Aug 18, 2020 City Council on 2020-08-18 12:00 PM

Welcome everyone to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, August 18, 2020. It is 12.03 pm. We do have a quorum, so I will call this meeting to order. Our first item on the agenda is citizen comments on consent agenda items. I do not believe we have any citizen comments on consent agenda items. We'll move then to agenda item number two, which is request for clarification of agenda items listed on this agenda. Council member Meltzer, and then council member Briggs. I would just like to have item F pulled out for presentation. Okay, all right. Anything else, council member Meltzer? No, thanks. Okay. Council member Briggs. Hello. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question about G, the retirement fund. Okay. Okay, so I saw that the actuarial report was good, but I just want to confirm that with our 18.5% contribution that what the actual funding is for that fund, and I know that it said that it was 80.8% funded last year, and with the same percentage, what does that mean it's funded this year? I just want to make sure, because I think the goal is to get closer to 100 and not further away. So I just want to make sure that we're okay there. David Gaines, assistant city manager. We feel good with the 80.8% that it's at right now and continue with the 18.5. We won't know the updated number until the next actuarial report, so once we have that in two years, we will be able to come back and see what it's funded at, so I can't anticipate what that number will be moving forward, but keeping that 18.5% should keep us on that path to move forward closer to the 100% goal. Okay, and in that, during that time period, how does retirements or will retirements affect the fund at all? Sure, you know, that's obviously that's part of that study that's done each time the number of retirees that have been added to the plan. There are some assumptions of that in the study itself, so if it diverts from the study, it would impact it, but it just depends on how those come out in reality versus the assumptions in the study. Okay, all right. Thank you. Yeah. May I have another question? Yes, go ahead. Yes. On item H, I know that it says allow for dino dirt compost. My question is, can Shiloh fields request dino light in the same gift if they wanted to or would as an in kind or would that need to be amended to say dino dirt or dino dirt light? I mean, just as an option if they chose to do either? We could certainly change it and add or dino dirt light. I think when Pat was on the call a couple of weeks ago, he suggested that he had looked at them both and preferred the dino dirt, but if you want to provide us that kind of flexibility, that's fine. Well, yeah, I mean, I know there's other people that garden and so if they had a preference if they chose to do that, I just didn't want to lock them into something if somebody else had asked about it, that that flexibility was there with this approval. Okay. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Barmiter? Yeah. So this is about item item H for me, as I had mentioned last time, Pat Smith came before us and talked about the use of dino dirt. For me, the difference between dino dirt and dino dirt light is a deal breaker and I would hate to vote no to this because Shiloh Farms is so incredible, but I do not believe that that regular dino dirt is safe to grow food. So I would be concerned about that and it is a liability for the city, but just most of all, because I know that, you know, the intention of Shiloh Farms is to provide nutritious food to people. So again, I don't know if that means I should just pull it to vote no, but I would hope that there could be some discussion when item H comes up to see maybe if they might be willing to do dino dirt light instead, maybe if staff could just say just a few words about the difference between dino dirt and dino dirt light, why we have the two products. Okay. Are you requesting to pull it? Yes. All right. So, and I do want to make sure that, I mean, I appreciate you stating your opinion that you don't feel that it's safe for food consumption, but outside of anything else, we don't have any facts, any scientific studies or anything on hand that cooperate that statement. So I think that was addressed with Pat Smith during the meeting as well. And so we'll move forward and pull item H. And I don't know if there's necessarily a presentation that's needed on it. If there's questions, we can certainly answer them at that time. Okay. Anyone else? All right, then we'll move down through our work session items. Work session item report 3A, which is ID 20-1206, receive a report and hold a discussion regarding an update to the City of Denton's COVID-19 response. Good afternoon, Mayor of City Council, Sarah Keighler, Chief of Staff. One second while I pull up the presentation. So this is our standing work session item to provide an update on the city's response to COVID-19. By way of reminder, the city does have a disaster declaration and order that is in effect through August 31st. Staff is preparing an ordinance for council consideration at next week's August 25th City Council meeting to see if City Council wishes to extend that term of the disaster declaration and the order. So today we have two kind of section updates for you in regards to intergovernmental updates and then housing and utility assistance. So I'll jump right into the first part, which is in regards to intergovernmental updates. So did want to provide just by way of reminder, Denton County Public Health does have a website with all the statistics in regards to COVID-19. This includes case counts from active and recovered, hospital beds, trends and so forth. And that is available at DentonCounty.gov/COVIDStats. In addition to this information that is out there and updated daily, Dr. Matt Richardson with the Denton County Public Health Department has been providing situational updates to the Commissioner's Court on Tuesday mornings. Those videos are streamed live and they are also archived on the county's website. Should anyone want to watch and hear the latest from Dr. Richardson in terms of what is happening, what is trending, what are some areas of concern or improvement that his team is identifying? And then also by way of reminder for the public, Denton County Public Health does have free testing sites. There's two different ways in which these are occurring. There is a weekly reoccurring testing site that is on every Friday at the University of North Texas Discovery Park on Elm Street, and that is beginning at 8 a.m. However, you must be registered to get tested. So residents should call. The phone number listed on the screen with the Denton County Public Health Department. In addition to this reoccurring site that occurs each Friday, the health department has been doing alternating locations throughout the county on Tuesdays. So they are announcing those sites each week, and you can learn more about where they will be at the DentonCounty.gov/COVID-19 testing site or by following Denton County Public Health on social media. So transitioning, kind of giving an update in regards to some federal actions. Staff has been monitoring this closely and advocating as well for any additional assistance to local governments, or that provides more flexibility in how we can spend those assistance dollars. Right now, there's not much of an update to provide. Some of the discussions have stalled between Congress and the White House, so those discussions continue in terms of additional relief being provided to local governments, to businesses, to residents, and so forth. We would expect, it's hard to tell, but maybe nothing will progress probably until after Labor Day when Congress reconvenes, so it could be another couple of weeks. In addition to those ongoing discussions from Congress, the President also announced a few executive actions on August 8th. However, I do want to be clear, it remains to be seen whether any of these actions will be implemented or how they will be implemented. There is some lack of clarity, and there may be some challenges in regards to what he actually has the executive power to do, but just to inform counsel, I know there's been some TML updates on this as well, but he did issue an executive order, and really this is kind of just a directive to HUD, challenging them to see if they can find additional rental assistance in their budget, among some other things, and maybe looking at studying should there be an eviction ban, but it was as broad as that directive. Secondly, he also issued a memo that would be designed to extend that additional unemployment benefits at a rate of $400 per week. It would require states to opt into the program. They would have to provide 25% of that $400, so $100. However, again, we're waiting on further guidance to see how this would actually be implemented, then how states could potentially opt in, and there may be some challenges, again, as with the fund he is proposing to use in terms of his authority to authorize that spending or if it needs to be authorized by Congress. The same goes for that third item listed there, which is also a memo in terms of deferring the employee share of Social Security and payroll tax payments. This is only stated as a deferral and not an elimination of, so it would still have to be paid at some point, and the IRS is supposed to be issuing guidance on this, further guidance, so we are waiting on that. And then lastly, he did issue a memo in regards to student loan payment relief in terms of interest payments potentially being eliminated, but really would encourage anyone with student loans to contact their lender to extend, to understand further in terms of their specific loans. But the principal payments are still due. So this is just kind of a brief update of what's happening at the federal level. I'm happy to bring down the presentation and take any questions on this board. Questions? Councilmember Amater? Yes, so this is a question about, questions about Greg Abbott's directives, but I understand that they're just hard to understand, so no problem if you don't know, but is... Sorry. I'm not, Councilmember Amater, are you talking about the ones she just presented on the memorandums? Mm-hmm. Okay. Are those Abbott's or are those the president's? President Trump's. Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, it's Trump. Okay, sorry. President. Yeah, so I'm just wondering about Isabella's directives. The directive to HUD, is that for all states, is he saying that HUD nationwide? It was very broad, I will tell you that, and it was a directive to HUD that they should study to, they should perform a study to see if there should be an eviction ban, what that would look like. And it also challenged HUD to see if they could find some additional relief funding in their budget to give out assistance payments. Okay. And so thank you. And sorry about the confusion about Abbott, because I know that, or the last I heard yesterday, he was supposed to come out with a statement today. We have not heard of any statements today. I have not heard of one scheduled yet, but we'll watch that closely. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Yes. Yes, Council Member Meltzer, go ahead. Yeah, I know you didn't say that Dr. Richardson would be here today, I just made that assumption because he'd gotten bumped last time, but I wonder, and so I did not watch him this morning if he gave an update this morning, but I wonder if just by way of summary, do we have any feedback on, are we trending well, badly, or, you know, I've, I've read a couple of times, I've read some criticisms of, of what's happening with tracking itself, including from Dr. Richardson, that there are some anomalies with the way the state kind of allocated testing cases into the denominator, and so I'm curious to know, do we feel good about the tracking that we have now? Is it normalized? How are we dealing with antigen testing that wasn't being included? I'm interested in, you know, any, any comments you might be able to share on those points? Sure. Let me, two quick things. I can share the screen just to show the Denton County Public Health Department website quickly, just to show you the, kind of the trend right now that we're seeing in terms of the case counts, so you can see here, moving from, you know, kind of that spike at, towards the end of July, Dr. Matt Richardson on a call yesterday did point out that it is slightly declining, ever, very slightly, so that was just kind of his one comment, and then there's other information available here, but I'll bring down the screen to kind of address the second portion. There has been some difficulties with how this case, some cases have been reported to the state, not to the local public health authority, so that has led to some concerns in terms of the positivity rate of testing, which is where I guess the Denton County Public Health Department is utilizing those numbers the most. However, Dr. Richardson did comment that he feels their case counts are highly accurate, and also the recoveries and deaths as well, where they were starting to see that discrepancy with the state reporting is in terms of the positivity rate. He doesn't feel very reliable in that right now, but we can follow up with a question to him just to see if there's any additional information he can provide there. Thank you. I appreciate that update. Yeah, and as a reminder, of course, you can go back and watch his update. Those are recorded, so anybody that wants to go to the county commissioner's website, they can pull up the old yesterday or today's hearing and see his update. Council Member Briggs? This is a comment about the data. I had someone reach out and ask about the death toll within the city of Denton per se, and I've been individually asking for that. Is there a spot on the Denton County website that has those individual cities and deaths listed and we're just not seeing it, or is it something that we have to request from staff every time? I believe the deaths are reported countywide right now on their website, not by jurisdiction. We can ask if they have plans to enhance that level of reporting publicly. I know they've been working over the last few weeks and months as time allows to increase the amount of data that is put out to the public, but I can see if that is in their plans. Well, I would appreciate that, only because I know that we're not intentionally keeping it from anyone, and that claim has been made. Just if we could find an outlet to display that information. Dr. Richardson is sending out a daily press release that updates the number of cases in the county as well as the deaths, so I'll ask Sarah and her team to post that on our website. It's right there for everybody. Okay. Thank you. Sarah, do you know, because I know that the memorandum asked HUD to look at eviction bans, and I know that the federal government had an eviction ban in place at some, at one point, or federally for properties that were funded with federal loan programs. Is the memorandum restrict, is that still sort of the same paradigm or the same formula that they, or is it anybody? So that eviction ban on the federally backed properties has expired, and that was not extended with the executive order by the president. That may be something that could be considered in the discussions with Congress, but I, we have not heard anything further on that at this time, but it has expired. Now, I'm talking about the, in this latest memorandum that you described in the update that he had instructed HUD to look at a possible eviction ban. Would that be sort of with the same limitations on federally backed properties with federally backed insured loans, or is it? I'd have to look. Okay. I don't know the answer of how broad it was. I think it was a little bit broader than just federally backed properties, but I'll get you an answer on that. Okay. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? Councilmember Armitage? Yes. The constituent had a good question about the hotels that have been extended under COVID for people experiencing homelessness, and I'm thrilled about the extension through October. The question was if, if somebody experiencing homelessness would, would like to apply for a hotel room, should they go through the same means that they would apply for federal funding that is, or that it comes through the county through United Way? So in other words, to giving hope or grace like rain or our daily bread? It's a good question. If I can jump into the second part of my presentation to give you an update on the housing and utility assistance, and then I'll address that as well. Sure. Thanks. Were there any other questions in regards to any other questions for this portion of the presentation? All right. Terry, you may proceed. Okay. So housing and utility assistance update, the United Way of Denton County COVID-19 Relief Fund, and this is for eviction prevention, providing that assistance to residents, has assisted 385 households in the city of Denton, and then countywide has assisted over 1200 households with approximately 1.5 million expended, and they're continuing to see those applications come in. I will provide a more detailed report in the Friday report in terms of all of the information on that program so far. For utilities assistance, by way of reminder, there's two different ways in which the city is helping to provide assistance right now through interfaith ministries if it is not COVID-related, and then if it is COVID-related through actually the United Way of Denton County using the county CRF funds for assistance. In summary, though customers are encouraged to call customer service to get connected to assistance, they will help to route them to the appropriate resource and to also avoid disconnection of their utility service. I know Ryan covered more information at the last work session regarding COVID-19, but the disconnects that were planned for last week were actually postponed until today due to there being a consistent temperature of 100 degrees or more and that heat-related. As far as emergency shelter, so we included this information in the Friday report. The hotels that have been acting as an alternative shelter arrangement have been extended through the end of October for another two months. This cost was included in the city's COVID-19 CRF budget, and this decision was made in partnership with our non-profit agencies who are helping to manage the hotels and continue focus on housing individuals. There's one mistake listed here. It's actually 70 individuals at one hotel, not 70 rooms, and then 10 rooms or 10 households at another hotel for the families, and that continues to provide safe shelter with the appropriate distancing for those individuals in need who would otherwise be unsheltered. In addition to continuing that arrangement, in the last two weeks, MKOC has reopened their shelter at 300 Woodrow Lane for just Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, beginning at 6.30 p.m. through the next morning to 8 a.m., and they're going to try to open and inclement weather whenever possible. They are utilizing volunteers, so they're wanting to ensure that they can sustain this level of operation to provide an additional shelter option for those that might be living unsheltered currently. They're only open at a third of the capacity to maintain that appropriate distancing, so that equates to about 32 beds. That is the end of the presentation, and so to jump back to Councilmember Armitage's question, right now, individuals are placed into the hotel based upon the Street Outreach Team's assessment, so if there is available room, they are placed through the nonprofits into the hotel to provide that temporary shelter arrangement while we continue to then case manage and work on housing for those individuals. Okay. Councilmember Briggs? Thank you. One, or I guess a couple of questions. How many families do we have currently in the hotels right now? We have 10 households that may be changed ever so slightly, but we have 10 rooms at the one hotel, so 10 families. Okay, and do we know if they have any school-aged children? I just, I'm concerned if they, you know, that they have the access that they need to the education and school there in the hotel. We can follow up with Grace Like Rain, the nonprofit that is helping us to manage that hotel arrangement, so we'll get some further information and include it in the Friday report. Okay, and then my next is just a comment after the Homeless Leadership Team. Last week, there was a conversation about the funds that are expiring December, and there is a request to maybe ask to extend that date so if the CARES funds aren't used by then that they can continue. Is that something that we're looking at and maybe asking as well? That may actually be part of the ongoing discussions at the federal level in terms of a next bill. Would it provide more flexibility for states and local governments to use any funding provided by the federal government past December 31st, but from my understanding right now that December 31st date is still in place, but there could be legislation that would further extend that date. Okay, thank you. Okay. Anyone else? All right. Thank you, Sarah. Appreciate it. We'll move on to agenda item 3B, which is ID 20-1130. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Members, Jessica Rogers, Director of Economic Development. I am going to actually turn it over to two of our consultants that many, I think all of you have met at this point or had phone calls with, Tom Stelman and Jacqueline Lee with TIP Strategies, and they're going to lead us through the first part of the presentation on this item, and then I will be doing the second part. So give me one second, and make sure that Tom and Jacqueline are on the line and can hear us, and we can hear them, and then we will get started. Tom, are you ready? I believe so. Can you hear me? All right. We're ready. Yes, we can hear you. All right. Okay. Great. Great. Well, thanks, everyone. Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. It's great to be in front of you guys again. And Jacqueline, I'm sorry, Jessica, you're okay advancing the slides as we go through? I know there's a lag, so I'll try not to be confused here, so we have a cover slide right now? Yes. Okay. All right. Well, let's go to the next slide. So I have included more slides in this deck than I normally would for a presentation, primarily as background, so for those who are interested in the overall process, I've included those. But I'm going to make the age-old PowerPoint mistake, and I'm going to go through some of these slides relatively quickly so that I can get to the plan. But I'll introduce ourselves, talk about the project, provide a little context and background, give you a high-level overview of the plan, and then talk about some of our thoughts and recommendations on capacity and resources, knowing that the full plan and implementation metrics and other documents have already been provided to you and to others. So next slide, please. So the objectives for today really is item number two and item number three, share the plan, and then if there's any formal input today from the council, make sure that we're able to incorporate that into a plan before moving to adoption. Next slide, please. And go ahead, Jessica. Let's go to the slide, theory into practice. Just a reminder that TIP stands for theory into practice. We get that question all the time, "What the heck is TIP?" It stands for theory into practice, which represents our approach to all the work that we do. Next slide. We were founded in 1995 and have been fortunate to do work across the country. We are currently working with the city of Denton, the city of Dallas, Harris County, and the other project that we're working on in the Metroplex area right now is for the Workforce Solutions of North Central Texas, which actually serves the Denton area. Next slide, please. Because we think about economic development and economic success for the communities we work in, it's really based on three pillars, making sure that you have the talent and workforce to support your economy, that you're being innovative in the way you approach economic development and the kind of industries and jobs that you create, but that you're also creating quality places to be able to attract and keep the best talent and best companies in your area. Next slide, please. So project overview, next slide, project goals, I will point out that our charge was to help the community establish goals for economic development, identify the sectors that we thought made sense, also to review incentives, and to make recommendations for where the best areas for development and redevelopment, and the last part is to create an actionable plan that guides the next three to five years of the city department and its partners. Next slide, please. Process and tasks. We took the city and its stakeholders through a three-phase process here, but as you guys know in March conditions changed, and so we did a little bit of a pivot and went virtual and completed most of the balance of the remainder of the work virtually, and that has worked out well. Thank you guys very much for your patience and the economic development partnership board and bearing with us as we did Zoom meetings for the last couple of months, but it's worked out really well. Next slide, please. Our planning work is based on really three things. We spent a lot of time, I think we met with the mayor and each of you council members to get your feedback on your vision for the future of the community. We did a lot of data analysis, but we also relied heavily on the fact that we've worked with communities across the country. Next slide, please. Stakeholder engagement. When we were able to travel, we were there for two weeks on separate occasions in January and in February, met with a number of area leaders, including council members, and then we followed up with phone calls when we were no longer able to travel. Next slide, please, context. We put this together, this slide called Denton, then versus now in 2002 versus 2020. We were fortunate to have helped the city establish its first economic development strategic plan. So a lot has changed over the years, things that at the time in 2002 we were recommending around your downtown and business park for the most part have come to pass in 2020. So we were very, very happy to be able to return to the community and help with the next generation of economic development strategy. Next slide, this beautiful slide represents what we call a SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. And this is actually in the plan, so I'm not going to go through in detail each of these next slides, but I wanted to hit on a couple of highlights. So strikes for the community are many, and we've arranged these along local, state and national level strengths. The quality of place, quality of life, access to music, art, downtown, higher education, jobs, access to the Metroplex. You guys really are positioned well for economic development within the Metroplex area. We looked at some of the challenges, limited access to economic development resources. Some of the other things, high-end housing, we heard from many, hospital and others that being able to attract doctors, many times those doctors were having to live in other communities and weren't able to find housing in the area. Go to the next slide, opportunities. The opportunities that we discovered actually formed the basis for the strategies that were recommended. A number of new opportunities, including the properties along Interstate 35 where the Colon Hunter Ranch is being established, there are opportunities within the entrepreneurial group that we were able to meet with. And then the last slide in this section on the threats, obviously things have been quite disrupted by the pandemic, and so one of the things that we did in this planning process was instead of treating it as something that wasn't going on and just continuing forward, we did a big pivot within the plan, and I'll talk about that here in a minute. So one of the other things we did, next slide, how does Denton's resources compare to those of other DFW cities? Next slide. We looked at sales and use tax electives by community, so there are a number of communities that Denton competes with for new business that have the economic development sales tax. Denton has other resources at its disposal, but we felt like it was important just to understand the competitive environment. The next slide, DFW economic development, revenue from the Type A and Type B sales tax that some of these communities has is pretty extraordinary, and so the competition is pretty intense as it relates to those types of resources that go toward economic development, but one of the things that we did, we were asked to do by the economic development board was to actually look at the incentives that are offered by different communities, and in this slide, the layering, different types of incentives in the far right-hand corner, Denton actually does offer many of the same incentives that competitor communities offer, and so you actually have a very strong package of incentives. The big difference might be on large projects where you're at a competitive disadvantage because someone has a sales tax of those offering up a very large cash grant, but you guys have many of the same incentives that are offered by other communities. So next slide, that's the background, so the strategic plan overview. Next slide, there were three major goals, and as I mentioned before, accelerating the recovery was a pivot as a result of the pandemic and as a result of the crisis, and recovering from this crisis is really the number one issue for economic development, taking care of your existing businesses, taking care of your existing population, and the things that we talked about earlier in the COVID-19 response presentation, you guys are doing quite a bit in that area. But the entire plan was designed around having the first goal be accelerating the recovery. Number two, the fostering growth, that's where many of the strategies that are the more traditional, as you think about economic development, working with local business, attracting new business, that's where they fit. And we felt like it was also important as you think about the future of economic development for the city of Denton is that you include strengthening community inclusion, and that really means aligning the economic workforce and community development efforts to meet community needs, and so that as the community continues to grow in the future, that it provides benefits for all of the residents within the community. So these are the high level goals. And then with each one of these, go to the next slide, Jessica, accelerating recovery, we have laid out strategies in order to fulfill that goal. The next slide, to fostering growth areas, we've created four different essentially targets. One is connectivity, taking advantage of the fact that you guys have a strong industrial park, you're located at the intersection of east and west at 35. Right now, it's interesting in the marketplace right now, there is a huge demand for distribution space because of changing logistics and supply chains. Everybody is buying online right now, so there's a huge demand, there's a huge demand right now for cold storage. The creativity box is essentially where we've made recommendations about how you support your existing arts, music, and entrepreneurship assets that you have, sustainability, we think from an economic development standpoint, the fact that you have your own electric utility that has a goal of 100% renewable and is reaching that, that there are economic development opportunities around that. And then the last growth area we call competitiveness, which is creating an environment where the new investments such as coal hunter ranch will result in being competitive for some class A office and new opportunities in the area. And so Jessica, I'm going to ask that we actually, the next slide, we actually talk about each one of these boxes and the rationale and different specific strategies. This is all in the plan in huge detail. So if you haven't had a chance to read through that, I would recommend reading through that. But let's skip forward, pass connectivity. If we could just, it seems like this is Chris Watts, Mayor. It seems like if we could pull the slide down real quick, because I think while I'm talking, I've got to be seen. Let's take a moment and just see if there's any questions up to this point, because it seemed like that was sort of a natural break. Oh, yes. Yeah. If there's any questions at this point on the plan or the presentation so far, are there any questions? Council Member Meltzer? And please advise if, as I asked, if they might be better addressed in what's coming up or kind of at the end. But one question I have is, in the plan, you sort of move, you critique in a way and move away from the specific industry target list that there was in the previous plan instead of talking about this kind of nexus of these four components. But what I wonder is, do you then or will you then apply that framework to the industries and firms that are out there and generate a list of the target industries or even down to the level of firms, if we know something about what are characteristics of firms that might even consider moving? Yes, Council Member, in each of the sections, there's actually recommendations for the types of firms that would fit into that. It's just we've created these larger boxes to fit them into. So there would still be logistics and distribution and manufacturing that would fit within each of those boxes. We as the consultants would not be generating the list, but that would be tasks that the staff and its partners would be responsible for. And then when I picked up with you talk about targeting growth, I think it was growth stage startups out of Dallas or Fort Worth, anyway, okay, so I take your answer on that. And then the second area of interest for me is you're asked to look at what resources competing communities have to bring to bear, but I was hoping I would see an analysis of what tactics have worked and who's successful. If they all have these, who's winning, are they all the ones who have funds at a certain level winning and the ones below aren't, or there are certain types of tactics that aren't, or are decisions made by companies on completely different criteria to do with location and features of community and so on? Yeah, we did share with the partnership board a couple of additional slides where we do address what is working in other places, and we shared some of the insights that we received from the real estate community when we were asking about how decisions were made and incentives on top of meeting certain, do you have the site, do you have the building, do you have the utility that can serve that site, are you within their right market, the things that influence the business decision ultimately drive it more than anything else, and so all things being equal, the incentives on top of that might influence it. I'd love to see that, if the staff could share, I'm interested in a good ROI as the next one, but I wouldn't do it just because the others haven't. Definitely. All right, Councilmember Briggs, oh, okay, thank you, Paul. Councilmember Briggs, I believe I saw your hand, is that correct? Well, it may be something I can hold till the end. I just, I was going through all the public comments and I just wanted him to speak before the end of the presentation on those comments and if they were, how they were implemented or looked at into this plan, the community feedback. Okay. All right. All right, I have one question on page three of the plan when it's the guiding principles. And the one, two, three, fourth guiding principle was cultivate the city's entrepreneurial ecosystem by investing in a quality of place and catalyzing, is that how you, catalyzing innovation that will continue to attract creative professionals to Denton. Could you just sort of, in layman's terms, tell me what that, what you're really talking about there? Yeah, I mean, the trend over the last few years, and I think some of it may even be accelerated in the current environment around business startups being able to attract the talent that they need and what is that talent looking for and just understanding that like right now, one of the advantages that Denton seems to have is this authentic downtown and access to culture and amenities that while, and combined with maybe a lower cost of living. So if you're trying to attract the sort of the millennial programmer, Denton has a competitive advantage there. And so just paying attention to what is it that those that are, you know, on the entrepreneurial side interested in. And so it's a little softer, does it represent itself in access to the university? Does it represent itself in access to the coffee shops or to the entertainment district that's downtown? And so that's really what we're saying there. Okay, all right. So really what I see in the guiding principles, it seems like the last two, the entrepreneurial spirit and cultural vitality, are kind of tangently related to like pure direct economic development. So those are your first three, core resilience, and you're talking about core economic base and major employers, future-focused, future growth by understanding trends and adopting a proactive approach to economic development, inclusive growth, enhanced economic opportunity for all residents by utilizing different strategies. So those seem to be very directly related to pretty hard economic development principles, but the last two seem to be more about the space-making or the environment. So are you saying that economic development dollars, however we fund that or however we obtain those, should be used on things that are other than just what some, including myself, might consider purely economic development type of strategies or approaches like incentives, purchasing land to give to a prospective business person? Help me understand those last two just in terms of how does that impact our economic development funding, and do they compete with directly more with actual bringing businesses in? And if you're going to address that somewhere else in the presentation, certainly I would defer that until we get to that because I don't want to have to repeat information. No, I think it's definitely a legitimate question, but once again, these are guiding principles. These aren't necessarily the strategies themselves, and so it's an opportunity to make a statement upfront that we as a community recognize that in order for us to be successful on the harder, more traditional attracting of a business, that we have to pay attention to our quality of place and the amenities that are going to allow those businesses to attract the talent that they need, and so it's just, like I said, it's a guiding principle as opposed to you're going to use your economic development funds to create a new cultural center or support a specific music venue or something like that. It's more just recognizing and not working against those types of strategies that somebody else may be carrying them out and you're just an advocate for them. Okay. Great. I appreciate that. