalk improvements project so some of the sidewalk improvements we've already got two years worth of sidewalks designed and this is purely the financing two million dollars a year of construction for sidewalks going out so we are prepared for that and that work is moving forward we're wrapping up a lot of the 2018 segments now uh then bonnie bray phase five the biggest reason you see that schedule and budget in the yellow there is we are bringing that in-house for design again to save cost on design for that phase five and this is that segment from scripture all the way up to university drive now anytime we bring that in-house again we don't have the same resources as a consultant so it does take us a little bit longer to do the in-house design because we just can't bring a sheer number of people to the table to get it done quickly so that opportunity cost is what we're absolutely trying to adjust to and understand as we work through the design of this project and then that could impact the overall schedule of that project you could push it out a little bit which may impact budget so we're still working through those but as we go through the project we'll also be doing some value engineering for the project so we can keep that cost down to where we expect i have a question on this and it's sort of this is a uh housekeeping question to start off is it my understanding that if um it's because i can see the council members on the side of my screen their panels but for the viewing public if the slide is up they can't see anyone especially those who are talking is that correct like if we'll pull the slide down please so i can see who's talking yeah so if the slide is up is that the only thing that the public sees and so when someone is talking unless they recognize the voice they don't know who that is is that am i is that correct if um and if we need to get an answer to that staff then then that's fine yeah that is correct mayor okay all right so then i apologize for the last uh segment because we did have some people talking during the when the slide was up so i'll make sure that i ask for those slides to be pulled down when we have questions council member briggs you had a comment i believe or a question um i i did regarding the sidewalks um because i know that most of the the ones that were passed in this last bond were around schools and so are we at the same time because uh are we looking for safe schools funding are we still going after that at the same time um as these projects and is there a time limit so if we do receive that funding is there a timing where we need to start the project i'd have to get more of the details for you there's generally some sort of timing with the project but to get you more detailed answer i would have to go ahead talk to my staff about that one but we are pursuing that funding source and several other funding sources to help fill in those sidewalk gaps get those safe routes to school in place yes any other questions i have one but are there any questions for this slide todd i had a couple of the people asked me on the you know the water line that just was put in on bonnie bray street from i think it was rose lawn all the way down to i-35 uh right there by the stadium when is that road due to be when is that road construction due to start it's it's pretty messed up so people are wondering are there going to be some some patches or is it going to be when is that construction scheduled to start well definitely a patch for the remainder of the year to make sure that it is at least a safe drivable surface going to construction we would have it slated good construction next year i think there's a slide coming where we talk about okay yeah i apologize for that yep you bet okay thank you anybody else on this slide okay thank you we move forward all right so the next update is on small transportation projects if you recall over the last couple of years we've had several of these small transportation projects that have been part of the budget process every year of those in 2017 we we really had a couple of small projects that were never really quantified as small transportation projects those were complete they were the right turn lanes and that left turn lane i believe is for shady oaks and ryan road those are complete then if you look at the 2018 intersection improvements there were five different uh intersections that we have three complete two in construction and one in design uh the primary delay on that design segment that's that carolyn sherman intersection for some real estate issues so what we wanted to do we didn't have the real estate to do it so we were attempting to get the easements and right away expansion we needed and ran into a roadblock so we're we're working through the potential of just what can we do within the right away we have and get rid of that cost then as you move into the 2019 the 2019 small transportation projects i believe we talked not too long ago that we've been waiting on text dot and a bunch of the permitting because the vast majority these are in with text within the text that we do have all those in hand we're ready to move those forward and they will be bidding in july so we anticipate that end of august beginning september we would be going to construction on those projects so that's definitely an award for construction that you will be seeing in the next 60 days if not sooner we did have one there were six in that 2019 bundle there was one project that once we got into it just from a environmental scenario from environmental impact we just couldn't find an economical or feasible way to make that work it became a much bigger project once you start getting into the environmental impact so we're recommending that we put that project on hold until we can find a better alternative so with that i'll take any questions on this slide any questions councilman breaks so on the on the sherman loop 288 uh that includes the the lanes but that's also the is that also the light yes ma'am yes thank you and could you um the slide went away on some of those could you say again um the ones that are in bid when how long or you think construction would be once they come back so the 2019 streets or 2019 small transportation projects are bidding in july so they'll actually go out to bid next week and then we anticipate having that come back council for award of that contract either late august or realistically in september so we should be in construction by the september time okay and at this time we're not being asked to um make any change all of those are still going forward we're not being asked to to make a decision on forgoing any of those no that was purely just give you an update and really we had the schedule hold and budget concerns just from that one issue that was an environmental impact just to let you know that really we couldn't recommend moving forward with that project okay thank you any other questions okay all right moving on to water and wastewater projects these are projects that are primarily water wastewater projects that the project department is delivering you will see that fm 2181 you'll see that purple box in 2019 if you recall that's the original contractor for the state so we have the water wastewater component we fund that but tax thought is doing that construction they went the whole project was on hold is the original contractor went bankrupt and then they had to find a new contractor to replace him and they have started construction again we were actually seeing asphalt out there in place where the wider street is going to be 377 is moving quickly now the utilities are well long past and they're moving into the paving section you can see quite a bit of grade differential out there as as to where the new road is going to be versus where the old road is and they are on target to complete in 2021 as we just move through the rest of these projects by and large all these projects are on target to complete they're within the budget expected we do have dry pork sanitary sewer that one does have a little concern from the standpoint that we're going to design that in-house the primary concern is just it may push the schedule out a little bit but we don't anticipate a budget issue and then elm and locust phase two that one's a big concern for us right now there's sufficient funding so elm and locust phase two that is all the water wastewater utility relocations from the downtown area really from mckinney north all the way up to university drive so we had a recent snafu with tax dot and communication in that we named a project peck for phase two text dot understood phase two thought that when we're talking about elm and locust phase two as well as the naming convention and poor communication they didn't realize we were talking about we still had to replace all the water and wastewater lines north of mckinney they thought they were being good neighbors trying to get well ahead of us and move forward with repaving elm and locust so they could turn those segments back over to us and instead we were talking about two totally different things they did not realize that we had to move those utilities out of the way that project also has significant stormwater improvements that have to be complete and that is what we're assessing at this point as far as the project goes it's 90 designed it is pretty well ready to move forward we're just working through the budget impact of what those stormwater treatments would really be and with that i will take any questions on that side okay any questions councilmembrometer yes i have a question about elm and locust or actually specifically elm so right now at the stage it's at now and i don't know what the technical term is for it but the road it is it is has a rough texture it's texturized what's the right now you see mostly just the base course and then where they have attempted to put some there's two different courses of asphalt we put down so there's a layer that's very rough and then there's another layer it goes on top to finish it out so you're saying that varying conditional throughout that corridor okay okay so and uh and one thing that i've noticed that when i drive on that on the the rough unfinished road and i'm not talking about the potholes that are there but but just the actual texture of the road it forces me to slow down in a way that i like and so i'm not saying that i i'm not suggesting that we don't finish the project i'm wondering um uh you know is is that is that bad for is that bad for tires is there any harm in that and is that texturizing texturizing of the road used anywhere as a traffic calming device again i'm not saying leaving the road unfinished but it's incredible how i am it's it's not really possible for me to go over 30 and that's a street where i have to check myself you can texturize roads there are a variety of trade-offs for that anytime a road is rougher it is a rougher ride on the car so it does have an inadvertent consequence on the car's longevity so if you drive it a lot ultimately it will take its toll on the car as you ride a rougher surface you also end up breaking down that surface so we end up having to do maintenance on that surface so there's a trade-off now there are other means and methods for traffic calming that we can use some of them is a texture component like like we call them rumble strips uh narrowing of roadway lanes there's a lot of ways you could get there yeah yeah and rumble strips are just in one area right yes but i've seen some places where they do them maybe every two or three hundred feet or more narrow or less narrow it just depends on what kind of effect they're trying to get there's even a roadway that they used it to make musical hubs depending on the speed that you go so wow okay and anyway thank you i promise i would ask that about elm and locust thanks todd sort of as a follow-up to that um is it that we've put a rough texture down or is it where they've come and they've grooved the asphalt that was already there it looks like they've gone through and as they've tried to pull it up uh they've left a little bit there is that is that what that is what you're actually seeing in most places is what we would call the base the foundation of your house is the foundation of the road so they mill use a machine to basically grind down a certain asphalt and what you're driving on is the bottom of that roach top of the foundation okay great thank you any other questions on this slide all right we can uh proceed then next we'll move into those major roadways this one you'll see here on the far left we have three of those in the green body brain mayhill mayhill actually they're doing the final walk through today so tdlr is doing their inspection and from what i have heard they've gotten a very good report from tdlr so far they should be done by now uh we anticipate that road is is complete as far as what the original contract was we still have of course the bridge the intersection at mckinney and mayhill that'll be coming forward and then landscaping they'll go with dcta bridge to come back to complete throughout the corridor it wasn't contemplated in the original project but it is something that is in conjunction with that bridge project if you look through where we have those reds and yellows and greens really we only have a couple of hesitant spots here and that's at that dcta bridge we're doing the value engineering at this point making sure that we have all the funding that we need to actually build that bridge and the configuration that that makes the most sense for the city at this point then we also have mayhill bridge was when we put the slides together a couple of weeks ago that project was anticipating a change order that change order came to you all last week so that project is going through the closeout phase now that would actually be a green today if you look at mayhill road or mckinney road widening phase two that project right now all that's really lacking is a change order they're progressing pretty quickly through the utility upgrades that they're doing in the area and they'll be moving in the paving before too long but we do anticipate a change order coming it's within the original contingency that we planned for that project so there's no anticipated need for additional funding for that project and then the north texas roundabout that project had i-35 money that was tied to that project with the i-35 improvements it was the intersection roundabout for posed just south of i-35 at north texas boulevard almost the gateway to apogee stadium there was a roundabout anticipated there as we have evaluated what's actually going into north texas master plan for that area as well as the intersection improvements that need to occur in the area based on the neighborhood the traffic in the area we don't feel that the roundabout is the ultimate configuration at this point and we're working through a redesign that fits that area better anything that we put in that place will fit within the budget that we have for that project that project was 100 funded through rtr funds there were no city matching funds required for that project and i'll wait for any questions any any questions on this slide okay all right this is just a summary of some of the funding sources that we're anticipating for projects so currently you see a the schedule of projects that we're working through on the left and the potential funding sort of sources and partners over time and you'll even notice hickory creek road this is a long-term projection for that road being widened all the way to 35w it is something that will happen over time uh it's something that we're continuing to work with our partners to to fund that scenario as it goes forward we'll see to the right where the city's matching funds are or at least what their fund our fund is and what we have received from our partners in the middle to date and then as we're working through these things you'll see like for instance ryan road where you have an anticipated three million dollars worth of text dot those are on both ends of ryan road at 2181 where text dot's doing intersection improvements as well as on the other end at 1830 where text dot has a stake in that as well so we're working on all of those issues with our partners tod which one is the uh if we'll pull the screen down which one is bonnie bray phase two what i i keep getting the phases mixed up as to what street uh connectivity is represented by each phase so bonnie bray phase one two and three all three of those segments is everything south of i-35e so it's all the way down to vintage okay and then uh bonnie bray phase is four and five that's between i-35e and university drive and then all the remaining segments are north of university drive all the way up to 288 is is the bonnie bray phase two is that vintage road vintage roads is getting widened and is that it's that's labeled as the bonnie bray phase two is that correct right okay so then the three would be the road and everything else from south of 35 down to vintage is that right well close then the vintage piece actually incorporates everything from phase one of bonnie bray which started about five or six hundred feet north of vintage so it finishes that piece out right and then does all of vintage boulevard from 377 all the way over to 35 then three starts at rose line essentially and goes north got you okay all right any other questions on this slide all right i think at this point i end all this back over to david and we'll take a break after we finish this agenda item yo mayor pro tem yes go mayor pro tem before todd gets too far i'm sorry i missed something can you come back i just saw david lee thank you sorry todd i i got distracted by mayhill and i forgot to ask my original question uh the quiet zones can we go with the double arm even if it was an extra expense you know if we have to take it back out when we get the medians in place is there an opportunity to go with the double arm get that in place get the quiet zones established and then once they do whatever roadwork then come back and put the medians in and you're talking about doing two arms on both sides of the road yes sir there is an opportunity to do that absolutely again we'd have to be working with the railroad to get all that put in place we can't look at that it does essentially double the cost it's it's quite a bit more expensive to do that it would eliminate what you currently hear in the downtown area especially with what we call the wayside horns that those wayside horns operate by having a much lower decibel level than the train itself it still doesn't sound like it if you're right in front of it it's also very directional but that when you say directional in sound it just means there's a cone that starts at that point that widens out so as you get closer to the square obviously you hear it just about everywhere it is quieter than the train itself uh it can be done certainly it's definitely a lot more expensive than what we would put in say a median okay thank you council member melzer then council member breaks uh yeah just to follow but uh i'm you know all ears uh so to speak on the quiet zones but uh would that get it done sooner or it would just get us not just but it would get us a better result uh is what i'm hearing would it get it sooner there's several challenges when we put in extra crossing gates when you do that we have to worry about where does the gate actually end up when we're done so i need to make sure the arms aren't so long that they hit another car that's going the other way but they're not so short that we got to then turn around move the whole thing over and then i've got too short an arm there's a lot of trade-offs there so it can be done certainly but those are all those costs that we'd have to come back with later and give you an idea what that might look like no i appreciate that what i was asking was does it change the timeline it uh in any way i'll i mean obviously it had a little bit of design time but is that something that would get through the union pacific obstacle easier or sooner or anything like that potentially it could i would just ask you to perhaps let us have an opportunity between now and the next update we bring back to council to bet that a little better quite honestly it hadn't been on our radar because it is so much more expensive okay uh council member riggs well just to follow up on that um we we keep hearing it it's more expensive it's a lot more expensive trade-off and cost is there just an update that you can give us on that before um i mean if i need to go through the app and request that in a friday report then i can but that would be i think information very helpful roughly to the community roughly a pair of crossing arms so two crossing arms will run anywhere from 250 000 to 350 000 dollars per crossing uh whereas a median at these same crossings is run gonna run you somewhere between 50 and 75 000 dollars so it's a significant cost increase especially when you anticipate i believe it's nine crossings in this corridor three certainly in the downtown area that you'd want to try to get across with it's it's more of a million almost a million dollar investment to make that happen quicker versus say a two hundred thousand dollar outlay yes council member priggs and i don't want to get off topic too much but just a question about the quiet zones because they are on do you have to do every single one of them the same way or can you start can you implement um one type and then just to get started i mean so you can do them one at a time the challenge is is that if you don't have so every crossing that you put in a quiet zone you have 1500 feet on both sides of the train that you have to have no other crossing for it to be marked any other crossing in between that's either not brought up to the same to the same style of we call them automatic or automated uh quiet zones versus a secondary quiet zone which is a wayside horn so it still makes a sound the secondary measures will still require will be required to be there while they may be quiet for that distance between the two which is about maybe a thousand feet or less once you get outside that zone they got to start blowing the horn again like normal so you're not going to get the full effect of a true quiet zone until you get the entire corridor done okay anybody else all right we'll move on to david's portion of the presentation again i just have a couple slides left in the presentation so start those and in this piece of the presentation obviously will also bleed into the next agenda item as we talk to the budget and we'll see some of these similar slides i wanted to to give you an update on on where we currently see our debt issuance timeline um obviously in total for the general government but really calling out the street improvement propositions from the from the from the bond programs so you can see our final issue it is for the 2014 bond program this year so obviously that will be closed out as we move forward and we have plugged in the 8.9 million that we discussed earlier to close out the 2012 and 2014 street reconstruction pieces so we've included that here and on the next slide as we look at the tax rate impacts um so that that can be under consideration one piece that's different than what we've shown previously is we have pushed out the street reconstruction for the 2019 bond program one year from what we've seen previously prior we had that program completing in FY25 but as we as we've done this analysis of the 2012 and 2014 programs and what's needed to close those out we want that that would be the priority as we go into next year but then still keep that focus on design so that when we hit that FY21-22 time frame we're able to issue those funds and complete those roads with the design complete i would note on all of these 2019 bond election timelines these are all benefited by the commercial paper program that we brought to council a few months ago where we're able to issue these funds now based on cash flow as opposed to appropriation so we're issuing this these debts debt as we actually spend the funds or anticipate to spend the funds in each of those years so again definitely take any questions on this as we complete this presentation but we'll also address this in the next budget presentation as well yeah if we could pull the slide down uh for any questions any yes council member Briggs just a clarification question so you said the 2020 bond projects are being pushed um one year out further is that in our if that's correct then are are we not concerned that when we get to that phase that we won't be able to afford them um because of the increase in cost or is is one year not going to be that big a deal or it's the uh it's the road projects that are being moved back the police department was always the first one in the chute so that's already underway as you know um but the road projects we we've pivoted to try to mitigate some of that issue by having the projects uh designed a year ahead of time which has been part of the issue we've been wrestling with since we've inherited the 2012 and 14 packages is really a lack of uh of solid design which is why it's been difficult to pin down costs so it's possible um that we'll be able to control those costs and we're hoping probable but uh Todd did build in uh significant costs of inflation estimates into into the program hoping that we can mitigate that but it's really going to depend on how crazy the market is if we continue seeing escalation like we are now you know when we get to the latter years of the program it's always a risk so it's going to depend what the market is but that was one of the um this is one of the uh levers we needed to pull in order to keep our projected 21 20 2021 budgets under the no new tax rate so David will hit that here in a little bit we've left you a little bit of room if you wanted to to try to expedite those those projects but quite frankly it would still take a it would still take some money above and beyond the no new tax rate to get you there so it's it's a policy discussion we need to have with you soon councilmembrometer yeah um how soon after design can a contract can contracts be locked down generally speaking just depends on how quickly you've got a but one of the things we've tried to do with the road program is aggregate numerous road segments at one time trying to leverage the best pricing we can if a contractor knows that they're going to be busy for a significant portion of the year they can plan their year accordingly then you're going to get better bid packaging or bid prices back so it's really not a matter of how fast it can be put out on the street and get bids back it's really more of a matter of how you know making sure that we've got tight bid specs before we actually go to the street and that they they can look at a look at the plans what's planned and give us solid bids to control the contingencies on the back end i think thank you and a follow-up question to that is is it primarily the construction costs that are prohibited or design costs too it's been a little bit of both one of the things that we did when we started scaling back our costs in march is went to each each one of our design consultants and basically we pulled some work back making sure that we took whatever we could in house and then we renegotiated our rate we negotiated rate reductions from each of them but the more work that we pull in with our staffing the more that's going to slow us down to some extent we don't have a lot of teams like the private sector does we can put on these design projects so the trade-off right now it looks like it's been about 12 months but that's been the strategy we've needed to use given where we what's happened to our revenues thank you yes council member melcher ton is this a change uh to have pulled two million of five million for proposition three parks into 2021 did it used to be i remember it correctly it used to be sort of all in the out years it was all in the out years initially and dave i don't know if that changed towards the end of the bond bond committee right i think i recall at the end of the bond committee we did have our most our latest schedule to have it staggered as we went out into the future year that i think we have pushed up that three million out one year from prior but it's the two million being brought in if that's a change i mean i appreciate it just because we know that you know the longer we wait the less land will be available that's still suitable so part of that was part of a commercial paper discussion as we implemented that we were able to free up some of that capacity in the first few years so that was a piece of moving that that two million dollars the other the other discussion to make that happen with the with all the utilities and also todd as this group is if we can't get the work done within the fiscal year time period that that we're planning on let's size the projects appropriately so if you can only get 75 road segments done in a year don't don't bid out 80 or 90 and take