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you. One quick question. You've touched around it, and again, like everyone else, if it's coming up later, by all means defer to then, but really want to hear you on just on occasion, we'll hear the blanket statement that companies should want to be here because it's Denton and it's a great community, and so I really want to have a succinct answer to refer back to or at least best we can have you heard on that and the competitiveness of other cities that may be in the same region. I understand the market to be very competitive, but want to hear you on that and on just merely being a great community, not being enough. Yeah, and I've worked in most of the cities in the DFW area at one point over the last 20 or 25 years, and we are fortunate to work around the country. And so from the types of companies as you as you move beyond just to start up or you move beyond small business in order to be competitive, you do need to be more aggressive both in the marketing of the community and the positioning of the community and working with the real estate community and development community, especially in the DFW area. There's room for that. We are going to address in a moment recommendations around how you build up a fund that would allow you to be more competitive. And so maybe I will defer a little bit on that question, but we do feel like there are very few communities where they don't have, I mean, even in Austin, where I live, I mean, they are still very aggressive. There are companies that move here because of the Austin buzz, but that doesn't mean that Austin doesn't continue to be aggressive in making sure they're in front of the decision makers. And I think that has an opportunity to modernize its economic development and be a little be more aggressive, be more modern in the way that it approaches economic development. Thank you. Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. If I can sort of press a little harder in the direction of my first question before, can you give some examples from just your expertise being in this field of what might kinds of industries be that would say potentially be attracted if we promoted ourselves, if we had funds to reach them that might be attracted to like our cultural capital that you seem to refer to as distinct and maybe in the competitiveness, you talk about our energy portfolio. What are some industries that that would kind of line up with and maybe why might they prefer Denton to Austin, which maybe has some similar characteristics in a bigger ecosystem? Yeah, I guess the utility as a driver, obviously the West Park industrial area has companies that are attracted to having reliable and consistent electric service from Peterbilt to others that are there. And I think you guys are going to continue to be a fit for those types of industries, whether they're transportation equipment related to Peterbilt or others, or whether they're a US cold storage or other companies that would go to that site, potential for data storage that might be large users of electric, I think is still a fit for you guys. On the flip side of that, the more quality of place or cultural amenities that you have, I think there have been a couple of projects that have come through the Economic Development Partnership Board recently for support that are these younger stage companies that while they may not be investing the same amount of capital and have return on the capital, they are hiring individuals with higher wages who, if they're living in your community, represent an opportunity to support your sales tax and others. But I think a lot of that is driven by the cultural amenities and not necessarily an office building. I think it will be interesting as we move forward with the properties along the 35, the coal hunter area, as we see a market return, what types of businesses will be attracted there, whether it's financial, fintech, insurance, other that are more back office. But there's a lot of discussion in the office market right now about what is it going to look like as companies start to grow again, are they going to grow in the same way and require workers to come back into an office, are they not going to do that. So no specific industries, just it's kind of case by case whether they're attracted to the cultural capital. And when I refer to the energy portfolio, you commented in the report about the uniqueness of the 100% renewable, but that might be sort of just a point of difference. But it's sort of case by case, not really industry targets. Well, let me get back with you on that because I think there are targets within that. I just don't have them off the top of my head. Council Member Briggs. I just wanted to take this time to respond to the guiding principles since that was brought up. I think it's really great that we have those two last ones. I know it's a little bit different than what we've had before in our policy, but I also think it's great to acknowledge that the creative culture, it's important to us and it's one of our strengths in the community. And so while it might not be something typical, I think it's great to see in this plan. Okay. All right. Anybody else? Yeah, to me, those two are simply something I think we already do. And to me, I interpret those two as quality of life. If you're creating a quality of life for all your citizens, then you're probably going to be accomplishing those two goals. So I just wanted to make sure I understood why they were in this particular study. So no, I don't disagree with what you're saying. I just had a question about why they're there. All right. Let's go ahead and then pick up. We're going to start on the, I think, specific four areas, I believe. Yes. Or foster growth, yes. Okay, thank you, and yeah, Jessica, I've talked about each one of these, connectivity, sustainability, creativity, and competitiveness when I had the slide up that shows all four. And so I'm happy to move forward actually to the question of capacity and resources slide, and I'm happy to come back to those, but I think you guys were already asking questions. We've had a lot of discussion there. And that is slide 35 in our backup presentation just for council members' reference. And then, so the slide that follows the title slide that says ways for cities to support economic development with the puzzle pieces. And this is really just a reminder that, and I think this reinforces one of the questions that came up earlier, you know, many, many times companies are making decisions based on not just a cash incentive, but based on the infrastructure investments that may be made at an intersection or at a business park. As an economic development organization or community, the things that you offer up fall into several different categories. You're marketing, you may be providing incentives, you may be providing infrastructure investments, you may be providing site selection type services helping, but you may also just be providing data analysis for a company to help them make that decision. So incentives are a part of a way that a city supports economic development. Next slide, one of the things that we discussed with the partnership board was that there be the creation of what we were referring to as a debt and catalyst fund, something that made you more competitive in support of both the programming and potential incentives for that group. And this is something that Jessica is going to talk about in a moment, some thoughts and recommendations for how this actually would be structured. So I'm going to sort of push that to the next presentation, but we did think that if you're going -- next slide -- considerations for building a catalyst fund is that it needs to be tied to the strategic objectives of the plan. There needs to be enough flexibility within it to make it valuable and that it not be seen as, oh, we have to build up a pot today of resources, that it be seen as something that would be built over time, and that the level of resources to carry out the plan each year is not something that you just assume that we need X amount and may change over time depending on the conditions, and that needs a toolbox of different resources and mechanisms to support economic development, and that previous chart that showed the different conditions that you have from TERS to cash grants to a number of other incentives would be part of that catalyst fund. The next slide, building up annual resources, and Jessica will talk about this in a moment, but the level of resources that are currently being devoted to economic development from a commitment through incentives but also the programming is around 4 million, and we've made a recommendation that in order to modernize this, it would make sense for you to move it to 6 million, and then if you're going to be more aggressive and actually be competitive in the region, that you would need to move that closer to 7 to 9 million. Next slide, please. I've got a question on that last slide since we seem to be at next step. Are these annual figures we're looking at? Yes. Okay, then, and so this may be a question for Jessica moving forward, and in the 4 million dollars that says that we have 4 million dollars that we have available for incentives annually? I'll address it in very specific detail in the next presentation. No, it's not 4 million set aside for incentives, it's 4 million that is currently obligated in terms of our operations and our ongoing commitments for incentives, but I'll detail all of that out for you. Okay, wonderful. All right. Thank you. And so the next slide, next steps, and implementation matrix. One of the things that we did for the team was to actually take all of the strategies and actions from the plan and lay them into a document that we call an implementation matrix, and so in that we identify, you know, who does it make sense to have as the lead on this, over what timeframe should this be implemented, and if there are costs associated with it, to begin coming up with cost estimates for that, and so it's this document that would typically serve the Economic Development Partnership Board as their go-to document over time. They would come back and make revisions to this and adjust it and use this as a way to check and see whether you're actually making progress on your plan. We've provided a copy of that that the Partnership Board has reviewed. So really, I think that's the end of our part of this presentation, but we are happy to answer any additional questions. I'm also going to stay on the line as Jessica presents, just in case there's reference back to the plan for any questions, so we'll open it back up for questions, so thank you very much. All right. Questions before we move into Jessica's presentation, more specifically on funding alternatives and options. Council Member Armitage. Yes, so I have a question about, I think it was the last slide or second to last slide, about the implementation regarding taking the pulse of the business community. And I was wondering if you could speak to how, in doing that, the tension or difference, whatever you want to call it, between our locally-owned small businesses that are really struggling right now and this focus on attracting new businesses from elsewhere, how will that be gauged in kind of taking the pulse of the community, and will it be citywide or just chamberwide, looking at only chamber members, or is this still in the early stages and that hasn't really been decided yet? Just so everyone knows what we're talking about, in your backup under the implementation matrix, there is a, under goal one, accelerate recovery. The second strategy, 1.2, is taking the pulse of the business community. And the two specific tasks identified include continuing to coordinate with the Chamber of Commerce and Main Street Association to assess the short-term and long-term needs of Dutton businesses and to stay connected to the DFW organizations coordinating economic recovery and community service efforts across the DFW Metroplex. And that is on the first page of the implementation matrix document that you have. Okay. Go ahead, Doug. I was going to, I know it wasn't our intent in making the recommendation that there be a limit to the businesses in the community that would be supported and understood. I know there has been some survey work done to kind of take the pulse. I know that's kind of something that's continuing. That might be something that you, Jessica, or the Chamber, or others who are doing that already might want to speak to. Sure. I think Councilmember, I'm going to try and answer your question. So we're not seeing those two things as competing priorities. They're both important. We do everything we can every day to offer support to businesses that are struggling to provide them resources, get them connected to the entities that are providing resources in any way that we can. On the same note, we are still working towards, see growth coming, and we want to make sure that we're attracting businesses that help us grow our workforce in the ways that this Council has directed us to. We want to make sure that we're growing in ways that provide a stable tax base for the community. We want to make sure that we're providing opportunities for graduates out of any of our higher education institutions or out of even out of our high school with certain certifications that they have pathways for success. So I don't see those as an either or. It's both, and we do both of those every day. Thank you. Thank you for that. From my perspective, when I mentioned that they're competing, I mean only in the sense that resources are limited, right? So if we've got limited resources, then money that we spend to attract new companies, it doesn't mean we're not going to spend anything to support locally owned businesses. That adds money that's not being used elsewhere. So that's what I mean by competition. Thanks. Okay. Any other questions before we move into Jessica's presentation? Council Member Briggs and then Council Member Meltzer. So I had some questions about the implementation program and the economic development. This one meeting and this one, my question is a little bit different because sustainability is one of our major strategic goals here. And so I'm looking at the implementation plan and how some are actually ongoing, but there are several that are two to three years and even three to five years out. So I don't know if we are going to be able to, do we constantly review this plan? Is there any way for council to look at these and prioritize or reprioritize or these set? I'm just curious. If this plan is passed, does this implementation plan get passed the way that it is? If I could, Council Member Briggs, just so I understand your question or your observation. Because I'm looking at the implementation plan, a matrix. And of course, it has those columns, 12 to 18 months, two to three years, three to five years, and then ongoing. And you were asking that we're not doing anything in the three to five years out because there's no checks in those boxes or what exactly was your observation? Well, it lists individual things and the boxes that are checked are two to three years or three to five years away instead of within the next six to 12 months or ongoing. And there's several in each category. My main question is, if this plan is passed, is this implementation plan passed as well? Or will there be opportunity to go back and look at different areas within these to address it? Okay. I guess I'm, am I seeing my slide differently because I'm seeing on the implementation matrix draft. Am I on the right slide? Yes. And I think my answer will help clarify the question for you. Okay. Because I see 12 to 18 months, there's boxes checked all down through 12 to 18 months. And those that aren't checked in that column are checked and ongoing. So I don't see anything checked for two or three or three to five years. There are, she's referring to slide three or page three of the implementation matrix where this... Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Page three and four, page three. Gotcha. Okay. I see them. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. My apologies. So council member Briggs, I think there's two answers to that. It is absolutely this, the implementation matrix is meant to be a dynamic guide. We will revisit it as often as we need to as priorities change. As we get further direction, as more information becomes available, we can move and shuffle those. The other thing that I will say is we looked at two key components to establish the timelines that you see in there. One is what are we doing right now and what resources do we think we'll have in the future that we can dedicate to fulfilling that specific task. And we try to balance those. If we had all of the resources and that wasn't an issue, we'd want to do everything as quickly as we can. But there is some ongoing work in the sustainable Denton area that's ongoing now. It may not reach full implementation until maybe year two, three, four of the plan. It doesn't mean that we're not going to touch on that item. It doesn't mean that it's not going to be important as we move through it. But we may not have the resources or the staff capacity or the planning in place to reach full implementation until later on in the implementation plan. I think that answers the question. Yes, Council Member Briggs. Yeah, it does. I guess I just saw where incorporate Denton's green business program into economic development digital marketing, and that's two to three years out. But that's something that we have now and I know that we're kind of building the program. So that was just the one thing that stuck out that I was looking at if it was digital. So I was just questioning. Thank you. Okay, did somebody else have their hand on Council Member Meltzer? I apologize. Yes, sir. Is this the part where you would like to hear direction or wait until after Jessica's? Well, yeah, I think we need to have Jessica's presentation because I think her presentation is going to be on funding options, which is what we're going to have to develop in order to probably implement many of these strategies. So if we could, yeah, if we could, yeah, we'll move forward to that, then we'll take the questions after that. Sure. We can switch. Give me one second to get that presentation pulled up. Sure. And then I'm also, I'm going to go ahead and let you know, we had some questions come in from Council Members. So the presentation that I have today is going to be slightly different, but we will make sure to get all of this information to you and posted. So that way it will be publicly available and we'll point out where those differences are. So for my part of the presentation, I'm going to go over a current overview of the funding and budget that we currently use in economic development, what our current tools are, estimated costs to implement the strategic plan, and what options that staff has explored to increase economic development program funding. And I promise that I'm not an expert in all of those financial options, so I'm going to have Nick Vincent right here with me to take over when needed. So for the first part, going over the current economic development financials. So Mayor, this is what you had referenced. We don't currently have $4 million set aside in a fund. We actually have about $4 million in expenditures related to our primary operations and personnel, our ongoing programming activities, and are currently committed approved incentives. We committed about $150,000 a year to our existing investment fund with interest income and that fund balance by the end of the next fiscal year will be around $924,000. That's if no expenditures are made out of that fund. Currently economic development is funded primarily through the general fund. That's where our incentives get funded out of. That's not inclusive of incentives that are abatements. Those are not, they're not an expenditure, there's no revenue coming into the general fund that's handled simply by the grantee not making a tax payment by the amount of their abatement. And then we do have additional income that comes in from the utility funds that helps pay for some of our programming. So this is a list of our current tools that are available right now. As Tom went over in that chart in his presentation, we have a number of tools that we layer together. We sometimes put together some pretty complex agreements and try and allow our incentive packages to generate the right benefit for the right project. And we do that by using, maybe it's a chapter 380 agreement that you see right here. And it's an agreement that we pay for based on sales tax revenue or percentage of sales tax revenue out of the general fund. We may also use utility funds for either a general operational expenditure, as I mentioned, we use that to help assist pay for our chamber of commerce contract today. We may also use utility and infrastructure development plan line funds. And that's to offset costs of development that are associated with particular particularly with water or wastewater improvements. I did mention that we have tax abatements, those don't get reflected in budget, they're definitely off budget. And so we don't see those those do get included in our annual net revenue report that we generate. And we provided that to counsel, I believe in late July in an ISR chapter 380 is the section of the government code that we use that allows us to make those rebates or grants or loans for economic development. Under our policy, we can do those agreements either via sales or property tax reimbursements based on performance, or we also have the ability to do job based grants for companies that create significant jobs in accordance with our policy. We have the investment fund, that's the $900,000 fund that I referenced previously. One of the largest benefits that we have for many of our large electric users is our economic growth rider. This is the demand charge reduction that we implement for significant electric users that qualify, it's adopted as part of the DME rate book every year. And then we have a few other items that council may not be as familiar with, we don't use them as frequently, but we do have the tax increment reinvestment zones. We have two, we have the downtown reinvestment zone and the West Park reinvestment zone. We can certainly examine reinvestment zones as projects become available. And if those projects meet certain criteria, that we could look at those further as an additional incentive. We also have public improvement districts at our disposal. We have one currently in the city of Dutton, but it does not levy any taxes at this point. There's also the ability to implement what's called neighborhood empowerment zones. They're very similar to tax increment reinvestment zones and public improvement districts, a little bit of a hybrid. They're used primarily for housing rehabilitation, affordable housing development, economic development, and really those neighborhood types of projects, they're used pretty effectively across the Metroplex. But again, you have to make sure that the projects really match the goals and the need of that tool. And then lastly, we have our hotel occupancy tax and that we use to promote tourism. And we do have an existing economic development agreement that utilizes the hotel occupancy tax. So what we're going to talk about for the rest of the presentation are specific investments to implement the strategic plan. So that matrix that you have in your backup, we went through all of the tasks associated with that matrix. And we tried to quantify what might be the cost of implementing a specific task or strategy. We came up with three ways that the cost could be broken down. The first is one time costs. It's an action that requires a one time investment or expenditure of funds. An example of that would be upgrading a website, creating a new marketing plan, something that's really one time in the five year horizon and it's not something that's going to be repeated. The second item are those recurring costs, those repetitive costs. If a task in the plan required any type of ongoing commitment to support staff, operations or a program, we included it under the recurring costs section. That includes something like a software license where there's going to be an annual payment based on a product that you're receiving. And the last item that we have are our fund development costs. So when we talk about the catalyst fund that's being developed, we're really talking about the fund development costs. And those are the actions from the plan that require initial investments and ongoing support by development of a fund balance that we can maintain or replenish over time. Each of these were identified with specific funding goals on those foundational and aggressive models. An example of this, of course, is the catalyst fund or the incentive fund. So to explain this a little bit further before I jump into the actual numbers, I want to make sure that our process and our assumptions are known. So first is that we do have current information. We know our current and financial operational limitations and needs. We can't deny the financial and economic environment that we're in. And so we have to use that information to forecast forward. The second is that we've made many assumptions based on the known projects and applied those to future unknown projects. And the reason that that is interesting is we don't know what project is going to want to come to Dinton and what project is going to be interested in an incentive or a grant or a loan in the future, but we do know what projects we have now. So we tried to estimate what could be future projects based on projects we've seen in the past. And the last two points are that, again, that the cost were established based on current economic environment, future economic changes, any type of change to inflation or monetary policy could affect the economic environment and those estimates in the future. And then that costs aren't necessarily an annual expenditure. It could be a reservation of funds to meet a program goal, and it might be a contribution to a particular fund. You know, I said all of that to say this. So this is what it looked like when we sort of forecasted it out over a five-year horizon. So this is the foundational assessment. So what you see here is an ongoing development of funds over time with specific funding goals that are that we detailed out to really just modernize. And the numbers here look a little different than what you saw in the presentation from Tom and Jacqueline. And the reason for that is we already are investing that $4 million a year with our current funds. The future investment you see here hovers right around $2 million a year, as you see us kind of in that build-up year to in year three. That gets us to about the $6 million a year in the foundational program that Tom presented to you. In terms of the aggressive model, same five-year funding horizon, but we actually reserve a little bit more money in terms of the fund development, and we do a little bit more in recurring costs. And with this, again, you're not seeing that $7 to $9 million number that you saw in Tom's presentation, but if you add the $4 million that we're existing plus an additional reservation of about $4 million as we get to that mid-year, that's where that $7 to $9 million number came from, is adding those two numbers together. And I'm going to jump to this slide. These are the same charts you saw in the last two slides, but the little bit more context. So we did establish these goals. We established goals for various incentive programs that are described in the implementation matrix. So for example, one of the strategies is creating a fund specifically to support entrepreneurs. So we established a funding goal of what we thought would be sufficient funds to be competitive in that area, and that's included in the fund development cost. We determine these values based on achieving an available fund balance to use for various programs, which is why you see this slow buildup of funds, and then reaching the target usually in year three in both of these, and then a decrease. So at this point, it's just a maintenance over time as funds are expended. So we're able to decrease the amount of the contribution every year. And then lastly, we did all of these on a five-year horizon with a goal to reach the funding goals of most of the programs by the end of year three, some later on, because they're staggered, as Councilmember Briggs mentioned in the implementation plan. So meeting our primary funding goals here at the end of year three, but then maybe one or two of the funding goals lagging behind in year four or five to align with when they're implemented in the implementation matrix. And so both of these, over time, represent about $7.5 to $15 million in new programs, which can be layered with the tools that I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation. And so the programs that we would be looking at in the implementation matrix included the general investment fund, which would be used for our typical incentive or grants that's recruitment retention or job-based grants. Also looking at some priority infrastructure, utility, and development assistance grants, a fund for innovation and entrepreneurship. Right now we do have funds, I believe as Councilmember Armitage stated, that funds get competed for because they're identified in the same fund. And so setting aside funds specifically for innovation and entrepreneurship. And then lastly, a historically underutilized business and access fund and dedicating some a portion of the fund dollars specifically for historically underutilized businesses or businesses that are typically needing additional access for development. And so how do we get there? So over the last, I believe about a month now, we've been looking at what are our options to generate or set aside additional dollars. So here on the left, you see the items that we looked at. So first we looked at specifically dedicating a percent of the utility system ROI. And how would that, what amount of fund would that generate? And now about 1% of the current ROI is about $2.75 million. The second option is the utility fund balance, utilizing a portion of the existing utility fund balance to get the fund started and then dedicating a smaller amount of ROI over time. So we estimate about 0.5% of ROI to be about $1.3 million per year. We also looked at what we call the Plano model, which is dedicating a portion of the, of the existing or an additional property tax and for specifically for economic development. The city of Plano is in the same situation as the city of Denton. We don't have, we're not able to implement a sales tax, so they do it by passing an ordinance that says we're going to dedicate a specific amount of our revenue to economic development. The challenge with that is it really has a disadvantage to the general fund. It has a disadvantage to taxpayers in that those dollars have to be made up. It would generate about 1.3 million for every one cent of the tax rate. Another option is sort of the incentive roll off option. We've explored this before. It doesn't have a sudden impact to any of our, to our general fund. We'd be looking at revenues that are kicked off from projects as the incentive or the grant terminates that we would recapture the revenue from that project. The disadvantage of that particular model is that there's no immediate revenue and it's going to take substantially more time to develop a fund than utilizing either option one or two. And then lastly, which is a little bit of a challenge is that a bond election for economic development funding, it has no impact to city funds, but it could increase the city's property tax rate and the amount over time is variable. And so those are the options we explored and we wanted to make sure that when we were making a recommendation that we had the least amount of impact to as many of our financial systems as we could. So here our staff recommendation at this point is utilizing a small amount of the existing utility fund balance and then pursuing a lower amount of ROI in the future. And so with that, you see our staff option right here. Our goal primarily is to move forward and progress over time, but certainly reevaluating the implementation of programs and the associated timelines as well as the costs as part of our annual budgeting process because funding needs and sources as outlined in on the charts that we've shown you, they may change over time. Our priorities may change over time. And so we want to make sure that this council has the opportunity to come back and revisit this as we revisit the implementation matrix. And then lastly, our goal is always going to be to focus on innovation and best practices and how to achieve the strategic goals. And so if certain other incentives, ones that don't necessarily impact a direct revenue stream are effective, such as a tax abatement, that will utilize those incentives to their optimal extent. And I think I'm going to stop. That is the end of my portion. After this, Nick is going to go into detail on the ROI and the financial modeling for that. I'm going to stop for just in case there are questions. Yeah, let's take a real quick five minute break, and then we'll come back with questions for Jessica. And then we'll go into Nick's presentation about ROI. So let's, it's about 131, let's come back about 135, 136. Welcome back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on August the 18th, 2020 at 1 40 p.m. We're moving down through our work session reports. We are currently on Work Session Report 3B, ID 20-1130. And we will resume our presentation, I believe, where we left off with Council Member Meltzer had some questions about the recently completed presentation from Ms. Rogers. No, I'm okay waiting until we hear about the ROI portion. Okay. All right. Okay. Any questions at this point? All right. We'll move on to the ROI presentation. Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council Members, Nick Vinson, Assistant Director of Finance. Let me get the presentation pulled up really quick. All right. So I have a few ROI slides to walk through with you today to really give you an update of what the return on investment is, what the current rate is for each utility and who it's being charged to. So currently, you can see up here at the top, we currently have an ROI for the electric water and wastewater utility, and they do pay an ROI to the general fund. Currently, the electric fund is paying 6%, and this will return to 3.5% fiscal year 2023. And this was discussed with Council in the last few weeks during the budget presentations. Wastewater is currently paying a 3.5% return on investment. Wastewater is paying a 3.5% also. And a couple of the things we wanted to go over with you today is really talk about how is the return on investment calculated for each of the utilities? How are revenues grouped, and then how is it considered in the budgeting process? So really quick on the second bullet point, which you can see, each of the utilities does have several revenue codes that make up the return on investment and how it's calculated for the utilities. For presentation purposes, we have grouped these into four different categories. You can see residential, commercial rate revenue, wholesale rate revenue, which would be water and wastewater, and then other revenue, which for the electric fund is T-cost revenue. So in the table, you can see here the utilities. We have the electric fund, the water fund, and wastewater. The fund balance, you did see these over the last few weeks as we talked about the budget presentation for each utility. So for the electric fund, ending fiscal year 2021, which is the fiscal year coming up, we do currently project to have $73.5 million in fund balance for the electric fund. For the water fund, it's $17.8, and for wastewater, it's $13.4. Currently the return on investment for each of the utilities is summarized for you in this column here. For electric, it's currently 11.9, this does include the increase from 3.5 to 6% return on investment for electric. For water, it's 1.4 million, and then for wastewater, it's 1.1 million. Jessica had mentioned this earlier, if you were to increase the return on investment for each of the utilities by 0.5%, electric would increase $991,000. Water would increase 197,000, and then wastewater would be 150,000. So all those combined is about 1.4 million increase per year. Nick, real quick question. Yes, sir. I'm looking for your slide presentation. Where is it in the, I was looking at presentation of future options. Yes, the backup presentation that was on the city's website actually did not include these slides. These were uploaded today, and I think Jessica may have sent these out. I think she did. Yes. Okay. Hopefully you have those in your email. You bet. All right. Thank you. And then this slide, what it does, it summarizes the fund balance for each of the utilities over a five-year period. We didn't put the 10-year period in here for space availability on this slide. This was something that's previously discussed with you in the budget presentations for the utilities. So starting on your left-hand side, you can see the electric fund balance for the five-year period, 2021 being the proposed budget. So currently we do have an ending fund balance, as you've seen on the previous slide, is 73.5 million for the electric fund. If we were to increase the ROI from the 6% to 6.5% until fiscal year 2023, which it would go back down according to what council approved a couple of months ago, it'd be 72.5. In each of the utilities, we do have a target, a minimum, and a maximum. In the electric fund, we do have a minimum target of 16% with a maximum of 21%. This does equate to 60 to 75 days. This number that you're seeing here in this tan color is actually the minimum, so 37 million of the minimum fund balance target for the electric fund. In each of the five years, you can see if we did increase that ROI, the fund balance still does stay above that minimum reserve requirement, not impacting those rate payers in that five-year picture. For the water fund, same thing here, you can see fiscal year '21 through '25, '21 being the proposed budget we're currently talking to you about now, and we'll continue through September 22nd through adoption. The current annual fund balance is 17.8. If we were to increase that return on investment from 3.5 to 4%, so an increase of 0.5, the fund balance would go to 17.5. The minimum, we're out there at the minimum target for water, which is 33%, with the maximum being 50%. For the five-year period, you can see that we do stay above that minimum target in each of the five-year window. Same thing here, there would be no rate impact to the water utility customers. And then we do currently, this does consider that 2% rate decrease that's been discussed for City Council and the Public Utility Board for water customers. Wastewater, same thing here, five-year picture, the current fund balance is 13.4. You can see the minimum of 10.3. As you go on the future years, with the increased ROI, we would slightly drop below that minimum requirement in fiscal year 2024 and 2025, but we did want to point that out to the City Council. The return on investment conversation, and really this has been discussed with Council in the past. This is a 6% cap on net investment for the utilities. This is something the Finance Department calculates annually as part of the CAFR process to ensure that we're not exceeding that 6% cap of net assets for the utilities. And I'll talk to you a little bit more about this on the next slide and give you a little bit more information about what it currently is. So as I said, this is a 6% cap. This is not looked at on an individual utility basis, it is looked at at all the utilities together. This is simply total assets minus total liabilities. So you can see for all the utilities, which would include water, wastewater, and electric, it does exclude solid waste, the 6% cap would be $44.1 million. With the current ROI that is being calculated based on those current revenues that are included in the budget of $14.3, you can see we are well below that $44.1 million cap. If we increase the ROI 0.5% for each of the utilities, we still are well below that cap, about $28.3 million. So with that, I will pull down the presentation, Mayor, for questions. Council Member Meltzer and then Council Member Davis and then Council Member Briggs. I thought that the ROI might have been about the ROI on the investment in economic development. Yeah, I mean, my comments are more that I think are more general, that I think this is a very good and thought-provoking kind of situation analysis, you know, and it's got, I think we've got a good understanding of our goals and I think, and the situation, that I would find this exercise to be a lot more powerful and energizing and focusing for those who've got to go implement it if now the work was done to kind of shake the data through this framework. There's a little bit that strikes me as actionable in the very big way, like 2B52, the idea of target successful startups, business incubators that are on the cusp of outgrowing the existing spaces, like, okay, you can kind of go and do that. Or in, where'd it go, 2C21, identify businesses that are high-electricity users, such as data centers and so on. Like, that's actionable. You can go and do that, but I think this, you know, this framework is still so broad that I don't think it is at this point yet a really motivating plan, and I think if you do that and take it to that next step where you've got a really sharp definition of opportunities that truly fit Denton's unique resources that are really out there, and then you can assess what they actually need to relocate, then I think the analysis of what the resources are is going to be a lot more compelling, you know, because right now we say, well, other communities have these funds, we don't really have any evidence that they're getting anything for it, you know, I mean, I just think we'll have just a much stronger business case when we take it, you know, kind of another step. That would be my guidance, I think a lot of great groundwork has been laid. Okay. Councilmember Davis and then Councilmember Briggs. A couple of questions and then direction if we're ready for it. I'm not sure for that stage yet if we want to have some more questions first. Nick, can you help us understand how ROI and the funds that are returned from the utilities to the general fund interact with the rate? You talked about no impact to rate payers, but I think some rate payers taking a look at a 17 or excuse me, a $70,000, sorry, $70 million fund, say, well, if there's that kind of money sitting in the bank, why is that money not subsidizing my rate? Why is my rate X, if the utility has that kind of over and above reserve sitting in the bank? Yeah, absolutely. Mayor, is it okay if I pull my presentation back up to address the question? Okay. So, that's a great question, Councilmember Davis. Let me pull up a couple slides. First, the one I want to talk to you about is absolutely and I probably didn't touch on this a little bit earlier, but I want to make sure I get the detail out there for all the council members. This current ROI that you see in this column, so $11.9 million for electric, $1.4 million for water, and $1.1 million for wastewater. These are the ROIs that are currently built into the proposed budget at the current rate. So for electric, of course, it's 6%, water is 3.5 and wastewater is 3.5. What I was saying earlier about it having a minimum impact or no impact to the rate base, you're absolutely correct. The fund balance in these funds that you see on this slide are very healthy. I mean, you can see, for example, on water, I mean, I'm sorry, electric, the current fund balance is 73.5, even with this increased ROI, it's still 72.5 with that minimum being 37. What this slide doesn't show you, in the 10-year forecast, this fund balance is above the reserve requirement in several of the years, slightly dripping below in the out years. So is there immediate rate impact to the customers in the five-year window? To answer your question, there would not be in the utility funds because they do all have healthy fund balances currently. Really on the return on investment calculation itself, how is it figured? It's figured off several object codes. It's been pre-identified by the city management staff and city councils discussed it over the several years. It's definitely a lot more detailed than this slide points out. There are four categories in this slide. There's probably 20 to 30 revenue codes that fit into these categories as calculating their return on investment. Councilmember Davis, hopefully that answers your question. In summary, the fund balances for each utility are healthy. It would not require a rate increase to do this increase in ROI within the next five-year window. Well, my question is, I think we have to bring the presentation down first, yeah. Sorry, just a second. My question's really even more basic than that. I think that the average rate payer looks at money in the bank and says, "Why isn't that money, instead of doing ROI or instead of being held in a more than healthy reserve, why is that not just turned right back into operation of the utility? Why aren't we giving people free power for a year if we've got $70 million in the bank?" I understand what you're saying about how we calculate that and where the codes are and how we do the accounting, but can you help us understand from a business operations standpoint why it is that that money just doesn't turn right back into the operation side? The utility is in the fund balance philosophy there. You're going to have 60 to 90 days of operating capital because all these utilities are so subject to weather patterns. The electric fund, water fund in particular, very subject to ... You have a real wet year, for instance, with water, it's going to affect their bottom line. If you have a very mild summer or a very mild year, it's going to really affect the electric utility's bottom line. So we're accounting for movements in the weather patterns. We obviously can't tell you in two or three years what the weather patterns are going to look like. The other component to that are obligations that we make to the bond companies and our investors that hold up the city's bond investments out there that we will have enough cash in the bank that if we really get hit hard through weather patterns or some other disaster that we'll still be able to pay the bondholders who purchased our certificates when we went out of the market. So those two components typically make up the rationale and reasoning for why we're holding those dollars in the bank. What you've seen from staff over the last two or three years, particularly water, wastewater, electric and solid waste, all four of those funds, there's a constant analysis going on. What do our cash needs look like the next 24 to 36 months? Can we afford to give back some money to the great payers? In every single one of these funds, we've been able to do that, particularly solid waste. So that's the calculation and the thought process that we churn through every year. It's the promises to the folks holding our bonds and making sure that we've got cash in the bank. If something really hits us, we've got two to three months there that we can weather a natural disaster. Thank you. I think my next question is probably a Jessica question. Thank you. So my question is about timeline and process. So obviously right now we're looking at a big strategy document. We're talking big 50,000 foot terms. I want to be able to give good and helpful direction on funding strategies for the catalyst fund because obviously the whole strategy is important, but I think the core issue today is that catalyst fund. At what point will we be talking about policies and strategies specifically for that fund, use guidelines, how that money is going to be spent in a specific way? Because I think the way that we use that fund tells us how it's appropriate to fund it. For instance, if we cared a lot about growing existing firms, local small businesses, and we wanted to use a certain percentage of that fund or a certain, you know, some guiding philosophy of how we want to use that fund to help small existing businesses, that might inform us on how we want to best fund it, what funding mechanism is most appropriate. So are we going to be doing those things kind of, if there's a funding ordinance in front of us, at that same time, are we going to have a policy directive ordinance in front of us or a, you know, a set of guiding principles for how the catalyst fund is used also ratified by us at the same time? So I'm going to refer you back specifically to, let's use an example from the implementation matrix to kind of talk through the process of how this works, and this might get to Councilmember Melter's question from before as well. So under the implementation matrix, we have a statement that says, "Target successful startups and business incubators, accelerators that are on the cusp of outgrowing their existing spaces and are positioned for expansion and relocation." And so you're correct. That doesn't tell us much other than there's more work to be done. It doesn't tell us specifically what the policy needs to be, what the funding mechanism needs to be. But what you'll see in the implementation matrix is that's targeted for the year three to five area. So in years one to three, we're doing the groundwork. We're doing the legwork. We're doing the research and the data analysis to put together that policy that will then come forward to City Council to specifically engage in accomplishing that task in future years. The goal isn't at this point to tell us exactly what route we need to be on, but to know that that is a strategic focus and a strategic priority, and we need to take steps to identify how to do that and what policies and specific practices need to be put in place to enable us to do that. To answer the question a little bit further, I will say that as part of this process, it is clear that there are amendments and changes that we need to make on a preliminary basis to our existing policy that we can do that will already enable us some more creative uses than we have in our existing incentive and abatement policy. And those are steps that we'll need to target over time and work through. If Council decides that these are the strategies and these are the goals, we're going to continue to bring back items to put these into practice. Thanks very much. And I'll hold off on direction until some other folks have had a chance to ask questions and I hear those answers. And I'd just add to Jessica's response to you, Councilmember Davis, that there are other communities that are well ahead of us in terms of their 4A, 4Bs that do have structured programs and eligible uses for those dollars, and so I think that's perfectly reasonable. If we're looking at one of these potential options, this whole exercise was really kicked off by some questions the EDP had as well as city staff about how much of a competitive disadvantage are we up against with Frisco, Allen, McKinney, some of these other cities with large 4A, 4Bs since our tax goes to DCTA and it's limited. So they came up with a pot of money, we have not put exactly the program requirements about how that would actually, what those eligible uses and expenditures would be, which absolutely should accompany any document once we start building up that pot of money. If we don't know what the eligible uses are, staff can't put a reasonable proposal together. So it's going to have to go together. Okay, Councilmember Briggs and Councilmember Barmiter. Thank you, Mayor. My question and comment were similar to Councilmember Davis's. So first of all, I want to say I am in favor of an economic development fund. I know it's important. I know that we are behind some other cities, but like him, I am having an issue with the funding mechanism without establishing goals and restrictions on what that can come from, mostly because right now, you know, in our community, you know, there's no choice for electricity and you have a perception where the utility bills may be high, some people may be facing disconnection, and then to his point, you know, you see this $73 million. Why aren't my rates being lowered? And why are we giving large corporations money from the utility fund instead of, you know, taking care of our rates? So that would be one of the things that I'm concerned about and how we're going to address that and answer those questions when they're asked to us. The second thing is I'm curious, and I also reached out to the city management about our charter, I think it's 12.03, and if we can go over that, because I know it's very specific on what we can use those revenues for, and why aren't we using some of that fund balance to pay off some of the debt as well? We routinely go through the debt opportunities to either refinance or call debt on a very few months with our bond council. So one of the things that's hurt us recently, Councilmember Biggs, is Congress passed a law a few years ago not allowing us to do advanced refinancing anymore, advanced refunding, which really hurt us and our ability to save some additional dollars and give that money back. But in the opportunities where we do have the ability to call that and either refinance it or pay it off, we're doing that aggressively. It's purely up to the council, obviously, how we devise and use the fund balance. The charter, we've checked with legal, we gave you the same answer in April. The proposal that we're putting together, as long as it's going through the proper calculations as Nick reviewed, they believe it is in conformance with the charter. So we gave that answer to you in April, we're giving the same answer today in August. But it's really going to get down to with the fund balance, we could potentially draw down the fund balances, the reserves a little bit more. This pie would look a whole lot different and we could set up different programs if that's something that the council would like us to look into. From an economic development perspective, your options are extremely limited and we did it to ourselves with the half cent sales tax vote and sending that to DCTA. We've investigated the possibility of putting that back on the ballot and either changing the funding formula. The issue that we've got is DCTA has become heavily reliant on that half cent sales tax from Lewisville and Denton. We are funding about 75% of that agency and it would be years and years and years before we could get out of there without having our dollars unobligated to them. So it's really not a practical solution. So we're looking at other venues right now with DCTA to start returning some dollars back to the community. So you really have a few options given the size of the fund that our consultants have told us, the economic development competitive fund that we need, there's really only a few options at your disposal, which we've got to review today. If you wanted us to go back and the council wanted us to go back and take a look at hey, how do we tighten down the reserves even more and try to both accomplish some mild rate relief as well as establishing the fund and maybe it doesn't have to be to the scope and the speed and the dollar amount that you're saying, that's certainly an option too. But it's a puzzle piece that we're trying to put together, but we do have two very limited choice behind us. On there, is there a way to tie back the money, say if this went forward, is there a way to tie back the money, the incentives used directly to the energy use or the electric fund? So is there a way to show that direct connection? I think in some cases you can, I need to get with our legal staff to understand confidentiality issues, that sort of thing, but there's some users out there which are, they really take advantage of the efficiency curve and help our residents. There may be very high users in off peak times, for instance, when we'd be dumping power. So in those cases, I'm sure Terry and the team out at DME could help us with that in terms of vetting that philosophy. I don't know that it's always going to be that relevant or obvious, but with some certain industries, it's very obvious the impact they're having. I have one last question for Jessica, maybe, or Nick, it doesn't have to do with the electric fund, but I did notice on the budget, the 150,000 mixed beverage amount is going in and that used to be allocated for the downtown reinvestment grants. And I know now that's funded through a different fund. So what are you using those funds for with economic development? So the downtown TURS funds the $100,000 that used to come from the mixed beverage for the downtown grant. That transition was made in the last fiscal year. This is an additional $150,000 that goes into the investment fund. So not to preview what the rest of council will see later, but the two grants that you saw on EDP be in the last few months, those are using the investment fund, that's a separate fund. Okay. So, so the mixed beverage tax, the 150,000 goes into that, the fund that you're, you're speaking of? Yes. The investment fund. Okay. Thank you. Council member Armitter and then council member Meltzer. So first, I want to say just how impressed I am with everything that our economic and financial staff have done in the almost a kind of wizardry and really in difficult financial times, figuring out how to keep doing this thing that we call economic development. So I want to acknowledge how impressed I am with, with the work that you all have done and how much I value that. I want to say that I happen to feel that we should be in relief mode. So as far, and as far as our utility funds go, I'm not in favor of, and this is in any kind of economic times, using our utility reserves to do anything other than keeping rates low. I, that's important to me. I understand that that's not mandated by the charter, but that's just, it's an important value. It's one of mine, one of the things that I ran on. So I feel strongly about that. But I do want to say that I'm, I'm, I'm glad that we, we have an economic development department that is focused on, on growth and attracting new businesses. But for me right now, I feel like we need to be in relief mode and using whatever reserves we have to provide relief that the state and federal government aren't spending on our, our locally owned businesses. But I want to make it clear that this is what I see as a short term plan. There is such a need for economic development with a long term plan. So I love these ideas for the long term, except for the utility idea, which I realize is a big chunk of it. But anyway, I wanted to, to let that be known that that's where I stand and to make it clear, you know, that I'm not, or rather to make it clear that I'm focused really on relief mode in the short term. So that's, that's where my mind is right now, but I'm grateful for your work and thank you. Thank you, council member. Council member Melser. Yeah, and I'll note that the, the plan rightly does say we should be in kind of recovery focus first, but on the utility question, would it, would it be possible and would it be adequate? Apologies, council member Davis, if you're about to bring this up, would it be possible and would it be adequate to fund this effort just through a return on commercial and industrial utility revenues? I'm going to defer to Nick or David. Council member Melser. Absolutely. If that's the direction we receive from city council, we can do that point five return on investment for the economic development fund based on particular revenues. So we can bring that conversation back to city council of this direction we receive. I appreciate that. And you know, I'm sympathetic to that, to the point that, you know, residents, residents would expect the benefit of a municipal utility to be, you know, that returns to the extent possible going to keep rates low. Okay, anybody else, a couple of comments. The fund balance, Mr. City Manager, I think the fund balance is high in the utility electric fund. Number one, we were at one point going to pay off either the scrubber debt or something related to TMPA, which was, I think, 15 or $20 million or $24 million or something to that effect. And instead, we extended that financing out to 2024. Is that correct? You're right. Yes. I think two years ago, I believe it was $28 million. And it's obviously been paid down a little bit. So we have been setting aside some dollars for both the scrubber debt, as well as any decommissioning costs that we might be associated with, with the Gibbons Creek shutdown. So the fund balance does contain funding that otherwise we're going to, it's going to be required in the near future, a substantial amount of funding, whether we're decommissioning or if the plant somehow is bought and sold, we still have to pay off. There's still a lot of funding that's going to be required from sources outside of DME operations that are contained within just the city of Denton. Is that correct? You're correct. Okay. So I just wanted to say that. Now, as far as the ROI, I mean, what I'm hearing is for the next five years, because of the fund balances, that's why it does not require a rate increase. But then further out, that might not be the case, depending on how the electric funds and things, water and wastewater and things like that are run. I guess though, when you talk about bifurcating the ROI, the increase in ROI for economic development based upon commercial or industrial revenue, you're saying that in that process as well, you're able to, any increase in the rates due to that additional revenue or additional ROI would be only applied to the industrial or commercial rate users. Is that correct? Or is it still all just sort of in the same big bucket? We can separate that out, Mayor, if that's the direction we see from city councils, we can bring that conversation back to you, but that is a possibility if that's the direction we receive. Yes. And I understand that approach. I guess I just want to caution that economic development is just not for the benefit of the commercial businesses in the city. I mean, economic development provides jobs when we pass them with jobs coming to Denton. Economic development provides other opportunities and it provides an avenue to keep the overall tax rate low and the overall utility rates low that applies to everyone across the board. So I would want us to think very carefully and really do a lot of analysis if we start bifurcating that, because in some ways you're saying that it really doesn't benefit anyone else and I disagree with that. And as far as being in relief mode, I think that since March of this year, this city council and the city management has definitely been in relief mode to the point of we've allocated almost a million dollars for various ways to be able to help our citizens. And number two, we've had access, our citizens have had and do have access to the COVID funding at the county level for either rental assistance, as we saw in that slide, how many families had been helped with rental assistance and then we just reallocated $175,000 I believe to our nonprofit partner to help with utility payments. So I really think that we have been doing that and you can't stop growing. You can certainly be more mindful, you can be very tactical and strategic in how you approach those funding mechanisms and as far as understanding, it's almost like the cart or the horse, what I'm hearing is, do we wanna talk about how we create this fund before we talk about the policies that will govern the fund? And I'm not so sure that, I don't know if we need to wait for that, we can certainly begin to accumulate the fund and council can give direction to staff that, well, we also need to continue to develop policies on guidelines on how this fund is gonna be spent. But if, I mean, I think council member Melcer, you said that you didn't know how these other funds that these cities around us, their sales tax or the EDB funds, are they getting any benefit from it? All you gotta do is look around. I mean, the growth around the periphery of Denton, at least to the south and to the southeast is tremendous and most of those municipalities have a sales tax fund that's contributing anywhere from two to three, four or five million dollars a year. Plano allocates, I believe dedicates, I thought it was a penny at one point of their ad valorem taxes to economic development. So if we think that we can get by without having a way to be competitive with these other communities, I mean, it seems like some people are concerned and some complain that we're not attracting the right companies. Well, part of the reason that is, is because we don't have the incentives that are at the level that will get their attention. You know, I believe Toyota, if I remember correctly, Plano paid their portion of their incentives to get Toyota with six million dollars. And I will tell you, that doesn't seem like a whole lot of money to get a national headquarters. Tesla, down in Austin, I think the total incentive from everybody out there, including the school district, was 60 million dollars. And I do want to say one thing about that. Everybody's excited about Tesla going to Austin, but understand that they're starting wages for some of their frontline workers is thirty five thousand dollars a year. That's less than what was being offered, than what Tyson was being offered, even at twenty dollars an hour. So I'm ready to give direction on the fund. The ROI, my only concern with that is it seems to mix, you know, to use it. The ROI originally was just simply to say the city of Denton needs to get something back because we're taking the risk to have those operations. I don't think I would be very uncomfortable using the ROI from the utility, either electric or any of the utility funds, as some kind of funding mechanism to that we have sort of a way we can grab money when we need it on some type of sustainable basis. I think if we're going to do something like that, we also do need to look at do we need to recapture some of our sales tax incentives that are rolling off or do we need to look at our ad valorem tax and say, hey, it's important to everyone in this community to have an economic development fund that it can attract the businesses that will continue to give our citizens upward economic mobility in our city. So I probably would lean more on I think we need to look at what do we need to do from a ad valorem tax perspective because that's on property owners, people who own real property, whereas ROI does, unless we bifurcate it, does impact potentially the rates for those who are at different economic levels that may not be able to ignore that impact. And also, one final thing, the utility, the electric fund balance is also, from what I remember, its purpose is also a rate stabilization fund. In other words, energy prices change quite often. And what that does is it allows some of those energy spikes or price spikes to be absorbed without having to change the ECA rate all the time on each monthly bill so that people's bills really have a spike in one month and they'll have a decrease the next month. It helps keep it a little bit more level. So that's one of the reasons why also we have a healthy fund balance is to ensure that we can provide some type of stabilization for people in the rate structure. All right. Any more comments? I guess somebody summarize for me the direction that you're needing. We will reach out and put together some proposed program, I guess, eligibility requirements. But I think what we're needing to understand is we've presented a bond election. I'm sorry, economic development tax election. We've presented a one cent property tax increase. We presented the possibility of additional ROI. Is a majority of council comfortable with any of those as we're building the parameters to use that bond? Is that the direction you're needing of those options, if any, in order to create a more robust fund for being competitive in the marketplace? Okay. All right. Council Member Davis. So I favor the aggressive approach. We had it laid out for us in a stay the same, moderate approach, an aggressive approach. I favor the aggressive approach to developing a catalyst fund. I think that it's a mixed bag. I think it's a mixed approach. I think the three prong approach we saw in the TIP strategies presentation included general fund, it included community contributions, and it included DME contributions. I think that's the way to go about it, and if there's a, as we look at the policies and we look at the makeup of the fund, if there's a way to segregate out or to at least kind of philosophically or in a counting sense, show us that commercial rates are contributing more to the fund, that the residential rate is not impacted by some of that ROI going to the fund. I need people to know that their residential rates as a apartment dweller or a renter isn't subsidizing the next big corporation coming in. And when we look at how we spend the fund, I'd really like to give solid consideration to existing local firms. However we set that up, whatever, whether it's a percentage or whether it's a set of guiding philosophies, one of the best ways to grow jobs is to grow the firms you already have. So if that's, if we can help people relocate to a larger space, if we can help folks build a larger space, whatever it is, I'd like to give solid consideration to that. So that's my, that's my direction. Okay, so just to summarize, your ROI, the ROI approach is your approach of preference? Yeah, I think so. Okay, all right. Okay. Any other council members, Mayor Pro Tem? I think I have a couple of notes first that I want to get out and then I'll get to that. So we've heard it, and I'll pick up where Council Member Davis left off because it's an interesting point. He touches on focus on local business per se. You hear the kind, the other buzzwords you'll hear are local owned businesses, etc. And so, I don't know how that works for staff if that's a whole different consultant that looks at that. But I really would like to have that, a deep dive into that discussion so that it is equalized. We have businesses that are born and raised here, we have businesses that are moved here. But ultimately, there's people that live here that work at all those across the board. So I don't know how we can segregate and say this company was originated here, ergo, it benefits the community better than a company that locates here and employs more people. So I think we need to boil that down a bit and say, here's the benefit to those who live in our community, irrespective of where the company started, headquartered, etc. Just so we can have, we want to benefit the citizens of Denton and those businesses from out of town or in town hire Denton people, and that's important. So I don't know how to boil that down. I just want to have that conversation normalized. Councilmember, excuse me, Mayor Pro Tem, if I could, I believe that we present that almost exact information in our net revenue report, so I'm happy to take a further look at that. And that includes both our BRE grants and our attraction grants, and maybe repackage that information for you, so I think we can get that information to you. Yes, even to one, to digest that, to disseminate that, right, if there's a way to one-page it with, I mean, a lot of these are laid out pretty well, or it's pretty easy to digest, that would be fantastic, so thank you. And then to pick up where you left off, Mr. City Manager, I really would like to see a plan that lays out, and I may be alone in this, but I really would like to see a plan that lays out both of these tracks simultaneously, a path to look at DCTA and see what options are there and play that out long-term, and then a path to look at this growth plan by itself to say, this is going to take 2023 to get this kind of up and running, but at the same time, that doesn't mean we can't go down this other track, and I've been on record a lot. I mean, and this downturn really hurts because I was looking to get part of that 14 million back that we've been paying them every year, and I'm sure it's not there at this point, but I've been open and honest about my concerns, and I'd like to have that conversation or at least understand what it would take to get, affect change in that way, in a real way for the taxpayers. So then I guess for me, the last thing is for direction. I do share people's concerns about the DME ROI approach, but it'll be interesting to see as we have conversations about the Gibbons Creek plant, if that commitment to the rate payers locally maintains, or if it somehow wanes a bit. So I'm willing to be committed to the local rate payers because that's who we represent, and at the same time, if we can make a piggyback offer, Council Member Davis's statements, if we can show that we're protecting the rates, I'm comfortable showing the benefits and steps we've taken to keep the rates lower. We've done a lot of good, made a lot of tough decisions to lower them outside of this decision. So I'm for the aggressive approach that I guess it's slide 36 of 42 that Council Member Davis represented or spoke to as DME city and business contributions that go forward to it. And that's