out that debt let's give ourselves the ability to get some other things done as well and so that's been that constant analysis that we're able to do now that we've got this in a format that's a little easier to work with i really appreciate that kind of flexibility you know dynamic management just to confirm the debt issuance plan all the debt on this slide is debt that's either been approved by the voters or already been approved and see if this doesn't include any debt that has not yet been approved at some stage is that correct or or no no if you look at the and i can pull the presentation up if it helps if you look at the the 1920 column that's absolutely correct you can right okay the co issuance there that we just have the notice of intents that went out as we move forward we have some plug-in numbers for co issuance that would have to go through the notice of intent process but everything else is true okay yeah i didn't see i just overlooked that last line so but other than that other than that line it's all been approved it's at some point prior to okay great all right we can move on to the next slide so again some of these assessed value assumptions we'll get into the next presentation as well but can talk talk forward with them what we've done here is is taking forward our debt service tax rate to show what what we see is the the implications of the of the timeline that you just saw we are right now anticipating about a half cent tax rate increase on the debt service side next year as we'll talk about we are predicting this will come in under that new new no revenue rate which is previously called the effective rate and then on the out years as we've always anticipated as we talked with the bond committee and went to the voters we do still anticipate that increase in the debt service side of tax rate for the bond program in 2022 and 2023 in those fiscal years and so you can see our current estimates there of how that starts to scare step up in those future years and then and then stabilizes we do when we went to the voters we we anticipate a three and a half cent tax rate increase that was based on a few things first a five percent a b growth through the entirety of the program and obviously just issuing the plan that we had in place this plan in front of you in front of you right now does have us going slightly over that in the out years obviously that's a number of years away and assess values can change a number of things can change but that's really going to be tied to issuing an 8.9 million additional dollars that we that we hadn't previously put in the schedule but what we've tried to show is you know in 2012 and 2020 we did have that 2014 bond election that it anticipated four cent tax rate increase that we didn't realize so that could be kind of considered as a part of that obviously anytime we have these discussions you know the reason that we didn't have the increase was because our assessed values increased higher than we anticipated on the top right you can see those assumptions that we have right now we are anticipating seven percent assessed value growth heading into next fiscal year and again we'll talk about that in a little more detail but that's based on the sort of the preliminary values that we received through the appraisal district so far definitely tracking higher and obviously anytime we have those discussions important to note that those values are based on the values at in in january of 2020 so we are in this model anticipating next fiscal year that next year that those will not grow at the same the same speed that we've seen over the past few years so again just one projection but how we how we can see the debt service tax gradient impacted in the future years the final slide on the finance uh this is a this is a metric and really it's just kind of out of the bottom line that total number is has been something that we've tracked over the past number of years and it's just the amount that we've spent each fiscal year in total obviously as we as we come in this has been a priority to to get projects out the door and so this has been a metric that's helped us to watch that so you can see in fy 18 it's been about 40 million dollars on the on the projects categories that you've that you've seen throughout this presentation last fiscal year 50 55 million dollars and then so far through half the year 30 million dollars already spent this fiscal year obviously projecting that out forward would be even more than in the prior year so again um very just high level but it helps us to to show the amount of work that's getting done david couple questions uh on if you go ahead and pull the slide down um on your slide i've tried to get in on the the last one but okay on the assessed value slide the slide that was before this one you're showing an assessed value growth in fy 21 i get really confused sometimes so fy 21 is the budget that we've got coming up that we're going to approve in october or in september of 2020 so those assessed values based on that budget will be the assessed values that come in um january that that are set at january of 2021 and that were sent notices for the month of may is that correct right the notices already went out they're based on january but we'll collect them next right gotcha well um well right but so the the notices that are going out now the taxes will be collected at the end of this year is that for the is that for this current budget or is that for the budget that we're going to be approving in september the budget you'll approve in september all right um so then those assessed values and we then the rule is whatever the budget year is is the asset like this one will be the 21 budget that we're that's coming up it will be the assessed values that have been set in 2020 and collected in 2020 or at the end of january and 20 okay i just i sometimes i get a little confused on that because they're all sort of on different time frames but i appreciate that on your on your next um on the slide that we just did regional roadways are those roadways that we have tech stop participation as far as the cost of the project those would include all of those roadways those large those large roadway projects that todd hit on um in that section where we where it did include the money coming in to us from from the region okay so those regional that regional roadways amount includes our funding as well as any other outside funding from other sources absolutely okay thank you and then we just have one final slide so our our key takeaway is just to recap the presentation thus far the 10 projects anticipated a bit out during the remainder of this calendar year and with total 50 million in construction uh todd did mention two separate two change orders as he went through his presentation um so you'll you'll see those moving forward over the next 30 to 45 days obviously we spent significant amount of time on the 8.9 million dollars um planning to issue next year to complete the 2012 and 2014 bond program and then talked a little bit about our timeline including the street reconstruction program focusing on design for the next two years and then finally we you know this is this the first time we've had a capital project update quite like this and our plan is for this to become a template that we bring back to council frequently in the future to give progress updates and have a consistent format that we bring to council so you can track the progress now we are open for any questions okay once the slide comes down any questions from council other than what we've already asked any questions well first of all i want to thank you for such a comprehensive presentation and i think it is i think it is a good template and it's just something that's uh gives a lot of information to council but also more importantly to the public on the status of projects and things such as that and sort of gives us a a real-time update on issues that may arise so really thanks staff for that and for developing that any other questions or comments yes mayor pro tem yeah no i think i should echo i think i should echo that those those thanks to staff and and david and et al but also real big thank you to um the city manager uh you know he's he's always said he's he came in saying he was going to work on these things and it's evidence that the work he started in 2017 has put us in a tremendous position to to whether this is as best as possible uh so i'm grateful for those hard decisions early i mean you hear you talk about the put a pay agreement you talk about david just touched on today uh talked about the commercial paper and so all these things kind of cumulatively have have put us in a better situation so i appreciate those uh that commitment to good decisions daily thanks yeah council member melser yeah uh i certainly echo those comments it's really impressively clear presentation and uh that takes a long time to make some thing very summarized uh still be clear i just want to just share an observation just looking you know at a high level it looks like we're we're shifting the mix there's still quite a lot of street activity uh regional roadways tree reconstruction but we're kind of shifting the mix pretty significantly toward storm water and water and wastewater and um i don't know is there do you have any do do is that a sort of accurate um observation todd and is that a you know kind of a conscious um shift in the mix or it's just kind of those are the projects um i think todd's done a good job of getting those projects you know kind of moving again and and getting them out to bid um there were complex projects that they tend to be a little bit more challenging at times and road projects given the um the way you have to put together right away access that sort of thing so i think it's just been a huge um emphasis of his um and definitely where our our next efforts are right now are trying to finish spec three and four there's a number of uh potential federal opportunities that we're investigating right now we think that is a huge issue if we can get it done for the council just in terms of what happens to the eav in the downtown area uh and being able to redevelop that but yeah i i wouldn't say it's necessarily taking any precedent over streets it's just been more of a matter of we finally got things organized in a way that it tells that story a little bit better great thanks any other comments let's go ahead and take a break it's 237 we'll come back around 245 welcome everybody back to this meeting of the denton city council on 251 it's 251 pm on june the 30th 2020 we are working through our work session reports of our agenda we are on our last work session report which is three well we're on 3c we postponed agenda item 3a the dentons covid response until later on in the presentation a 3c receive report hold discussion to give staff direction regarding the fy 2019-20 budget and preliminary fy 2020-21 budget and capital improvement plan i think this slide was about what is five slides on this one i'm kidding members david gains again director of finance for this presentation so see our objectives here and i overall this the intent of this work session item is to give an update on where we are right now with our current projections um with each of the summaries in each of our funds and really this is all in advance of our our furtherance of the budget budget process when we bring our proposed budget to you at the beginning of august but do want to give an update uh to where we were where we are now compared to where we were in april when we last came to council um in in wake of the of the covid pandemic so our presentation objectives we're going to go through our our timeline of of when everything started in march to where we are today what their updated assumptions are and how things have changed since then a strategy a overview of our strategies heading into the budget process give an update of our voluntary separation program which obviously was was brought to council in april as well then give a general fund update for 1920 and then also preliminary numbers for fy21 a tax rate update again another look at our capital projects moving forward and then some of the other funds that we have um in in advance of the next steps so an overview of our our budget strategies our revised 2019 interviewer estimates are going to be slightly different than what we what we saw in april since we've had more information and and had progressed a number of a number of these bullet points we're currently projecting the general fund to have a five to seven million dollar reduction from budget in revenues based on based on covid we are showing in in 1920 and you'll see a similar bullet point for 2021 4.6 million dollars coming in for crf funding this fiscal year in the forecast and three million dollars coming in next year for crf funding obviously this is a total 7.6 million that we worked with the county on as they got the money directly from the federal government from the cares act and now that money is coming to us to offset of covid related expenses and you know that's a big a big change from what we saw in the forecast just in april when we did not anticipate getting that those funds so definitely a big help and puts us in a better position sales tax have sales tax revenues have been adjusted for our forecast we do now have one complete month of kind of post covid sales tax collections we did get march but that was more of a half month of impact from from the economy is shutting down to some degree so we do have that month and we'll go through what april looked like and how we've adjusted our our sales tax forecast moving forward and then obviously showing the impact of all of our cost reduction strategies and based on facilities opening a little sooner than we thought and other assumptions along the way and then the assumptions of our voluntary separation program moving forward to fy21 i think the two most important bullet points when we heading into the fiscal year we are the goal is to bring to council a budget that has a property tax rate at or below the no new revenue tax rate this is still getting used to the new terminology this is again what we've always called the effective rate that that term has changed so the no new revenue tax rate now and also no utility rate increases heading into the fiscal year to limit the impact on our residents as much as possible obviously a transparent delivery process and you'll see throughout this presentation i i think throughout the presentation is april in april as well lay out our our thought process heading into any decisions and the justification for the decisions that we're making and then to view to view these decisions over a multi-year forecast and i think we'll see that as we look at our forecast for next year we while we're projecting ourselves taxing decrease this year we really see that that impacting us next year and continuing on and as so as we head into the 21 budget you'll see the impact of that so here's the timeline that i mentioned and this kind of helps us frame where we were in in march in april in the previous months and the decisions that we made and how they they've changed today so you can see beginning in march the middle of march march 13th when the first declaration was declared we immediately enacted the those actions you can see there on the march row from delaying and reprioritizing capital projects having implementing and a hiring freeze immediately ceasing discretionary travel and training pausing our merit increases remaining for the fiscal year and then going through those contracts which we we had detailed conversations with council on to find possible savings in april we came to council uh came to council and laid out those steps that we had taken thus far and laid out a few other options for council to move forward with one of those being the voluntary separation program which we'll touch on and then obviously also we increase that transfer from the electric fund in the roi from the electric fund for the next two and a half years up to six percent from three and a half percent based on the reserves that were available there in the electric fund in may the biggest progression obviously was the crf funding that i mentioned uh anticipating those funds to come in based on the notification we received from denton county and then in june as we look at the updated forecast really tied to two updates on the revenue side first getting that first batch of sales tax revenues in and then also those updated assessed value projections from the comptroller in advance of our certified values david could i ask a quick question and i think you'll you need to pull the screen down because of um understand the importance on the april sales tax and i think you if you can give this information so uh what was our total sales tax collection for april um do you have that it was 14 percent below the prior year prior april um okay may uh so what is that what was that delta that actual delta that 14 percent and then what would did y'all forecast back in march um to see i can tell you up top my head on the percentage basis we've forecasted a 40 percent decline prior april and we realized a 14 percent decline so much better shape i don't have the exact numbers on that no that's fine yeah so then on the slide where you show a five to seven million dollar reduction in general fund is is a large part of that what the forecasted sales tax reduction will be because uh i don't know if the property taxes are going to be there i don't think they're going to be below what we're projecting no reduction in property tax it's essentially all sales tax some of those other revenue lines development services right so so does that has that been a revised forecast then from originally based upon the april figures and then i guess we'll get the we'll get the may figures in the middle of july is that correct other sales tax from a revenue side we're in we're in a better better shape than we were when we came in april and then obviously on the expense side as well and um you know i i think we definitely took a conservative approach in april sure but i i think you'll see in the forecast has really put us in a good position that we made those cuts on the on the expense side and then now end up a little bit better shape on the revenue side wonderful okay thank you so much i will continue on the presentation yes voluntary separation program obviously this was the the program that we brought to council that we that were that was offered to all employees in the city uh which was 20 week salary payout incentive and up to 480 hours in lead balance payout so what we're showing here are two tables to essentially compare what it what actually happened as we do have our finals numbers in from that program over the past couple of weeks first what we projected so that first table is the same table that we brought to council at the in april of what we what we anticipated what we were kind of shooting for in our in our in our assumptions that we showed in our summaries which was a total number of uh acceptance of the program of 80 employees with a net savings the salary next fiscal year of about 7.7 million dollars and then you can see kind of those three middle columns lay out what ultimately in the third column there the budget financial impact what we what we see is the impact to our budget this year of 1.2 million dollars that's what we projected and then if you move down to the the bottom table what actually happened was you know relative relatively close to what we projected so you'll see those reflected in the fund summaries where the total annual savings from the positions that are leaving the organization would be about 9.6 million dollars and our budget impact for this fiscal year is 1.4 million dollars and so when i when i say budget impact that's really um first the payout that we're obviously we knew that going into this it would be a cost this fiscal year so you can see the payout of 4.5 million dollars in total from the program but that bottom line there in the in the previous column is salary savings that we're not paying the salaries obviously for those employees for the rest of the fiscal year so the way that we view this heading into it and um you know as as we see the benefit that it has to our forecast is you know 1.4 million dollar cost this fiscal year for a 9.6 million dollar savings next fiscal year and in the next couple slides we'll talk about our plans for possibly bringing any of the vacant or vsp positions back but i think this is important context for why we made the decisions that we that we presented to council and then the benefits that we see in our forecast real quick question on this i'm sorry uh if we could pull it down the only reason i'm asking you to pull it down is because i understand that's the that's what we have to do pursuant to state state law so i apologize what is the other category because that's that's there's a lot more people that took that and the so uh just what is that category and how's it different how's it different from the general general fund so it's all of our internal service funds and our streets fund is a big piece of that so especially over the past number years we've had more of these internal service funds so that could be we have a customer service fund for our customer service department we have a materials manage management fund for procurement it is the customer is that internal service fund that is essentially just paid for by the other operating funds okay so when i see general fund so when i see general fund i'm thinking that everybody that works in it everybody that works they're all paid out of the general fund i mean this in this these internal fund transfers get a little tricky sometimes um so what you're saying is the other are actual people who decided to take the offer that you're not categorizing as from the general fund does that make sense i mean is that what i'm hearing is that help me understand they those those positions are funded through allocations from all the other funds so you may have an it director that is uh 20 general fund 20 electric fund uh water sewer so that that's how it is there's there's certain folks in internal service they're only working on water wastewater electric certain that are only working on general funds so that's what that's what that captures okay all right got you all right um okay thank you appreciate that clarification thank you i will continue on that with the present presentation yes so in total we in total you we talked talked about the 87 bsp vacancies but we also have 127 total vacancies you know since march we've had a hiring freeze um where had a few positions that we have hired but for the most part are frozen all positions that were vacant when that began and then they had positions that have been vacant as they as they've come up so i think we know internally that when we're looking at 211 positions in total some of those are are going to need to come back sooner sooner than later and we built that into our forecast um but we want to talk a little bit about from a staff level what our our process is for thinking through those situations when we have all the when we have these vacancies so what we've done from a staff level has created a internal committee that any any department that wants to fill one of their vacant positions has to go through this committee and really it's just to have that due diligence done to ensure that everyone all of our departments are going through a process where they're evaluating their positions evaluating their workload looking at their work organ at their department org structure to see can can they get by with the position they have what positions do they need and if it's justified to fill a position we'll move forward with filling those positions but keeping in mind that you know the the benefit that we get from these programs and from freezing these positions is to help us mitigate those revenue losses we're anticipating in future years so any positions that don't go through this process would be removed as we headed to the next fiscal year i think also a large piece of that is not looking at a department specific approach but how can we get things done as an organization and work across department lines um so it's been a large initiative throughout the city to take this approach to positions as they come available and then you know based on those past couple slides here's our preliminary look of where we see the the personnel schedules heading into the next fiscal year and these will surely be different when we come to to the proposed budget we made some assumptions here as we continue to work to that point of proposed budget over the next month but we do anticipate uh around 100 positions coming out of the budget next fiscal year through those through those means and and you can see the total across all of our funds would equal about 12.3 million dollars in reduction in salaries and those would be from the positions that are already vacant or already either through regular vacancies people folks leaving or through vsp program no additional cuts to positions just from positions that are vacant as of today and not filling those positions so we talked a little bit about those cost reduction efforts now we'll give some updates on where we are with sales tax so you can see april 2020 as i mentioned earlier is uh about 14 below where we were last fiscal year in april 2019 um you know as always it's important to give a few caveats that's just one month and any given month um there could be adjustments from the prior month until we get some additional months it's hard to put um too much stock in it but i think it's definitely gives us a a view that's better than where we what we thought we would be when we came in april and i think that's true even as you step back look at the entire state of texas all cities are very similar kind of decreases um so feel confident that that it's good news and we're in a slightly better shape than what we were projected in april through april and because we did have strong sales tax and um before the covet pandemic started we were trending above our sales tax projection so through april we're actually still slightly above almost right at where we were with the budget so what we've done with the the line graph you can see there the blue blue line is being what our projections were in the budget throughout the year of how we saw our total sales tax collections increasing throughout the fiscal year that gray line being what we projected in april when we came to council and then the dotted orange line being our new projection where we are still obviously trending below budget we our total budget reduction were about 3.4 million dollars from budget but still significantly quite a bit higher than what we projected in april and those numbers are based on a continuing 20 reduction from may through september so not quite ready to say we're going to have that same 14 reduction throughout the rest of the fiscal year but are comfortable with that 20 number that that fourth bullet point there with 2021 sales tax and we'll see this in the in the forecast we have that number our budget for next year will be less than where we estimate the end this fiscal year and really based on the fact that we're not first going to have that cushion of october through february that we had this fiscal year and then anticipating a further reduction through that october through february through march time period heading into next fiscal year those these numbers will continue to change over the next month as we come forward to council in august so do you want to put that in context of the past number of years where you can see our sales tax how it continued to grow you know throughout the throughout the past five six years pretty continually obviously we we talked quite a bit last budget year about the dip that we had last budget year and obviously we're showing that continued continued dip going into 2020 projection in our 2021 preliminary values but you know i think it shows yes we had that recession 2008 2009 a similar decrease that we that we experienced then so going going beyond the sales tax projections to talk about the our other projections for both in the general fund for both fy20 and fy21 as we mentioned earlier from the property tax perspective there's really not going to be any any change to our property tax collections from budget this fiscal year fy20 because those those sales those property tax collections really happened prior to in by january february prior to the pandemic and then we are projecting as we head into next fiscal year a seven percent increase on our assessed values and those are based on those preliminary values that we get from the CAD for the past month or so we've been getting estimates of where they think our assessed values will land and where they are at that time those are going to continue to change until we get our final projection to projections in july 24th but based on the numbers we've gotten we feel like the seven percent is a conservative approach to what they've sent us but until we get those final numbers it won't be won't be a sure thing so that's that's what we have right now and what does that mean for the debt service side of the tax rate as we talked about in the last presentation looking at a five cent increase oh i'm sorry a 0.5 cent increase on the debt service side of the tax rate next year and then on the mno portion of the tax rate a two cent decrease from where we were where we were last year which ultimately that decrease in the total proposed tax rate this tax rate as you'll see on the next table is now below where we the no new revenue tax rate about two tenths of a cent below the no new revenue tax rate is what we're moving forward with right now in the forecast a quick note on franchise fees we're continuing to to monitor those as they come in this fiscal year and continue that transfer of additional funds out to the streets fund to continue our street our street projects moving forward so there you can you we've shown kind of the numbers that we talked about for the assessed values you can see that that projection for seven percent growth and how it relates to the prior years obviously the prior years we've been significantly over seven percent we were over eleven percent last year over ten percent or so prior year so have continued to see assessed values grow and it's quite possible that we end up higher than seven percent heading into next year we do think as we head into following fiscal year and i know it can be confusing as we talk about different years for this but as we look at the values that will be assessed for january 2021 we do not think they'll grow as fast as what we're experiencing right now so here's essentially a lot of the information that was stated in another format where you can see our proposed tax rate which is a couple cents below where we were last year for our total tax rate we've also noted that our the no new revenue rate is fifty seven point two cents so again we are below the no new revenue rate there with our proposed forecasted tax rate right under fifty seven cents you can see our total forecasted taxable value of about thirteen point five billion dollars excluding our turds values because we're really just focusing on the general fund here which equals that seven percent value increase this is a table that we've really have updated the past number of budget years to show show a few things one show that emphasis that we've had since 2017 on on the effective grade on the no new no new revenue rate so what what you can see at the top there is in 2021 the fiscal year that we're we're moving forward with that will be adopted in september showing that tax rate that we mentioned right under fifty seven cents which is below the no new revenue rate which we've shown there on that second row for comparison of what that would look like as a difference to what our preliminary rate is that difference is about three hundred thousand dollars that if we decided to go with the no new revenue rate we would bring in to the general fund but i think it's just important that we see as this focus has been there we've been able to continue to drop that total tax rate from that that point that it was a number of years ago at 68 cents all the way down to about 57 cents proposed um right now in the preliminary budget so wanted to give again our preliminary look of what this means for our five year forecast for the general fund and in the second column there you can see our estimate for 1920 and where we anticipate the end of fiscal year we are we're showing that reduction in sales tax and all of the in the crf funding on the revenue side all the expenditure reductions that we've that we've mentioned are included here as well and with all these measures we're anticipating the end of fiscal year with 22 percent of our in fund balance of our total expenditures and our threshold for that is 20 where we shoot for a range of 20 to 25 percent so um again all the measures that have been taken the the new revenue updates put us in a good spot where we have a fund balance not only this year above our minimum required but also over the next couple of years so i feel like with the spot that we are right now we don't need additional actions in the general fund so the next next table is one that we saw in the previous presentation as well showing our debt issuance timeline on the on the debt service side which obviously again goes back to that absent increase on the debt service side but does play into allowing us to stay at that total or right under that no new revenue rate again the same chart that we saw last time just showing that projection out for the debt service rate i think in as we move forward in 22 and 23 we'll take that same approach or at least bring into council what it looks like to stay at the no new revenue rate on the o and n side with these debt service tax rate increases that that's that's it for the general fund i do have a few slides to talk through the utilities so david if we could just pull the slide down just see if there's any questions on the general fund uh council member armature council member melser then council member davis yeah so i i had a question about the internal committees to decide on department requests for new hires can you speak to them uh the makeup of that those committees would it be uh assistant city managers would there be council members involved what that look like the the committee is ongoing right now and the current makeup is um the assistant city manager deputy city manager uh cfo hr director finance director and public works director okay great okay so this is exactly so this is not a new procedure okay got enacted about a month ago we've been moving forward with it so that again really the whole intent is just to make sure we're doing that due diligence before positions get added back to the budget okay and and will there be uh reports to council or just kind of public reports on either one on uh you know what what requests have gone through and just so you know i i myself i know i like would like to keep abreast of that i don't know if that should be public but but you know as we bring the proposed budget forward we'll definitely be showing a new fte summary so any positions that aren't added back at that time we will be showing out of the fte summary so we can definitely summarize where we were where we are now and what positions were added back or we're or we're not okay got it so those so those positions that are requested that don't get approved by the internal committee will show up in the in the additional requests under the budget because the position that we're requesting funding for will be submitted my budget to the council in september so you'll you'll basically see what positions were eliminated and we will go ahead and notate which positions have been added back and where we netted everything out but so will we be able to see which positions have been requested by departments that have been you know denied by the internal committee you will it will be it will it will be it'll be self-evident that these positions have been eliminated out of the budget these positions are added back so we'll we'll keep track for you and um and there'll be an easy reporting back on that okay yeah thank you because i would like to see uh you know because it would because of the time that it takes to be able to look and see here's what we had here's what's not coming back right that's in some way where we can just look at it uh can you tell me do we know yet if if the um bike and pedestrian coordinator position is that position that's going to be refilled or is that still being decided we're still considering that right now um that position's been vacant for maybe a week so um we're considering how we move forward with that position right now okay thanks and please give us updated thanks yep council member melzer yeah thanks um uh do do you happen to have uh insight into what sectors uh performed better than feared you know as far as sales tax uh we can bring back a summarized summarized version of that we do we do have the reports where we can see some individual sectors um but really i mean across the board from our 40 projection they all were slightly better than than we projected um even from the food and those those assumptions we you know we had those coming down quite a bit and they came in better so i would say across the board they came aware of um i hate to be uh you know sort of gloom and doom guy but you know when i when i look at that you know the overperformance versus what we feared and i look at the unemployment having been it because 14 percent or something in april and then 12.6 in may you know what it says to me was that huge infusion of federal money through unemployment you know that's what would be my hypothesis you know kept the kept the sales tax going and i i wonder if we ought to be at least looking at a scenario where uh you know just a bad new scenario where like you know i don't know if the credit card will be there if problems continue or get worse and um you know as benefits are running out we might might affect the revenue it also might affect the demand on us for kind of emergency funds so it's a you know i'm saying it's a probable scenario but it'd be a possible one that we need to think through yeah we'll continue to monitor all this i think i just want to reinforce david's message we've got one and a half months of any data um that went through and you're right the unemployment rate is of concern to us while we're sitting in a decent position compared to where we were planning to be relatively speaking in uh in april remember seven million dollars that's attributable to a one-time shot of money we didn't know was coming so it's kind of like relying on a one income tax refund to pay next year's mortgage right so we've it's it's helped us uh restore some of those dollars over the first three or the last three months that you know but i think you're absolutely correct and and we're taking as conservative as an approach as we possibly can right now without being you know sky is falling but we get shut down again and we go through another couple months like that we're gonna we you know we've already got contingency plans of what the next phase is which is why we're so judicious and what we're writing back right now yeah you know it's just a matter of having our eyes open right council member davis and then councilman council member davis she did have your hand up didn't you i i did and then councilman priggs my questions were primarily about timeline i think the city manager has laid that out pretty well for us how we'll see those fte's coming forward and my particular concern is some of those uh some of those positions that have regulatory duties you know things that like historic preservation officer that kind of keeps us on track with some of those things um so i'll kind of have a special focus on some of those as we go forward but i'm confident that we're on the right track with the way we fill those positions and doing what we can as we can okay council member breaks yeah similar along those lines as council member davis but also um just having learned that we do not have a bike and ped coordinator anymore was a little bit shocking um so i just want to advocate uh for that because the plans that um that the mobility plan and the we were working on on a lot of plans and i know that this uh it was priority for this council to make sure that you know bike routes and sidewalks were in the right spot so i just didn't want this moment to go by without you know kind of speaking to that for from me we we anticipated the council feel that way and so we're we're taking a little bit more holistic view of that position in particular kind of weaving in parks trail systems that sort of thing there's a number of master plans we think need to come together at one time and funding positions and the historic preservation officer is not off the table at all so anything with a regulatory function you have been the first ones to get back filled particularly if it deals with public safety health and safety those sorts of things so there will be add backs but that is exactly the kind of criteria we're using when we're adding them back what we have found though is there's a number of opportunities you know to continue our mission of having the departments cooperate with each other and work together and and that those silos that had existed here historically cost us a lot of money so we're able to to really think through from a non-fund perspective just because you're paid out of one fund doesn't mean you can't be performing duties across funds and and how much that how much that has cost us over the years so uh we'll have uh we'll have these plans back to you talk to you a little bit more about them in later july early august okay all right any other questions on this portion of the presentation all right we can proceed the next few slides we're going to go through a very high level view of the utility budgets um i do want to emphasize as we go through these high level five-year forecasts of each of the utility budgets so we'll be bringing back more detailed discussions on each of the budgets really our intent right now is to show um based on some assumptions that we have right now that each of our utility funds is healthy it looks healthy um that we definitely do again don't see any utility rate increases necessary in the future um heading into the next fiscal year um so just to kind of to give you that idea from a high level of where we are but we'll we'll be bringing back a detailed presentation over the next over the next month of utility budgets so you can see there we we have updated the end of year revenue projections based on projected covid impact and that ranges all the way to just overall demand impacts um whether it's covid related or weather related as we always do about this time of year i think as we all know especially as we're talking about the water fund and the electric fund um this we're about to hit our our hardest usage time of the year with these months coming up so trying to project what it could look like by the time we come back next month um definitely have updated projections um and so our end of year um estimates will also reflect those expense reductions as obviously the entire city has not through the same expense reduction process uh proposed budget for next year no rate increases um going forward with the baseline budget on the operating budgets really not adding much to the the operations and maintenance side of any of the individual budgets and our and our plan is you can see that on the final bullet there is to go through go forward with much of the baseline budget as we can on the utility funds and then come back in december to both council and puv with a with a detailed update of where we are and this is kind of driven by a first the calendar piece you know we're hitting the heavy months and we and we know that it's difficult to predict what the true impact of of covid is going to have on our utility fund so we want to go forward with as as basic of a budget as we can this fiscal year come back in december with more information and if changes are needed we can suggest those to council at that time so again you can hear all of our rates no showing no rate increases from our modified budget do want to point out that we obviously have already had one decrease this fiscal year at the very at the initial um initial couple months of the fiscal year did have that solid waste decrease on residential rates of three dollars which brought us down to that the figure you see there anticipating again no no rate increases heading into next or rate increases heading into next year so here's our electric electric fund again at a very high level um very healthy healthy fund balance headed out throughout the course of the forecast we are showing here that that change on the return return on investment from three and a half percent to six percent again that's that transfer to the general fund and that is reflected in the estimate column for f/y 20 and also in the expense column for f/y 21 and f/y 22 but you know shown here and with with the assumptions that we have we in in the forecast with a balance over our our working um our working capital target our unbalanced target on the water fund showing total rate revenue decrease of about one point million dollars this fiscal year and that again takes into account a number of factors including covid related assumptions you can see our vsp reductions are really all position reductions as we've gone through the process that we've laid out um we're sure we're showing each of these summaries and then as we move forward you can see our fund balance there of even in the final year of about 23 million dollars compared to that that total range that we're looking for in our fund balance which is within there you can't see and we mentioned this um previously but we have set up a restricting capital reserve in the water fund as we anticipate a large lake expansion in the year just outside of this forecast in f/y 26 which is going to require significant amount of investment so we've started to put that money away um in advance of that project wastewater side um also project projecting um a revenue a revenue decrease in the wastewater fund and then heading into next fiscal year knowing that that rate will be based on on the prior year and you can see the vsp reductions as well but again um at a very high level have a have a healthy fund balance and no necessary actions in the wastewater fund right now solid waste fund obviously there there's a lot going on in the solid waste fund and will be when we come back to you at the end of july early august we'll be getting to a lot more detail in the solid waste fund um you can see that we've in total have revenue increasing 2.7 million dollars and that's really based on we're looking at what was adopted heading into the fiscal year versus our estimates now and we obviously had those changes that were brought to council that increased our revenue about 2.7 million dollars in total again based on landfill gate and wholesale revenue so that's that put our pay agreements and the other discussions we have with council we do have some reduction in there based on on covid but net is still we're seeing a um a positive on the revenue side of our estimate and then on the expense side do have our decreases that you see there so again solid waste fund looks very healthy heading out into the future years and we'll bring back more recommendations in detail in the in the coming weeks so obviously we can answer any questions on the utilities um that you have right now and will we bring in additional information forward and here's our our next steps in our total budget process we are going to have our department presentations that we've had in prior years but they're going to be very consolidated so it'll be different than what we've seen before very short presentations that really hit on what changes that each department has seen um based on our cost reductions the priorities of the department and then the plans moving forward into the fiscal year so have a number of those coming but they will again be kind of shorter than what we've seen in the past all in advance of our proposed budget and budget workshop on august 6th during that budget workshop we are going to hold off on any department presentation for police prior and have a a dedicated presentation on the police budget during that budget workshop on august 6th that all leads up to our our budget adoption on on september 15th so uh we'll be before you quite a bit over the next over the next couple months as we as we get to that adoption phase open for any questions all right if we could pull the screen down councilmember armater yes can you go back to the slide with the electric fund financial forecast yeah now just to and uh mr city attorney help me with this because i believe uh we can't have the slide up uh which is only the slide is only viewed by uh oh i said so if you have your presentation with you if we could follow along with that because i think the law states that doesn't that the person talking has to be visible is that correct mr city attorney yeah i think you said that's right okay thank you okay um so so regarding the uh the utilities funds the next time this comes forward for us in the the budget discussions i would really like to see uh for the operating and operations and maintenance expenses um a breakdown for each of the utilities doesn't have to be really at the micro level but for instance i was going to use electric as an example you know how much of that onm is the deck how much of that is the the the emo how much of that is our our boots on the ground uh you know putting putting um uh the electricity back turning electricity back on and out there in the streets uh it doesn't have to be again at the micro level but just to see what category each of those are in and same for that the position reductions from the voluntary separation program would be good to see because we've got the dollar amount listed i would like to know next time this this comes before us or before and or before how many positions that is because we've got the dollar amount which is crucial but just good to know how many people and then what uh subdivision of the utility that's from um so you know i'm not gonna uh i i don't need need to know all of that right at this moment but to give me just for instance uh would is there anyone here who can speak off the top of your head to uh say the voluntary uh separation for electric how much of that uh you know came from uh people working at the deck uh versus people working on the physical power lines versus people in in in in other positions in that department can i can i let me interject here something if you wouldn't mind getting those requests to them because that's pretty micro oriented and i mean i don't necessarily need to have that in a public presentation i think when we get the budget i think we'll be able to parse out what the expenses are for the deck i think but if we could if you could submit those to the city management ahead of time because that's pretty detailed and and i think what they provide this is simply he said it it's a high level elevation when it comes to the presentation of the budget you're going to see categories for salary you're going to see categories for all kinds of things and if you want that broken down any further i think that's something that you could do offline okay well but but now that we're here so i would just like one example from one department so i'll choose say solid waste so uh um for instance for uh for uh our voluntary separation program you know did did any of those come from our education programs what came did any come from uh our uh recycling composting efforts how much came from trash collection if if any or percentages if i'm just curious if anyone could could throw something out there for now if if that has been again i i really i mean they presented how many people were these are council member armor trotter i'm not understanding why why you're responding that way i'm just simply saying if you can get that those questions to them they can get you that answer that's that's all i'm saying this presentation they've provided this high level presentation to determine so that they're giving us basically an update they're they didn't come with all this specific information what but but i would just like to know from them if anyone knows off the top of their head and i would like the mr city manager do you know off the top of your head no but i can put an end to this pretty quick uh we we've we will have a an fte analysis um what was adopted in 1920 what was revised what with the vsp impact was and then what's left so so we can easily do a personnel sheet it's not that difficult um and you know no i think most importantly no programs have been eliminated if that's where you're getting at so so so that i think that's what's important is your decision to turn on the electric roi really saved a lot of those programs but we'll just lay out that format we do that every year anyway and we can show we'll just add the the vsp impact there and certainly the department directors can talk to you about how they've reorganized their functions i think as you're asking your questions it's a little bit dangerous to just look at numbers there when they've reorganized functions and and actually you've got people that have taken on additional duties responsibilities and in some areas have been completely reorganized based upon the workload today so it's not as static as it's being described we can certainly put a table together and ask them to go ahead and make sure that they can answer your questions i think all of them will be able to do that wonderful wonderful so how about how about having an annotated list so that in cases where uh say a position has been uh you know say there's some function where there are that is less uh you know 50 percent of the staff but you've got 100 percent of everybody else working on that function if there could be you know just a little line i think i'm going to i'm going to mitigate we'll defer to the department directors to answer your questions there and how they've approached it i mean again it's it's never quite that clean uh but they can certainly if you their specific questions you have on programs or how they're getting work done they've all given it a lot of thought over the last several months so what once you see that once you see the chart that's in the in the presentation if you don't think that answers your questions let us know and we'll see what we can do to hone that information thank you thank you okay all right any other questions i've got a couple anybody else have any questions yeah um david on the on the uh slides 20 21 22 and 23 i guess when i'm looking at the uh the fund balance for all the utility funds and then i see down on the screen working capital uh slash operational reserve target and then the same with working capital what exactly is that telling me all right in our financial strategies we have targets for our fund balance so some of our working capital reserve are essentially just like in our general fund where we shoot for 20 to 25 percent we have different ranges that you okay all right you can kind of compare those to what we show as our ending fund balance to to ensure that obviously we're not below those in some of those cases we're above them okay and i think the one caveat with the fund balance is what is telling you high level is that every one of those funds is in very good shape right now um but what we haven't done we haven't spent the level of time now going through and detailing out to see if there's further opportunities to deal with rates um yeah we're still looking at uh debt service impacts and and whether we're able to handle the cip in each one of them so we'll have that done the next few weeks okay and that was really that was really part of my question is some of these look very healthy yeah and i'm just uh yeah if in the future you could really help help us understand um are they exceed some of the targets you know the the lower end targets they're sort of midway just help us understand the need for some of the health of some of those fund balances i'm not saying should or shouldn't just some kind of understanding your question was right on time we were anticipating how long it would take that to be asked that question okay all right uh good good to non predictable um all right any other questions for this presentation again thank you so much for the the detail of the presentation thank you for just how it's laid out and presented it's it's very understandable and of course we all have detailed questions that at any time we can forward to the appropriate personnel city manager can distribute it to whoever he deems can answer it to get those those questions answered as well all right we will now uh i believe that concludes at least uh these two portions of our work session we still have uh the work session report 3a to go over but we are going to move that again to uh after 5 p.m at some point and i will recall that so we're going to move now into the closed session we will now move into closed session at 342 uh to deliberate regarding matters under texas government code section 551.07 for texas government code 551.07 two and texas government code section 551.07 one what i would like to do is take a closed session item c and d first because that's when people need to be here other than just council and and human resources so and we'll take a and b after we've completed c and d so let's take a five minute break at 343 we'll come back in about five minutes welcome everybody to this meeting of the denton city council at 4 58 p.m we are back in our open session on june the 30th 2020 we do have a quorum and i'll open the meeting we're going to circle back around before we go into our special call meeting we're going to circle back around to the work session that we did not do because we were waiting on the governor's press conference but it's my understanding that that press conference has been delayed or rescheduled so we'll move on to agenda we'll go back to agenda item 3a of the work session which is receive a report hold the discussion and give staff direction regarding an update to the city of dentons covid 19 response mayor city council sarah keettler chief of staff one minute while i share my screen and bring up the presentation okay so this is our standing work session item for staff to provide updates on the city's response to covid 19 as way of background and as a reminder the city currently has a local disaster declaration that was updated and extended by city council last tuesday on june 23rd and then on last friday city council held an emergency call meeting and approved a new seventh order of council which required that businesses and nonprofits must adopt a health and safety policy that at minimum requires face coverings for all employees and patrons of the business so today we have two quick updates for city council the first i'll be going over three slides just to inform council some of the actions we've taken since friday as well as one inquiry that we've received from council and then secondly laura barons our assistant director of parks and recreation will provide a few slides in regards to parks and recreation items and outdoor gatherings so i will jump into the first part of the presentation so since last friday staff has worked hard to develop a number of materials and outreach to our businesses to inform them of the requirements of the seventh order of council we did the following things we released a press release on friday as well as posted on social media to widely distribute the information out to the community we answered a lot of questions through social media directly on our post as well as direct messages economic development also helped us to distribute that information through the chamber of commerce and then through various business associations we've also prepared a letter that has gone to our printer and to the mail or to the post office to be mailed that letter should arrive in mailboxes mid to late week for businesses and nonprofits we've also prepared and distributed distributed frequently asked questions and council received a copy of both the letter and the faqs and those are both posted on our website as well further our public affairs team has been preparing flyers and signage for the businesses to use that is also posted on our website if they wish to access and print themselves and we'll also have along some copies as we perform our outreach visits to businesses and then further staff from a number of departments and a team has been trying to take questions and from the businesses regarding clarifications and what they must do underneath the order the majority of the questions or some of the concerns that we've received so far have been in regards to individuals not wearing face coverings and this was a little confusing as some of the media had covered that it was effective as of saturday while the order was effective as of saturday businesses have five days to develop and implement the health and safety policy therefore face coverings are not required until thursday july second at which time we then begin performing outreach to the businesses so so far we've been just communicating with complaints that we've received or concerns that we received in regards to when the order is actually effective for face coverings as a reminder if residents are concerned that a business has not adopted posted or implemented a health and safety policy residents can report it in one of three ways it can be done through our engage denton app at engagedenton.com or we've set up a phone number seen here on the screen where residents can call in leave a voicemail and that voicemail box is checked multiple times per day by staff and they'll actually go and enter in a service request to engage denton so that we can efficiently route those concerns we're trying to encourage anyone that's reporting these concerns to use discretion it's meant to report not that i've seen an individual not wearing a face mask there may be an exception why somebody is not there might be an exception per the business's policy but really a concern if a business has not developed that policy or is not trying to enforce it and is not making any effort to do so uh and as a just as an expectation we will not have immediate responses to these concerns but they all be logged and we will get to them as staff time allows code enforcement and development services will be the primary staff that will be scheduled to perform the outreach and education to our businesses i just want to take a minute to really thank all of the staff that are involved um with this education as well as the enforcement side it takes a lot of people to do this behind the scenes and they've been extremely flexible and we as city management really appreciate all of their help during this time to enforce this order and then lastly um just two other updates for council um we have received some questions since last friday um from some businesses that were unsure if they met the definition of an essential business or a certain classification in the governor's orders as we've done so for the last few months the city cannot make those determinations on the governor's order we've encouraged businesses when it's not clear to reach out to the governor's office directly or to the texas division of emergency management for confirmation so just two examples that we've received include inquiries from the community market if they would qualify as an essential business as a grocery or a market so they've been directed to tdm as well as the north texas fair and rodeo there's some various components of that event that they're unsure where they fit in the governor's orders so we've directed them to the appropriate channels and then secondly um the last item here we're seeking some council direction we did receive an inquiry from a council member if the suspension of utility shutoffs for non-payment could continue throughout july or further since the governor has started to pause the reopening of texas and actually had some closures including bars and some further restrictions started again with restaurants moving from 75 down to 50 and some of the actions that might come in the next few days to a few weeks that we're unsure of so just as way of reminder for council with the recently approved order the utility shutoffs for non-payment were scheduled to begin again in july we're seeking council direction if they should begin again in july or if council would like to further delay uh the continuance of the shutoffs for non-payment and so i'll take down the screen at this time for council discussion and then we'll go into the parks and recreation update next council member melser and council member briggs yeah i think that's a you know worthwhile question would it be too that i asked you know council it's just my first thought would it be too intrusive to say shutoffs wouldn't apply for people employed in the affected businesses you know in other words uh you know if you're if if you're an employee you have a bar that's now shut down that we wouldn't you know turn off your your uh utilities but that that would necessarily have to be a you know a general policy i'm interested in what others think so council member melzer um say that one more time well okay so uh so what uh the question was posed should we extend our um you know our non-shut off utility policy because some things are now being shut down right bars so you know what the governor is doing is a partial measure should we match off to that or is that it's kind of too intrusive to implement you know but you can see the logic that okay people who are in those categories that are now shut down by the governor maybe we would you know match off our policy to that that that's my question okay all right so in other words somehow distinguish between people who are delinquent are going to get their utilities cut off for non-payment if they're part of the categories that have been shut down and those who haven't then sort of have a different approach to each one of those yeah so that's a question for consideration okay all right thank you you bet council member riggs thank you mayor yeah i um i brought this up last week and had a couple of emails from businesses about it this week and it's not just those that are being shut down i mean i think there's a list of six businesses that have actually closed on their own which means there are several employees that are out of work right now um that are trying to find other places to work and so an extension of this temporarily um shutoffs and fines and fees for for those individuals are in those i mean we could maybe say the businesses affected by by the shutdown but as far as individuals go um that could range and vary and could you know i would be afraid to specify in that specific of of terms but yeah i am i am for this council member armature so obviously i'm for this i was already for it you know even before we started before the governor started rolling it back in i'm glad that um that he now understands how serious this is and i really hope that that we respond by providing those those extra protections anyone else council member ryan thank you mayor sarah do you happen to remember off the top of your head how much the county is putting forward for utility and mortgage and rent so you know assistance i know dollars i think it's 20 million dollars yeah i mean to me when we first put this in place the assistance wasn't there and now it is that people can get those resources it's not like the next day after this goes into effect that we're going to start turning people off there's a still that process that we talked about that it's still going to be a 30-day process and if i'm not mistaken there is a um a public utility board law state level law that when the temperature is above a certain point outside or below a certain point that you cannot do disconnects so i'm comfortable with just leaving at this if it does get worse we can look at moving back into a plan okay council member davis i just want to echo what john said those are my my sentiments exactly there's assistance out there um i i hope that unemployment benefits are are extended and there's additional i don't know that we can hope for additional federal help in that department um but hopefully there are some folks who are still able to receive unemployment benefits and right now we're not looking at the exact same situations we had a couple months ago you know this is not a full full hard stop shutting back down the economy this is kind of limited sectors that are more effective than others so i think we need to stick with the plan we have right now and maybe revisit that at our next meeting towards july okay council member briggs yeah just to remind everybody that the utility bills are still due people are expected to still make their payments this is just the late fees and fines so that they don't keep rolling over so if you have a three thousand dollar electric bill and you're having trouble paying it because you're shut down this is just going to prevent extra fines and late fees from occurring or accumulating and that's my understanding so that when you do open you are not swallowed in all of these other all of these other um fines and fees you just pay for the energy that you're supposed to use that's my understanding and that's that's why i'm in favor of it it's not saying don't pay your electric bill and the county has that program available for people who can apply and get funds for it but if we're still charging all of this stuff it's it's just going to be hard for some people to catch up that's just i just want to put that out there for my fellow council members to consider well it's so i want to make sure i understand what we're talking about here because what you just mentioned council member briggs is the uh non-accrual of late fees or interest but i think the main thrust of our order prior to this it did include that the non-accrual of late fees for interest but it was also you're not going to be cut off and i think that's that's what's starting in that's what's starting at the first of july is the accrual of late fees and interest but also that people can be disconnected for non-payment but you didn't mention that but i'm assuming that you're wanting that as well well yes that's part of it but what i'm saying is that the utility bills are still due this isn't giving someone a free pass on not paying your utility bill as in before the other two items were part of that that i consider to be as critical going forward for someone as well who is having trouble paying the the full the full bill okay i'm i'm help me understand something you just said you said this isn't this isn't like last time because it's not something about paying the bill i mean what i'm hearing is that it is okay so yeah it's just it's you don't get cut off and you don't interest and late fees don't accrue which is the same as it was prior to what we're talking about going into effect july 1 yes sir okay all right uh council member armature then council member melzer yeah so can can staff speak to what the economic impacts are of this especially now that we've just gone over the budget can you talk about how we can uh afford to do this without without raising rates because it's my understanding that we could i think the last update that david provided with council is that the uncollectible or the outstanding debt um had had grown from about 200 000 to just under a million dollars in three months so we i i wouldn't say that it's something that can be afforded i just definitely because we saw the the trending goes significantly upward it's just more of a matter of whether from a council policy perspective i think um you want us to move forward all the utility funds are in healthy shape the question is going to be how how much of a liability we're going to have and when it comes time to collect it and and eventually have to start turning people off are is the bill going to get so large that they can't pay it so what the direction that staff had been given just to clarify david just sent me a clarification is that we're not imposing late fees until august however the shutoffs were to commence in july so that's why this is forward we've got another 30 days before late fees start accumulating again but the but we were given direction to go ahead and start shutting off for non-payment in july and thank you and so yeah to speak to that just briefly i want to also add that when people's power gets shut off that is a public safety issue and it puts people at risk uh under covid so keeping making sure that people are housed and have power and water and whatever we can do so this is a small measure for the immediate present and we could renew this i mean we can revisit this every time we come to it but i i believe that we don't have to be thinking that far into the long term with a policy like this because under covid we're making these decisions moment by moment based on the number the numbers that that were that we're seeing out there okay uh council member melzer but if the assistance is there why would anybody be cut off is there is it difficult to get is it slow and coming is there something that we should be doing to connect people to the assistance because it sounds like if all the pieces are in play there shouldn't be shut offs so i guess i'm asking i'm asking staff that is there is there a problem with connecting to the assistance when it's needed i don't think i would say that there's a problem with connecting to assistance and when needed we would certainly refer them to the county program they just opened up another round of funding on july 22nd i'm not sure what the status of that particular funding is at this point but i have not heard that people going through the process that can prove that their shutdown has been covid related they have the documentation that they go through the process necessarily getting denied i think it's been more of an issue with the documentation it was as it was explained to me but we can certainly point them and in the right direction in terms of how to apply for the funding through the county auditor's office yeah i would say whatever we can do to make that connection sounds like the appropriate thing i mean you know there's no need to spend the money if it's already allocated you know in the county you just gotta make the connection so i have a clarification question when i hear that uh and so this is to remind us of what we actually did give direction on excuse me you it said that cutoffs will begin in july july 1 right are you is what's really being said is the process of that begins july 1 in other words let's say i have a delinquent bill and i get a bill um uh july 1 and i've got a past due balance there's a whole process how to deal with past due balance as you get a certain amount of time then you get you know something else and then you know you get a notice of a cutoff so i'm trying to understand that process of determining that process from day one that begins that movement towards if nothing happens the utilities being cut off explain that to me what what how is that related to the july 1 day here i'll mute david that's okay i do it all the time david gains director of finance so based on the direction from council at the presentation a month or so ago we we we began a process in june of doing all those contacts of the outstanding payments in advance of actually starting shutoffs in july so we would start actual shutoffs next week based on the current parameters so we kind of we use june as that outreach time and um to give everyone opportunity to catch up or at least let them know what the plan was beginning in july so shutoffs would start next week do you know or is there somebody on the line that knows how many accounts are uh i don't know if eligibles are at work or that are in such a a state that the cutoff would occur like imminently after july 1 christ is on the line she can okay that's a foster customer service manager um yes as of today we have 2044 customers residential and commercial who have past two balances that would qualify for interruption okay so when you say qualify for interruption what i thought i heard david say is all that outreach that whole process to begin uh that we normally do let's just go outside of this pandemic when somebody's behind there's a process that we do to where they get so many days you know based upon notices and the like before their service is interrupted and what's the total number of days typically that that that is um i can pull the actual timeline it's somewhere around 30 days 34 days okay from the time the bill is produced until the time they would be interrupted okay so when you say there's 2044 accounts that are quote unquote eligible to to have termination of service that means that process has run correct on those two thousand yes through the month of july or june we actually have doubled up that number of communications so they've received courtesy calls we've also sent a letter trying very hard to encourage all customers who are behind to make contact with us to get in with interfaith there's still a hundred thousand dollars in assistance waiting um and they've released their income guidelines for coveted related uh impact so we've been trying to encourage them to get in contact with us by making extra contact okay um all right so that yeah so what i'm hearing is that process that normally is implemented from the sending of the second notice saying that you're behind to eventually getting a notice of termination and then that date coming forward and the termination occurring that has all occurred pursuant to our normal process whether we're in this pandemic phase or not correct okay all right okay all right uh council member mayor pro tem hasn't spoken yet mayor pro tem uh so i have a question for staff what was the disconnection kind of cue if you will uh this time last year do do we have an understanding of that kind of understand because i don't have a baseline for how many are subject to um disconnection on a on a normal month give me one moment and i'll go ahead and pull up some information we normally average um and really that's what we're talking about is how many accounts are actually cut during an average month versus how many accounts are eligible to be cut today um so i actually pulled out this morning great months right now right now we have the 2000 customers a year ago in this in the same month we averaged 582 or we had 500 yeah last year i'm sorry we averaged 582 the year before 741 okay got it um okay it that that's uh i'll i'll listen thank you council member council member armature then council member melzer yeah uh so i'm wondering if we could get consensus here on council uh to have that if we're if we're not going to get not able to get a consensus on continuing this for the immediate future if we could get consensus to agree that if somebody is uh scheduled for a shutoff that customer service would give them an extra amount of time and allow them to show proof that they have at least applied for assistance through the county that way we we we could get some sort of and i would leave it to customer service to decide you know what kind of proof they would want but that way we're getting debt and residents to that money that's already there to help them and we're not making you know a customer service do too much extra work you know that that could really help get people to the money that's already there if they knew that that that the thing that would give them extra time and help them avoid shut off would be you know contacting these these these services through the county council member melzer yeah i agree with the objective i'm wondering if we can implement it in in a way that cuts out more of the red tape is there some way that we can collaborate more directly with the county so that there's so that you know you skip the disconnection altogether just you know that somehow we make the connection between dme and whatever that resource is that makes those decisions you know maybe even in advance of uh you know i don't even know what the exact resolution would look like but can we collaborate with that group to find a way that cuts out the red tape other than we stall there's an application process it's like kind of seven steps is there a way to knock it down to two steps well i think that it's my understanding uh that with interfaith who i believe the city contracts with and i believe the county correct me if i'm wrong uh mr city manager the county has also uh uses as a conduit some of the organizations that have been doing that type of work for a while i don't know how the county setting up their funding um i guess my question on the eligible accounts that are the accounts that are eligible what is the dollar amount for that figure i mean what what what is that represented what's the dollar amount i'm just curious that's owed on those accounts is christus going christy you still on oh you still there yes yes did you hear my question yes so as of today the total outstanding balance in past two bills is eight hundred sixty two thousand three hundred fifty six dollars okay but does that total represent the past due on those two thousand forty four accounts that is correct okay and and they may or may not be all you know coveted related right there's always something correct well yeah based upon the average go ahead go ahead christ i'm sorry i did want to go ahead and add that we are working with any customer who calls us so we attempted to get payment as much as we can because we want them to be able to catch up but if a customer calls us and they're unable to make a payment we are still working with them to ensure they're not interrupted and to get them their referrals to interface so that they can potentially get that assistance okay so this is where i am on this um and part of a major part of my thoughts on this is due because we are not meeting for council for three weeks after this meeting right we're going to be basically gone the whole month of july so i think in the in all caution abundance of caution uh three three weeks in this environment is a long time i mean things can change rather rapidly and a lot of it's not been for the positive it's been more for it gets it gets more challenging so i'm going to my position is i don't have an issue with leaving with moving into continuing the status quo of disconnections and accumulation of late fees and all that and that's the first thing we'll take up when we get back because i would hate to have something happen i don't want us to have to be called back for a special meeting to handle this and what i'm seeing also is that we've had a average of 582 last year and 741 at this same time who that normally who are looking at disconnects well we've got in one case almost four times that amount and in the other case we got two and a half times that amount so i think that shows to me at least that the environment is really having a big impact on those delinquencies i i if we weren't taking a july break i probably wouldn't have this same sentiment but that's that's where i am given that we're not going to be meeting for about three weeks councilmember melzer well i'll happily you know join the consensus for that but i would like to also know if uh if the city manager if he feels that there is an opportunity meanwhile to collaborate you know with the county to see if there is a way to cut through the red tape and have a more streamlined process you know during this period and i've reached out to our contacts of the county during this conversation just trying to find out exactly how much of that 20 million dollars is left i don't see an opportunity to streamline the process they have brought in a couple of attorneys that are experts in dealing with the federal government and their i guess reporting relationships and really have papered this up very well just in case they're anticipating they're going to get audited so i don't see them moving the process too much at our request i think they've got a month of history behind this now and in several applications have gone through it so to them it's going to be consistency as king but i i don't think there's going to be any issue in terms of getting them to the county auditor's office so they can fill out the paperwork if necessary and we're happy to put that information out there and in fact we've we've clarified that process numerous times for our business community so happy to continue doing it all right well i'll join the consensus mayor pro tem mayor can i hear you on this thought though i i'm mindful of i understand where you are and i can get there my hang up is we've spent the last month saying simply contact us by any number of means and i don't know that there's anything wrong with saying that if if you contact us of these two thousand people if you contact us and tell us what's going on make contact call email stop i don't know you obviously can't stop by but do something that says you're willing to work with us to get this resolved but i just don't know that i can get comfortable without that i mean and again this this is all kind of i take it in its totality we're spending four hundred dollars a week on a singular neighborhood that our rate payers are are subsidizing uh so they're in one half then we're coming up on a year of that yeah and so there's just a lot that goes into my mind um again i didn't you talk about a ordinance that that then takes business away from dentin potentially i mean we've just made some decisions that i'm okay with but i'm saying i don't think it's too much to ask of the two thousand people to say contact the city and give us an update and allow us to work with you yeah you want me to respond to that well i just want i just want to hear your thoughts on if that matters to you that someone could just continue to not contact us and uh you know just maintain status quo well and i understand that and i appreciate that because i think i think in general i think people respond better if they feel that someone's willing to work with them uh you know and give sort of a mutual kind of uh collaborative effort to say hey you know this is where i am can you guys work with me of course we can whereas if somebody just says well i mean i don't really care and i'm not going to work with you uh but i think that my decision necessarily isn't determinative upon that action only because right number one we had this policy in place just 30 days ago when things were were you know tough and and plus they were it was in place for the month of may when things were starting to reopen again right now we're in a very high degree of uncertainty with with this particular pandemic as far as how it relates to our community we've already got the governor walking things back we've got you know a lot of things happening and for me i just don't think that that either 21 days or whenever our next council meeting is to be able to toll that to get additional data to see exactly what happens um i'm willing to say look because in the end whether you contact us or not you're either going to pay or you're not going to pay which means your utilities are either going to stay on or they're not and i would hate to create additional stress upon families who are going through this legitimately and who've really struggled uh my only concern with these payments with this assistance is that if someone's asking for assistance and they're saying uh yeah i'm behind 200 on my bill the next question is uh from the organization is well are you scheduled to be cut off and if the answer is no in other words there's no kind of immediate impact for that but yet you've also got applicants before them that now that because the eviction ban has been lifted on certain things is not on public properties and some of those federal issues but now you've got people who are actually going to be facing potentially a very hard impact and a very hard consequence with a limited amount of resources where do you funnel those resources to do you funnel it to those who say no right now i'm not going to suffer disconnection no i'm not going to suffer an immediate impact or to those that say here's the notice here's whatever it is that says if i don't pay this here is the the consequence that's my real question about the the assistance is is the lack of uh not being cut off is that something that is keeping people from getting assistance and i i don't think that's the answer but i just want to make sure but long story short i'm sorry i took so much time mayor pro tem i would hope that they would call too but even if they do call and we send them there and it still takes time we're still sort of in this same situation where we have to decide do we cut them off or not and i don't know if i would want to penalize somebody just because at least right now in this these circumstances they're not making a phone call at a time when uh maybe in the past they would but um but i understand your concern and i understand your thoughts absolutely i do and um for me it's just given the specificity of the situation we're involved in and also i'm going to be truthful when she gave the numbers i expected the numbers to come back at if they'd have been close to 2000 on what was the average last year before all this if they'd have come close to 2000 i pro my my comments would be very different right now but because they're a fourth or a third uh of what we have right now that lets me know that there's been a lot of situations out there that are struggling so that's that's why i'm i'm making this uh kind of i don't know if it's a proposal but sharing my comments thank you that is compelling thank you okay thank you uh council member briggs thank you mayor for those comments and i also concur with extending this as you know and for me i think um just allowing that and giving our customer service agents the um our representatives the the comfort in knowing that this council is behind them if they're not shutting off and that they don't feel like they have to continue to shut off i am very uncomfortable with tomorrow 1500 people all of a sudden not having utilities um in this climate and what that would mean for those families and what it would mean to get that term back on yep i agree uh council member davis sure i appreciate the way you laid it out mayor and um the the stakes for us are pretty low and waiting till our next meeting at the end of july we don't have a lot to lose in the city budget by not shutting some of these utilities off and uh whereas the people whose utilities we're talking about they have a lot more to a lot more at stake so i'm i'm fine with with uh hitting pause on those for july and re-examining as the month goes on let me get back to our regular schedule at the end of the month okay what what yes council member ryan go ahead yeah i can get on board with that because the report we got a couple of months ago where we were had a million dollars worth of delinquency and we're at 860 now or even if we were just close to them we're seeing some improvement in it and it's probably from the increase in customer service you know reaching out to these people that's getting things done and the assistance being there so yeah three weeks is not going to be an issue for me yep well and i really want to encourage staff too because and this is something the council might have to talk about when we get back is i think we need to at least examine is there a rolling kind of process for if we get to where we're going to cut off utilities do you want to go out in the field and cut off 2 000 people's utilities all in one day there may be some way that we prioritize that i mean that sounds horrible but it's like how do you know you know who who can you work with who can you not uh how do we get that information because i just think we need to just move forward judiciously and and probably err more on the side of compassion together with the business interest given the the unusual circumstances and if not then we'll move forward with with that but i think it's good to i think it's good to just give a little reprieve and i council member davis i like you put it in sort of a cost benefit analysis and and i really agree with that i think you're i think you're spot on on that council member melzer yeah i think you know when when we get to that point and to have that conversation uh you know sort of to mayor pertem's point if you've got people who haven't communicated after many many attempts that's probably where to prioritize because it doesn't mean they stay turned off it's how you get their attention you know you'll you'll hear from them then yep no that's a good point i appreciate that that those are all good comments uh staff uh council city manager you got your direction on that we do and i really want to thank all my colleagues for this discussion because i think it it's a it's a compelling interest for both us and the citizenry and i think it was a really good robust uh conversation that really got down to the heart of matter so i really appreciate everyone's participation and input in that i think we were able to talk through this in a way that really came out with an outcome that that we can all sort of get on board with so thank you so much for that all right so now oh we still got some i think it's parks is there uh yes go ahead yes that is correct let me pull back up the presentation and laura barons will take over good afternoon mayor council members laura barons assistant director for parks and recreation we wanted to provide you some information today and get your direction on our reopening plan specifically how it relates to outdoor gatherings recently under the executive order there is a hundred person limit to outdoor gatherings the order does carve out some specific areas that are exempted and then it also requires mayoral approval for any other exemptions so based upon these recent actions and a pause to the reopening in general we are seeking direction on in or in two areas specifically the use of athletic fields and special events for the use of athletic fields we did reopen our fields for use and rental back on june the 5th under the orders practices could resume on that same day and games could resume on the 15th the state did issue some minimum standard health protocols for both adult and youth athletics and they outlined specific specific guidelines and recommendations to hold those activities in addition to that staff developed a return to play action plan that is required to be completed by the users this plan outlines specific practices that the operators are putting into place to show compliance with those health protocols as we mentioned to you previously we did update our liability waiver and those do have to be completed and submitted to our department by each participant in the athletic program and then we've also installed signage throughout the complexes that reiterate those recommendations and health protocols our current users of the athletic fields are our sport associations and we have private rentals from individuals and organizations parks has not initiated our sporting programs for the summer for upcoming events we do have various practices and games already scheduled there is a tournament scheduled for july 18th and 19th by dbbi and then after that we don't have any major tournaments scheduled until september the 12th but we do have every weekend booked through the 15th for private tournament rentals additionally we do have some tournaments scheduled in our tennis programs this is just to show you some of the steps that parks has taken in providing signage out at the athletic fields in addition to the regular signs that we have kind of those lawn signs that you're used to seeing out in the parks we have ground signs that have specific rules for those different athletic areas and then we've also installed some markings in the dugout for social distancing as the outdoor gathering relates to special events we did recently have a juneteenth event on the 20th in fredmore park there was an estimated 750 people in attendance throughout that evening and there's a couple of different activities that were held during that time they did promote sanitation stations social distancings and masks it was supported by the original juneteenth committee and there was approval for in-kind support for that event additionally we do have another event that is scheduled for july the 5th in the same park from 8 to 11 we provided some updated information on that event originally there was an estimate of 100 to 300 people in attendance given the new guidelines they have come back and have said that they would comply with the attendance of less than 100 it is a documentary movie screening they because of the date on a sunday it does require an exception to the amplified noise ordinance we can provide administrative approval for the late park hours normally the parks close at 10 again they're asking for use until 11 and that's primarily because it doesn't get dark until later in the evening to be able to show their film it is supported by several of the residents in the neighborhood we did again provide some follow-up information on that in addition to some follow-up information on the movies that are the documentaries that are being proposed they have also committed to promote social distancing and providing masks for the attendance and moving forward this is the second event that has come up that's outside of our ordinance process originally there was some concern with the attendance numbers and just the precautions related to the health environment originally but again they have provided us with some follow-up information that would address those two concerns specifically so moving forward go ahead i'm sorry moving forward if there is a desire to keep those outdoor gatherings under 100 we do have a few recommendations to be able to do that specific to the athletic field use we would recommend that practices scrimmages and games could continue and i have a graphic to to outline a little bit more detail on how that could be accomplished we would recommend though the suspension of tournaments until august the fourth that would limit the gatherings to 100 people per designated area or complex masks would be required for all attendees with the exception of players that are actively on the field and then enforcement would be done through education you could update the return to play action plan with the limit on the 100 person gatherings and also the requirement for masks we can add some additional signage and then again we can designate areas for play for special events we would continue to have a suspension of processing applications for all events over 100 people we'd like to reinforce that special event ordinance process that we have in place and then we could review this process again in on august the fourth just to kind of give you an idea of what you know how we would limit the number to 100 if we continue to allow games scrimmages and practices this is these are some areals of north lakes park and ebers park what we would do is designate these individual areas and then keep that hundred person limit within each area specifically for north lakes park we have the fourplex here that has its own bathroom and then a twoplex here that has a separate bathroom each area would be limited to 100 in each and then for ebers park similarly we've got a complex of six with a bathroom area and then a complex of two of the larger fields and three of the smaller fields with their own bathroom area and that's just one way to continue to allow some level of play for athletic programs and users and still stay under that that's a new condition so at this time we want to have a discussion or if i can answer any additional questions for you i'd be happy to sure if you want to pull the screen yeah thank you councilmember briggs councilmembrometer the last slide slide we saw is that for um tournaments or outside tournaments that would be coming in is that how if those were to continue that they would be regulated or is that just for our local organizations that would be for anyone using the fields for practices scrimmages or games we would still recommend suspending tournaments until august the fourth i think those are just going to be difficult um not only for our staff but also for any organizer to manage or control that 100 person limit under a tournament play so how may i mayor sure how many tournaments does that mean will be canceled so the only tournament that we have scheduled between now and august the fourth is the one on the 18th and 19th from dvbi we have been in constant contact with them through this process i believe they have about five teams that are scheduled and that tournament could be rescheduled if necessary okay so so and this is going to show my lack of proficiency in certain sports um i guess i could count them up real quick in my head so let's take the baseball teams for instance uh there's what is it eight how many you got three nine i think nine i'm not is it nine players out on the field at one time uh plus the batter and the umps so you got about probably 15 people on the field right and then you've got um of course the teams in the background and you might have i doubt those teams are double i don't think that if you got you know maybe 18 or 20 people on a team so i i guess um my thought is because it seemed like i mean depending on how many uh spectators you have uh at the game understanding that it's you know people's children and things such as that so understand the need to to uh or the desire to you know obviously support and watch and i totally get that i remember when i was playing baseball at that age is the like on the on the big north lakes one where there's four those four big fields and then you had that single restroom in the middle um is is it the restroom that's because that's a big space i mean that's a huge space there so is it is it the single restroom that's really causing the concern of the congregation of the people uh because i mean it looks like around a field you might could get uh depending on how many spectators you could almost have almost less than a hundred around each particular field um because i thought that that big of an area to only allow maybe one team i guess you'd be what is that one or two teams you think could be playing in that area is that what are what's park's thoughts on when you have just normal game how many people are usually there if it's just one team and the the parents and so forth of those so you're correct we're looking at about um 12 players per team sometimes more um but that doesn't include the coaches uh the officials and then there could be you know several spectators per player um some teams have taken the approach some organizations have taken the approach of limiting the number of spectators per player and that does help um but if you've got a team you know if you've got a field in play during a game you're looking at you know just 30 people just between the teams and the players that doesn't include spectators so between the players the coaches and the officials you've got 30 people right there um you can dice this up in about a dozen different ways and we were looking at at all of those different um kind of options that you would have but separating people within areas uh is one and so dividing it up by that limiting the number of people that are um visiting high touch areas is another and that does include the bathroom so being able to divide these groups up um by those areas would definitely limit the usage by you know a number uh to the bathroom areas to the concession areas if they're going back and forth between fields um you could probably get for sure two fields in play uh at the fourplex i think you would be pushing it to get three fields in play uh with six teams there and still stay under that 100 but again this this would give the option to continue to allow uh at least games to to move forward in a limited capacity but still giving them that opportunity to play yeah and i guess and boy that's a that's a great answer i appreciate that and so i think what i'm curious about because when we talk about 100 people and the governor didn't give us any guidance on this at all you know uh gatherings over of more than 100 people well there's no definition of what the gathering space has to be i mean you could take an acre of land and say you can't have a hundred people gather on that acre of land which an acre will hold a lot more than a hundred people i mean you can socially distance everybody out so when i think of the baseball fields i've not been on them enough recently to understand how much actual uh real estate there is there um so when how is parks looking at that when they're thinking about um and it primarily it seems like baseball right now i guess um because i guess if you had a soccer field you can spread people out all along the full length of that field whereas with baseball you can't really put them out in the outfield i mean behind the fence or something so is that really what uh staff is using as sort of their uh space area it's like okay how much can we allow in in a like a baseball field area or that whole four diamond that four whole ball field area like you did uh on uh and then you had one that was only two that you said so it sounds like you're saying we could probably fit we could keep under a hundred within two contiguous sort of uh ballparks is that what i'm hearing right yeah it is a little bit challenging because you're you're right the complexes don't have your typical occupant load uh establishments right as you would for an indoor facility and so um there they are wide open spaces um there is limited fixed seating but again you do have a lot of high contact high touch components to this type of activity so there are definitely ways that you can apply social distancing apply the disinfection recommendations obviously the mask uh the use of masks is going to help as well so um we're just trying to find a way that we can kind of group these areas together to continue to allow that play and still give them access to some of those other amenities um you know at a limited capacity okay yes thank you thank you so much laura a council member let me go to somebody who hasn't spoke council member briggs we'll go to council member melzer and then council member armature um i definitely like that we're trying to find ways for people to continue to live work and play while containing the virus yeah for the long run because you know i mean people got to be able to got to be able to do two things at once uh if we can uh has has the department of public health reviewed any of this do they have an opinion about the proposal not for this um specific proposal we can definitely um take this to them again it's based off of not only the recent orders but also the state's minimum standard health protocols so those things that we have in place in addition to the return to play action plan are are based directly off of those um health guidelines that were issued by the state well i i understand that and i can see that it's kind of building up off the you have the components but it's a rapidly changing situation frankly i mean i don't know they probably don't have as many resources as i would like but uh you know i wish they were in these briefings you know somebody from tph you know to at least advise is just like we have you know lawyers for legal things anyway i i'd be interested in what in what they thought given the circumstances today and that yeah we would definitely um you know could send this to them to review um obviously we're responding this is a dynamic situation and we're responding to a recent order and we've got games and practices that are already scheduled so we're trying to work with these groups and individuals and and get them you know to continue um along the path that they're on in a safe manner um under the new guidelines and regulations that are being implemented okay uh council member ometer uh so anyway thank you to staff for coming up with this plan taking these precautions i'm i'm going to recommend something that will be uh unpopular but i believe it it will save lives and you know like a number of things that that i have uh recommended previously that we've ended up doing much later i think this is one of the in fact i'm certain this is one of those things that is we should do now especially since we know that well we know two things for now uh we know that our numbers are headed in a certain way this this mask measure that we've done is going to mitigate things and make a big difference and thanks to all of you and staff for doing that um but we made that decision because we see how bad things are and we we also know that school is going to be opening up in some capacity in the fall and there will be online options but we're going to have teachers and staff there and so those that's something that is not within our control so i'm going i'm going to recommend that we shut down the athletic fields and shut the playgrounds for the rest of this summer my own kids will probably kick me out of the house for this but well they're already not allowed to go to the to there um but uh you know it's not popular but but i could not cannot live with myself knowing that i haven't recommended this because this is what i see is necessary now and with with these um sports you know any group sport uh is a risk for for covid anytime you've got a bunch of people and in fact i i recently saw a picture a photo of uh what would just be the most innocent lovely thing a bunch of kids sitting on on a bench giggling having a good time waiting for um you know to get on field and baseball uh and you know nobody's wearing masks uh and you know those kids might be fine but you know there's that there are adults who they live with and it it makes everything spread so i think we need to just shut it all down for the rest of the summer and i'll take the heat for it i hope i can get consensus on that okay well i will share that uh i'm not necessarily for that and i know councilmember armature you said you state this several times that you've recommended things that we wind up doing in the future well that i'm really not sure what that comment is about because sometimes at the time things are recommended doesn't necessarily mean it's the time to do that if we took that philosophy on everything then you should be saying we should shut everything down there shouldn't be anybody moving around anywhere except for police and fire because that's i mean so whether or not somebody's asked for it in the past and we wind up having to do it that's really to me not very dispositive it's we have to use data and i'm not for shutting down the athletic fields unless we can't find a way to uh operate within the guidelines of the governor's order and operate within the guidelines that we have uh designated um and if they can't do that then yes it may come to that absolutely but that doesn't mean because we do it later it's wrong to not do it now um councilmember briggs thank you mayor yeah i was going to just mention that when um my boys did the basketball tournament they limited it to only one family member so only one family member could go in and watch and so and masks were required and you had to bring your own chair all of the bleachers were um blocked off and they would not let all the kids had to bring their own water bottles there were not any shared um water bottles or shared any anything and so there were certain rules and guidelines that um were followed i think that allowed the the sport to continue so if i'm if we could do that and make sure that those measures are in place and um actually abided by i'm okay with that okay we need to start narrowing it down for park staff because we don't really have much direction to give here to them uh so um if we could yes councilmember davis i'm comfortable with staff's recommendation for how to proceed okay and that's what the configuration they showed and how they can they can now did staff recommend that the july tournament be cancelled yes um we are recommending that we suspend all tournaments through august the fourth but continue to allow scrimmages practices and games okay councilmember uh briggs and then councilmember melzer yeah i'm just curious why i mean if if because with games i don't think you're going to have i mean maybe i'm wrong i mean are you not going to have the same amount of people and doing the exact same things or is it just that you expect um a lot more people or i know a tournament it's just several days but it uh i just can you explain that to me why you would cancel the tournament but not the actual games yes absolutely um with the tournaments yes there there are definitely you know many more teams that participate in those activities and normally you've got multiple games going on at the same time so to be able to keep under that 100 person limit even within you know by separating designated areas out and giving them that more of those that more room to play it's going to be very difficult for them to uh to be able to abide by that a lot of times too you've got travel that's related um with those games that's not necessarily there if you're you know have just league play um within a certain area so having you know that increased volume of participants increased number of teams that are participating um the traveling and then trying to actually enforce that 100 person um you know limitation within those areas i think is going to be um very difficult to to enforce and impose on the on the organizations that would try to be holding those tournaments okay councilmember melzer did you have a comment yes i mean basically because i want people because we may be living like this for a year who knows you know that i want people to be able to maintain their physical and mental health and to be able to be outdoors and you know to be able to have sports and work and music and things that make you know life livable uh while uh while beating this thing and getting ahead of it so i'm i'm conditionally for it subject to uh review and you know positive uh confirmation with the dph okay all right so laura how many teams are in that tournament that's scheduled for july my understanding is that there were five they had four or five that were already registered for it okay now is that mean that there could be more that register or is that pretty much yes it could be more i don't believe that their registration um period is is over yet for that it is smaller than what was originally scheduled for this past weekend um but yeah it could grow okay so i guess my thought on on that um is now i will say in our order the governor's order said the mayor could make exceptions to these things i said at the last meeting at the very beginning of the meeting before i knew anything about any tournament was i didn't want to be put in a position to make exceptions because if you make an exception for one you're going to really need to be making exception for all of them and so the ordinance did not contain in that ordinance the mayor being able to make an exception so that that part of the discussion is is pretty much settled via our last order i guess though um with let's say if you only had six teams and and i'm just talking about this tournament only since it's already sort of scheduled and it's already um are you able to move them to different you know like north lakes has those i think you said there's that one four acre that one four field then you got that one double field are those the only ones out at north lakes the ones that you showed us there those those six those six ball fields yeah so it sounds like what what y'all are wanting to do is have if you had forget the tournament if you had two teams that wanted to play you could put them in the sort of whether the two fields with the one restroom and you'd feel like okay they're going to be under 100 people there and if you put the two in the other ones they're going to be under 100 people there well there's four teams right there and so if you had uh and even if you put them over at ebers i'm not sure what the travel how that was um what how that came into play with the tournament part unless it's people coming from out out of town but uh is that it yes we know for tournaments you normally have traveling teams and so is the travel a concern because of people coming to denton maybe that are infected or coming and staying in our hotels and things such as that you know i it's just a factor that we look at okay i believe we provided some information on the most recent tournament that was scheduled over the weekend and and we we had several teams coming um from you know 50 to 100 miles and then some over 100 miles away so again they they can it's they can attract movements can attract a large volume of participants um and then especially again from outside of our area right okay um so i i don't i i think for the current who is the tournament for i don't know who's the tournament for and it's dbbi which is um denton uh boys baseball they are uh our partner in um providing uh this type of program and service so we do have an agreement with them to use our fields uh this would they use our evers uh fields predominantly so that you know there could be an opportunity to spread them out uh the north lake fields or adult fields so we would have to talk to them about whether or not that would work for them um but again if they limited their numbers and um they they could even under just the games if if all they have are four teams even five and they spread it out over the weekend they could continue to have uh that event just as games yeah yeah and i and i think and i forgot yeah i appreciate you bringing that point up that the north lakes fields are adult fields and the other ones are are um uh not adult fields which that that makes a big difference on on the play i mean how you how you play no i get that and i think he has a little bit more information specifically on that tournament okay sure you bet mayor city council gary pack and fricking parks and recreation just just to add uh one of the considerations we're looking at for the tournaments and and both my kids are highly engaged in in in uh select tournaments as well when you have a game going on you're stacking games on top of each other so one game may run from eight to nine thirty the next one's at nine nine forty five and so on so you have those two teams playing then you have two teams coming and getting ready to get on the field so you really have four teams at each field you know for a period of time during each game um and then some of those teams will linger if they're playing if they're skipping a game and playing you know the next game after you may have teams lingering around the complex so that inherently creates opportunities for for more than hundred people per per area so that was one of the challenges that we looked at uh we also looked at could we tell people they have to stay in their cars until you know 10 minutes before the game and then have the switch happen so all those types of logistics are things that we're trying to look at and trying to provide balance to and then trying to enforce that so the general public that drives by can see that and understand what's going on um so that was one of the reasons why we were looking to discourage uh tournaments until uh things lifted you know basically as of right now on august 4th okay that's good information thank you councilmembers did you have a question or comment just i was just going to say that that um for our tournament that's what they did they had the teams that were in there and then when they were done they had to leave and parents the other teams coming in had to wait so kind of what how gary mentioned they didn't let once you were done playing you had to immediately uh leave the the area so yeah but that was in an enclosed coliseum correct for basketball that was in an enclosed space so i could see how that um my my first take on it is if there's a way that we can uh allow that one tournament that's scheduled we don't have to schedule anymore but if they can be under the hundred and if they and if you have to say you're not stacking the games except for you know 30 minutes you know after what you think or 45 minutes in other words no if it if the tournament continues it's not going to go off as normal i mean that's not going to be the situation it's going to be look you can't come in and linger after your game you got to go and uh and if you know a parks director or whoever's authorized to do it drives by and sees 500 people congregating in a space you get 10 minutes to clear it out or you shut the thing down i mean i think if if they want to have the tournament we i think there's a way we can get get it done that provides the safety that has been passed down you know the hundred but uh but it may be that it's not worth trying to create that kind of environment council member melzer can we stipulate a period of time between games i think you could probably right now what right now we're being asked you know the the the options are no tournament or are there things that we could put in place that will give us a comfort level in order to feel comfortable moving forward with that as policymakers i mean now we haven't had all the whole council weigh in so i don't know where everybody is but um yeah if i could uh yes go ahead in the same vein because let me suggest that you know maybe it's a half hour between um to make sure that it's that the field's cleared and then uh i i find uh what council member briggs said uh appealing but the idea of restricting the number of guests per player uh and maybe the right number is one right um the restriction of players is already in their action plan guessing per player yes oh okay so they do um again so with the return to action or return to play action plan the event organizers it's their responsibility to demonstrate how they will comply with all of the number one the requirements that are in place so something new like the mask something like the 100 person limitation and then also how they will follow those recommended health protocols so it's their responsibility to do that it's their responsibility to enforce it of course we're here to you know to support them in those efforts and that's clearly outlined in that action plan so we can work with them on developing an action plan that's specific to this event if they move forward with the tournament um so that they can include um what type of practices they'll be putting in place under these new um requirements uh and some of the guidelines that we're talking about laura when let's let's get off the tournaments for a moment when parks is looking at scheduling practices for teams and scheduling games what's the protocol that you all are using on uh separation of i'm going to call them t times you know field times i guess uh and you know for games you know getting you know scheduling maybe one you know two games going at once and one of this either double or four four uh field option and then how much time do we allow for them to clear out and then to schedule another game what exactly do y'all have any parameters in place that you're using right now for that right now parks is not holding any summer programming okay so we're not doing that um but specifically to baseball uh dbbi is our partner in providing that program okay so that guess that's what i meant when you said practices continue and games continue you're not saying that's sponsored through the city you're saying it's sponsored through dentin boys baseball correct and their action plan is the action plan that is uh is active correct so okay yeah parks doesn't have any summer programming um currently active right now okay we are preparing for some of the fall programs that we do and we'll be putting those in place for those sports but right now we don't have anything going on and in this particular case uh dbbi is who we partner with and who we have an agreement with to provide this particular sport program okay well i'm comfortable with staff's recommendation as well as that council member davis express my only uh deviation from that is that if there is a way given what you've heard as input from the council if there's a way that you can work with dentin boys baseball for this specific tournament only not giving permission and carte blanche to all of a sudden start holding a bunch of other tournaments that if there could be things in place that the park staff park directors city manager whoever really ultimately makes those decisions that okay we can do this if you will adhere to this and but if you feel that you can't and it's going to be totally unenforceable and you know somebody doesn't want to be out there monitoring counting everybody i get that too so that's sort of where i am i'm okay with staff recommendation there's a way we can sort of figure out how to do the tournament in a safe way with less than 100 people uh and not where you got 500 people making transition where there's only 100 people or less in that area at any given moment including uh time between switching games or fields or whatever uh i'm okay with that but if you can't you can't and i don't feel necessarily compelled as a as a council member to say this is exactly how all those parameters need to be i think y'all probably be more cautious than than i would just because you know you're you're you're there doing this every day and you know how it works so i'm going to just leave that if you guys can do it that'd be great if not then i'm going to trust trust your judgment in that and you may be already telling us that so any other questions or comments because i know staff's going to need some pretty clear direction so we don't run into a situation that we did uh a few days ago uh mayor pro tem are are we to the point we're talking about fred moore are we still i think we're i i think we're talking well uh fred moore being the the the movie yes no i think we're still talking about the parks i i i mean we may be ready to move on if there's uh i mean certainly have some who who've asked for you know everything to be shut down i didn't really hear much any more comment about that from any other council members so i don't know if there was uh additional support for that council member briggs yeah i'm i'm okay with with with what you said you're okay with giving staff the discretion that if they feel that they can do it in a comfortable way that they're comfortable with to do it but if they don't feel comfortable that it's it's up to their discretion to say that it's canceled well yeah i mean if they're if if they could pull a game situation off in the same type of way as a tournament then i don't know what the distinction would be if they had within those parameters so um that that's where i'm coming from okay all right anyone else lor is that enough okay council member melzer and just to underscore the hundred thing is the least of it i mean that's important that's the law but it's the least of it it's the social distancing and the masking and being able to carry out a game without little kids bunching together that's you know probably the bigger challenge i know they know that but just underscoring that point sure sure no i appreciate that so laura is that about as clear as mud no i got it on the athletic fields um the second component to um to the outdoor gathering was the was the what i'm sorry was the special events okay okay is that the movie that that is the most recent one yes yes okay so the special events okay all right and you need direction on that in in uh and what are you needing from council on that well you do have a an item on consent um for the noise uh exemption it's it's not about the noise level it's not about the decibel level um there's just a a prohibition of amplified sound on sundays and that's what the um the request is um is taking action on okay so i believe this is the movie mayor pro tem yeah no so here's my here's my thought uh staff has staff talked to well first can we get a record on why the urgency why so we propose a 90-day option to go through the regular process that was uh not ratified accepted optimal do we know why i i don't i don't have that information it was just a request came in um to be able to be in the park after hours uh but after reviewing um what was proposed that's when we found that the amplified sound was really what applied um you know to this particular request got it okay and so really my here's where i hang up i i've overall supported i'll say that in the beginning but my concern is the same picking up where we left off i think we need some sort of agreement or some kind of documented plan to maintain the 100 number and i would ask that we have the applicant uh sign off saying if we get above 100 uh then we pull the plug on the event so in essence we're going to be walking into a situation you know that says it's over 100 people instead of getting in the situation where we have to negotiate who gets to stay who gets to leave we have assurances from the applicant that says i'll pack up and go and and that's what happened with juneteenth and that's exactly what cleared the park on time absent that absent that oh yes yes i'm sorry city attorney had something he wanted to interject i'm sorry mayor protem i apologize but wasn't this item pulled for individual consideration during the clarification and if so this discussion should be had during that item especially any conditions that this council may want to place as part of that approval okay well yeah i'm i know laura had prefaced that this was an item of consent but i knew that i i recall earlier that one of the council members pulled this for individual consideration yes they did thank you so i guess just a question of clarification even though it's on the agenda item for item for individual consideration you're saying we're unable to discuss it here no uh what i'm saying council member is that there's discussion as to certain conditions or information requests of the applicant that is going that's already been raised in this discussion that should probably be proper with the item itself that's that has been pulled now from consent to individual consideration parks put this in their slide assuming that it would remain on consent agenda and you would either vote up or down but since you all took it off i see then you know parks can bring this back again on the on the individual consideration which is what i'm saying okay but it it still could be discussed here it just might be might be additional information or a repeat of the information in in ic it it could but i would hate for any of the council members who brought up some valid questions or conditions during discussion not to carry over to the actual uh item itself later later this uh meeting sure sure no i understand that yeah what you're saying is is just uh if people think it's going to be talked about in ic then you need to talk about some of the same things if they're concerned to you to get out in that particular forum not just this form okay all right correct yes okay all right um so for special events in general um i i think that was more the direction that we were looking for um given the new um parameters over special events and outdoor gatherings we had not set a date in our reopening plan um for resuming special events and um we still do not have a date so we'd like to extend that through august the fourth and not process or consider any events that are proposed to be over a hundred we would like any further um events that that are being planned and organized um to go through um the special event ordinance process reinforce that uh and then again reevaluate after the fourth okay mayor pro tem yeah to that i really do think we as a body need to understand what that looks like outside looking in here's what it looks like the people that follow the rules don't get to have their events the people that break the rules uh get to have their event because there's nothing we can do about it the optics of that are really bad uh and so we as a as a body need to come up with some level of consistency uh to to laura's point that says uh even if it's last minute we're not going to participate or yes we'll we'll take uh applications as they come i i think it really is uh that and so really i'm willing to entertain applicants as they come uh because the alternative is not as worse to have someone have an event that's not coordinated that goes off the rails so uh mayor pro tem are you saying applicants that have an event that's they that we know is going to be over a hundred people no sir no i i think we get i think we're all on the same i'm comfortable with enforcing the 100 it's just a matter of uh if if park says you if you come to us um in proper order then we're going to tell you no you can't do your event until after august 4th as staff is proposed well if you come to us out of order and you just say look we're gonna we're gonna be there whether you like it or not on saturday and so staff is tasked with getting up the speed and supporting that best we can to protect the the city uh then it looks like we're telling one group yes and then and another group no and i just think that's a bad optic okay so laura let me make sure i understand um so are you saying that even if someone comes with a special event permit request that is going to be under a hundred people that staff is is wanting to toll those or not consider those till after august the fourth yeah there there are criteria that would make an event have to go through or require an event to go through that special event process so normally an event that has a an expected or anticipated attendance of less than a hundred would not have to but if there if it requires any action by council so exceptions to any of our ordinances that's that was what triggered the 90 day requirement because we have to prepare that get on get on your agenda and provide you with some information um we also want that time to to work with organizations and groups to make sure that you know the the park is has been you know prepared for them see what their needs are they you know need restroom facilities extra trash receptacles this is just really dependent on what type of activities are being planned or proposed for the event and we're certainly willing to work with anyone especially if this is the first time that they've gone through the process they didn't know about the process we're available to try to to help them work through that and help them have what you know our goal is to have a safe and successful event at the end of the day um we've got some other challenges under the current conditions okay that we're considering so i'm reading your slide so i think i'm sorry i think i was a little confused uh because the slide for the recommendation says special events continue current suspension of processing application for all events over a hundred people so what i'm hearing you say is if it's under a hundred people that we're not suspending that because i think you said they don't have there's not a requirement to come before the parks if it's a event that's under a hundred people is that correct that's correct there are certain criteria in terms of estimated attendance it's 250 so normally it wouldn't but again if there's something that requires council action then that is a separate criteria okay would put the ordinance in play so what what i'm hearing you say if i could and if i'm incorrect and uh just let me know um that if there's a request that is going to require a deviation from city code and ordinances that's going to be over a hundred people well you don't you don't even want to process it if it's over a hundred people it doesn't matter whether it's a noise variance or anything like that it's like i don't we don't want to do that correct but if it's under a hundred and they require some type of council intervention either a waiving or something like that you're saying it's those particular ones that you're wanting to suspend to as well to august the fourth even if they're under a hundred people is that is that my understanding or am i confused no yeah we wouldn't have to suspend them we would just ask that they go through the through the regular process oh okay well yeah i i don't i mean i don't uh so then the what you alluded to was the only reason that the current one that we just talked about that's coming up for individual consideration is at first it was going to be over a hundred and then also it's requiring us to waive or to uh i guess waive certain policies that we have noise ordinance and also that parks on sundays you can't have amplified sound period so we've got to move past that rule and then also move past the rule of over 65 decibels and that's really okay i understand so i can give you my direction clarification there is there is not a request to go over the sound that the sound oh oh it's just because it's there's just no amplified sound okay got you it's not a concern well as a general policy i mean i i concur and concur with staff recommendation outside of this special exception event that we're going to talk about in items for individual consideration so i certainly concur with staff recommendations of you know to to toll applications for special events under uh i mean over 100 people and then to you know maintain the the regular process for those that are under 100 that require some kind of reinforced special events ordinance process and review august 4th i i concur with that with that recommendation um and i guess they need they need guidance on that general policy but then we're also going to talk about the specific one here in in a few moments once we get into the regularly called meeting so are there any objections to staff's recommendations just on the general policy of continued current suspension of processing applications for all events over 100 people and then to reinforce special reinforce special event ordinance process and then review august the fourth is there any objection to that in general council member armature there we go sorry uh so uh no obviously i would you know i prefer for everything to shut down but as far as what what you said for playgrounds and fields are shut down as far as what you said i'm fine i'm curious if i may ask what what council member davis thinks about this you don't have to answer i just i've been curious sure no i i said a little while ago i concur with the staff recommendation um i i think i said that kind of generally uh but i agree with it on this as well i have some thoughts on the specific case but i'll hold off on those till we get down to that that item okay all right mr city attorney uh mayor and the council i wish to apologize i reread the consent item consent gen item which is being pulled that's just for noise so i think during this work session if as mayor pro tem was um trying to come up with some suggestions that not that do not deal with noise uh i think that this would be the proper time to discuss it and not during the individual consideration item that is my oversight and i apologize sure no that's mayor pro tem do you want to talk about that now you won't wait till the individual item sure i'm always ready to talk uh i didn't say you had to i i i'll get you after uh council mayor certainly council member certainly go ahead go ahead no mayor pro tem go ahead if you if you want to talk about it now or later it's up to you got it yeah so laura where i was was uh i just think a documented plan if it gets over 100 for the applicant to to agree to uh pack up their equipment there and and they exit the facility right that's what keeps it going that's what causes people to linger i saw it work effectively uh on juneteenth where they were someone was running late they're like oh we're gonna take it further it'll be past the the time but then the organizers said no uh we're done here and the the park cleared out shortly thereafter so i've seen it work recently and i think that's a good uh practice to emulate so that that would be one policy thing is that in that application in that uh document we get that information and then also uh i'm assuming even on these on the events that that come up kind of quick do we have the same insurance requirement no sir this this one would not um require insurance under under their yeah under the the ways but it's been uh proposed and um certainly under the modifications it would not require insurance okay and then so what are your thoughts on that some sort of just agreement or conversation with the applicant that agrees to um terminate events if if we if either a citizen calls or there's a complaint or we are observed over the 100 number what what are your thoughts on that as a enforcement mechanism um our contact for this event has committed um you know to ending it at 11 and has said that they won't be in the park past that time um we have a similar return to action or return to play action plan um for uh special events and so we can ask them to uh to complete that and again it just reiterates what their plan is um and how they what practices and how they propose uh to to comply with the current health uh standards and guidelines that are in place but that can be a part of it uh but again they have committed uh several times that they will in the event at 11 well and not so much and and thank you for that and that's that form sounds like it'll work great my concern is the the number though the one if it gets above 100 can we get that pencil that in as well because i think you know that there may be people in the neighborhood that that all of a sudden hear about it and so just to say hey look we've made reached maximum capacity and and kind of gained compliance on that number so we're in we're in line with state laws oh okay yeah um you're wanting them to have a conversation with them mayor proteins yes and have that same that same effect if it's no different than if it ends if it goes past 11 the applicant agrees to pack up and leave and if it gets above 100 then the applicant agrees to pack up and disperse or because i just don't want our city staff walking into what would be then become an emotional thing versus having no relationship whereas the applicant has some relationship with the attendees and is able to manage that better and so it gives them the opportunity to to self-regulate okay all right council member briggs i just want to touch on that um the the applicant did say that to be in compliance with the governor's plan uh sent an official safety plan and in that said they would limit the event's capacity to no more than 100 attendees and will continue to set that expectation with the public um so just so that's out there that that's already been set as an expectation and will be enforced by the person throwing the event it's in their safety plan uh mayor pro council member melzer yeah you know i appreciate hearing that council member briggs and uh but i like the sort of spirit in which mayor pro tem you know discussed uh them owning responsibility for that which sounds like they have uh but i would i would like that kind of understanding also apply to social distancing and obviously there's a little more judgment and a little more gray area there you know one person crosses the line doesn't necessarily mean they you know can't generally maintain that but if you know i would like a commitment that if they find that they can't generally you know in that crowd maintain social distancing that they'll say sorry we got to pick up you know i mean i i in in every one of these situations i'm imagining the headline we don't want right six new covet cases tied to this event that city council locate so you know i would like that that understanding that if social distancing is not maintained they'll stop i think a couple of things um to all of those points um and i know um council member briggs has been helping us do this process as well but part of their plan is to um put some markings down some chalk markings down so that it can kind of provide even just a visual effect for social distancing and marking off some spaces um under the pavilion area where they're seating so all of that will help um and in addition to even just the um event concluding at 11 part of the noise uh exception ordinance does have in there that the organizer will conclude amplified sound at 11 pm so that would definitely um you know signal and into to the event they would have to um just to turn off that the audio to the documentary at that time um again kind of being that signaling of the end of the event so i think that you know with the additional information that they provide us over the last day that um they are addressing all of those all of those concerns and are putting some things in place uh to um to enforce those health protocols and some additional requirements on the event uh i don't have a copy of that safety plan so i'm not sure i guess council member briggs you have it but i don't think anybody else has it so that could be forwarded to us before we consider this agenda item i think that's sometimes the the the challenge when when we interject ourselves into these things sort of unilaterally that people have more information than the rest of the council at least i'm not seeing it in my agenda information sheet but i also know that at least what was read to me says that they will you know that's the expectation but i think mayor protem's point is this isn't about an expectation this is about if it reaches to where there's 125 or 150 people there it either gets down to 100 real quickly or you shut the event down even if it's in the middle of the presentation and i don't think i didn't i don't have the safety plan so i don't know what that looks like i haven't seen it so i think that's the mayor protem's point i mean i i certainly believe that the that the applicant has every expectation to create an expectation with the community not to have over 100 people there but the applicant can't control the behavior of individuals and so there may be more people there than that and i just i need to see that to to read it so that i can have an understanding of it what exactly and it doesn't have to be right now but at least before before the meeting when we talk about the noise ordinance okay we're going to wrap this up councilmember briggs and then first of all laura do you have the direction you need on the special events in general yes thank you okay councilmember briggs real quickly then we're going to take a quick break before we get to the special call meeting just generally overall if if that comes up again then i think that would be um a requirement or something that everyone should do um if it the general rule is to keep everyone down over 100 i mean i'm in agreement with that um and so for any event coming forward if that's something that we want to do as this council i think we should um advise park staff to to put that in there as a requirement of anyone hosting event that that would be um something we expect would yeah it'd be like to the tournaments if all of a sudden the organizers of the tournaments they got you know 150 people there you either get it resolved real quickly or you you cancel the tournament or you forfeit the game or whatever they come up with i don't disagree we need to that needs to be consistent across the board absolutely i and that's instead of it being an expectation that we all sort of have i think it needs to be memorialized somewhere um okay so we're going to move on from this closed session was there any more presentation on any staff on the covet 19 response okay thank you very much appreciate it thank you uh let's take a break before we go into special call meeting at 6 45 we'll come back in about five or ten minutes welcome everybody back to this special call meeting of the dent city council at 6 55 p.m on june the 30th 2020 we have completed our work session so we now will move into the uh special call meeting we do have a quorum so i will call this meeting to order our first item on the agenda is the consent agenda we have one item on the consent agenda council member melzer uh i'll move approval of that of the entire consent agenda okay okay okay uh council member davis i'll second all right we have a motion and a second for approval of consent agenda item 2a that's the only item on the consent agenda council member melzer houseau aye council member davis aye council member briggs yes council member armater yes council member ryan aye mayor protem aye mayor watson aye uh the consent agenda item 2a passes unanimously uh agenda 2 item 2b has been pulled so that's going to be an item for individual consideration so we will take that up now item to 2b consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton granting jessica luther rummel a noise exception pursuant to section 1720 of the city of denton code of ordinances and we do have a public speaker wishing to comment on this so if there's a staff presentation we'll do that first and then we'll take public comment um is there a staff presentation we sort of went over that in work session i know that there's council questions potentially but is there a staff presentation for questions or comments i'm sorry mayor city council gary pack and dr park's integration we do not have a presentation but we are available for questions or comments okay all right uh council member davis i'd really like to hear from my colleagues on this and i'll kind of lay out real quickly why i asked for this to be pulled i'm having just a little bit of trouble with this item and i'll give you the brief rundown why you know when we impose these regulations on events and when we run these traps in the administrative process or when they come in front of council it's really supposed to be content neutral it's really supposed to be everybody gets the same rules no matter what the event is no matter what the the reasoning behind the event no matter what's happening in the news the event's supposed to be everything's supposed to follow the same rules so i'm really having trouble with the way this came to be a lot less trouble with what the event is and then um then really just the process that followed um so if we look at our agenda information sheet um you know an alternative date was offered and the organizer said no we has to be this date has to be in this park on this date at this time there wasn't a lot of flexibility there you know staff could have administratively approved this without coming in front of us if it had been done on a different day and not on a sunday so i'd really just like to hear from my um my colleagues kind of where they're at on this event um on this special exception that we'd be making for this one group we did get over the break the uh the uh petition that was offered that signed by a number of people in the neighborhood it's it's a little bit tough to make out exactly how many people signed but it does look like there's some neighborhood support but um yeah that's where i'm at that's why i asked for it to be pulled so we could have a better discussion about it instead of just passing it on the consent agenda okay all right uh comments council member riggs uh yeah and i i wanted to reiterate i i knew that i had seen that we all got the plan before the break it was the same message um that we were sent earlier it was just within the within the paragraph um so i i thought that i was looking at something everyone else had saw um as well so um and that was true i i feel like our processes are in place i feel like um this is here for us to consider right now for this moment for this event and and i'm okay doing that um everybody has has their reasons for wanting to host certain things on certain days um so we're here and it's on the item for us to consider and so that's the process and that's why we're talking about it okay i just want to for my own clarification um i got an email uh it was forwarded it looks like it was sent at 1 30 this afternoon on the petition and on the safety plan embedded in the in the email am i hearing that i got that before today i see an email also from a council member that shows that they received an email and was sent to gary pack and yesterday and so am i hearing that i i got this email yesterday that i'm again getting it again today i council member brings you muted sorry council member davis said he received it over the break this just last minute i thought and i was just saying that it was received earlier this afternoon um for council when um sarah sent it to us with the um when the request was made for the signatures it was embedded within that uh paragraph that was what i was saying okay so we did get it we did get it today we might not have we got it sometime today during our council meeting yes okay when okay all right so it sounds it looks like that it was sent out yesterday to some people but then we got it today during the afternoon okay all right okay uh let's move forward with the discussion um of course this is a noise noise ordinance variation discussion that we don't usually have things on sunday but i think what i heard council member davis say was that there was a quest made to have it on a different day and that was rejected by the applicant and so council member davis did you have any anything additional that you wanted to add to that no just that i think it's worthy of some discussion if we're going to make exceptions and and i just i have a little bit of trouble with the way that this item came forward and the way the organizers presented it to staff it was you know if you're going to have a gorilla documentary screening then do it if you're going to have an event where you're marking off stuff and marking off bleachers and capping the number of people and organizing it then organize the event that's that's my fundamental trouble and i just need to kind of know where where my colleagues stand on that before i make my decision so are you saying because some of the details in this email that we got this afternoon that was sent yesterday to some those items on what they're going to do as far as marking off and all that that was late in the process or i'm not trying is it yeah go ahead no here's my fundamental trouble i think some of the things that they sent us they have they have a plan that they have gotten some support from the neighborhood those are all really positive things i mean that that makes a little bit easier for me to support the the variants my my hang up is that if if it's a planned event like that it's not really spontaneous you know we let people uh hop over the process for first amendment events because they are spontaneous first amendment free speech kind of gatherings what we have here is a planned event that wants to use a city facility which is great it's a great purpose it's a great event to have but we also have a rules process and we're supposed to apply that neutrally regardless of what the event is right so i'm saying the organizers kind of have to pick right are they a first amendment civil disobedience event like they told staff or are they a planned non-spontaneous event and that's what's giving me a little bit of trouble here i just haven't made up my mind on it and i'd like to hear how other how that strikes other people council member melzer you know i resonate with your concern uh but just in terms of being able to make a decision today the fact that staff you know seems to have reached an accommodation so much so that they put it on consent originally suggests that you know that they're sort of at you know a piece of that uh and i think if if they were you know troubled by having been put in a you know kind of gotten stuck over it and that it was really something they couldn't accommodate i think it would have come to us a different way okay council member armature so i appreciate uh council member davis's concerns and his question for council my answer is not going to be a satisfying answer with um and that is that i i have problems that i've expressed before with this this permitting process to begin with precisely because of ambiguities around um the this free speech event and and scheduling requirements and also for insurance requirements and prohibitive costs so i feel like what this this um issue we're encountering is in my view a symptom of the these kinds of problems on that said as council member melzer says you know staff have worked it out and and i was from when it from the beginning with that that ordinance and issues surrounding it kind of happy to give authority uh to to staff to work these things out instead of bringing them back to council all the time um but i i don't mind discussing it now obviously it's not up to me but anyway that that's my answer since you asked well mayor if i could intervene yes i wouldn't go so far as to say that staff's at peace with this i think the the last day or so there's been a little bit more information that's been brought forward that staff initially requested there was an initial my understanding from reading from being briefed on this is there was initial objection to going through any process we were concerned about the neighbors potential complaints coming in at you know 11 o'clock event on sunday so i put it on the agenda because i didn't think it was appropriate to put staff in that position when you're being told that you're not going to adhere to an ordinance that you pass and so it is true the last day we have seen some some progress being made however i think the precedent is a dangerous one you set rules out there ordinances so people can have enjoyment of their properties we are obligated to enforce those that's why we have a special events policy and in this particular case it was like we're not going to comply with it doesn't matter but somewhere along the line the last couple of days we've got some additional information if they are working with the neighborhood we are seeing social distancing it's just one of those things where if the neighbors started complaining you need to know what's going on because we have staff trying to enforce the rules that you put in place so i just want to be real clear that there wasn't a matter of us getting at peace it was more of a matter of disclosing this to you and saying this is what's going on and i think lauren gary did what they needed to do all right council member melzer i appreciate that that background and that that is somewhat clarifying although you know i kind of a question for you city manager which is what was your purpose in putting it on consent which implies you know clearly we expect that that everyone will will agree with this you know rather than initially putting it as an item for individual consideration which suggests you know that maybe we will maybe we won't yeah it's a fair question and it's my oversight that it was on consent i would have put it on individual consideration so i wear that for not catching that at the last minute but i did want this on the agenda today to make sure that you had a full robust discussion in case we have any complaints we have moved more towards compliance with our policy but there's a reason that staff has asked you know to give that we asked for plenty of time to notify the neighborhood to work these things out in the environment we're working in right now it really it's it's really asking a lot of staff to to try to in in just a couple days notice get you know get all the the parameters in place that you asked us to put in place so i wasn't going to let this request simply be bypassed when we had somebody that clearly was not interested in adhering to the policy i'm really pleased that we've moved further towards compliance but you know you know it had had complaints started flooding in then the next question is why didn't you make these folks comply with the ordinance so that was very important as far as being on consent that's my oversight i wear that but does that imply given all that to a total year and i'm sympathetic to at this point is is it is it staff's recommendation to approve i think i think at this point as long as the social distancing is adhered to i like the plan that i heard as long as the event is kept to a hundred as long as if there's any noise complaints after you know 10 30 or 11 if things get really rowdy they shut it down yes but only under those circumstances you know this is basic respect for the neighborhood yeah i appreciate that thank you okay couple uh mayor pro tem yeah i'll pick up on that as well and i think gary that would be my ask with respect to the the this the variance that we get a signature and an agreement from the organizer that says if any of those and i can't frame those as well but those three kind of parameters fail to be met then the organizer agrees to pull the plug on the event and understand this i'm absolutely oh i'm not i'm getting okay with it but i'll tell you like i said on my way over uh one of the neighbors had a question and i live one block from this park and so i'll hear about it for sure and i'm just trying to make sure uh we we we set ourselves up for success and don't put uh those that are tasked with enforcing in bad situations uh and i'll i don't know if i can say this but i think going forward i i just rather us not be in this situation as far as if someone doesn't want to channel through the process then it's just uh it's a hard no we just cannot continue to have uh people subvert the system uh for expediency we do have a public caller that uh so let's bring the public caller in and uh get them to share their comments with us and then we'll continue our discussion caller you are on the air with the dent city council during the public portion comment of our agenda item 2b once you state your name and address your time will begin and you will have four minutes okay my name is eric metro i live at 2519 denison street denton texas 76201 so just wanted to comment saying i'm in favor of giving the noise exception to the event at fred moore this sunday uh i wanted to make this comment at one today uh but that didn't happen and then i've been on hold for like 25 minutes so i'm glad i finally get to make the comment um basically i'm in favor of the noise exception one because fourth of july weekend so people are going to be sending off fireworks anyways so i feel like it's only fair if the event can go on as planned and two i think the louder the amplification is to a certain degree the safer everyone will be because i'll give people plenty of room to spread out and social distance whatnot um and to speak on like the abit thing about 100 people getting together or whatever uh i didn't listen to this conference today so i don't know if anything's changed but basically uh i think yesterday or two days ago i was at this protest in dallas with well over 100 people and everything and it was a similar thing where it was scheduled before the new rules or whatever and it was you know allowed to go on as planned and nothing was broken up or anything so just want to say that to give a little insight on how dallas county was handling it um also i'm not home right now so i don't know like what y'all were saying when y'all got back from break um but yeah in favor of the noise exception and that is it thank you thank you i appreciate you calling in thank you yep bye council member armature yeah i have a question for staff and the city attorney can tell me if this is on topic or not um so i've already stated my view on the uh noise ordinance question uh is that as i mentioned earlier in a work session on another topic but related before this came up um i happen to believe that given the numbers now on covet you know we should not have our athletic fields or playgrounds open you you you froze up council member armature if you didn't hear me yeah we've lost you i i'm wondering even though that's not the issue before us council member armature can you hear me uh it is a relevant issue council member armature and i'm council member armature can you hear me i'm wondering and if if someone could uh try to call council member armature and let her know that we've lost her connection opinionize if on his opinion okay all right i think we've lost council member armatures connection we'll get her council member armature you there yeah sorry about that yeah the connectivity is not so good at my house at some point you lost me yeah we lost you right as you said um you've got a question for the city attorney and the city manager so most of what you said yeah okay i'll try to be real quick and somebody i don't throw up your hands if you because i couldn't quite hear the words if i'm um cutting out okay so i i already mentioned my view on this noise ordinance question which has more to do with concerns i have about the the permissions process in general however there's an overlapping issue that the the city and the city attorney can let me know if it's not relevant for me to be bringing this up now and and i will i will stop um but it is something that we discussed earlier today and that is the issue of athletic fields and playgrounds being open actually we were talking about athletic fields uh but this is this is a playground or park um and and i had said that i i believe that under covet right now uh the way things are now with our numbers i i think that sadly we should not have them open i didn't have the consensus on that um but that is a concern for me even though it's not what we're voting on so am i in a position to be able to ask i mean i'm asking city attorney if i can ask gary uh director of parks for for his opinion on whether he thinks that that plague that we should roll back in to having uh playgrounds be closed as far as in my opinion i think you said it best just a few seconds ago that there was not a consensus of council to close the athletic fields and the parks so bringing this discussion or issue again for council to address in this item i don't think if there unless there's a change in council i don't think it's relevant in the decision the final decision since the council already addressed that and and by not having a consensus to follow along with that recommendation you made earlier okay and thank you i i accept that just wanted to ask thanks okay councilmember briggs um i i move approval of this item i'm contingent on the organizer signing i get what i'm not a document that it will not go over 100 attendees and social distance will be um followed and um what was the other recommendation from council that it ended 11 well and i think part of what the concern was if it goes over 100 or there's not social distancing that the organizer will take responsibility and if they can't rectify the situation they will terminate the event if there's not you know they can't clear if they can't get back to 100 people in social distancing that they will terminate the event at no matter what stage it's at well i move approval of this item with the um i guess consideration that the parks and recreation department will talk with the event organizer and um work something out okay that's different than your original motion well i i'm not sure how to let gary gary wants to talk well hold on well i guess so go ahead councilmember riggs i mean i'm gonna let gary i'm gonna recognize him but i'm trying to understand exactly what your motion is well my motion is to approve okay as presented like some guidance from the parks director on on the following requirements or recommendations that were made earlier from my council members on how to incorporate those okay uh mr city attorney i i can help with the conditions i i wouldn't view it as an agreement but i would probably put it in the form of a condition uh actually three separate conditions one that the applicant um know that they eventually not go over 100 people uh two that it ends at 11 p.m and three that social distancing is followed and then failure this would be the last condition failure to ensure um after reasonable attempts so to speak of keeping a crowd under 100 or not enforcing social distancing or not ending at 11 would be a cause for shutting down i think that's what you're trying to get at councilmember breaks councilmember breaks um i i will yield to let other council members weigh in okay so your motion is still on the table yes okay at justice staff i'll get to you councilmember melzer justice staff presented not not incorporating anything that the city attorney said um correct that that is on the table yes okay all right council member melzer well first i guess i'd like to clarify i like to uh what the city attorney said just the last part and he said it's grounds for shutting it down i think we're trying to get to was sort of not just that it's grounds for the city to shut it down but that the organizer would agree to shut it down themselves do you follow my distinction i totally agree the last part of my may have it can be worded as you said as the final condition so i um now uh mr mayor i would like to second uh but offering uh you know what the city attorney has said as a friendly amendment do you want me to restate it if if you don't mind sir yes yes okay so uh i guess first of all for the friendly amendment and then and then second is that right yes yes okay so i offer the friendly amendment uh that we approve subject to the conditions that uh the event be kept to a maximum of 100 participants uh and the social distancing is maintained with the event end at 11 pm and that if uh if either the attendance or the social distancing uh are not uh go outside of those bounds during the course of the event it cannot be readily rectified the organizer agrees to shut the event down and that the city retains the uh the right to shut it down as well so that's all friendly amendment hopefully okay uh so you're offering that as a friendly amendment um council member briggs do you accept that as a friendly amendment uh i i will okay all right all right so we have a motion and a second with the friendly amendment council member armature did i see gary raising his hand yeah he'll he'll get to speak here in a moment yeah we'll we'll take care of that um okay so i have a question on the email that we received uh from sarah from the applicant is um the applicant it seems that the applicant is a as an officer or or some member of the denton county NAACP is this an NAACP event or is this a separate event mayor gary back and yes gary i i asked that question specifically and she said no she was just assisting a group of individuals uh in the community that wanted to put on an event she was helping them get the movie and the event organized okay all right uh council member mayor pro tem you had a you raised your hand no no sir i was going to answer your question but gary gary framed it properly and and and i would say i've heard that from the neighborhood as well that the signature block has caught a lot of people's attention okay all right uh council member briggs you had a question all right okay um okay anybody else um gary did you have some additional comments you've heard the friendly amendment and the motion made and seconded any any additional comments i was just going to add that just like we have with the athletic fields we have a return to play action plan that we asked the applicant to fill out we could include those items in there but i think i think you guys have summarized it then we'll we'll make sure it happens uh yes uh okay anybody else any questions we've got a motion on the floor in a second with a friendly amendment those three conditions council uh mr city attorney you have uh notation of those friendly amendments okay all right okay council member davis just want to thank the council for having this conversation i think it's important that we had it together this is not the last time we're going to have this conversation i'm almost sure of it that's why i thought it was important to have it out here in the open so that when rules were enforced and people butt up against the rules uh they're consistent going forward i like what mayor protem had to say about the next time something like this comes up it's got to be a hard no it if folks are going to be protesters be protests and have a protest that's great that's that's your absolute and perfect right if you're going to have an organized event in the city park you need to fill out the form and follow the protocol and listen to the rules okay anyone else all right i will take a vote council member briggs i say you yes council member melzer aye council member armater i i wish we didn't have our parks open but since they are i i vote yes council member ryan aye council member davis aye mayor protem aye uh the mayor's an i the motion carries uh seven to zero uh mayor protem could you take the helm for the next issue please yes sir thank you very much all right that is the consent agenda that takes us to um item 3a is that correct mr city manager perfect okay so i'm going to call item 3a which is id 20 1103 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton approving and establishing a six month uh pilot pilot parklet and uh streetery license program in richard kanoni good evening uh mayor council richard kanoni development services of a brief presentation just to go through um this evening on the parklet and streetery uh what i wanted to just quickly go over some of the uh council direction items that we had received on uh last week um that are that are incorporated into this ordinance and related documents the first being the duration of six months uh located within the md or mixed use downtown district except for elm locust and oak streets a maximum of two per block uh no amplified no amplified music uh smoke is not permitted uh alcohol would be would be allowed for a streetery only uh the permit and and and then license fee for streetery both at 50 and then the furniture um clarifying that tables and chairs and umbrellas and other shade structures what i wanted to do with this slide is just give a quick update we had discussed it further with the public works regarding anchoring into the curb we wanted to provide a little bit more more direction uh related to that and make sure that if there is going to be anything anchored that it would be between that um sort of the gap between where the sidewalk and curb are not directly into the curb the other item that we incorporated into the manual was the additional options for for shade structures again if someone wanted to do umbrellas that would be allowed but if they wanted to do something as part of their streetery or parklet we gave some examples certainly they they're open for others but these were just some options to consider we also um provided an updated presentation with council's direction to the main street association we received to date we've received seven comments back from friday when this when this item went out we have not received any additional feedback generally in support approximately four and favorite three against but i'm not i won't read through each of those those comments that we received but they were provided as as backup and lastly uh staff recommends approval of the program for six months uh commencing on july for july 14th uh to january 14th 2021 and with that i'll be happy to answer any questions all right you can pull that down the um presentation for thank you sir uh council member brix thank you mayor pro tem richard can you go back over the process for us if somebody wants to apply how many individuals or businesses around do they have to get permission from it's from it would depend where they're located it's from 100 feet from their business okay so like next a couple it could be one or two for the most yeah for the most part it'll be probably two businesses okay on on in either direction okay so i know that we had the conversation we eliminated you know several streets but i'd like for council to consider i mean if they have to have permission from those surrounding then um on the elman locust or you know anywhere else then that would mean that they would need permission and it would be okay with everyone around them um i'm just kind of bringing that conversation back up i know we weren't all in consensus last time i just wanted to state where where i was and um i think that there was a process put in there to make sure that everyone who was going to be affected was was okay with it um so okay uh council member melzer i may be wrong but my recollection uh from the work session uh was that the the real objection to uh to uh this beyond three members was to having it on the square and it's it's expressed here and maybe you know maybe i just misremembered it as the entire uh oak hickory locust and elm so uh i'm going to move approval and because of whatever discussion your council would like to have i'm going to move to approval of the item uh with the alteration that it's excluded from uh oak hickory elm and locust off the square you know uh within the identified area you know it would still be it would still be permitted i'd also uh before i yield the floor uh like to ask why on page five richard you say approximately four in favor and three against it's only seven it's four it's not approximately four i've said my piece yeah okay yeah all right so we'll pick that up i'm came in just at the right time i guess um uh let's see uh anybody else have any questions or comments we've had a motion with the stipulation that these not be uh installed on the square proper of locust elm hickory or oak on the square proper i think we you know there might be a better way to say that but i think we all understand what that means council member armator yeah so my question is have any of the businesses that have expressed interests in and having a streetlet parklet or a streetery are any of them on elm or locust i've heard from one that is off but i'm concerned if there are if there are any that are on locust that we know about or even don't know about so there were i'm sorry just garages director of economic development we did receive some interest from businesses that were directly on the square that included both on hickory street um i i know of at least one on hickory street that expressed interest and um one on elm street that expressed interest um but i don't recall specifically any on locust but there were at least two that were on the face of the square okay so you're so your um qualification council member melzer was about the whole general square area those four streets that surround the courthouse well me me personally i'd be fine with it on the square i was trying to characterize what i thought the actual objections were in work session you know maybe we'll get clarified in a moment uh and uh as i think of the area outside the square i think there are some that are are very uh suitable for this for instance east hickory between the square and bell i think uh i think the mayor alluded to that you know the back end parking area uh and i think also west oak between the square and carol i think could be very suitable possibly you know possibly hickory as well between the square and carol uh if somebody wanted to exclude um locust or elm i might you know that that there probably won't be requests to do it there because those are faster traffic areas but in any event the point of my comment was that i think the objection raised in our work session not by me was to the square itself thank you so i i remember that um you know my my what i myself would prefer so i'm going to see how this discussion plays out and hesitate you know i want uh to allow them in the entire general downtown area uh and i'm willing to you know if if issues arise with particular proposals that present safety concerns to address those as they as they come uh but i would hate for us to unintentionally you know foreclose a possibility in an ordinance that said you know whatever we need to get consensus on uh i'll i'll i'm willing to compromise however i myself am preferred to to see how the discussion plays out before i you know give this a second okay anybody else councilmember davis yeah i i was waiting for a second to do discussion but i'll say it now so staff has it right the consensus we had last time at the work session was excluding um there were three that wanted no no exclusions and myself who said i could vote for it as a pilot a six-month pilot excluding those four one-way streets in my i had two concerns there one of them and this affects the square proper is that those are the most sought-after and valuable parking spaces in the entire city take parking out of the consideration let's say we don't care about parking we are focused solely on pedestrians and walkability and people can park a mile away we want them to take parking out of the consideration which i don't think all of your downtown business owners do but just set that aside for a moment then you have to think about the safety and we know that people exceed the speed limit on those roads we know that they are served alcohol and those establishments and then once you get off the square you have a couple spots uh councilmember melzer mentioned a couple of them just off the square where the average speeds are a little bit lower um but those are establishments that already have outdoor seating the whole purpose of this idea in the current climate is to give folks who have trouble social distancing inside their establishments that don't have outdoor seating that don't have a good wide sidewalk to do outdoor seating to give them the ability to do that in an organic way we're taking the city property paid for by the taxpayers owned in common by everybody we're giving it to a private business for their exclusive use for their customers only to make their money only i feel strongly that we shouldn't just hand that out anywhere without any regard to how we park on the square and certainly not without regard to safety once you get off the square on those other one-way streets other than east of the square where it's two-way the only place to put these things is either right on valuable parking or right up against the fog line people park inside that you know eight or ten foot uh gap between the white line and the curb you can't seat people and put cafe tables out there and people are going 40 and 50 miles an hour down elm and locust so staff has it drafted correctly what staff has presented is what i can support and vote for as a pilot program and i can't vote for support anything else we talked about this last week okay council member davis as far as the motion that hasn't been seconded yet with the exclusion of those i think the motion was by council member melzer that to prove as staff has is proposed but with the exclusion of these being on the streets proper on the square is that correct mr melzer council member melzer well i i sort of limited it to only excluding the square whereas council member davis is saying no it's got to be as drafted currently which is those streets even beyond the square okay be excluded okay all right um okay any other questions let me let me go back and review that one more time but any other any other questions or comments on this uh this is council member briggs i will i will second the motion okay so council member davis share with me one more time um i mean i see i see what it's drafted on on on the the staff recommendation and the so if you could summarize that one more time for myself and the public on the staff recommendation and how that goes further than the the motion on the floor so my understanding of the staff recommendation is that it summarizes what we talked about our last work session on this topic that it excludes parklets or streeteries on elm locust oak or hickory without respect to what segments of those roads we're talking about just those four roads okay got you but that it allows it elsewhere in the md district okay all right council member briggs yeah i i apologize my recollection or what i what i thought we were talked about are the intention was just on the square proper in the last um discussion and so the entirety of those roads um was it was a shocker a surprise when i saw um the presentation so but i understand what you're what you're saying now i do have a question for staff would one of these or have have these um bump outs been shown to slow traffic um or has any studies been done to to say if the speed limit is lowered um around these um streeteries or parklets if the drivers are more careful i have not come across anything that has some real you know empirical data that shows that um studies were done and and looked at and it has slow traffic there's been some anecdotal but but it it ranges all all over the place but i would say that there's i have not seen anything that has real empirical data that shows that it does okay okay councilman melzer i think i saw your your hand was were you wanting to comment on something if i did i forgot it so carry on all right uh no no i did i do remember i think where the confusion came in uh you know why some of us have a recollection that the discussion was about the square only was actually because it wasn't because of what councilmember davis said is because you know you mr mayor said emphatically that you would no way ever want to okay that on the square i think that sort of stuck and i might have had the impression that councilmember davis agreed with that okay so i have a councilman ryan i see you down there go ahead sorry thank you mayor um i do have a question for staff because the way this reads it's maximum two per block and obviously the blocks in this area are all different sizes wouldn't it make more sensitive said that they have to be a maximum distance apart or maximum one per every 300 feet or whatever it might be uh staff yeah i mean when we first looked at it we were limiting it at at initially we were at one per block um if you recall and then then we increased it to two um certainly if it was um one per given our block size is typically 600 feet if it was one per 300 that's certainly nothing we would we would object to okay i just know that those blocks are such different i guess when you eliminate it depending on whether hickory locusts and oak are eliminated or not that's going to change it i'm generally not in support of this i was supportive of the idea of bringing something forward for until we get up to 100 occupancy for all these buildings so they can get back in in place you know get back to serving more customers um so i'm not real sure where i where i'm going to come down in the end on those but the uh because this is private use of public land and i'm i could support a once a week that we allow that we don't allow parking in certain areas and uh allow the businesses to use it to increase their occupancy level but i don't know that i really that this because this seems to be more of a permanent type thing even though it's a six-month trial once they get in there there's nothing that says unless we it's not renewed there's nothing in here that i've seen that says you have to take it back there okay council member melzer i'm sure uh council member ryan is fully aware of this but i'll just underscore that i'd be willing to entertain uh motions to you know to make it more to his taste okay council member armature uh yeah so i was waiting to hear if anybody had changed their mind since the work session it looks like no uh so anyway i'm gonna happily go along with is i and i encourage uh those who might be still thinking about whether to vote yes or no even if you're not fully in love with a proposal this is a temporary measure so i'll keep that in mind these are temporary structures and uh the government us uh and plus this the state government has you know has done a lot to shut down business so i feel like whatever we can do uh to uh make things easier on those businesses that are open financially this is a great opportunity and it's a neat experiment i believe with with very little um down downside to it in fact none that i that i can think of because it's temporary yeah uh council member melzer uh i can count to four i'm gonna withdraw my motion okay all right uh richard if you could just go one more time on um give me the distancing again i'm looking in the presentation i didn't let me look here i thought you'd mentioned there were so many it could only be was you had to check with people on either side of you or something like that i got in right on the tail end of that i'm sorry for the notification it's within 100 feet from your from your business okay all right so that's really the only distancing part is is you just have to notify people within 100 feet okay right okay but there's not a but i think we talked in the work session there would be one or two permitted per block only is that correct we had talked um we we had it had in there two per block face um and then the other the discussion that came up is whether that's that remains the same or or at a distance of one per per 300 okay all right okay so my understanding is uh we've got the motion has been withdrawn uh mayor pro tem yeah i'm gonna be i'm not gonna support this because it doesn't uh no one's identified a goal but to say generally to help restaurants with space and i don't know that i find that accurate i like the idea i i like the idea of starting either on private property uh in the parking spaces that uh behind wells fargo or i like the idea of using it to bring traffic to the west side of the square that we're struggling we have new sidewalk uh that's been put in that we could draw people towards pecan street or we could utilize city property and and activate city hall west which would then activate uh the cedar street so there's opportunities that we're missing to hit a targeted goal but then so i'll i'm just going to listen because i don't want to prolong the conversation for something that that i've not heard any uh movement on something that i can get behind all i will draw staff's attention to council member ryan's point and and if you were to pull up google maps and look at the block between east walnut and hickory on the east side of the street that's parking into wells fargo if you put two of those there you wipe out that entire stretch not that i'm worried about parking but just to say there's a difference in that block in the block between hickory and oak street so again not hyper focused on parking i think i want to use it as a tool to uh activate different parts of the square but i use that to accent council member ryan's point that there's segments around this area obviously this is out of play but uh with with council member davis's ask but just using as an example that there's different varying sizes of blocks that would be problematic uh if we don't um speak to that so thank you okay council member priggs uh thank you mayor yes um so i also can count to four and i see that um allowing these um anywhere around uh downtown area is not going to pass um although approvals are in place for businesses uh surrounding so there's that process there but i will move approval as it's written for the pilot for now for the six months so that we can uh start implementing and see what kind of interest we have and how this project is going to work in our city we're losing businesses every single day and if this is something that we can do to even help them even just um temporary or are ongoing then i'm in favor council member davis second okay we have a motion to second council member armature did you you had your hand up yes i was going to second uh but uh that second has already been made okay all right but i do have a question for for staff sure uh can can someone speak to uh whether or not uh it's known if any of the uh business owners surveyed who who don't want this or maybe anybody who has spoken to to council or written to council and maybe an email i'm not aware of is there any business on the square that that really doesn't want this any particular business on the square and and and what what are the reasons that have been given i i think it mentioned that there were you get three or four who didn't of the business owner surveyed who didn't want it if you can see what the reasons are and if that information is publicly available what what businesses sure so we did not ask businesses to identify themselves as being whether or not they're for or against this the comments that you received from us in the staff presentation at the last meeting and at this meeting were the comments how we received them um so staff made no alteration to them and did not identify which businesses voiced their support or did not support this and the reason for that is um sometimes we don't want to put businesses in a position where they might be taking um a position against their neighbor when you have two competing businesses on the square that this could impact so we didn't want to put businesses in that position so those comments were provided to you directly in the way that we we received them thank you council member briggs i was just curious how many uh businesses are in denton main street i know not hearing that um they weren't just from individuals around the square i'm just curious i'm sorry council member i don't know the number off the top of my head i can provide that to you um but there is a large number of businesses we also provided this information to our downtown economic development committee as well okay thank you okay uh any other comments we have a motion and a second if not we will uh go ahead and poll the council council member briggs how say you yes council member davis aye council member melzer aye council member ryan nary mayor pro tem nay i see i'm the only one i'm uh i'm an i so that's uh five to two i believe is oh i'm sorry council member armature i'm sorry i can't yes okay so five to two i apologize council member armature um my oversight all right so the motion carries five to two we'll move on to our next agenda item which is agenda item b consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton authorizing the city manager to execute a fourth amendment to the contract for sale between the city as buyer and the serigen corporation a texas corporation as seller oh thank you good evening mayor and council good evening cody can you hear me now yes all right diana cody deputy director of real estate um we are back to you this afternoon uh or this evening to follow up with some additional information that you all have requested um during closed session today regarding some of the estimated costs and um assistant city manager sarah hensley is here to provide you with that update so i've got a question for the city attorney uh before sarah makes her presentation the order of these agenda items b and c b is the approval of the amendment to the contract and c is the termination of a contract should those be reversed no and they're two totally different which contract items what it is mayor is that the first one is to approve the actual contract that is before you if for some reason the council does not want to approve that contract then you all would need to pass an ordinance to exercise your termination of of the the contract for sale which is currently there so because under under the charter and your city ordinance the the council can only act officially through an ordinance you would need to terminate officially terminate this contract is for sale if you choose to do so through an ordinance so if you if you act on b and you prove that there's no need to consider c if you deny b okay then you would act on i got him see i guess i was seeing them sort of conceptually as two different contracts but uh i hear what you're saying okay all right i apologize thank you so councilman metzler was that going to be your comment okay all right yeah yes it was okay thank you mayor yes sir sarah hensley assistant city manager the question was asked by council member briggs in regards to some of the other items listed in the report of course this is not all encompassing but there are some issues that we would address number one these items are things that we can address mostly in house one is replacing a door leading to the exterior mechanical room um doing a reroute of a french drain there is some electrical work that needs to be done that is everything from replacing a panel and and then putting in the plastic receptacle covers closing some ground wires labeling the breakers doing some things like that again we have staff in house from facilities that is electrician and all that if we were to outsource that it might be eight to ten thousand but we can do some of that work in house and then there are other little things like replacing a window pane or two putting in new fire extinguishers which we would do any way into a building um adding free on to one of the ac units placing some concrete sealer in some spaces where it starts to come out um and so what a rough estimate and i want to be clear a rough estimate of some of these things that would cost would be between 13 000 and 15 000 but a lot of this work we will will be undertaking through some of our staff and as a matter of fact if you approve this we will be scheduling a facility staff walkthrough for internally and externally to look at all those things and start to look and address those and that's the end that's pretty much it okay all right council member melzer just move things along i move approval okay council member davis second all right any discussion i don't believe we have any comments uh on this item either registered or called in all right so well we have uh i see no discussion council member melzer house say you aye council member davis aye council member briggs uh yes and just to clarify this is just for the the sale of the building any other item about this um will come will come again as far as um zoning i just wanted to to make sure that that's out there that that's not what this item is that's correct correct yeah we had actually put the zoning matter on hold a little bit until we could get the deal done so we'll restart that process we'll go through neighborhood meetings as well as councillors okay thank you uh council member armature house say you yes mayor pro tem all right council member ryan aye mayor watts is an aye motion carries seven zero so mr city attorney does that mean we don't need the next agenda item no action on that item all right don't even need to call it or anything just uh no skip it okay just skip it all right no actions required on the next agenda item so we'll move then to agenda item well let me get to it ions for individual consideration it will be agenda d consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton appointing john cashman as the city auditor for a two-year term beginning on 13th day of july 2020 and extending through the 12th day of july 2022 any discussion chair would entertain uh action on this item council member davis move approval council member briggs second we have a motion and a second mayor pro tem yeah no just quick quick discussion if we're to that point yes yeah no i just uh want to want to say just for the record that i i just don't think um we should fall for the the false premise that um we must spend money to save money i i think we had a viable option that someone is vested in our community and and we're missing that opportunity and so i wanted to explain uh nothing against mr cashman but that's why i won't be supporting this because we we have a mandate that we've handed down to our city manager that says we have a hiring freeze in place and we as a body need to uh follow our own rules thank you i appreciate that i guess and certainly respect your comments i guess i'm not quite sure i don't i must not be remembering it correctly but i didn't know if the city council issued a mandate of a hiring freeze on the city manager if the city manager just did that out of his managerial duty so that was my only because i've not heard that before you certainly brought up before that there was a hiring freeze and and i certainly agree with that i just didn't know that uh i think you added that it was a mandate from the council which i'm not sure if it was but uh nevertheless i appreciate your comments uh anybody any other comments all right we have a motion who made the motion uh and then councilmember melser do you second it oh councilmember briggs second it all right councilmember davis i'll say you aye councilmember briggs yes uh council uh mayor pro tem nay councilmember ryan aye councilmember armature yes and councilmember melzer i i look forward to welcoming him aboard hi okay uh motion carries six to one uh we'll move on to agenda item uh three e considered option of an ordinance of the city of denton appointing tyler atkinson as presiding judge of the city of denton municipal court of record establishing two-year terms of office for the presiding judge commencing on the 13th day of july to fill the unexpired remainder of the term vacated by the preceding judge any councilmember briggs i move approval councilmember davis second any discussion councilmember ryan do we need to i haven't checked to see if they've updated our backup do we need to make any changes to the ordinance to cover any of the things that were discussed earlier um well is is uh someone from human resources on available not at this time mayor yeah i don't know if we made any changes from what was proffered to us from the applicant as a counter proposal but i i think that um yeah i don't think we made any changes to that does any council member recall that let me look at the because is the is the i'm just thinking of the change between our offer and what he responded i wasn't sure which one ended up in the back i'm trying to find it now sure sure we'll we'll look at that all right mayor i did find it it is in there so we're fine okay all right okay all right um councilmember briggs i say you yes councilmember davis aye mayor protan aye councilmember ryan aye councilmember melzer these are two very exciting hires for denton aye councilmember armature aye yes mayor watson's and i the motion carries seven zero uh concluding items mayor protan thank you just want to wish everybody uh happy safe fourth of july uh i'm going to enjoy uh my break from these tuesdays and uh i also want to i have a dear friend uh that i've known as long as i can remember uh cammy hobbs here in town her birthday is coming up monday so i want to wish her a happy birthday thank you all right anyone else councilmember briggs uh yes i also want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday and a good a nice break and thank staff for all of their work on the the mass campaign and with the businesses and i know we are going to take a break but i know that you are not and so just so that you know that um i thank you and you're in our thoughts and um so everybody be safe all right yeah anybody else all right then we will conclude this meeting of the denton city council at 8 0 5 p.m on june the 30th 2020