the catalyst fund being fed by those three with the focus on the business side of protecting the rate payers, if you will. And like I said, I'll be interested to make sure we stay that course and we're consistent that we protect our local rate payers first and foremost. - Okay, all right. So let me make sure I understand for clarity's sake because Council Member Davis, you had said the aggressive approach primarily being funded from ROI, is that correct? - Yes, that's correct. - Okay. And Council Member, Mayor Pro Tem Hutspeth, you're saying funded from ROI, city and then some other particular funding formula, is that correct? - That is correct. Yeah, it's the visual laid out on that one slide, but yes, that's my approach. - Okay, all right. Okay, all right. Okay, who else? Council Member Ryan. - Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I think the ROI is a creative way to handle this and in many ways, it's not all one big pot of money, but it is just as we recently moved 2.5% additional from the electrical fund to help cover some of our losses on the sales tax side this year because of the situation that we've had. This is doing the same thing. We could just put more ROI into the general fund and have the general fund then do a little bit more, take some property tax or something and you're just shifting where the numbers are coming from, but I prefer that approach. One of the items I'd like to see is as we've had growth in commercial and residential over the last several years, has it been a balanced growth of commercial and residential or are we seeing a little bit more in the commercial side that in actuality, that's helping to pay for itself in a better way than some of the other approaches of taking it straight off of a sales tax or straight off of a property tax increase or anything like that. - So Council Member Ryan, are you for the aggressive approach as well with the ROI form of funding? - Yes. - Okay. All right. Who else? Council Member Meltzer. - I'm interested in your hearing what staff comes back with regarding the idea of bifurcating the ROI approach, not because it doesn't benefit everyone. I take your point, Mr. Mayor. It's just that there are a bunch of objectives, keeping rates low is also an objective, but that's why I also, because it does potentially benefit everyone, I also like the idea of bringing an election, bringing it to the voters regarding incremental envelope if they want to fund that. And then I think that would lead us to really work out the policies first, what exactly we ask them to fund. But as far as level, yeah, I guess the thing I'm most interested in funding today is the continuing work of the Economic Development Department to do the analysis and create the really sharper, compelling set of targets and tactics, and that'll tell us what level we need to be at. And I take your point that others apparently are doing it well, but I'm looking forward to hearing the information about what tactics are working well and what those cost. It's just going to be a sharper business case if we let the department do its work first. Okay. So as far as direction... Yeah. So it's ROI with that, you know, let's see the analysis of the bifurcated flavor. Don't know how much that could potentially generate, that that would also indicate whether there's a need for a second tactic. And the second tactic that I'm interested in is the, you know, ad valormal action. Okay. All right. So as far as aggressive, keep it the same or somewhere in the interim, you're wanting to see the analysis of that. I need a better business plan available to say. Okay, that's fine. Yep. All right. Okay. Who else? Council Member Briggs? I'm still where I am, where I was earlier, as far as the different mechanisms, I'm not real sure. I mean, I can see if we're talking about utilities, I can see the major strategy of sustainability directly correlating and relating to that, where it makes more sense to use that. But I know we're talking about this fund for overall, but until those mechanisms and things are in place, I'm not real comfortable, but I'm good going along with the conversation and continuing to talk about ways to increase this fund, because I know that we need it. My question would be, is there a way or would it be a requirement or can council request that that type of decision be put to a vote from the residents? Which decision are you referring to? The use of the utility funds. Okay, we'll have legal take a look at that and get back with us on that. Okay. Thank you. All right, Council Member Armitage. So I too am where I stood earlier. I don't approve under any kind of economic situation using utility funds to do anything other than maintain our utilities and keeping rates low and providing also utility relief. I include that in keeping rates low, keeping the cost low for our resident owners. As far as the other options, I find them all really interesting and although I don't support going ahead with them now, because like I said, I'm very much in relief mode now, and I think that's where we need to be. Much like with the family, if you had a plan to buy a new car and then there's some medical emergency, everybody's going to understand you still need a new car, but first we're going to take care of this medical emergency, come back to the car next year. So I like the way that Council Member Meltzer put it, that you guys do such valuable work in economic development, and I would like to see that time spent looking at the trends as they change in this new COVID and then post-COVID economy, which is going to happen at some point. So I just feel like we're not ready now, but by that I don't mean I don't feel that your work is not ready. I just feel like the way the economy is, I don't think that we need to come up with a plan for growth now. I think now we need to plan for relief, and we need to watch the trends, and that's where you guys come in doing your excellent work. Okay, I believe we can do both. I think we can plan for relief and I think we also can plan for growth. The conversation that we're talking about is going to be another few months in the making, determining how we bifurcate, what are some of the policy implications and some of the policy strategies on how we spend that funding. There's all kinds of discussions that are going to occur, so it's better to start sooner than later. When you look at how many residential subdivisions are on the ground within the city limits, they're not stopping. They're moving forward. So I think we've got a good opportunity here and I think we have been doing both. It's not that we're just going to start doing both. So just to give staff some direction, it seems like, I mean, I'm okay with the aggressive approach just from the standpoint of putting a presentation together. That doesn't mean that after the presentation, I'm going to necessarily continue to agree with that, but I think we need to give you some direction on what you're supposed to be sort of planning for. I think the ROI is okay for me. I still would like to see something different and one of it may be either an allocation of property taxes or and/or an election to the community to see how important economic development is, but let's make no mistake. When you look at the tax rate this year, part of what is built baked into the tax rate is new growth. Where's David? Is David Gaines or somebody? What's built in there is new growth. If new growth stops in any form, whether it be residential, commercial, utilities, you will see our tax rate and our utility rates begin to climb. Because if all of us conserved all the water we could, you still have to pay for the fixed costs of a utility system. So it's a very complicated business, both in terms of operations and financial planning. So I appreciate everybody that is in that and helps us with that. I guess for the purposes of discussion, when I heard that we have an investment of dollars in economic development, apparently some of that is including just the staff and all that. To me, that's just a given. I felt it was probably be more descriptive if it's what money do we have to actually provide for some funding, whatever mechanism it is, whatever policies that it's subject to, to help either local businesses or new businesses to expand and to improve opportunities for their employees and for the citizens in our city. So I think in the future, if we could sort of maybe screen off the administrative costs, because I just consider that's just staff time, that's the software we're needing to do it, but how many dollars do we actually have to provide help with either local or new businesses? So that would be helpful in the future. All right. I think you have your direction in that regard, a lot of work to do. I appreciate all the work that y'all have done on this and the strategic plan. I think we've got some more discussions to have about that, but look forward to them as we move forward. All right, we're going to go on to the next agenda item, which is agenda item 3C, ID 20-1185. Receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding the economic development partnership and contract between the city of Denton and the Denton Chamber of Commerce. Well, you still get me for a little bit longer, mayor and council members, but I'm going to have some special guests helping me with the presentation. So I am going to help with the presentation, Jill Juster, who's the current chamber board president and Erica Pangburn, who is the, sorry, Erica's the chamber president and Jill is the board chair. So I'm going to introduce them and Jill is going to take over as soon as I get the screen share started. It hasn't been that long of a meeting yet, Jessica. All right. I'm live and good to go. They don't get to see me. Oh, lucky you all. Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you so much for the opportunity to address this group. We certainly appreciate everything that you all do, and it is an absolute privilege to have this opportunity to talk to you today. The reason I'm here today is the same reason that you all are here. Denton is my home. It is part of who I am, and I care very much about the financial vitality of this city. I've known for a long time that with some of the advantages that come with the city of Denton, we also have some challenges and that we need to do more than rely on Avalorum taxes in order to make the city what we want it to be, what we need it to be and what we want it to be. That brings us to our economic development partnership. So I don't know what you were doing in 1986, but Oprah Winfrey debuted her show, Top Gun was released, and I was a young Spry student at Denton High School listening to Janet Jackson and Falco's Rock Me Amadeus. During that time, this group was putting together the first year of the economic development partnership agreement between the Chamber and the city. As you can see in the past, the city has provided funds for administration and operations of the Chamber's office, and it included personal costs to do the things that are listed on the slide to work on prospect generation activities, marketing activities, and the small business development center support. Significant efforts, I can tell you, Scouts Honor have been made for the past few years, and that's a big shout out to Caroline Booth, to Jessica Rogers, Chuck Carpenter, Todd Heidelman, Erica Pangberg, and many others. There's been a lot of work going into improving how to be the best that we can and attract the best groups here to continue to supply my small business with clients and other small businesses with patrons and purchasers. So we come to the economic development strategic plan. So throughout this past year, as you had the, I won't go over again, you've had the presentation of the economic development strategic plan, but stakeholders have been engaged. I was one of those stakeholders, lucky enough to do that, and we are using that strategic plan as a guidepost for which strategies, goals, and work plans are developed. As you saw, it lays out not only some overarching goals in a 500-foot view, but also what types of implementation should be done, who would be doing it, when that can be done, and a lot of the implementation is, as you all have noted, the hard work, the boots on the ground. How are we going to make these big dreams happen? The economic development strategic plan, and I'm going to read this quote because I think it is a great quote, and it comes from our plan. What the city needs now is a modern approach to economic development that is appropriate for a community of our size and is capable of leveraging public and private resources to capitalize on the opportunities that lie ahead. And why do we believe that it works best to have this type of partnership? Because we have different resources, being those in the business community as well as those on the city side, and we also have different experiences that we can each bring to the table to be the best we can. It's been a hard year, and you can see the guiding principles in front of you and read those. And I just want to say that I absolutely know that it is a hard year for everyone in leadership, and I know a lot of hard decisions are being made, and we are having to make hard decisions in our individual businesses as well as at the chamber. What we have found through the last few months of weekly meetings with important people on both sides coming together to meet each other halfway is that we may be in different boats, but we are absolutely in the same storm, and our goals are absolutely the same. And that is accelerating recovery for our businesses that are here, fostering growth to bring in and lift that tide, and strengthening community inclusion, which is also important to all of our businesses and making Denton the place we want to be. That then leads us to the fiscal year 2020-2021 partnership agreement. So we do have a new strategic plan that looks different than you've ever seen before. It's centered on aligning work and identifying goals and strategies, and as I said, we've had weekly meetings between the city and the chamber with discussions focusing on resetting expectations, evaluating the relationship. The most important thing is developing a functional partnership that shares goals and objectives. And I think the strategic plan, especially the implementation portion, has been very helpful to make sure that we each know exactly what we are in charge of, what we are answerable to, and how are we going to keep that type of communication set. And we're going to be utilizing technology. We're going to be utilizing scheduled meetings, different types of meetings, and much more often with set agendas to make sure that all of the information is the same because we are part of the same team, wanting the same things for our city. With that, we've been working on fostering a sense of trust, transparency, and openness and developing a shared understanding of division of duties. And once again, there are too many people to name that have been giving of their time and taking off work to be here and taking off of other responsibilities. I know you all need to, but I do want to give a special recognition to Jessica Rogers, Erica Pangberg, and Todd Heidelman that have really shown that they have what is in the best interest of our residents at heart above any personal interests that anyone else has. And I could not be more excited as we enter what I truly believe is a new era of economic development for the city. And we very much appreciate you taking the time to listen to what we propose here today. Thank you so much. Now for the nuts and bolts, I'd like to introduce Erica Pangberg. She has completed her first year as president of the Denton Chamber of Commerce. We are very glad she has not run screaming away and has hung in with us. And again, she is a big part of why we are on this upward projectory. Thank you so much, Erica. Thank you very much. Hello, council persons. Forgive me. It's you're not in the room, but it's super tech savvy in here. I don't even know where to look. So I want you just to trust that I'm talking to you. This is the meat and potatoes. This is the nuts and bolts. This is the part where we put boots on the ground and answer the how. As you can see in front of you. We have lined out a very clear delineation of departmental responsibilities. You can see we've separated this out into what the Chamber's primary activities are, what the city's primary activities are, what joint ventures we are going to engage in and who's going to take the lead on that and what cooperative efforts that we'll be working together on. What's fun is that some of those cooperative efforts are already happening, which led us to the relationship building that took us down the path of putting this together. I'm not going to read everything on the screen for you. I believe that you have that in your packets, but I did think it was just important as we put the how together that everybody has a clear understanding of what their specific duties are. This is what helps us put together job descriptions around these tasks. This here is another example of the work plan. Again, the screen in front of you is really tiny, but this is a practical breakdown. So everything in the work plan points back to the strategic plan. In the little colored area at the top, the blue area or the green area, you can see where we line out the focus area. The focus area in this case is relationship building with developers, brokers, local industry and business. In the gray area, we point back to that specific focuses relationship to the strategic plan that is lined out in the strategic plan under goal number two, foster growth, strategic growth area to a connected dentin and strategic area to a point to attract new investment. If you had the same copies of the strategic plan that we have, then yours is probably flipped back and forth. It's threadbare, it's dog eared, and you have lots of arrows and bookmarks. Under those strategic plan items, again, in all 96 pages, there are specific identified tasks that tip strategies help laid out for us. And from those tasks, we laid out a list of work plan items. These are the daily, weekly, monthly activities that we will engage in in our respective departments. There's a work plan for the chamber side, and there's a work plan just like this laid out on the city side. Recognizing after the conversations that we've had around ROI today, having metrics that you can plug into a spreadsheet and assign value to is really important, but there's also an element to economic development. These projects are the result of healthy relationships that include ongoing commitment to specific values, sometimes over a long period of time. When developers come to town with ideas or when they start looking for land, sometimes it's several years before we see the fruition of all the work that goes into that. So we wrote out a list of values that we thought would help in defining our success, along with the specific metrics that Jessica's going to bring to you in a few minutes. I do want to go over these one at a time because I think they're really important. Alignment. Both entities, the city and the chamber, adopt and focus our efforts on implementing the strategic plan, which is what we've been doing for the past nine months. Understanding that our success as a community will require collaboration of the community. Engagement is another value that we're committed to, consistent engagement of the business community in the decisions and policies that impact them. So sometimes that will look like surveys. Sometimes that will look like task forces or those joint efforts, the committees. And that looks like the engagement of the private stakeholders that are actually writing the checks for the private investment. Accountability. This is where the regular check-ins, reports and meetings come in. We stay focused in each of the areas that we're each responsible for. We're committed to holding each other accountable regularly for tasks, goals, strategies and specific work plans. And I know that we all do this day to day. We make a list. We check the list. We make a list. We check the list. We go to the next thing. That's what this accountability is about. Meeting a set schedule of meetings, check-ins and reporting. And again, we're going to put some more details around what's going to be in those reports for you. We're committed to regular communication. The restored trust through open communication and regular frequent interactions. That's vital. As we have work plans in front of us, I can only be successful in mine if I trust that Jessica is responsible for completing the things in her work plan. I don't have time to complete my work plan and not trust that she's not completing her work plan. So just that trust and that relationship that comes from these regular meetings and a commitment to the outcome rather than a commitment to putting on the Erica show or putting on the Jessica show. And development. The development in the community is a defining success metric. We're going to stay focused on job creation, talent retention, streamlined development processes and economic development efforts that benefit the city and the chamber. A little while ago, I heard the mayor talking about how the development that's going on is not just for the benefit of the companies that are coming to Denton. That's 100% true. This economic development growth that we're discussing today is not something that was hindered for very long by COVID. The recovery aspect of this plan is really important and we have put things in place for us to engage at that. But the growth throughout the past five months, we've been responding to multiple RFPs. We've been hosting multiple site visits. Growth is still happening. There's over a million square feet of spec space going up in Denton right now. So there are some elements of our development that we're not just planning for things that are happening in the future. This is a plan to manage the development that's happening right now. I believe that's all of my part. Jessica is going to give you some of the numbers. Thank you. We apologize to our DTV staff for changing seats so many times and we appreciate them. So big thank you to them as well. The last part of the presentation is about how do we document success? If both sides are going to be successful, there needs to be a commitment from both entities to change the measuring stick. This has been a focus point of our conversations over the past few months, is that we have to shift from a metric-based approach to an outcome-oriented approach because what we found is that we can track all of the metrics in the world, but we're just requiring those for compliance instead of focusing on achieving a particular outcome. So instead we're going to shift to, yes, we're going to track metrics, yes, they're important, but we're going to view them as the indicators that they are and we're not going to require them for compliance. Instead, we're going to require compliance with the work plan instead of requirement with a metric. And we're going to focus on implementing the strategic plan. And we'll make sure that all of this is happening by going through those regular dialogues with a focus on openness and collaboration. So the first and foremost is that myself and the new vice president of economic development that is forthcoming on the chamber side will hold weekly stand-up meetings to discuss what's going on. These can be those 15-minute check-ins, making sure that both teams are working together and that we don't have some massive course correction that needs to be done, that we can touch base each week and that each staff is working towards a common goal. The second is covered a little bit in the strategic plan, but that's the inclusion of a monthly staff progress meeting with the economic development work group. And that should include the economic development partnership chair, utility staff, development services staff, city management, the chamber president, and other associated chamber staff to really just get together, get in a room, and provide those quick hits, talk about those metrics, talk about those outcomes, and make sure that everyone's on the same page and everyone's tracking where we need to be tracking. And then we're going to have integrated quarterly economic development reporting. In the past, we've bifurcated those reports. There's been a city report and a chamber report. And that gives the appearance that the city and the chamber aren't working together on economic development, when in fact, all of the activities that we're putting into this is our cooperative and collaborative efforts and we feel like we need to report as such. We view ourselves as one team and we need to make sure that the information that we're providing is coming from one team. And then lastly, is coming back to the council on a regular basis to track implementation of our strategic plan, to track our ongoing work plan items, to reevaluate what our priorities are and to make sure that the ongoing, that the big efforts that we're putting our staff behind on a day-to-day basis are meeting the outcomes that we want to meet. And if we're not, making sure that we're bringing forward solutions at that time to solve the problem before we really get off track. And so that's all that we have in terms of the, oh, I'm sorry, thought that was it. We have the proposed agreement terms. So the first is the term will run from October 1 to September 30th or 2021 in the new agreement. This agreement also includes an option for a one-year addition, additional extension. The goal with that would be if our new work plan and our new implementation is going on track that we have the opportunity to move forward with continuing the contract without having to renegotiate it at this time next year. The second item is a change in the funding. So the chamber has committed to a private fundraising goal of 125,000 and they'll match the city contribution of 125,000. This is saving. So this is an increase in the chamber fundraising goal, but an overall decrease in the amount of funding that's going towards the economic development effort. We were in terms of disagreement and we also included in the great draft agreement that's in your backup, a commitment to work with the chamber if for some reason the funding goal needs to be reviewed during the term of the agreement. And then lastly is that the work plan gets adopted as part of the agreement which includes the schedule of meetings and reports and it's a quite detailed document so I encourage you to review that in your backup that outlines specific actions and items that will be laid out as we go through the work plan and then through these meetings, what are we going to be doing on the daily, weekly or monthly basis to make sure that we're staying focused on the strategic plan implementation? And with that I will pause and stop sharing and open it up for questions. Okay Mayor Watts stepped away for a moment. So Jessica, do you want to frame what you would hope to elicit from the conversation or kind of direction you need off the top so that we can focus on that? Sure, I think our goal today is to make sure that City Council is comfortable with our approach for the new agreement. It's very similar to what you saw last year in which is an adoption of a work plan with our ongoing agreement with the chamber and I think the second is to the nuts and bolts of the agreement itself, the proposed term, the funding amounts and making sure that we get clear direction that the terms that the chamber in the city are working towards are agreeable. Perfect. And then Mayor Watts, I'll turn it over to you. I have not word to comments. Okay, Council Member Briggs. Thank you for the presentation. First, I want to say that I am okay with the contract and changes going forward. I do have a couple of questions about it though. You said that the goals and metrics that we had done in the past that we had discussed and implemented are going to kind of be changing and going away more towards a work plan, but I know that when we're on our Economic Development Board, there are updates and metrics and those are kind of checked. Will that remain the same or is that also going to go away? I think a little bit of both. So one of the first things that we're going to be doing and the chambers in the hiring process for their Vice President when that person comes on board, one of the first things that we need to work through is the determination of specifically what metrics are valuable, important, and what metrics are the indicators that we need to keep a handle on. We have a pretty good set of those right now, but what we don't want to do is use our very limited staff time on tracking metrics for the sake of tracking metrics, and we want to make sure that the indicators that we're using and the metrics that we're reporting on are good indicators of the outcomes that we want to achieve. And so some of those metrics that you've seen in past agreements such as tracking our social media influence, we're going to continue to review those, but probably at the staff level. We're not going to make a requirement of the agreement or we're not proposing to make a requirement of the agreement hitting a certain viewership on social media. However, social media and marketing is included as part of the monthly reporting that we want to make sure that we're tracking, but we're not necessarily mandating. If you don't hit this number of views, you're not performing or achieving the outcome that you want. Okay. All right. Because I know we just, it went from nothing for a long time to a few years of those metrics and those metrics were implemented because of the funding that came from the city. And I did see that that funding has decreased for this coming budget. My other question is, I know that one of the things that was mentioned is alignment and that we want to align and focus on the same things. One thing that was not mentioned that I know in the past where the city and maybe even the big giant chamber, not necessarily the local chamber, we're advocating for different things at the state level. And so I'm wondering when we pass or when we do our advocacy, are we going to make sure that we align on those with our chambers so that we are advocating for the same things and not against each other? So this particular agreement is specifically for the office of economic development and is not related to the chamber, the Denton chamber of commerce on the whole, or any of the regional chambers or any positions that they might take on a legislative or policy matter at the state level, if that answers your question. I think the issue that you're referring to most recently, we've had a lot of discussions with chamber board members about the need to have conversations if there's policy directions the city's taken that are of concern to them and vice versa. So I think that's outside the scope of this, but it's definitely something that we have gone back and had several conversations about, about how do we improve that to where we don't see one of us supporting a bill that the other one might necessarily agree with and then we're not finding out until it's filed. So I think that we've tried to improve that relationship and before we go to Denton County days and understanding if there's anything that's important to your legislative agenda that we talk about it. Okay, I appreciate that and I know it's just one of the things was alignment and relationship and I just wanted to make sure that that was something that I put out there. It's really important that if we do agree that we are, I guess, working towards the same goals together as economic department, so yeah, I'm okay with that. The only other thing I would ask or I'm just curious about is marketing and we heard in the last presentation or in the presentation before about the developmental strategies about how important marketing is and so just to confirm that those are all gonna be aligned. So yes, the strategic growth areas and strategic plan identified tasks related to marketing that fall under the scope of the chamber's work plan are specifically outlined in the work plan as well as what specific actions are being asked of the chamber to do in those efforts and they do so with our full cooperation and collaboration and Erica knows that our teams are here as resources and partners with each other and so if there's questions or support that they need that we're here to provide information or support or just a sounding board to make sure that the marketing efforts are, as you would say, in alignment. Thank you. Anyone else? I didn't see who might have been in the queue. Any other questions? All right. So direction. Oh, Councilmember Meltzer. So yeah, not a question, just a comment that I'm confident that you have established a very good working relationship and I'm confident that you can judge what metrics are helping you achieve the plan and what aren't and that you're working together to achieve the plan. I think the sooner the plan is itself focused, compelling, you know, and clear, the more powerful this partnership will be, but I'm fine with what you proposed. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah. One thing I did want to ask Jessica, I'm not sure if you can speak to this or Erica would just want to understand how the other chambers play into this, into the big chamber, if at all, just want to understand that relationship. So I'll see when you refer to the big chamber, you're talking specifically about the Denton Chamber of Commerce on the whole. So I can't speak directly to any partnerships that the chamber might have and I'm just buying time for Erica to get up here to answer that question. But this, like I said, this particular agreement is of the Economic Development Office in the Denton Chamber of Commerce. So I will let her talk to any partnerships that she might have. Thank you. Thank you Mayor Pro Tem for that question. So as Jessica stated, this agreement is specifically between the Denton Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Office or the Denton Chamber of Commerce and the City of Denton. That's not to say that we don't have partnerships across the community. The Denton Black Chamber is a good partner of our chamber. We do have relationships there and we do participate in some activities collaboratively. Other community partners that we work with regularly include Stoke, include the Texas Workforce Commission, the SBDC, which you know that office is located inside of our office. So all of these other community partnerships will help support this plan. But as far as responsibility to the fulfillment of the contract, that's the Denton Chamber of Commerce. Okay, and so if I were to put out information or answer that question for someone that's on the Denton Black Chamber, how do I participate? How do I help? How do I help the chamber be successful in hitting these goals, these matrix? What's that avenue? Obviously you talk to them regularly anyway. I just want to kind of understand it from my perspective. So on one of our focus areas, business training and education, we want to partner with those community partners to strengthen community inclusion. That's strategy 3.1 under the workforce collaborative. And that states work collaboratively with the city and other partner resources to develop and promote business training resources, compile training materials and actively promote training opportunities to the business community, work with other business support organizations. And we specifically named them in the plan. The Denton Black Chamber of Commerce, the Denton Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Denton Main Street Association, Center for Women Entrepreneurs, Stoke, Denton Public Library, SBA, SBDC, SCORE to engage and promote training programs and all available resources. Maintain a local SBDC office through the chamber and actively promote SBDC resources. So we have already written in those planned partnerships. Got it. And give me that site again. I was slow to get to that page. That is strategic plan, identified task 3.1.3. Erica, can I say a word about this? Yes. Excellent. Thank you. Excuse me. Okay. Hi, I'm so sorry. I just wanted to say another few words just on that matter. Even though it is not technically part of this work plan, as far as economic development and the city agreement, we work very closely with the different chambers as much as possible. There are multiple events and projects a year that we associate and partner with and invite the other chambers to participate in, including our annual elected officials reception, which you would all be invited to and hopefully have come to in the past, and that we are very close. I'm currently chair of the Denton Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors as the top volunteer. I emceed the Black Chamber of Commerce's annual banquet this past year and have again in the past. So we do maintain communication. And as far as the chamber individually, we have our own diversity and inclusion project and committee that is being put together. And we have also reached out to some of the executive committee members of the other chambers regarding what they could do or any assistance or partnering that they would like to do. So I just want you to know that it is something, Councilmember Huss, but that is very important to our chamber to be as inclusive and partner and lift up each other because again, we have the same goals. We are just focused on different areas of that goal, but we want to take steps forward every year. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Anything Councilmember Armitage? Yes, I just want to say, and Erica doesn't have to come and sit down, change chairs with you as long as she can hear this, but if not, someone can relay, just to say how glad I am that you're here. And just through being you, you have really set a wonderful tone. So I think that a lot of the changes that have happened have to do with you and your skill set, but also your personality, and just how down to earth and welcoming you are to everybody, how open to dialogue, and I feel the same about you, Jessica, and thanks to you, Jill. And anyway, thank you so much, all of you. That's all I wanted to say. All right. Anybody else? So is anybody opposed to moving forward as presented with the contract and things such as that? All right. So I believe you have your direction. We'll move on then to our next agenda item, which is agenda item 3D, ID20-1523. Receive report, hold a discussion to give staff direction regarding the General Fund preliminary FY2020-2021 proposed budget, tax rate, capital improvement, et cetera. Good afternoon, Mayor, City Councilmembers, Nick Benson, Assistant Director of Finance. Let me get the presentation pulled up really quick. [PAUSE] Did we lose Nick? Sorry about that. I had to get the presentation pulled up. No, you're good. Got it right here. So real quick, just a brief introduction, I'll turn it over to Terry Nolte to go over the deck detailed budget discussion with you today. Let me share this screen, blow this up with you here. So City Council should have received as an exhibit to today's packet a budget follow-up memo that memo did address some questions we received from City Council on August the 6th. If you have additional questions on those, please feel free to reach out to staff and we'll get you additional information. But real quick, it addressed the plan and actual growth in the downtown TURS district. We provided some detail regarding the sludge disposal of the city and landfill. And then we also provide some CARES Act funding and there was a question about Wi-Fi access to the city libraries and then some outstanding debt questions for the city's airport. An email did go out to City Council and in the Friday report, we have included $200,000 in funding for bike lane and the capital improvement plan for 2021 next fiscal year. And then some of the next dates that are coming up over the next few weeks, August 18th later today for individual consideration, Cassie, the finance director will come up and present information regarding the max tax rate and takes City Council's vote on that. Up September 1st, we do plan to come back to the City Council hopefully with updated assessed value information and update City Council accordingly. September 15th, we are looking to come back to the City Council with a public hearing for the tax rate and budget for the public. And this will be via online, so it will be an online public hearing for the budget and tax rate. And then September 22nd, the budget, the CIP and tax rate and fee and rate adoption for each of the utilities we plan to bring that forward to City Council on September 22nd. So with that, if you don't have any questions from me, I will turn it over to Terry Nalty. Any questions? Okay. [Pause for responses] [Pause for responses] [Pause for responses] [Pause for responses] [Pause for responses] [Pause for responses] Good afternoon, Terry Nalty, Assistant General Manager, DME, apologize, technical difficulties. Let me share my screen with this presentation. So a number of questions from council members on the Denton Energy Center pro forma have been asked relative to the forecasted negative net income for the foreseeable future. And in order to address these continuing questions, I put together this presentation to provide a clarification of the role of the DEC in the power supply portfolio for DME. It's a very complex issue. I've tried to simplify it as much as I can. As we provide a standalone pro forma for the DEC, it only takes into account the revenues and expenses at the DEC as a profit and loss center. However, the DEC was part of the overall renewable Denton plan supply strategy to achieve 70% renewable energy supply. In 2016, a number of additional sources of value were identified. This presentation will discuss the role of the DEC in the portfolio and how the pro forma is impacted when you incorporate these additional sources of value. These sources of value benefit all rate payers. So the role of the DEC is and always has been intended to be as an integral part of the renewable Denton plan and the subsequent Denton renewable resource plan. It's not a standalone merchant generator in the aircott market. The original pro forma for the DEC included a number of additional sources of value. The largest potential additional savings was identified in avoided incremental renewable energy contracts that would have had to be entered into in order to achieve 100% renewable objective. Our modeling shows that without the DEC, we need to add an additional 400 plus megawatts of new renewable energy contracts at a cost of $18 to $20 million per year. This is the same approach that the city of Georgetown has taken and that resulted has resulted in the highest retail electric rates in Texas. While procurement of additional renewable resources can be done, not only would rates have to rise, but the price risk profile to our customers would be degraded. The DEC can start up in five minutes to react to market signals and to back up a lack of renewable energy. Without it, DME would have to balance its potential daily shortfall in the day ahead and the real-time aircott markets. The original pro forma anticipated a potential savings of approximately $2.3 million per year from this real-time market and day ahead market arbitrage. In the first full year of operation, we achieved $3.3 million of actual value from this characteristic. Here we see the standalone pro forma presented as part of the fiscal year '21 budget. As correctly pointed out, the negative net income begs the question of why we would continue to operate it at a loss each year. When we adjust the pro forma for these additional savings that are achieved solely due to the fact that the DEC is in the portfolio, the net income is positive every year. Here you can see the net income goes from negative $7.4 million in the '19-'20 estimate to positive $4.7 million, and in '23-'24, it moves from negative $15 million to positive $7.8 million. Now let's look at the pro forma that it would how it would look without the DEC. So this is the same pro forma as on the prior slide, but with the revenues and the non-debt-related expenses removed and zeroed out, we're left with a $17.3 million per year debt and interest expense payment, which is shown here as negative net income of the $17 million. When we add in the additional renewable energy purchases that the value that the DEC adds, and we add in the lost DEC energy gross margin, because if we don't have the DEC, we're not generating positive gross margin, our adjusted net income goes up significantly. As you can see, it's in the $26 to $35 million negative range. If we compare that to the adjusted net income from the DEC on the prior sheet and add those two, because this value would be lost if the DEC were not operated, we end up with a very large negative number, our incremental cost that we'd have to incur and pass through to ratepayers as a result of the shutdown. So we're talking $30 to $43 million over the next four years. To put this in perspective of what it means to ratepayers, if we look at 2021, that's a 65% rate increase in the ECA component of our rates, or $27.85 a month or annually $334 to the typical residential ratepayer. And you can see that it goes up to 82%, varies by year based upon the market price, the forward market price. Now finally, I wanted to show you the forecasted results and compare them to actual results to confirm the hypothesis here. Here we see a side by side comparison using actual settlement data for the peak summer months of July and August in 2019 and 2018. I'm sorry, 2019 and what we've seen to date through the 13th of August in 2020. First we look at 2019 is characterized by mild weather through July and a hot August with spikes, significant price spikes in August. We made $17 million of netting of revenue in one week in August and $17 million of gross margin that same week. So here we see the power cost for July and August 2019 was $11.1 million. If we didn't have the deck, we would have gone out and purchased 200 megawatts of market based energy to comply with the risk management policy and we would have had to liquidate some of that into the market at times when it wasn't needed and the resulting again using settlement data would have been $29.4 million for a savings of $18.3 million. For this year through the 13th, we have the opposite, we've had no price spikes, we had a small one on Saturday, but that was prior to the end of this study period, the 13th. You know, our cost was $5.8 million through the 13th without the deck using that same assumption of the 200 megawatt purchase to replace the 225 megawatts of deck capacity, our purchase power cost would have been $18.2 million, and so the deck effectively saved us $12.4 million. With that, I will answer any questions. >> Okay. If we could pull that slide down. Questions? Councilmember Meltzer? >> Well, first, you know, thanks for taking the time to do this. I realize, you know, it's kind of a retrospective "what if" and, you know, I would have taken it in a Friday report. But without taking too much time, isn't this a sort of heavily positioned way to look at it? Like, you know, I feel that I've heard that the point of the deck was that when prices are high, they sell into the market, that it's a financial hedge, but you're presenting it in the first part of your presentation as an actual, like, production hedge, which I think strikes me as, you know, maybe it's my misunderstanding. I thought it was a common misunderstanding, but it's not that if there's no renewables being generated, then we have to do it. We go to the grid. So, isn't the point of the deck just the financial hedge of selling into the grid when prices are high, and that because we would be drawing from the grid at those times if the renewables weren't there? I don't know if my question is clear. Yes, I understand the question, Councilmember Meltzer. I think it's a difficult answer, but I think generally how I would characterize it is the deck was a line item in an overall strategy to achieve 100 percent renewable, and the full economic value of that deck, whether it was to insulate customers from price spikes or whether it was to avoid having to purchase additional renewable energy, it was a critical component of the overall plan, and so when we look at its role in our power supply portfolio, it serves as a financial hedge, but it enables us to do things that no other market-based product that we could purchase would enable us to do. Couldn't you really tell if the hedge worked out financially by looking at what it cost to buy it, $265 million, and then what the net revenues have been because we've had it, and then, you know, you've got to project that over the life of it, and then say is that – you know, what's the IRR on that compared to your cost of capital? Well I think, again, what I tried to point out here in this presentation is I think the fallacy is to try to look at it on a standalone pro forma basis where we're only looking at the revenues and the cost associated with the deck itself because so much value endures to the full portfolio of supply as a result of having that five-minute response capability. Said another way, if I was truly looking at it as a financial hedge, I would call a bunch of counterparties in the market and say I would like a product that gives me five-minute response to price signals in the market, and I need that for the next 20 years. What is your price? And quite frankly – Okay. Wasn't the price $265 million? I mean, that's – It would be – You know that price. It would be significantly higher than that if it weren't backed by the physical asset because that type of a financial instrument is not traded. No one is willing to saddle that level of risk without a physical asset standing behind it. Well, you know, I'll just leave it at this. At some point over a beer, maybe, when people are meeting in person, I'd like to know what the actual IRR is, and then we could say, oh, okay, it's good, it's bad, but then we get these sort of ancillary benefits. We can – it's possible to hold both those thoughts, you know, in our mind at the same time. But I'll leave it – You know, I could answer your question. I think the answer is if you look at it on a standalone basis, just revenues and expenses, it's a negative IRR because there's negative net income. Okay. But it was never – Just be honest. If we can be honest with each other about it, that's great. Yeah. But there's other benefits that we like that help us. All right. That's – you know, I take that. I'm done. Thank you. Thank you very much for all the work you've done. Mr. Mayor? Mr. Mayor, I'd like to hear the rest of Terry's answer there because I think Councilmember Meltzer cut him off and inserted his version of the answer. I'd like to hear what Terry was saying about that negative and the way it's counterbalanced and the way that he's explained it to us. Well, I – I mean, quite simply, it's the fact that if you do not attribute those additional value sources to the deck, rates would have to go up. So they are real sources of value that should be attributed to the deck, and that changes the IRR from a negative, you know, 0.001 percent to a 400 percent positive IRR. Okay. All right. Who else? Councilmember Armitter and then Councilmember Briggs. Yeah. So we had – let's see, last year, the year before, some consultants from the Enterprise Group come in and do an analysis of the deck, and they came up with a plan for purchasing renewables, and we're, you know, to some extent with some variation where we're following an adapted version of that plan now. They mentioned that – the way that they saw it – and this made a lot of sense for me – to me, was they said that it's not so much that the deck is a hedge for our renewables, but rather our renewables are a hedge for the deck. And I was wondering if you – you know, what you thought about that argument. Do you feel that that's just another side of the same coin? Do you disagree? Because there are many, many different perspectives of looking at this, and I understand – and I find interesting, you know, your perspective, but I'm wondering what you think about that one. I guess I hadn't thought of it from that perspective because clearly the objective of including it in the portfolio was to achieve the 70 percent at the time and now 100 percent renewables. It does, in fact, chase the wind, as we call it. When the wind isn't blowing and the prices are high, that's when the deck runs. And we dispatch it commercially in order to maximize the value in each five-minute segment of the market. So I don't view it as a counter hedge to renewables. I view it as a hedge to ensure that the lights don't go off when the renewables don't perform. And that was – and so the way you just explained it, that was the way that it was explained when it was first rolled out to council before I was on council, the council that voted on it. Thank you. Councilmember Briggs? So just a clarification, because I think what I heard you say is when we look at the actual – the revenue and the expenditures, say, for example, '19-'20, it's almost nine million negative, so in the red. But then when we add the additional sources of value, that's when those two put that in the positive. Correct. And if those additional sources of revenue were not listed there, then we would have to have a rate increase. Not if – to be clear, it's not just the listing, but if we were not able to obtain and monetize those additional sources of value, we would require additional revenues in order to meet the 100 percent renewable objective. And so council could choose to either raise rates or take money from reserve funds in order to meet the revenue requirement that the utility would have. Right. Well, no, I mean, it's interesting, and I'm glad to see it this way. Before we would just have seen it, you know, nine million in the red, and then, you know, increases or it would be different every year. So on those additional sources of value, say, with the renewable energy purchases, is the expense and the staff, everything that we need to make those, is that just a hard cost for those purchases, or is everything that we need to have that contract, and I think we approved a contract recently, is that already included in the energy expense and personnel services above in the Performa? Yes, ma'am, it is. Okay, thank you. Anyone else? Well, Terry, I appreciate you putting this together, because first of all, this is a very complicated issue. This isn't just about analyzing an IRR on a real estate investment, which is easy to do or anything like that. There's tremendous amount of different complexities based upon, if you didn't have it, as you showed in that last slide, that we would have to incur hard costs. Those aren't just paper costs. When you're saying we'd have to purchase more energy to maintain our goal, as a city did down south of us has had to do, those are hard dollars. Those aren't just, it's not just paper accounting. So I appreciate you bringing that forward, because I think there was some question, and that slide was pretty basic, there was some question about the deck being a sunk cost. What you're able to do is say, let's take that assumption. It's a sunk cost. The deck debt, without any revenue, without any personnel expenses or materials or gas to supply the deck, we just turn it off. So we got to pay the debt. That's the sunk cost. If we do that, then we'll also have to incur additional hard dollars, number one, to purchase the energy, and we won't get the savings that we have on the day ahead in real-time markets. And that gives us a real indication of that value. So I appreciate that. I hope you hold onto those slides for historical context, because I'm sure there'll be more questions, and I think those very succinctly provide an opportunity to take a look at that, because this isn't magic math. This isn't kind of math. It's just sort of pulled out of thin air. I mean, these are people who've done this year in and year out as a profession, and they know what it takes. Now, if we didn't have our 100 percent renewable energy goal, then those numbers may change. Those numbers may change, because we wouldn't have to buy additional renewable resources that would have to cover when some don't show up. So that would be another interesting calculation to see exactly how much is our renewable energy goal costing the ratepayers in the future. But that's not the scope of this today. I appreciate you sharing that, and hopefully it's been helpful not only to us and my colleagues, but also to the public. All right, we're going to go on then to the next agenda item, which is agenda item 3E, ID 20-1536. I receive report, hold discussion, and give staff direction regarding potential revisions to the approved pilot temporary parklet and streetery program with the mixed use downtown core. Thank you. Hey, good afternoon, mayor and council. This is Rachel Ballthorpe-Mendoza, assistant to the city manager, and today we'll go over a revisit of the parklet and streetery program. This is a kind of a go over what we'll look at today. We'll review the current program components and discuss some need for any new and varied policy along with safety and liability issues and concerns, some potential costs that may be incurred, and next steps. As a little bit of background here, just to kind of give you an overview of what's currently in place with the pilot program, we have it set as a duration for six months. The location of it is set to be in the MD district, except for the streets of Elmous, Hickory Locust and Oak Streets. We have a maximum of two per block as we have it in the program currently, prohibitions include no amplified music and smoking. Right now, the fees that are built into the license and maintenance agreement are a $50 permit fee, and if you were wanting to operate a streetery, that license would be $50. And also we have some just kind of outlined outdoor furniture that's put into place there. So I've just laid out for you here kind of a comparison as to what we might be able to look at for this new request per direction regarding the design. So we have some design implications in place currently, but some of those could be limited within any kind of revised program. As far as the length of the program is concerned, we could make that coincide with the disaster declaration order timeline, and I'll talk a little bit about that here shortly. We could also include the entirety of the MD district for the location and may even want to discuss the potential for branching outward from that. There's also the potential. I'll show you some different variations of barriers that may be put into practice, and if we wanted to look at the city providing those, what costs may be incurred from that. Also just jumping down here a little bit, it would still create an additional buffer between vehicles and pedestrians, and as I've designated here shortly, we'll see some enhanced and premium as I'm calling them safety barriers that may require some lane narrowing. The fees, we'd still need to incorporate those into an application and any licensure, and we would still need to have some additional policy discussions about some safety issues. This is a little bit of comparison here for you, I've put on the left what the requirements are for an application for the pilot program, and as you can see, they do sort of, they're very similar to one that I found for the city of San Marcos, and they have both a permanent program and a temporary program in place. They also, they require a pre-application meeting with their development services staff, and as you can see, quite a bit of steps to go through for the application itself. I also wanted to mention that we do have a, we have a business that has shown interest and turned in a site rendering to development services already off of Mulberry Street pursuant to the current pilot program, and we've gotten an inquiry from a business that could potentially be interested over off of the Fry Street area. Just some safety concerns to begin thinking about with this, the speed limit should stay at the maximum of 30 miles per hour, and of course we would still require the barrier in front of any calculator streetery, and just as a little bit of background, there was a speed study and a traffic study done both in 2017 and 2019, and those average speeds on the streets shown there were found to be between 29 and 30 miles per hour on those main thoroughfares there, but just as a kind of a heads up, TxDOT would need to be involved in any discussions about speed limit changes on those two thoroughfares there on Elm and Locust, and they may also require a permit. As far as accessibility is concerned, we would still need to maintain that ADA compliance, of course, and any FDC access that they may need and clearance. Examples that would still be in the same vein as previously, just in the sense that we would need to maintain those outdoor furniture only requirements. This is what I was referring to earlier with regards to the different styles and types of barriers, just for presentation purposes, I've designated them as basic, enhanced, and premium. The basic, as you can see, there we go, kind of referring to the more parade barrier style here, and while they are, I should expound upon this where I put least expensive, they would be the least expensive option, all in costs. Since they are steel, they do require a little bit more expense up front, but since they are far more portable, it would require a lot less heavy equipment and manpower to move them. They obviously provide the least amount of protection, but the city does have a small stockpile on hand that could be used immediately if need be. For this enhanced option here, these are water field barriers that we would consider the tex dot minimum standard for protection for a situation like this on a road such as this where we would have potential for pedestrians or seated customers here and any kind of bike lane or thoroughfare with vehicular traffic next to it. A ballpark figure for what that would look like would be about $50 per linear foot, and we have the option to purchase, of course, but it could also be a possibility that we might be able to lease these as well. Moving along to the premium features here, these are the more decorative concrete options that I'm sure you've seen in several places, and those would run about $125 per linear foot. They do, of course, afford the most portable protection, but as I mentioned earlier, they would also require -- they're very, very heavy. They're about a ton each, so they would require heavy equipment and be far less portable, of course, but they do still offer quite a bit of protection, and again, we could potentially lease these or purchase. Moving along. Just wanted to touch a little bit on some legal liability and enforcement concerns. Legally, the fees would still be necessary according to our city attorney's office because it would otherwise be considered an unconstitutional gift of city resources to be able to extend a business' exclusive right into the right of way. We'd also be looking at some liability concerns because, of course, whenever you're talking about people in the street, there's always a potential for injury, but as far as what a minimum standard for safety would be, that would need to be a separate policy discussion. As far as enforcement is concerned, the enforcement aspect here that may come into play would be a public trespass, and it's worthy, you know, mindset that businesses would likely look to the city to enforce possession of their right via the license and maintenance agreement through a trespass enforcement. Just some kind of ballpark figures here that I've put together, and as I mentioned before, the water-filled barriers would be about $50 per foot, and the decorative concrete would be about $125 a foot, and just as a hypothetical, I drew this. This is Hickory in between Austin, which would be a little bit more off the map here, down not quite to Bell, stopping before the fire station, and it was about 535 feet. So just putting that math together anywhere between 26,000 and 66,000, depending upon which kind of barrier we used, and that would be on the low end, of course. For permit costs, we would still need to incorporate those within any type of revised license agreement, and as far as the streetery fee is concerned, it could be looked at to include any recoup of some city materials costs if we did come to the point where barriers were provided. And just touching based back on the current program that's in place where a TABC temporary license change would be necessary, those fees run about the $250 range per business. Just talking about next steps, we certainly would need to have some policy direction on those aforementioned components. The following, we would then need to look at a potentially revised manual license and maintenance agreement, and then the ordinance which approves those, and also the consideration of including it in the disaster declaration order. And with that, I'll stop sharing and can take any questions. I don't have Rachel in here telling me that I'm on mute, so I'm now off mute. So I saw Council Member Meltzer's hand and Council Member Riggs' hand, Council Member Armitage. So Council Member Meltzer? >> Yeah. First, just curious, have we had any takers, anybody expressing interest yet in the concept? >> In the pilot program or -- >> Yeah. >> The pilot program, we have had one business that has inquired and has turned in a rendering of what their streetery might look like as far as a full application for the process goes. That has not been turned in yet, but it's my understanding that it's in process. >> And then I'll just offer an opinion that I imagine potential takers would want the six-month trial period, not at sort of at a minimum, because if they're going to go to the trouble of creating one of these rather than tying it to the disaster declaration, which, you know, I'm going to be optimistic and hope it ends sometime in less than six months, you know, but I think they'd still want that room to run with it, but I'll listen to other comments now. >> Council Member Riggs? >> Yeah. I want to thank everyone for hearing this presentation and seeing it, and the pilot program conversation came before our actual family vacation where we were in New Mexico and Colorado where all the cities, large and small, were doing this because the governors gave orders to allow them to do it for the health and safety and social distance requirements so that people could go and enjoy a dinner and not feel like they have to be, you know, shoved inside. So it's just an extension of the restaurants outdoors and they were locked at night. They had signs of occupancy, signs of their licenses out, and I called the city of Durango office, but I didn't get a response yet today. I was going to ask about their concern for safety, but I think that that was pretty much answered for us with, you know, insurance and other requirements, but I just -- I thought this was a really good, neat opportunity to do something for businesses that may not want to make the large commitment, invest in it with, you know, thousands of dollars in six months. Maybe they just want to have an option to extend while they're -- while they're restricted from having maximum occupancy indoors. So as long as those orders are in place, something like this seems like it would be beneficial to businesses. >> Councilmember, if I may, I did get to speak with a few people, employees at the city of Durango who helped me through their process that they got in place so quickly. And one of the -- one of the main differences between their scenario and ours is that they had a speed study done, a traffic study done from years ago that they were able to then dust off rather quickly, and they had already planned to restripe streets and get everything ready and in order so that they could put it in place rather quickly. They also only have one small north-south running corridor, so they don't have a square that kind of runs outwardly in concentric, you know, squares that's similar to ours. So it does -- it does kind of act differently than our area would. And so their safety concerns, they did take them to their various, you know, our equivalent of the EDPB and everyone where they were able to discuss what -- do they want to close the whole thing down and just have pedestrians and, you know, what options did they want to have? And at the end of the day, the current program is what they landed on where they just have the one corridor with the parking relatively nearby that's just extended through the one street and then everyone uses the surrounding streets for -- through traffic more -- more so than what they would have before. >> Okay. All right. Who else? Councilmember Armitage? >> Yes. So I am, of course, remain hugely supportive of this and am excited about it and grateful for all the work that staff has done. I'm wondering of the -- so of the three options, the basic enhanced and premium for the barriers, you know, I -- I'm for the one that is the safest and, you know, even though it's a lot more -- the premium, the decorative concrete is a lot more than the enhanced. It's still pretty affordable when you look at how it all adds up. I'm wondering if, you know, and I know it's called decorative concrete and I know this is just one picture, but this just looks like these big blocks of concrete. Is there a certain standard that would prohibit, say, you know, recycled concrete from -- from scrap yard, you know, and we've had buildings going down and is there -- is there some sort of standard that says it has to be, you know, brand new concrete in this shape? Obviously we don't just want piles of rocks, but how much -- how much wiggle room is there in doing safety while maybe just lowering the cost a little bit? Just out of curiosity. Sure. I don't -- I don't know offhand, but I can certainly get with, like, our traffic engineer who kind of steered me in that direction in the first place to see what minimum standards may be required in that regard. I think -- I think we might have Todd ask this on -- Brian John on the line, so if one of them wants to answer that question. Hopefully they're there. There he is. Yeah. This is Brian. So as far as the standard for barricades, there are standards, but obviously we could use an alternative material. You could use large stones, boulders. I would be -- I'd want to see the product that you're referring to as far as salvaged or recycled concrete, just because of typically it has other elements in it like rebar, or it would have to be a safe, clean material. But as far as shape and dimension, I don't -- I don't think there's a standard that we have to follow. We're just trying to provide a solid barrier between moving vehicles and seated humans. Thanks. Okay. And it's not a kind of make-or-break thing for me. I'm already for it. I was just curious, you know, especially since I know, you know, we've got a lot of heavy stone and concrete materials in our landfill. I don't know exactly how much, and I know that -- that I know that Denton, you know, has got a love of recycling and a quirky aesthetic, so it'd be something worth looking into, but I wouldn't want it to hold up, something like that, to hold up this project, because it's something we really need to stimulate the economy. I was -- I had one more question, and that is as far as the fees, let's see, so the -- says the -- the TABC temporary license change, approximately $250, that would be the cost per business, would have to pay them that amount as a one-time cost? To extend -- so the TABC, given the governor's orders recently, the TABC came out with a temporary license change that would allow for the extension of alcohol sales outside business doors, for example, for -- for, you know, reasons where you could sit outside and extend your -- your service area, let's call it that, and then you could change your license to do that, and that would be the $250 fee and currents that would be per business there. Okay. And just a one-time temporary? That's the way that I understand it, considering that the application itself is for a temporary license change, yes. Okay. Thanks. For some reason, I'm not seeing here, but I think it was presented to us last time that it -- a proposed municipal fee. I'm not too sure about that one, Councilmember, but as far as the permit fee is concerned, that would -- that would be along with the application fee and everything, but I can certainly check on that. Okay. Yeah. I'd just be curious to know what that is. And also, if in our mixed beverage sales tax, which, you know, obviously, the bars have been shut down by state order, you know, but are -- are places that are legally restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages, you know, they're still getting this tax. Is that something -- is that a resource that could be used? You know, I'm just -- I'm just curious, maybe businesses would not be supportive of this. But is that something that could potentially be used to help with the cost of this? I think we -- we would put those funding -- if the Council wanted to move this program forward, we would certainly bring back some ideas, either from the downtown Turz area or the general fund. Those would be the two most likely places you'd see that. Thank you. And that was the other thing I was going to ask, also, about the downtown Turz. But the Fry Street -- and, by the way, I support this in Fry Street, too, and -- but that obviously would not be eligible for downtown Turz, so -- Right. But there are other sources of funding. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. I'm really excited about this, and thanks. Okay. Anyone else? Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, Rachel. I'm sorry if you answered this, and I missed it, but your comment on slide nine, that lease costs for the materials could be less, I mean, I would certainly hope so. Any idea, especially since this is a temporary program, how much less, or what it might be, and is there a reason to buy them, because we would want them for other purposes anyway? I would -- if Brian is still there, he told me a little bit earlier, gave me kind of a ballpark about what he just gave a guess as to what a leased amount might be. Brian, are you still on the line? Yes, I am. This is Brian Jahn again. The costs that we were seeing for leasing versus purchasing was about a -- and it seems a little close, but it's about a two to three-month payout, where if you lease it for more than three months, you might as well buy it, specifically on the water field, those are the most popular common leased items. The bottom line, until you have an idea of how many you're going to need and how long you're going to want them, you won't really know, because a lot of that is negotiable with the vendors. So those are ballpark estimates, so maybe a half to a third per month of the total purchase. I take the point about a three-month payout. What about whether we would have any use for them -- if, let's say, we did this program and then didn't continue it, would we have any other use for the materials? Well, so that's debatable. The items that we specified were fairly low-profile. They weren't the full 42-inch concrete, jersey-type barriers, so we're looking at more of a 32-inch. I'm sure that we would be able to repurpose those, but I don't know that they would be directly usable in, say, a construction project. I think we'd have to look and make sure that the function that we're trying to accomplish would be accommodated by the lower height, and I think -- and the reason we used a lower height was simply for the visibility of seated patrons, just a different look and a little bit less impacted than a full concrete jersey barrier style. How big of a difference is it -- if you don't mind me going a little further -- you know, could we be better off maybe compromising a little on that, but buying something that we kind of would have bought anyway and could use? Sure. I mean, it's about a foot difference in height, and the other problem with the thought that I had is leasing these things versus buying them. If you're going to lease something, it's probably been leased before, and it may not have been treated with the best of care, so sometimes these barricades don't look really -- they don't look nice. If you're using it for construction, that's fine. If they're concrete barriers, they may have chips, and if they're plastic, they're probably scuffed and stained, so it really depends on the image and the look you're trying to accomplish, but we could certainly look at using a full-size barrier instead of the lower profile. I wonder how bad that would be. You persuaded me on the purchase when you told me it's a three-month payback on a six-month program, so anyway, yeah, I guess I'd be curious what something would look like that you would be able to, without question, be able to reuse, but maybe it'd look stupid, I don't know. Thanks. Okay. Councilmember Briggs, yeah, let's get -- we may need to start giving direction, so let's wrap this one up. Councilmember Briggs? Well, yes, I'm in favor, and I appreciate the discussions of cost, but I keep asking myself what is the cost to us and our community if our businesses keep closing? I know I hear out there in the community people want to go, but they want to feel safe, and if this provides an avenue, however long it may be, for someone to feel safe to go enjoy our businesses, our restaurants, our downtown, our, you know, anywhere, then I'm in favor of it. Okay. All right. Who else? Mayor Pro Tem? Go ahead. I need clarification. Are we talking about all of these standards lowering the safety standard, then we're talking about expanding one fatal swoop, or are we segregating these to segments? I believe what we would need to request from council would be a discussion on each of those elements, because what it would require then would be revisions to the parklet manual and the license and maintenance agreement that are already in place. Right, and that's my concern, I mean, this thing just rolled out, we just put a bunch of work into it, and to revisit this, then scrap the work we did, lower the safety standards, and I'd like to, I asked the question on the backup and I would point people to it, the council, members of the council had concerns about the 15 minute pickup locations on the square, those aren't going away, then we would then remove more parking for this, and we've not talked about that, so there's some real tangible aspects of this that have not been revisited that have consequences, and so I get the spirit of it, and I'm all for it, but I also want to discuss the pragmatic effect of it, are we prepared to wipe out all the parking because there's 15 minute space, there's two in front of the old Andes, I think there's one or two in front of Jupiter House, so my question is, as a council, are we prepared to wipe out the entire segment of parking along Locust Street between Hickory and Oak? Okay, yeah, we're, I mean, all right, number one, I don't ever remember the council being asked about 15 minute parking on the square, I didn't hear anything about that, I might have been in the status report, but I might have glanced over it, but I think that's a pretty substantial change that needed to come before the council and the public to at least be able to make that decision, because that's favoring some and not favoring others. I'm not for the revised portion of this agenda item, I'm for the pilot program that we implemented, I cannot imagine that the people, when you put orange barricades, gray concrete barricades all up and down the square, it's going to look like a construction zone. And when you look at how much are they actually gaining in space, a parking lot, a parking space is about 18 feet deep. Now, these barricades are probably about, what are they, about a foot wide, maybe 18 inches wide, so you put that, you've got to offset it from the lane of traffic. So now you've got the curb, now you might get one or two tables, I understand the desire, but I think we had a pilot program that we worked on, we're going to have to take each one of these individual items and work on it, and we're not going to do that today. We've got some additional items that we need to take care of, but I guess I'm just curious as to what generated this particular request in this agenda item. That was from the one minute pitch request that Councilmember Briggs did on July the 28th. Well, I thought the pilot program is what came out of that one. No, sir, that was a revisiting the request. I will speak for her. No, no, that's fine. I get it. I don't want to go over that. I got it. So no, I'm not for this revised one. I'm for the pilot program that we worked on, and it's going to extend out six months. We'll see how it goes, but I'm certainly not for, and I just want to say the city paying for these things, that's fine, but I want everybody to remember when we come back and we start talking about other things that people don't want the city to pay for, they want commercial people to pay for, because that means the city is paying for certain businesses to have these opportunities and other businesses do not. So let's just make sure that we talk about consistency, but I'm not for this particular, unless this is coming back with each individual one of these items. So if there's four people that are for it, then we'll move on, all right, because there's no sense taking up the time to do that. So are there four people that want to move on based upon the presentation of the agenda with the new requests and all those? Do we have four? I think we got Council Member Briggs, Council Member Armitter, Council Member Meltzer. Council Member Armitter, I'm not going to recognize you right now. We're going to get past this agenda. If there's a fourth person, then we're going to move on. If there's not, we'll have further discussion. Is there a fourth person who's going to want to move forward with the new request, not scrubbing the pilot program? That's already in place. Am I correct on that staff? The pilot program is in place. All right, so this is the work session item, the one-minute pitch, to increase the scope of that pilot program and to add all these additional things. Council Member Briggs, you're shaking your head. I'm looking at the slides, and I see the pilot program, and I see the new requests, and they're not the same. Exactly. My request was in addition to not to replace one. Oh, no, I know that. No, I know that. Yeah, I'm just saying that we're asking to increase the scope of the pilot program. I'm not saying replace it. I'm saying if this... Council Member Briggs, the pilot program is in place right now. Is that correct? Am I wrong in that? No, sir. Okay, the pilot program is in place. If we do nothing today, the pilot program is moving forward, right? Am I right on that? Still in place. It's still in place. So what we're considering is this new slide, these new slides that say new requests. In other words, they're enhancements to the pilot program and/or wholesale changes to the pilot program. Am I not correct in that presumption? Council Member Briggs, you're shaking your head. Tell me how that's incorrect. Well, my request was that this be directly tied to the order and separate from the pilot program so that there's a resolution and an order that's tied to a certain program for business commerce and allowing certain things in districts, and it's different than the pilot program, and that was my request was to look at them separately. So you're saying there'd be two? There'd be the pilot program and then this one we're talking about today? Yes. Okay. All right. Is that how everybody else understood it? Was I the only one that didn't understand that? Okay. All right. So then we'll move forward with that different direction because when I see here pilot program and new request, I didn't get that they were two separate types of programs, which I don't know really why you would have two separate types of programs that basically are doing the same thing because if one's more beneficial than the other one, why would you choose the one that's not the most beneficial? So again, our question is we've got three people, I believe, who want to move forward with the, now my understanding is the separate. So does everybody understand that agreed to it, that it means it's in addition to the pilot program? Yes, Council Member Meltzer. Yeah, I didn't understand that. Now I do. I didn't actually say I'm for it or against it, but I don't know if you can take something other than a yes or no. What I said was that I don't agree with having it coincide with the disaster declaration order. I still think you'd probably want a minimum amount of time to run. So even if it's broader area, and I didn't say this, but I would be interested in making this available in the Friday Street area as well, as we've heard mentioned. And then on the barriers, I am interested in staff evaluation of whether something we already use could be appropriate, because then the cost is, we look at it a whole lot differently. We'd be borrowing it, and then it would just go into our inventory. So those are the thoughts I have so far. Okay, Council Member Davis. So I kind of got on board with the original pilot program with some stipulations and some changes and things we've already talked about, what streets it includes and all of that. So far, we've had one business really bite off on the idea of something like we discussed with the pilot program. And I can also get behind the idea that maybe what we asked for in the pilot program is a little over engineered, right? We're asking them to build something that's very permanent, well, reasonably permanent. It's not quite as temporary as maybe some other places are doing. But then you start trying to port that one street in Durango over to a busy square in the city of Denton that has a limited amount of parking. That really gets problematic. So to me, I think the two choices aren't really, you know, the kind of over engineered thing that we're talking about already at the pilot program or something like they have in Durango. I think it's, and I certainly can't get behind the idea of the city paying for the barricades that create more space for businesses. I don't think that's fair. I think really what we ought to be talking about is do we want to make the square available to businesses at some certain time? Instead of three, four, five parking spots blocked off with some concrete Jersey barriers or something janky like that. Why don't we talk about shutting the square down from seven, six o'clock on Friday night to noon on Sunday, Sunday afternoon or something like that and letting businesses put their tables out there. You put some nice safe barriers at the end of each of those blocks, just like we do for events that achieves what they have in Durango. I've gotten, I've gotten stuff from other people who have traveled other places and that's what other cities and other places have done. They blocked off the entire street and made available for social distancing, for that kind of festival atmosphere that lets you eat outside and all that kind of stuff. That's a reasonable request, but this individual, you know, three or four parking spaces at a time with Jersey barriers, that doesn't accomplish anything. None of our businesses on the square are going to take us up on that. It's just not, not going to happen like you're asking for. Okay. All right. I don't hear a consensus to move forward with what the request is. I mean, what I hear is that we want further discussion. All right. I don't hear a consensus to give staff direction. So I would just simply say that because council member Davis mentioned something that I didn't even know if it was even within posting, but it was already out there. So we'll, we'll let it stay out there. And that's, that's a whole different discussion. Council member Armitage real fast and council member Briggs, you'll have the last word. Yeah. So I just want to thank council member Davis for mentioning that. You know, I don't see that as a council member armature. I just said, I don't know if no council member armature. I want to know whether talking about the square shutting down as part of this agenda posting before we go any further. It's not as a fourth barrier option is an option to the barrier question. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Council member. Okay. All right. Is that the extent of your comments? Well, you, you wanted to get the city attorney's opinion before I proceed. He said that, that shutting down the square is, is not part of this agenda posting. That's what he, that's what he stated. That doesn't. Okay. So that, so, so city attorney, so you're saying that does not count as a fourth barrier option because we were understood by staff as preparing for this item. If the council wants to have that discussion, you know, the, you can certainly direct staff to bring back that, that discussion at a future work session and that would be okay. But to actually engage in discussion on something that was, is not within posting staff has not prepared. You cannot give you all the information that you may have with questions involving the pros and cons of shutting down the square. So with that, I mean, if the council wishes to have that discussion, then give staff direction to bring back a work session. Okay. All right. Okay. So I'd like to see if there's consensus to give staff direction for a future work session on that, since we don't have consensus on the, well, I think that would be a one minute pitch issue. Council member Briggs is going to get the last word. So if, if, if somebody wants to shut the square down for a certain time period, I think that's something that's, that's wholly outside of what we've been talking about in the streetery. That's a whole different approach. That's a whole different set of public comments and public participation. That's a much larger decision than just allowing somebody to put up some temporary barriers over a couple of parking spaces. So I think that that would be more appropriate coming back as a one minute pitch. Council member Briggs. I want to thank everybody for hearing this. And Rachel did a really great job. I appreciate your presentation. I just, I want to say that in this time, it's different for everyone. And this, this solution for the order answered what we do at the end of it, because people were curious about after the pilot program, what's happened. It answers the question of enforcement. It answers, it answers different questions that I thought this council was curious about. So I'm glad that you, I guess I thank you for listening, but we are going to have to think out of the box and be creative and flexible for our businesses. If we don't want to just keep watching them fold up, eventually something's going to have to have to give. And so that that's just, that's where I am. Okay. All right. Thank you. I thought that's, so I thought that's what we passed the pilot program for partly as well. But so this, this conversation didn't sound like that it was totally foreclosed. It sounds like there's still a lot of unanswered questions. And if there's an opportunity to put some things together, I didn't personally understand that these were two separate programs. And if there's two separate requests, I think we need to understand how the interplay of both of those go, because it would seem sort of inefficient to have two very similar programs that have very different rules. And so if we need to take another look at that, that's fine. And so I don't think this conversation is foreclosed. I think it's, we've given some input to staff to, to bring back something. If we want to have this discussion further. So that concludes, I believe, our work session reports, and we will take a five minute break. It's 420. We'll come back about 425, 430, and we'll go into our closed session. Let me go ahead and call that we will convene in closed session at 420 to consider items under Texas Government Code Section 551.072 consultation with attorneys and under Texas Government Code Section 55. Oh, real property, real properties 551.072. And then consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Section Code 551.071. Okay. All right. Let's take a break. Council Member Melcer, I can't hear you. You're on mute. Yeah, while we're still on camera, I'm going to recuse on the first item. Okay. All right. Thank you very much for that. All right. Let's take a break and come back. All right. And welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. Today is August 18th. It is 630 and we have a quorum. So I will call this meeting to order. The first agenda item is Pledge of Allegiance to both the US and Texas flag. So those here in attendance are watching. If you could stand if you're able, we'll do that. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Now to the Texas flag. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Okay. Thank you. And that takes us to item two, which are proclamations and presentations. We do not have any this evening. So that will take us to item three, presentation from members of the public. And we have, so we have one person to speak. And so we will let her get on the line. Okay. Miss Janata Montgomery, are you there? Okay. This is item ID 201563. You're on with the Denton City Council. This, you have four minutes to speak and just want to confirm it's regarding painting Black Lives Matter on the streets, on the square. Well, it's been amended, but I didn't know if you had an opportunity to look at the email that I had sent previously. Had you not? I did. But if it's not regarding painting, we're going to go down to the open mic portion of the meeting, which would then prohibit questions, but it will allow you to speak the same four minutes. Well, it has it also in there, but it would, it would be amended on the painting of the, instead of saying Black Lives, it would be Moores Lives Matter. Perfect. Perfect. No, that's not a problem. That's the, as long as we're talking about that geographic area and that event. So I will set the timer. And once you, so once you give your name and please give your address, I'll start the timer. Okay. So I'm, before you start the timer. So I want to go to the only the section that's speaking about what's happening for tonight. Correct. This is about painting on the, right. Okay. And then, so I'm a private citizen, so I, you know, can't share the address, but you can go ahead on and start the timer. Well, if you, if you'll give your name and just, you can just say you're not going to give your address and then we'll, we'll start. Oh, wonderful. Okay. Well, thank you. Okay. So this is Queen Genota Montgomery Bay and I will not disclose my address. Okay. And go right ahead. It is proclaimed that on August the 18th, 2020, Queen Genota Montgomery Bay of the Moors, ruler of over Africa, in which we currently call North America, Central America and South America is speaking on August 18th, 2020. And because the Moors are the heirs and we also are the owners of everything in the Moorish empire, the Queen is on the agenda to speak before the city council of Denton, Texas. It is affirmed with the Moors science temple, the divine and national movement of North America incorporated number 13, that the queen will not be subjected or conform to any rules, regulations, policies, or procedures to be able to speak before the city of Denton about painting all four streets surrounding the Denton County courthouse of downtown Denton. Moors lives matter or about any other matters going forward. Arrangements will be made immediately to paint the streets within five days of the commence day of August 18, 2020 agenda meeting. I yield the floor. Okay. Well, thank you very much for your comments. And are there any questions from council? Okay. I don't see any. So thank you very much well, Councilmember Armitage. Yes. Okay. So I just read the email was reading the email as you were writing it. And I was planning on supporting a black lives matter games on on the square. Is this what what you've changed it to? Is this, yeah, I did an amendment or I had did an amendment to it because according to the court case, the federal court case for 1976 is when this was mandated, that we are, you know, no longer subjected to be labeled as or referred to as blacks, Negroes, African Americans, Afro Americans, Indians, or Ethiopians. And it's a court order. And we are more and we are to be identified as such, or reinstated back into our natural state as more Americans. Great. Okay. Thank you. And any other questions from council? Councilmember Davis. That's a question for the city. This is a question for the city attorney, while we still have the collar on the line. Mr. City Attorney, if if someone were to paint something on city streets without city approval, does the city have legal recourse beyond just cleaning it off and moving on? Yes, I do. If it is, it would be considered either graffiti or I can't think of the exact criminal mischief there. That's it. And the city would be able to prosecute or request the police department to start the prosecution is against the offender who painted that without city's permission. There is a process that a person can apply for to do that through the city, but just doing it without the city's permission could result in a criminal prosecution. Thank you. Right. I heard that somebody Queen, you'll have to wait to see if there's any other questions. Thank you very much. Certainly. Are there any other questions from council? Okay. Councilmember Briggs. My question is to to hear what she was going to say. Well, oh, sure. Okay. So my understanding is that I've, I'm just trying I'm hearing rumors that if the, you know, the city wouldn't make the goes and paints the streets that somebody was claiming that they would go ahead and try to deface what would be painted on the streets. And I think so much. Councilman Jesse Davis for for stating that because that definitely needs to be a public announcement that those who if the if the situation of the streets are painted, people just can't think that they can deface or try to paint over what is going to be on the streets that they can be prosecuted. I appreciate that. And that's what I was going to say. Thank you so much, Madam Briggs. I yield before. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for the call. I thank you so much. Thank you for having me. And so there are there any other scheduled callers? Okay, no other scheduled callers and are there any open mic calls? Okay, so we do have open mic just a reminder to my peers. This will not allow for questions or dialogue. And we will take the first caller, which is Jennifer lane. And so we'll let allow her to get on on the call. Hello. Hello. Yes. Hello, Miss Lane. If you could give your name and address and then the time will start. Okay, just one moment. All right. Can you hear me? All right. Yes. Thank you. I'm going to be able to speak up on because I'm reading. My name is Jennifer Lane. And my address is Denton Texas 75205. Okay, August 18 2020 is the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which reads the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States about any state on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Many twists and turns took place during the long effort to achieve post abolition and then universal suffrage. These included Jim Crow, which occupied the 50 years following the 15th amendment in 1873, as well as after the 19th amendment. Jim Crow dismantled the rights granted by the 15th amendment. And as we well know, right here in Denton, remnants of that continue to plague us to this day. The 15th amendment reads the follows. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Forging a truth is the embodiment of these efforts, those efforts. And in her 1851 speech, only three years after the declaration of sentiments at Seneca Falls, calling for universal suffrage, she gave a speech for all time. It goes like this. "Blood children, the veil is much, the racket bears something out of kilter. I think that puts the Negroes in the south and the women in the north all talking about rights. The white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this you're talking about? That man over there says that women need to be helped in the carriages and lifted over ditches and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me in the carriages or over mud puddles or gives me any best place. Am I a woman? Look at me. Look at my arm. I've plowed and planted and gathered into barns and no man could hit me. Am I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man when I could get it and do the last as well. Am I a woman? I have borne 13 children and seen most of them sold out to slavery. And when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus hold me and ain't I a woman? Then they talk about this thing in the head, what's this called? Intellect? Ethics? What's that got to do with women's rights and Negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full? Then that little man in black bear, he says women can't have as much rights as men because Christ wasn't a woman. Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn back and get it right side up again. And now they're asking to do it and men better let them. I bludge to you for hearing me. And I will say, General, anyone has anything more to say. Thank you very much. And the next speaker is, I don't want to say it wrong, Frasier Odin Sadi. Let her get on and correct me. Hello. Hello. You are on with the Denton City Council this evening. And if you could first please help me with the enunciation of your name. Freya Odin's daughter. Odin's daughter. Thank you very much, Freya. I appreciate that. And so you will have four minutes to speak. If you could give me again your name and address and then we will start your four minutes. Freya Odin's daughter. My address is 4705 Merchant Trail, Denton, Texas 76207. Thank you. I just wanted to say that we have come a long way in the last 100 years as far as civil rights and the rights that every human being should have in this country. 100 years, before 100 years ago today, women didn't have the right to vote. And 100 years ago, people like me, LGBTQIA+, would have been arrested or worse. Systemic racism was even more of a problem than it is today. Segregation was the standard. We have come a long way, but we haven't come far enough. And the evidence of that is clear as day in the protests all around the country surrounding police brutality and the unnecessary killing of persons of color. We also see it in the outbreaks of COVID-19 in various state and county incarceration facilities. And we see it in the fact that here in Denton, we elected a sheriff who has blatantly publicly and apologetically threatened to commit acts of violence against individuals using bathrooms that he deems inappropriate. That has to change. That has to be different. We need someone in charge of county law enforcement that understands that the legitimacy of law enforcement comes from transparency, accountability, and integrity. Someone that understands that the power of law enforcement comes from holding the public trust, not intimidating the people. And so on this very auspicious day in women's history, I just wanted to say that I, Freya Oden's daughter, a transgender woman, am running as a write-in candidate for Denton County Sheriff. That's all. Thank you for your time. I appreciate you giving me the floor to speak. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Okay. And we have another caller and that is Bill Menace and I'll let him get on. Hello? Hello. Is this Bill? Yes, it is. Yeah. Hey, Bill, this is Gerard Hutzpeth in the Denton City Council. You'll have four minutes to speak. During this segment though, I'll just remind you that we were not able to ask questions, but we do appreciate your comments and your thoughts will be noted. But if you could give me your name and address and then you'll have four minutes to speak. Okay. My name is Bill Menace. Well, my proper name is William Menace and that's M-E-N-I-U-S. I live at 2501 Pioneer Drive, Denton, Texas. Thank you. Yep. And you can go right ahead. You have four minutes. Okay, okay. Well, first I wanted to thank the Denton City Council for allowing me to speak and I will be brief. I probably won't take the whole four minutes, but I just want to say I've been here. I moved to Denton in 2017, October, and I've really been pleasantly surprised with Denton. The only thing I complain about is the heat. You know, I'll do that. I'm from North Carolina, but I was pleasantly surprised. First thing I did was I went on the city website and I was amazed and pleased how environmentally active you are and you have a strategic vision because I pulled it up. I actually went on your website and pulled up the Simply Sustainable Plan. And so you have a strategy and you have dyno dirt and you get a lot of your electricity from wind and solar and that's great. And I think you're walking the walk. Here's something I read from your sustainability. It said, "Air quality and greenhouse management. Improve regional air quality and take actions to improve non-attainment standards." I'm not sure what non-attainment standards are, but I'm saying that in reference to... I'm with the CCL. You probably don't know what CCL is. Citizens Climate Lobby. I'm not speaking on behalf of them. I'm just telling you I'm a member of them and they're concerned about global warming. And when we heard about the Givens Creek power plant, that's when we got real concerned and we've been sending emails and letters to city councils in four different towns because the Givens Creek from what we understand is owned through the TMPA, the Texas Municipal Power Association. It's owned by Denton, Bryan, Garland and Greenville. And it's about 20 miles outside of College Station. And there's rumors that the plant was shut down last year, 2019. There's rumors it's going to be sold to a third party and they're going to start it up again and we'll have coal-fired plant again and coal emissions and CO2. And that's what we're real concerned about. But we just can't get any information from any of the city councils. Tom Metzer, I did get an email from him today and he said, "This has not come before the city council." So city council may not know anything about it, but I do know that Mayor Watt is on the board of the TMPA and he knows something about it. So that's my question about that. And I'll move on because I only have a limited amount of time. But another thing, and this is just some suggestions, part of your strategy and goals are energy efficiency and conservation. And I'm reading this from your sustainability plan, encourage energy conservation and efficiency. I did go and check out your building codes and there's no code as far as the color of shingles on residential houses or commercial either. And as we know, the darker the shingles are, the more heat they absorb and the higher the air conditioning bill in the summertime. And so I see some really dark roofs around here and it doesn't make sense to me. Also it makes the whole area hotter because a lighter roof would reflect more heat. And Bill, that's four minutes. If you wanted to have a just kind of wrap up, that'd be great. Well, okay. I wanted to wrap that up. But we would like to, any information we can about the Givens coal fire plant, that'd be great. And you have my address and phone number. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. I appreciate the call. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Yes, sir. Okay. Council member Meltzer. Yeah, the rules do allow a statement of factual information, but I'm going to need to kind of confer with the city attorney to make sure I get this right. But I believe it is factual that according to current state law, council has no power to regulate building materials as long as they're permitted by, you know, by national standards. That is correct. Okay. Thank you for that note in the record. And that will take us to our next caller, which is Alice Lenahan. Hello, Alice. This is Gerard Hutzpeth and the Denton City Council. And you've called into the open mic portion. You'll have four minutes to speak after you provide your name and address. And just please be reminded that council is not able to ask questions during this portion, but we will listen intently. Great. Thank you. I appreciate it. Certainly. So if you can provide your name and address and then your four minutes would start. Yes. My name is Alice Lenahan. I would prefer not to give my address out, but I did give it to the screener. Thank you. Okay. You're four minutes to start. Okay. Thank you very much. First, I'd like to thank all of you for the opportunity to speak publicly. And it is, we are in trying times right now, as I know all of you understand. And we are a community of people of all colors and backgrounds. And that's a wonderful thing here in Denton County. And it's a fact that across our nation, there are groups and organizations funding much of this unrest. Black Lives Matter, the organization has ties to people that are pushing terrorist activities, we've seen it in Oregon overnight. And so I want to urge you not to consent for BLM or the Moors or any organization, whether I agree with them or not, doesn't matter. But any organization to deface our community streets, which will likely create a dangerous division in our community. We all work hard to keep it safe and clean. And I know all of y'all are wanting that. And so I just want to urge you not to consent to any painting on our streets. And I thank you for your time. Thank you very much for your comments. Thank you. Have a great evening. And that was our last caller. And so we will move forward in the agenda to number four, which is the consent agenda. And someone correct me where I'm wrong, but I understand that item F and item H were pulled for individual consideration. Okay, great. Thank you. And so I will look for a motion on the other items. Councilmember Ryan. The approval of the consent agenda except for items F and H. Councilmember Briggs. I'll second. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Okay. Councilmember Ryan. How say you? Aye. Councilmember Briggs. Yes. Okay. Councilmember Armitage. Yes. Okay. Councilmember Davis. Aye. Councilmember Melter. Aye. And Mayor Pro Tem Hutsworth is an aye. That passes six to zero. Okay. And so that will move us to the section five items for individual consideration. And we'll take up item IF from the consent agenda, which is ID 20-1521. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton adopting and updating downtown reinvestment grant program policy. Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. Jessica Rogers, Director of Economic Development. I will walk you through a very brief presentation. So in regards to why this item is on the agenda tonight, previously, I believe as far back as September of 2019, Councilmember Melter requested the inclusion of ADA upgrades as eligible expenses in the downtown reinvestment grant program. Economic development and legal staff worked together to review the TURS project plan, the relevant statutes, and existing policy to ensure that those could be included under the downtown reinvestment program. Staff determined that certain improvements would be eligible under the existing policy but made a recommendation to the TURS board to make updates to the program to make it clear. In that process, staff identified a number of administrative updates that were needed in the policy as well. So the proposed amendments for you tonight include adding ADA improvements under the interior code improvements as eligible projects under the grant. Include that also under the points section of the scoring sheet, red lines of both the policy and the scoring sheet are available for you in your backup. The administrative updates that staff identified were changes in the references from the former downtown task force to the now named downtown economic development committee, updating the contact information for staff and references to different staff and processes and updating information where clarification was needed. Just for counsel to see this language outlined in red at the bottom of the slide is the language that was added specific to the ADA improvements to make it clear that ADA improvements would be eligible under the downtown grant policy. And we've had a number of reviews of this discussion. So this originated with the TURS board in January. They recommended that the additional feedback be provided by relevant committees. It went to the downtown economic development committee in February. That's the body that scores grant applications. It also went to the committee on persons with disabilities in July. And then lastly, it made it back to the TURS board this July as well, where the board voted six zeros to recommend counsel adopt an ordinance to update the grant policy. And with that staff recommends counsel adopt the ordinance adopting an updated downtown reinvestment grant policy. I will stand for any questions. Okay. Thank you. And if you could pull the slides down for thank you very much. Questions. Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, more a comment. Especially with the aging population, just about everybody has somebody in their family who either has trouble with stairs or needs a wider door. And I think about the best thing we can do to help the downtown TURS thrive short of getting past COVID is make it accessible to everyone. And I hope that this helps do that. And with that, I move approval. Okay. And Councilmember Riggs? I'll second. Okay. Any so we have a motion and a second. Any other comments? Councilmember Amater? I just want to say that what a good use I think this is of this funding to improve downtown and want to mention what we are all already know, which is the ADA compliance is the law and it's a matter of civil rights. And so this is really about getting right with the law because inclusion is mandatory. And I think it's just a great use of this funded to do something really essential. All right. Thank you. And so any other comments? Okay. Councilmember Meltzer, how do you vote? Aye. Okay. Councilmember Briggs? Yes. And Councilmember Davis? Aye. Councilmember Ryan? Aye. And Councilmember Amater? Yes. Okay. And Mayor Pro Tem is aye as well. That passes six to zero. Thank you, Jessica. Okay. That will bring us to the next item, which is item from the consent agenda, item H, which is ID 201625, consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, providing for an in-kind contribution of 130 cubic yards of the city's dino dirt compost to Friends of Shiloh Garden. Okay. Councilmember Davis? Move approval. Okay. And Councilmember Briggs? Aye. I will second, knowing that that flexibility is included. Okay. And give me one second. Okay. Got it. And so I need to read this into record. Councilmember Amater? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I was just hoping we could talk about what that flexibility is. I mean, if you wanted to read that first, that's fine. You may. You may go ahead. Okay. Yeah. So what Councilmember Briggs is referring to and members of the public who are listening was there are two different kinds of dino dirt. There's dino dirt and dino dirt light. And so this flexibility gives Shiloh Farms the option of using the dino dirt light instead of the regular dino dirt if they want to. And I was wondering if anybody from Shiloh Farms is here, if Mr. Smith was here, if I wanted to write him an email, I couldn't find his email address. No, we don't have anyone calling in. Okay. Okay. Well, so is there someone from staff then who could just speak to what the differences in composition between dino dirt and dino dirt light? I'm going to I'm going to I'll if the city manager has something he wants to add to it, but I would direct people to last week's conversation where the representative from Shiloh Garden spoke directly to this issue so that they could take his words firsthand. But if the city manager wants to add something to his words from last week, then then I'll I'll open the floor for that. I don't have anything to add. Okay, thank you. So and then if there's anything else, I'm sorry, I meant about the actual composition is, you know, someone who can speak to what the differences between dino dirt and dino dirt light these two products, just what it's what the city attorney dino dirt light is not cited not mentioned here not requested. Is that on topic? What is posted is dino dirt. And whether that was intended to be a dino dirt dino dirt light, it's not clear from the posting. So I think I think it is a fair question to ask between the difference between the product or distinguish between what exactly is being offered to friends of the Shiloh and if it encompasses both dino dirt or dino light. And I think it's perfectly fine to ask that question. Okay, thank you very much for the insight. Dr. Banks, if you'll speak to the difference in the two briefly. Council. Sorry. Oh, sorry. The the difference between dino light and dino dirt is pretty simple. The dino dirt has biosolids from the wastewater treatment process added to it. Dino light is simply yard waste based compost without biosolids added. Thank you. Okay. And Councilmember, I'll return. And so to confirm, so this so what we would be agreeing on today, it allows for either dino product, dino dirt product, dino dirt or dino dirt light. That was mentioned in the work session. I just wanted to Yes, that that's correct. Okay. And so and they're both both are approved by EPA both meet EPA standards, right? Correct. That is correct. It's actually TCEQ standards that are handed down by the EPA, but they both are required to be tested and meet those standards. Thank you. And so I so I myself do not believe that, that the regular dino dirt is safe for agricultural use. And but I do understand that it is approved by EPA and TCEQ. But there is some number of sources out there have expressed and also agricultural uses that no longer use biosolids not talking specifically about the Denton brand, but just biosolids in general. I feel much more confident having the dino dirt light, which is without the biosolids and the additional ingredients that that contains. I feel that that is much safer for the use of gardening and for consumption for food and agricultural use. So I don't I don't feel comfortable voting yes to this. If it would mean that we would be giving dino dirt, regular dino dirt to be used to provide food for people. But if they would agree to dino dirt light, I would so wholeheartedly support that. Very sadly going to vote vote no to this. But I hope that they will consider using dino dino dirt light and I and I love and support Shiloh Farms. And anyway, I hope they will read the literature on that. I'll be happy to say something if I can get Mr. Smith's email. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And so I'll read this into the record for this item 4H. We had one person make comments using our online forum. There were there was one in in support of this item and zero against all of all of these comments. Forms are emailed to the entire city council and our city secretary to be recorded. Are there any other comments before we vote? Okay. And so Councilmember Davis, how say you? Aye. Councilmember Briggs? Yes. Okay. Councilmember Meltzer? Aye. Thank you. Councilmember Ryan? Aye. Councilmember Armitage? No. Okay. And Mayor Pro Tem Hutzpeth is an aye. That passes five to one. Thank you. And then that will move us to our regular consent agenda items. And so first up is item A, which is ID 2014-45. Consider nominations appointments of the city's Economic Development Partnership Board. Right. Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. I believe this is the last time that I will speak to you this evening. So thank you for allowing me to present so many times. So this one will be very quick. And this is our annual appointments to the Economic Development Partnership Board. Just as a reminder, the Economic Development Partnership Board is appointed by city council and serves as the primary advisory body to city council in terms of economic development policy and incentives. Members fall into the specific categories listed below and I'll go over which members are up for appointment tonight. Terms are for two years and members can serve up to three terms. As outlined in the authorizing ordinance, the city council appoints a nominating committee every year. On July 21st, councilmembers appointed Mayor Watts, Councilmember Meltzer, and Chambermember Marty Rivers as the 2020 nominating committee. The nominating committee confirmed the willingness to serve and candidate eligibility of the slate of candidates. So before you right now is the slate of candidates as presented by the nominating committee. If approved, the slate of nominees will serve a two-year term from October 1st, 2020 to September 30th, 2022. I'll go over them very quickly. The first candidate is or nominee is Lee Ramsey to represent the Denton Chamber of Commerce Board. This will be Mr. Ramsey's first term. He will be taking the seat of Marty Rivers who will have reached the end of his eligibility period. Councilmember Jesse Davis who filled an unexpired term for Councilmember Hedspeth. And so this would be Councilmember Davis's first full term. Steve Edgar who represents a top 20 taxpayer. This would be Mr. Edgar's second term. Jamie Mejia who represents the Denton Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. This would be Mr. Mejia's third term. Tony Clark who is the at-large representative. It would be Mr. Clark's second term. Mark McClellan who is the designee from the UNT president. And Jason Tomlinson who is the TWU chancellor designate. And there are no term limits on either the UNT or TWU designee, but they are required to be confirmed by city council. And so with that, those are the nominees presented to you by the nominating committee. Great. Thank you. And we'll take Councilmember Briggs. Yeah. So I'm currently on the EDP board. Does that mean that I was not nominated or is that my term isn't up or how? You were appointed last year, Councilmember Briggs, so you're just completing your one of that term. Okay. So I have another year, hopefully. Okay. Thank you. I was doing the math. I was like, wait a second. Thanks. Okay. Any other questions for staff? Councilmember Armitage? So are there any other women on that committee besides Councilmember Briggs? Are there any other, anyone else on that committee who is not mentioned on the board? I'm going to ask city attorney Liao, any, any prohibitions on that question? I don't see a prohibition on that Mayor Pro Town. Thank you. So I guess Jessica, could you speak to that please? Yes. Jill Jester also serves as the chamber of commerce representative on that committee. Okay. Any other questions? Councilmember Meltzer? Just a comment that it was an exceedingly boring task because they're all willing, everybody on there was eligible to continue and is currently serving. So actually that's what you see. So there's no new members actually being proposed tonight. They're continuing to serve. One new member. Sorry? Lee Ramsey is a new member. Yes. Yes. Replacing Marty. Yes. Yeah. You're right about that. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? Councilmember Armitage? And there's still a representative from black chamber of commerce? Yes. So John Baines represents the black chamber of commerce. Those seats were not eligible. They're in the middle of the term. So the terms are split half one year, half the other year. So that seat will come up next year. Okay. And councilmember Briggs? I move approval. Okay. Councilmember Meltzer? I'll second. Thank you. Any other discussion? Okay. Councilmember Briggs, I'll say you. Yes. Okay. And councilmember Meltzer? Aye. Councilmember Davis? Aye. And then councilmember Armitage? Yes. Councilmember Ryan? Aye. And mayor Pro Tem is an aye. That passes six to zero. Thank you. And before we move on to the next item, I do want to make a note to those that are listening. For the public hearing section of this meeting, item A, which is title APD 19-0004B, hold public hearing and consider making a recommendation to the city council regarding a request by Forester Real Estate Group, Inc. That has been postponed until September the 1st, 2020. And then item B, S19, public hearing as well, item B, S19-0013A, hold a public hearing and consider adoption of the ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, approving special use permit to allow multifamily dwelling use. Approximately four acres of land generally located north side of Mingo Road has been postponed as well. So wanted to make everyone aware that's waiting for those items, that those will be postponed. So that councilmember Riggs? Mayor Pro Tem, is the second item B, does that have a postponement date as the first one did, or is that just? Not at this point. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, it'll have to be re-noticed. And then that'll take, welcome. And then that'll take us to item B, which is BID 20-1526, consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas and Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation, granting to Atmos Energy Corporation Mid-Tex Division at Texas and Virginia Corp at OWL. So Tony is going to present to us, I presume. Yes, sir. Tony Puente, Executive Manager of Utilities, Mayor of City Council. Tonight I'm going to just go through a very quick presentation with you on the proposed franchise agreement with Atmos Energy. This is the second time this is before you. It came to you on August 4th. The council did approve it on his first consideration, 7-0. But I'll go ahead and go through that presentation really quick. It's just a couple of slides. So just a little bit of background. This franchise agreement did expire back on December 31st of 2011. It dates back to 2001. There was a number of extensions. Once they expired, staff had been working with Atmos. There was an extension by the previous city manager. And there was an agreement between the city and the company to continue to honor the previous agreement and all its terms. I can tell you that as part of that, they've continued to pay the city a 5% of gross revenues franchise fee. The city has worked with Atmos very closely in the expanded CIP program, number of street projects. And we've been collaborating with them pretty effectively over this period of time. Again, they've honored the agreement. The proposed franchise agreement that's before you has been modeled after the Plano and Mesquite agreement. But those agreements had been approved in the last 12 to 24 months. So it's kind of the latest and greatest in franchise agreements out there. I will mention to you that John Manganilla, who's the public affairs manager with Atmos Energy, is on the line as well. So if you have any questions when I conclude with the presentation, he's available as well. Just to run through a couple of the major changes, if you will, the first one is really related to the term. So the previous agreement had a 10-year term. This proposed agreement has initial 10-year term with two additional five-year terms for a maximum of 20 years. The charter does limit that to no more than a 20-year term. This, as I mentioned earlier, this agreement does also maintain the 5% franchise fee. Those are paid to the city on a quarterly basis. And then the other item that I'll mention to you here is that part of this agreement includes as-built drawings to be provided to the city whenever projects are completed versus on an annual basis. And then finally, like I mentioned earlier, on August 4th, the council did consider this item, did approve it 7-0. Today will be the second consideration. There will be a third and final consideration on September 1st. If those two additional items are approved by majority, this will take effect October 1st, 2020, and will expire on its initial term on October 1st, 2030. There are some requirements in the charter that this franchise agreement must be published in the record chronicle for three consecutive weeks and then within 30 days, they must file an acceptance. Once that is done, then it goes into effect. With that, that really concludes my presentation and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. And I see you, Councilmember Meltzer. Just one moment. There we go. Okay. Councilmember Meltzer? I just reiterate my request that at some point we see a reconciliation of the expenses related to dealing with Atmos that are meant to be covered by the franchise fees and with the actual collections. Just because of the possibility, maybe it's not enough, but because of the possibility that to make the opportunity to reduce the franchise fee and reduce the charges to customers in the future. But with that being said, I move approval. Okay. And thank you. Any other questions? Councilmember Walter? Yeah. So a couple of questions, one for staff and one for the representative from Atmos. Councilmember Staff, is there, you know, do we have any indication that an increase in franchise fees would mean an increase in rates or is that just a possibility? Currently at the maximum of 5%, there is no other city that we're aware of that has a higher franchise agreement. And so I think pretty much that's the maximum. There are some cities that have a lower franchise fee, but we are at the maximum. And the majority of cities are at the 5%. Okay. Thank you. And do the, so the follow up question to that, and then a question for the Atmos representative. So conversely, in those cities, does a lower franchise fee result in lower rates? I'm going to ask the Mr. City Manager or Tony, if you could speak to, I don't know if there's a direct correlation, but if you know, if you know how the other cities organize their billing structure, then speak to it if you have firsthand information about that. I really don't know the answer to that. It would really just depend on the gross revenues in that particular city, whether or not a 4% actually generates more revenue than one that has 5%. Okay. Yeah. And just, just to point out that, you know, there may or may not be a direct correlation, but I don't necessarily assume that there that there is one. So then my question for the representative from Atmos, if you can you speak to your sense of the degree of aging infrastructure remaining for repairs in the city of Denton and what your timeline is for for making those repairs? I would have to research that information and get back with you. When you refer to aging infrastructure, we have a we have a program in place that we analyze all our infrastructure all the time. It's constantly under review. So there's there's multiple variables that go into that review process. So most of the infrastructure in the city of Denton is poly pipe, which is a plastic. There is no, we have some steel and we have some bare steel, but there is no cast iron in the city of Denton. It's all been removed. So but more detailed information I can get you. Okay, thank you, John. I'm sorry, follow up question to that. And so are those are the only two materials or is there also is there some copper that we don't we do not use copper. The materials of steel and poly and poly is a plastic type material. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? Okay, so I'll take a motion. I'll take a second we have a motion from Councilmember Meltzer. Councilmember Ryan. I'll second. Thank you. And any other comments? Okay. Councilmember Meltzer. Aye. Okay. Councilmember Ryan. Aye. Councilmember Davis. Aye. Councilmember Briggs. Yes. Councilmember Armitage. Yes. Mayor Watts. Aye. Okay. And Mayor Pro Tem is an aye that passes seven zero. That will take us to item C. It's a number ID-1584. Consider approval of resolution of the City Council of the City of Denton. Texas placing proposal on the September 22nd, 2020 City Council public meeting agenda to adopt a 2020 tax rate that will not exceed the lower or the new no new revenue tax rate. Good evening, Mayor, City Council. This is Cassie Ogden, Director of Finance, here to talk to you about the max tax rate. I have a brief presentation. I'll share my screen really quickly. So as we've talked about now for a couple of weeks, we are currently at 39% of our total assessed values are under protest as compared to last year, about 2%. So we received certified estimates instead of certified totals. So that creates a lot of uncertainty when we're trying to calculate our tax rates for the next year. So the no new revenue rate was formerly the effective rate. And this rate is calculated based on our certified estimates, along with the voter approval rate, which was formerly the rollback rate. And then you can see our 2021 proposed budget is actually using the same rate as this year's budget. And then for our published max tax rate, we have increased the rate 2.5 cents higher than what we're calculating the proposed budget on. This just allows for some flexibility in case council wants to add any additional funding to the budget. We have the ability to do so, but the the published max tax rate is what's published in the newspaper and in the public hearing and in the public meetings. So with Senate Bill 2, some of the requirements of public hearings and public meetings change slightly. So we do have a public hearing on the budget and actually a public meeting on the tax rate, both scheduled for September 15. These are both required prior to adoption. And then because we are our proposed rate is below the no new revenue rate and the voter approval rate, we are not required to have a public hearing. But we do have a public meeting. Citizens also have the opportunity to provide input at both meetings and the hearing as well as the city's website. And next step, so September 15 budget hearing and our tax rate public meeting. And then September 22, we are scheduled for budget CIP and tax rate adoption. And with that, I'll stand for any questions. Thank you. There we go. Questions. Okay, Mayor Watts. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Just had a question on the the rate that is the no new tax rate. So am I understanding that because our rate is below that, I mean, then if someone asked it didn't raise property taxes, then we can say this year that we did not because our rate is below the no new tax rate formula pursuant to I believe SB 2 that was passed in 2018. Is that is that correct? That is correct. Okay. And it looks like that our max tax rate, I don't recall it right off the having seen the slide, but is the max tax rate that is being asked to be approved today lower than the no new tax rate? I couldn't remember seeing if that was the case. Yes, it is lower than the no new revenue rate and the voter approval rate. All right. So I guess then my question becomes, if we're below the no new tax rate, does that mean we have lowered property taxes or because the tax rate is the same as last year? Help me understand the nomenclature on that because I think that's I think that's important when people ask us what we did here at the Council as far as regarding property taxes. David Gaines, Assistant City Manager. I want just a little bit of context. I think the no new revenue rate, the effective rate conversation is just different this year because of those outstanding protested values. When they calculate the no new revenue rate, they have to use the lowest values of those protested values with that lowest amount that came in the contested amount that came in. So while it's true that assuming they all came in at that level, that no new revenue rate would be the same amount of property taxes from existing properties from the prior year. Okay. I wouldn't feel confident saying that blanketly just because we know that they're not going to come in in that fashion, which is why we adjusted some of our assumptions in the budget. So we feel like our proposed budget, the proposed rate in the budget based on that 85% number we've been marking toward is what the no new revenue rate will come out at based on 85%. So that's what we've been budgeting toward. But that's what makes it more complicated this year. And at what point will that become more accurate? Well, you know, there's the two big dates that Cassie's mentioned in past couple presentations at August 30th, the appraisal district has said they'll give us some updated numbers. So our plan is we have a meeting on September 1st. Hopefully we can give an update immediately following that time frame. And then on September 15th, the appraisal district has said that they plan on having certified values to us on the 15th. So that does give us by pushing our calendar out to budgeted option on the 22nd, we could change our proposed tax rate up to the 22nd based on those certified totals. So then if the certificate because you're saying that our point five, nine tax rate, proposed rate, point five, nine, et cetera, is based upon the lowest values of those that are left being protest. In other words, the most conservative approach saying that that all those values will be as low as people have proposed. Whereas if that's not the case, then it's very possible once we get more accurate numbers that that point five, nine percent tax rate could be a tad lower depending on if those values come in higher than what we projected in the calculation of the other way. Well, I just one point of the point five, nine is actually based on 85% collection, then your revenue rate, which was higher, that 61 cents that was based on the lowest. So we've already tried to be a little bit more to make some assumptions that are not based on the lowest. That's what that 85% but it's very possible that we come back, we get our certified totals on the 15th and we're able to lower further from the proposed rate. Okay, so that's if that's if they come in above 85% of the value. Okay. All right. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, David. Okay, Councilmember Briggs and then Councilmember Meltzer. So my question is, and I know you kind of touched on it, and I had this issue last year too that we're publishing and we're approving all these different rates and it gets confusing, especially when you have the max tax rate, but we've been going over and we've looked at department by department, and we've, we're going through a proposed budget. So why aren't we just approving a proposed budget rate at this point, instead of all of these other different things, which can be confusing to people who want their taxes to be low. Absolutely. And our intent going into budget this year was to not do the same, do the same practice was to have to post our proposed rate based on those discussions we had last year, but the appraisal district issue has complicated that really we're giving us giving ourselves that room so that again to go back to the 85% number if it's 81% and we come back to Council and say our budgets, $1 million short based on these new certified totals, we can have that discussion with Council of raising the rate based on lower assessed values than we have in the budget. So this year is just so unique and that we don't have enough information but we still have these timelines that we have to meet. So that's, that's the intent of trying to give that extra room over the proposed budget. Okay, but just to confirm and clarify. So, this item here is just to give wiggle room and it's not saying we don't agree with the proposed rate that we've been discussing and we have our budget based on. It just allows us to have a conversation if needed to. After we get the information we need. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Smith. Yeah, I just want to make a statement and you know, David, if I'm incorrect, please correct me. I think what many people believe is that we set a tax rate and we say we haven't raised your tax rate and then the evaluation goes up and we wash our hands of it. We didn't raise your taxes, your valuation went up. And I want to point out that the process is exactly the opposite of that. That we try as hard as we can to first know what the valuation is and it may well be way up. And we're dealing with people contesting that and we're trying to get as close as we can to the final answer on what the valuation will be and then set a rate targeting, in this case, not increasing taxes on average. We don't set each individual person's tax bill. We set the overall collection of existing properties. But as best as we can, we try to know the valuation first, then set the rate. So we know if we're targeting raising your taxes or not. And we're targeting not raising them. And I think that's evidenced by the fact that our rates, you know, fall on around 10 cents over the past three or four years. Just as our assessed values rose over those years, we reduced the rate accordingly. I hasten to add that that all being said, the city portion of anybody, any individual's overall property tax is still, I think, generally something like 15%. But that's the part that, you know, that we can control. Because you've still got county and school. Thank you. Any other questions? Councilmember Armitage? Yes, this is about the, so there's a requirement for a public hearing if a tax rate goes over a certain amount. And we don't meet that amount, which means we don't have to have a public hearing. But as I understand it, we could have a public hearing if we wanted to. Am I correct in that, that there's nothing prohibiting us from having a public hearing if we wanted to? So we are having a public hearing, right, on the budget on the same day. So we're having a tax rate on the budget with the tax rate based on Senate Bill 2. And we've kind of got we parse the language with legal and seen exactly what it says. We have to have what they call a public meeting instead of a public hearing. So that's required. It's going to be immediately at the back to back items of the public hearing on the budget. And it will be treated very similarly. There will be opportunities for residents to comment both during the public meeting section and the public hearing section for the budget. So at that time, there will be opportunity for any public to be treated just like a public hearing for both of those items. But just based on the actual verbiage in the in the in SB 2, we have to call it a public meeting because we're below the no new revenue rate. Okay, thank you. So are you saying okay, so a couple follow up questions. So are you saying that are you saying that we we could not do a public hearing if we want if we wanted to? I'm not not quite sure where where that your position is on that question. Well, we have to call on the tax rate, we have to call it a public meeting. Okay, we, you know, obviously, we can have a public hearing on on anything. I mean, I'm sure if we wanted to have a third item, we could add that but I think the public meeting really is an opportunity for the public to speak. We're having the public hearing on the budget, which covers the same material, obviously, the tax rates part of the budget. So we felt like the way that we have it laid out suffices both legally and also given the opportunity for for folks to speak. Okay, so thank you for clarifying. So one thing that I prefer about a public hearing for something as important as this is that people can call in to speak or stand up and approach the day is before COVID without having filled out a blue card or an error post COVID without having called prior to the announcement of that item. So is it would it be possible for us to make an exception for that the tax rate meeting item that anybody could could phone in and and speak on the tax rate, even if they haven't called before that item is called as long as for the duration of the item that they could still comment if that's the case, then I would be thrilled. I just don't want to, you know, deny deny the public you know that that positive opportunity to spontaneously call in. I'll let the city manager speak to that process. Yeah, it's going to be an item for under the items for consideration. So those those rules apply anyway, they can certainly call in and comment on the budget, submit a card, however they'd like to communicate and participate in the budget. I think what David's saying is, you know, we don't need to go the extra step because it's duplicative of doing a public hearing the IC issue where it's there, it has the same rules and it says, in essence, anyway, it gives the same opportunity for folks who want to participate. So if you do it again, you're just duplicating your efforts on the budget and the tax levy. Yeah, that I understand. So could we extend that so that the during that item for individual consideration, people could call in after the item was called? Does that make sense is a public hearing where you can at any that's that's not a city manager call. That's a council call. That's a that's a policy call for the city council. So we can we can have that discussion either now or some other time. But that's that's not a that's not a management call. Oh, yeah, just. So if that is, I'm not sure if it's on posting. And if it's not that that's fine. But I hope that we would do that just to show the public that hey, we want you know, we will take your input just as if it's a public hearing your spontaneous input. So yeah, I would strongly prefer that. Thanks. Okay, well, I'll check. Mr. City Attorney, is that does that need to come back posted differently? If you're going to decide well, let me backtrack. City Manager said that this item that the tax rate is going to be an icy item and it comes with own special rules of how people are supposed to register and then comment on those on those items. The council can always suspend the rules and allow as what Councilmember Armentor suggested i.e. allowing people to keep calling in as the item is going and sign up in queue the same process that would happen in a public hearing. But that's going to be a council decision to suspend the rules. Okay. But can we have that conversation now so staff knows or so that all the council members can be aware? Or does that need to come back? Since you're approving the resolution to place this proposal before the city council public meeting agenda. This would be the time for you to is part of the resolution to amend it if you wish to make it a public hearing item or change it to address the rules as part of the resolution directing the City Manager or the City Secretary to follow the suggestion that Councilmember Armentor suggested assuming that there is that the majority of the council agrees. Okay. So if there's if there's any questions on what's being proposed then let's hear those. Mayor Watts. Yeah, I would just recommend that if we're going to have a public hearing on the budget that we just include the tax rate. I mean, just because we're under the tax rate to statutorily avoid a public hearing. I mean, if we're going to do if we're going to change the rules to where anybody can call in during an IC, I would hate to set that precedent in an IC item for individual consideration agenda item just in general. So if that's the will of the council, I would say that we would just need to make it a public hearing notification and just notice at the same time we notice the budget public hearing is not anything that I think is going to be additional. It's just we don't have to do it. If we were over that particular tax rate, then we would be required to do it. But it means it doesn't mean we can't do it and just to make it more convenient for staff. And is that is that right, David? Well, you know, we had these conversations with legal heading into it because we would we preferred to just have a public hearing on the tax rate and a public hearing on the budget. But based on the on the language in the legislation, we have to have a what is called a public meeting. So we can't change the title from public meeting to public hearing. So we could have a third item, I would presume we can obviously get with legal. That's just a third item that's called the public hearing on a tax rate in addition to the public meeting item. But that's just the way. Let's think through that. We don't we're not gonna make that decision tonight. It's gonna be there's too many nuances there to say that the statute is saying that we cannot have a public meeting. Can we not call it? So let's try to figure that out and we can bring that back. We got plenty of time to do that. Sounds good. And then and maybe Aaron and the Friday report, you can give us your analysis or thoughts or not Friday report, but you know, in that legal update, so that we can have that to work from. So okay, any any other questions for staff? Great. Okay, looking forward. Now, do you need you need action? Or is that just an update, David? Well, the the the item the item is to consider the the ordinance on the tax rate notices to publish for those meetings on the 15th. Okay, so looking for a motion. Councilmember Davis, I move approval of the resolution. Thank you. Councilmember Armitter. I second. Okay. Any other comments? Councilmember Briggs? Now, when that comes back to us, will we have a better idea of what that that rate will be on the 15th? I hope that that's the plan what we've heard from the appraisal district is that they anticipate having certified totals by the 15th. So it could be that day or the day or the day before, but hopefully we'll have much better numbers by that point. Okay, thank you. Any other comments? Okay. Councilmember Davis would say aye. Okay. And Councilmember Armitter? Yes. Councilmember Ryan? Aye. Councilmember Meltzer? Aye. Councilmember Briggs? Yes. And Mayor Pro Tem Hutsmith is a is a aye. Did I miss? Oh, and Mayor Watts? We must have lost him. Okay, so that item passes six zero. That will take us to item D, which is ID 20 dash 1379. Consider approval of the resolution of the city of Denton regarding the creation of the Denton County Municipal Utility District number 16. And staff is coming on. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Council Richard Canone, Development Services. The presentation I'll be showing this evening will cover actually both items D and E. While there'll be two separate action items. Item E is a is a companion item. But this presentation will cover will cover both of those both of those items. Okay, just one second. Aaron, do I need to call item E as well then? Okay, then if Richard, if you could pull the screen down for just a second and let me call that as well. Thank you, sir. So it's item E is pardon me ID 20 dash 1496. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas regarding the development and consent agreement with with versus our VS Development LLC and OLEX Inc. Name the Denton County Municipal Utility District number 16. Thank you. So the the request this evening is to consent. They're requesting consent to create an approximately 553 acre Municipal Utility District. It's it's outlined here in the black and yellow line. So this is 156 3 80. And so it covers both both the north and south side. And so as I as I stated, there's two action items. One is the resolution for consent. And then the second is a companion ordinance with the related development and consent agreement that would enact those conditions if that resolution is approved and the overall cost of improvements for the public infrastructure related to the to the bonds that would be issued by this by this mud is just under just shy of $53 million. The project overall, it is not within the city's water or source CNCCN. It is while it is adjacent to our municipality on the south side over here, it is within our division to so all of the platting for this mud would be would be done through Denton County. As far as the intensity of the development development, roughly 1500 single family lots, approximately 30 acres of retail and commercial, and then another eight acres of multi family and most of that is concentrated along the commercial multi family along 3 80. There is a school site. This is in the crumb ISD. So there is a school site that they're contemplating for that for that site. As well as the areas in that you see here are gas wells that are currently out there. If you recall, this is just a refresher. If you recall when we adopted the interim mud policy, there were eight broad policies and then within each of those policy statements, we had some conditions or restrictions that were associated with that. And so that's kind of served as the basis for the conditions of consent that we're gonna be touching on. And so the first one and what I'll do is I'll just kind of read through each of these consents, which consent items which essentially will follow into the recommendation. But under the basic requirement, unlike some of the other muds that we had concerns with, the petition developer did agree to meet the city's residential street standards of a 55 street right of 55 ft right of way with mountable curb and then 31 ft back to back. So that meets what the fire department would look for. Again, meeting all of our all of our criteria manual again, as recommended by by Denton County, a fire protection plan between the between the petitioner and developer Denton County or a fire service provider must be approved prior to recording the final plat under the address utility services, including those within the consent agreement. Again, because the city will not be a provider of water and sewer, we did want to make sure that that we looked at what they were, what they would have how the site would be draining and how that would affect potential potentially downstream. So they have agreed to provide our city engineer with a courtesy copy of the downstream assessment, as well as a Clomar, which is a conditional letter of map amendment that's typically done by FEMA. That way we at least have have that courtesy review prior to it being formally submitted. The under the fourth broad policy, this really had to do with the provisions of debt, the debt service schedule. This item was not there was no information provided by the petitioner. And so we did not review it for that or have any conditions related related to that address future municipal annexations of the mud. What we've what we've discussed with them in may recall when we first discussed this as part of the inner mud policy is entering into a limited purpose annexation. And what that does is it requires a strategic partnership agreement, which essentially means that they're in the city for this limited purpose. And what that allows the city to do is to levy and collect sales and use tax. And in this instance, it would be a 50 50 split between between the mud and the and the city. The the six requirement is requiring that development in the mud exceed the minimum DC land use and development standards. Again, this is although it's in division two, they did agree to do that for the commercial properties along along 380. And what they've agreed to do is follow our highway commercial standards and then these the following sections within the DDC as it would relate to that development. So the corridor districts measurements and exceptions use regulations. One thing I did want to point out if if a specific use permit would would have been required, if this would have been in the city, it would be deemed as a as a permitted use. However, those specific standards related to those uses would would apply landscape screening, buffering and fences, access and circulation, parking, our site building design exterior and exterior lighting. In addition, continuation of number six, they did agree to also an asset condition to apply for and submit to the city a zoning compliance plan or site plan for those for those properties. And then lastly, because this is within the ETJ, they're not covered or governed by our land development code or gas well regulations. But they have agreed to a 200 foot gas will setback, which is at least double the amount of the current fire code. So increasing it from 100 feet to 200. And then if the any of the gas wells are capped, that setback would be reduced from 20 feet, I'm sorry, from 200 feet to 20 feet. Number seven, relating to Parkland dedication as a condition to consent. And what they've agreed to do again is to coordinate with our Parks Department for the termination of their trail network, so that if our citywide trail network starts to extend that way, as as Hunter and Cole Ranch develop, and some of the other parcels out west develop, we wanted to make sure there was at least that trail connection ultimately with with those properties into the city's network. And then policy number eight, addressing transportation issues that the they've agreed to submit to the city engineer a courtesy copy of any T. I. A. Drive connection study or traffic signal warrant. Again, part of our concern mainly was to the to the south, since it does border the city again as I as I indicated, they agreed to follow the city's the city's criteria manual. And then in addition, they agreed to construct the streets with concrete or by two minutes pavement based upon our design criteria manual with a 20 20 year lifespan. And then there would be no gravel gravel roads or turnpike or other toll roads. This is kind of a I think what we're starting to see is a typical item that's included in a lot of these mud districts, although it still raises a concern for staff. But they did agree that they would not be doing any of that. And that would also be included as a as a condition to consent. And which brings us to our options for the evening. First is to consent without any conditions, consent with conditions as presented or some others. And then the third would be to refuse refuse to consent. And just to briefly touch on this, if if consent was was refused, what that does is it puts it into a kind of another bucket, if you will, or another traveling, which allows them to then petition the city for service for water and sewer service and requires a contract to be executed within 120 days. The interesting thing here is, since we are not a water and sewer service provider, there wouldn't be much of a of a contract to develop or to negotiate. And so most of the conditions that that that we have put in place and that they've agreed to, we believe is probably our best our best option. If we did want to put into put any conditions into effect. And the companion item is just that is it is the ordinance sort of memorializing those conditions in a development and consent agreement. And so this would be between OLEX, VS development, and ultimately the the mud, the board once it is established. And so these these agreements are authorized under Texas Local Government Code 212 172, which really, in some it sets out mutual agreeable terms and conditions relating to the development of the mud. And then there's other sections of both the local government code in the Texas Water Code that that it must be consistent with. One of the main components of that of that development and consent agreement, as I indicated, is the strategic partnership agreement. Just to recap a little a little bit more and provide a little more detail. In Texas, there's there's kind of two broad categories of annexation full purpose, which is kind of our standard. What what we typically conduct is the full purpose annexation, or this limited purpose, which I don't believe the city has ever done. But typically with these limited purposes, it usually centers around a mud or a other some other utility district. And there's a the limited annexation typically includes just the commercial property only. There's no ad valorem taxes, there's no ability to vote in elections. But it but it does allow for that sales and use tax to be be levied and collected by the city with a with a split typically between the city and the mud. And then the strategic partnership agreement itself will identify those regulations and services imposed on the area on the amount of sales sales tax, and then the length of the agreement, and when and if the city would propose to conduct a full purpose annexation. Used to go on on not to go page by page on the agreement, but to really hit on the major kind of a summary of the major terms of the of the of the strategic partnership agreement. Again, all of the commercial land and then it would be any land that that would be converted in the future to commercial. The sales tax would be a the revenue would be a 50 5050 share between the city and mud. And then the priority order of the muds expenditure of those revenues would be first police fire EMS, second for reimbursement of the cost to construct the infrastructure, those bond eligible improvements, the operation maintenance and repair replacement of infrastructure, or to the retirement of those bonds after the 10th anniversary of the issuance. And then the term of that of that strategic partnership agreement would be either one of two items. One would be if the city elects for a full purpose or the city dis annexes that limited delimited purpose property and then just wanted to include up here just a snapshot of our of our mud policy number five that that that speaks to if we would consider full purpose annexation, the debt would need to be paid or there would need to be reserves in effect to cover the cost of those replacement of the infrastructure once it hit 75% of the life expectancy. And with that, staff recommends approval of the resolution conditionally consenting to the creation of Denton County municipal utility district number 16. And then with respect to the companion item, staff also recommends adoption of that ordinance, approving that development and consent agreement detailing those mutual agreeable terms and conditions relating to the development of the mud. I did want to add that that the enactment or approval of the strategic partnership agreement would come back at a later date once that mud is established. Because it is a limited purpose annexation, there are annexation procedures that that would need to be followed. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Okay, thank you, Richard. If you could pull down the screen there so I can see questions. Okay, Councilmember armature. Yes. So question for Richard. So you when you mentioned that the mud did not submit any information about their debt. They're not legally required to provide that right? Is that purely voluntary on their part? In the if you're in the interim mud policy, we set out some application requirements. However, this mud was was they had submitted their request for consent prior to the adoption of that ordinance or of that of the policy. However, what we did do was use that as the basis for the review of this of this consent. Okay, okay. I'm sorry, I just want to make sure I understand. So so we don't know. So they're providing that information about their debt is a condition. Can you unpack that a little bit more? So I understand exactly how this cements that it so so the the interim mud policy established application, we had the the policy number five, I believe it was that spoke to the review of the the financial their their financial wherewithal, and their their bond repayment schedule. It's not a requirement for for consent, meaning it's not in the in the state statutes. We we built that into our interim mud policy. And what we did is we crafted that that application requirement after the same requirements that would ultimately be submitted to TCEQ. In this instance, they had submitted their application prior to us adopting that interim mud policy, but we use that policy. So while we could ask for it, we couldn't demand it. Because they weren't technically under the auspices of that of that application. Got it. So thank you for getting that in there. And I realized that the timing was beyond our control. You know, I'm nervous about not know, you know, going into this for a vote, not knowing what their debt is and knowing how much or at least having a sense of how much debt, other muds, you know, cumulatively statewide have. So anyway, that it's a point of concern for me. But I do really appreciate that, that, that you got that in there and saw the need for that. Okay. Any other questions? Council Member Brees and somebody speak to this, we received a comment that says that the city will be able to retain 50% of the sales tax of the commercial properties if we approve this. Correct. That, that would be through the, through that strategic partnership agreement. Okay. That would, the, the, the consent development agreement kind of set out those overall terms and the conditions to consent. But then that strategic partnership agreement would come back once that mud is established. And then there's certain procedures within Texas Local Government Code, subject to 43 that we would need to follow for that, for that, that limited purpose annexation. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Looking for, we'll take them one at a time. So item D is either approving the consent, consent with conditions or rejecting. So I'll look for a motion. Council Member Ryan. Move approval with conditions. Okay. Mayor Watts. Second. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. Council Member Ryan, how to say you? Aye. Mayor Watts. Aye. Council Member Davis. Aye. Council Member Armitage. No. Okay. Council Member Briggs. Yes. Council Member Meltzer. Aye. And Mayor Pro Tem Gerard-Hutsmith is an aye. That's, it passes six one. And then we'll take up item E. Looking for a motion. Council Member Davis. Move approval. Council Member Briggs. Second. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. Council Member Davis. How say you? Aye. Council Member Briggs. Yes. Council Member Ryan. Aye. Council Member Armitage. No. Council Member Meltzer. Aye. Mayor Watts. Aye. Okay. And Mayor Pro Tem is aye. That passes as well. Six to one. And I'll read this into the record for item five D. We had four people make comments using our online form. There were four in support of this item and zero against. All of these comments forms were emailed to the entire city council and our city secretary to be recorded. And then item five E, we had four people make comments using our online form. There were four in support of this item and zero against. All of these comments forms were emailed to the entire city council as well and to our city secretary to be recorded. Mayor Pro Tem, real quick question. Yes, sir. Did I, I can't remember, did I take a vote on item D? I guess, did I vote on the consent? I guess I did. No, sir. We lost you on item D. Okay, that's fine. I just want to make sure. Yeah. Yes, sir. We don't need to go back. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Okay. That will bring us to the last item under individual consideration and that is FHL20-0008A. Consider approval of a resolution of the city of Denton, Texas approving an application for a particular tax exemption of designated historic sites in accordance with chapter 10, article 6, section 10-126 through 10-129 of the Denton Municipal Code of Ordinances. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, Mayor, members of council, Ron McGuida, principal planner with the city of Denton. This item, bear with me while I pull it up, is for a resolution to consider a tax exemption for a property that is located within the Oak Hickory Historic District. The property shown here is located just south of Oak between Denton and Welch Street. Property address is 923 West Oak Street. This is a photo of the subject property with the home. It is owned by Chris and Emily Galanos. It is a designated local historic landmark designated back in 2015, May 2015 to be exact. It is referred to as the Ratliff-Schultz House. The application, as indicated in the introduction, again, is for a historic landmark tax exemption, which is provided under our Denton Municipal Code of Ordinances, which is section 10-128C, a partial tax exemption of designated historic sites. The proposed work that was conducted by the owner, previous owner, was the following, or are the following, including some remodeling of the second floor in terms of improvement, and I've got some photos that illustrate some of the improvements that had been done. Also, exterior painting and plumbing work conducted or performed at the proposed home or the actual home. The proposed cost, or the cost that they've submitted, is $21,872, and they provided receipts and shown proof that that work was done in concert with that proposed expenditure. This is the section of the Code of Ordinances. I won't read the whole description, but the main thing to take out of this is that they are qualified for a tax exemption if they are a historic landmark, and they have expended over $10,000 in permanent improvements and/or for restoration of the property. This slide here illustrates some of the prior conditions of the home interior second floor. This is what it is today. As you can see, they've upgraded and improved the interior part of the home. This is another set of photos that illustrates the work that they did on the second floor. They also did a lot of work on the exterior with exterior painting. There was some plumbing work that was conducted on some of the water heater, washer, and similar improvements to reflect or to improve the conditions of the water lines that are included in this application. Staff is recommending approval of the partial tax exemption as it is a designated historic site. The property is again 923 West Oak. The Historic Landmark Commission also was presented this application, and they have agreed that the work that was done was towards the preservation of the home. And that concludes my presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Ron. Okay, thank you. And questions for staff. Council Member Briggs. I was just going to move approval. Okay. And Council Member Davis. I'll second. And Council Member Armitter. So question for staff, and I'm thrilled to vote yes for this, and I'm really excited about the new, it is relatively new historic district. And so just so that, so the public understands, and just to make sure that I've got it right, they, if this property owner does anything to change the historic status of this property, if they sell it to a developer, if they knock it down or add, you know, three new stories onto it or whatever, it loses not only the historic status, but also the tax relief that comes with it. That's correct. There are certain requirements that they have to keep in order for that tax exemption to continue, and that is obviously to preserve the home as much as possible. And thank you. And so I just want, without belaboring the point, you know, just want to emphasize what's so great in my view about a large historic area like this, you know, is that we're really not, even though we're voting on an individual home now, the more homes like this, that in this area that come forward, we are really preserving a whole neighborhood. And that is not just about, it doesn't just benefit the property owners, it benefits everybody who values historic homes in Denton and likes having them there and doesn't just want to be, you know, some big sprawling anonymous suburbs. So it's really good for character of Denton, and I'm excited about it. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem, if I can interject real quick, I failed to mention that the property owner is on the call if you would like to hear from the property owner just to let you know. Okay. Congratulations to the property owner, thank you. Okay. Yes, Ron, that'd be great just to hear from them and they can share whatever thoughts they have. Playing him up right now. We're trying to unmute. Okay, thank you. Hello, can you hear me? Okay. Yeah. Is this Chris? This is Chris Galanis, the property owner at 923 West Oak Street. Hello, Chris. It's Mayor Pro Tem, Gerard Hutzpeth and the rest of City Council. We appreciate your availability to speak with us and just wanted to open, Ron made us aware that you are available, so wanted to open the floor for you to share some thoughts about your beautiful home. We appreciate the work that's been done to it. Yes, we're new to Denton, excited to live here when we drove the historic district. We drove a number of the neighborhoods in town and we loved, you know, quite a few of them, but we really liked the character, like the councilwoman was talking about, of this neighborhood. And so we're glad to move into this neighborhood. We have a married and I have two children and we're glad to preserve, we're glad to preserve the history of this house in this area. So thank you guys for considering this today. Excellent. Thank you. Any questions from the council for Mr. Galanis? Okay. Councilmember Briggs. No question. I just really wanted to say thank you and thank you for being a historic homeowner and we're glad that you're here in Denton. Thank you very much. We're glad to be here. Okay. All right. Well, thank you again. And yes, I walked by there maybe a week or so ago, not even, it's a few days, but yeah, it was great. Beautiful, beautiful work done there. And again, that entire area is very attractive. So I see what brought you to it. So thank you very much for calling in and for picking Denton. That's great. Yes. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great evening. You too. Okay. And so we have a, we have a motion and a second. Any other questions, comments? Okay. Councilmember Briggs, I say you. Yes. Councilmember Davis. Aye. Okay. Councilmember Ryan. Aye. Councilmember Armitage. Yes. Mayor Watts. Yes. Aye. And Councilmember Meltzer. Aye. And Mayor Pro Tem Gerard-Hutsmith is an aye. That passes seven zero. That takes us to the one public hearing, but Okay. So we'll just to restate for public hearing item A PD 19004B. Hold a public hearing and consider making a recommendation to the city council regarding a request for four four star four star Ridge estate group Inc has been postponed until September 1st. Likewise, public hearing B S 190013A. Hold a public hearing and consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas approving a specific use permit to allow multifamily dwelling use on approximately four acres of land generally located on the north side of Mingo road, approximately 150 feet southwest of Boyd street southwest of Boyd street has been postponed to a date uncertain. Then I will call our last item, which is item CAESA 20-0003C. Hold a public hearing and consider adoption of the ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas regarding an alternate alternative environmentally sensitive area plan for approximately 213.9 acres. Good evening council. The Riviera with environmental services. Good evening. Before you is an alternative ASA plan for the four star residential subdivision located north of Roslawn east of the railroad. The primary plat PP 19-0019 was actually submitted before the implementation date of the Denton development code, which was in 2019. Therefore, the alternative ASA plan that is before you tonight will be has been reviewed against the code by the time that the primary five was submitted. This is a residential development for approximately 710 residential lots, 64 plus acres of open space, totaling approximately 214 acres. The request at hand is for the construction of four storm drain channels that will be impacting riparian buffers and water related habitat. From my ASA standpoint, the water related habitats, the riparian buffer and undeveloped floodplain locates along the adjacency of the attributary of the Hickory Creek. And there is approximately 31, I'm sorry, 30.1 acres of cross timber habitat on site. This proposal also includes some encroachments that are permitted by right. Therefore, those will not be included as a part of this alternative ASA plan. Just for the records, 50% of the upland habitat is allowed to be removed. The roadways identified in the thoroughfare plans are permitted to encroach in riparian buffers and water related and undeveloped floodplain, as long as they provide mitigation and subject to the approval of staff, as well as the installation of public utilities within the undeveloped floodplain. So what is at hand is four stormwater channels that will support the residential development. The applicant is also proposing to clear 10 additional feet from the other sides of those channels just to be able to put equipment and construct those channels. The disturbance will be 0.39 acres of water related habitat and 0.24 acres of riparian buffers. The applicant is proposing a strategy of approaches. The first is the revegetation of where the channels are going to happen. They are planning to reseat those areas with native grass and forbs and also will be planting 11 new large trees, 20 small trees, 13 large shrubs and 28 medium shrubs. All the species to be selected are species that tolerates moisture and wet conditions because of the purpose they will be serving as a drainage channel. They also propose in that area, those 10 feet outside the channels to also be clear. One of the conditions of all the excess on site is the presence of the Chinese privet, which is an invasive species. With that additional clearance will provide a better chance for the plants that they will be planting along the channels to take hold and to be able to thrive. Within the additional 10 feet, they will not only be removing the invasive species, but they also will be putting native seeds and plants so it will give an extra chance for that area to be recovered and get established. Notification 164 notices were sent out to all property owners within 200 feet. Staff have received five notifications in opposition, which amount to 4% of all the land within 200 feet. They have received three notices in support, which is shown in green in the map and that amounts to 22% of the land within 200 feet. Also, we have received one neutral of the concerns identified by the property owners. That includes the impacts to the wildlife, a desire for a greater tree preservation, especially the cross timber habitat, existing drainage conditions on that area, impacts to transportation and traffic, and the setbacks for an existing gas well. There was also a virtual neighborhood meeting held on July 14 where 34 participants attended. The concerns that they were raised are very similar to what was expressed by the property owners. Again, a greater preservation of tree, the actual trees that will be removed as a part of the construction of the channels, wildlife presentation, what will be planted and for how long they have to survive. They also bring the issue of drainage, the impacts to a school district and the gas wall setbacks. The Planning and Sorting Commission recommended approval with five conditions. I'm not going to read every condition, I just give you a summary. Condition number one is pretty much limiting the disturbance to 0.39 acres of water related and 0.24 acres of repairing buffers. Just to give the applicant the flexibility when constructing the drainage channels, we are allowing them to provide the routing on a later time just in case they have to modify it for preserving any heritage or quality trees. This condition would be addressing some of the concerns that the public raised during the neighborhood meeting. The third condition addresses what will be planted, mainly the 11 trees, the 20 small trees, the 13 shrubs and the 28 medium shrubs and specifying the list of plants to be taken from the table one contained in the plan itself. Conditions four and five mainly addresses the issue of survival of the mitigation and the reporting to staff for the next three years. With all that, that concludes my presentation. I'm available to answer any questions. I also like to point out that the applicant is available on the phone. Thank you, Debra. Questions? Councilmember Davis. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Debra, I noted with interest that one of the conditions of the AESA would be the removal of Chinese privet in those stormways that we're talking about, those drainage channels. Have they provided us any information on ongoing privet mitigation efforts if they're going to come back and continue to clear those drainage channels or is there a homeowners association or some successor organization that's going to keep those channels clear if there's privet on either side? If those areas were to be, from a drainage standpoint, if those drainage were to become clogged or blocked, they were able to actually go in and remove any vegetation that prevents the free flowing of the stormwater. That would be from just purely drainage standpoint. From a preservation of the AESA, the long-term maintenance of the AESA, the plan requires them to stay on top of things for the next three years after the after the planting of the new vegetation. After that point, it will be subject to the HOA desire to maintain those areas free of privet. Are these stormwater channels part of the, I guess they're kind of going across the riparian buffer, but are these part of the area, the AESA areas that are eventually going to be conveyed to the city so that these will become city responsibility at some point, or are these the stormwater channels going to stay with the developer or with the HOA? Well, it looks like the open space that it will be dedicated will be south of where the drainage are. So mainly if I believe as a part of the plan, I can flip through the pages here. Those are located north of the area dedicated. So yes, those will be outside the dedicated area. Thank you. Okay, Council Member Armitage. Yeah, so I'm really concerned about the concerns that the residents have expressed. I was wondering if you could speak to what kinds of trees are being taken out on this land and has the developer given any indication of what kind of, you know, large and small trees that they would replace them with? Okay, so the plant materials that they will be using for are listed on table one of your, on the plan, included in your backup. Those are the species that they will choose from to plant in those areas. Those species are chosen because they are tolerant to wet conditions. Just keep in mind this will work as a stormwater channel. So in regards to the trees that will be removed, we don't have a tree survey at this point that detects which trees are going to be removed as a part of the construction of the channel. However, one of the conditions will allow them to be flexible on the routing of those channels to try to minimize the removal of quality and heritage trees. So in that regard, that would give the flexibility to the applicant to preserve as much trees as possible by rerouting or reconfiguring those channels. - A follow-up question to that. Can you explain to me what that means, that they are agreeing to be flexible? It sounds like there's not much, like there's not much teeth to it, or rather that it's not, that they're not committing to flexibility that they wouldn't have had otherwise. So can you explain... - The configuration of the channels will have to take a couple of aspects, you know, the slope, what is the existing grade, and so on. So there are some physical limitations that they will have to take in consideration when routing those drainage channels to start with. But I think that they have heard very clear from the community through the neighborhood meetings and the input that they have received that they are concerned about preserving the highest number of trees. So by allowing them to, instead of giving us a strike right now, the specific locations and alignment of those trees, then when they are ready to start grading and be more, having more eyes on the ground and knowing what trees will have to come out or which one could be preserved by a small tweak, then they will be able to make those calls. And then when those channels are, you know, the path or alignment of those channels are being confirmed, then they will provide us with meets and bounds of those areas that will be clear for the construction of the channels. So we are trying to give the applicant as much flexibility as possible for them to preserve the highest amount of trees on site. - Okay. - Thank you so much for explaining that. - Thank you. I would prefer, I wish that they would just adhere to the ESA, but I know that's why they went through the process for the alternative ESA. But thank you. - Okay. Any other questions? Council Member Meltzer. - At first, you know, comment that my understanding regarding what's proposed related to the water ESA is that it really is a restoration, you know, where you had a very severely kind of degraded feature that they're kind of bringing it back to, you know, something more like a natural state. And I'm pleased about that. But I'd like to ask whether staff has concluded all possible productive discussions with the applicant regarding the upland habitat? And I think my question is to the city manager. - At this point, we have concluded those conversations. - Okay. Thank you. - Okay. Any other questions? All right. Looking for a motion. Council Member Armitter. - I move to reject, to deny. - Okay. Is there a second for, oh, okay. Let me do this. Let me open, we have a motion to deny. Let me open a public hearing and we have one caller. So let me take the caller and then we'll come back and look for a second. So we'll let the caller get on and... Hello. Calling you there. Hello. Hello. Okay. Maybe we can take that. Are you there? We'll let staff work on that for a bit. - Hello. - Yes. Hello. Yes. Yes. Is this Jennifer? - Yes, it is. Hi. - Yes. Okay. Great. You're Samara Pro Tem Hutzpeth and you are on with the city council. You've called in and so wanted to ask you to provide your name and address and then you will have four minutes to speak. Thank you very much. Are you ready? - Yes. - Okay. Jennifer Lane, Denton, Texas, 76205. I'm going to turn over my time to someone who lives adjacent to the property to describe what needs to be said. I'm standing here looking at a beautiful sunset. There she is. - Give me just one second. Give me just one second. Well, give me just one second. Yes. Let me bear with me one second here. Give me your name again. I'm sorry. - Hello. How do you unmute the microphone? - Hello. - Unmute the microphone. Hello. Can you hear me? - Yes. Give me, if I can have your name again, please. - Lee Ann Todd, 3316 Rose Lawn, live 200 feet from the proposed four-star razor subdivision complex. And my first thing is on the drainage ditches, they need to come up with a plan that specifically is avoiding these trees, not that, oh, we have flexibility and the bulldozer guy on site can decide what's a valuable and not valuable tree. You need to actually have a plan. If they're planning to really protect these trees down there, the historical environmental, the historical and endangered post oaks and significant pecans, they need to have an actual plan that this is where the ditches go and get on site and look at the trees and then make the plan. The other thing on the upland habitat, in what way has it been considered? Because it's not. They're saying they're keeping 50% of the trees, but only 15% of historical landmark post oaks are going to survive this development. And nothing's being done in conjunction with Dena Park and Recreation or also Bournemouth Elementary, which is connected to it. They're talking about letting, you know, as she's the floodplain where the septic system runs, it's not even clear that the parks and rec can even have access because of the ditches. And then the rest goes to waste for track homes that are not in conjunction with what is going on on Rose Lawn, which is three to 100 acre home sites for low income housing. And the developer makes their money and they move on. And they don't care about the beauty of Denton, the quality of these trees, what they do for the air quality, the potential that we have right now to preserve 200, 150 year old trees because of a two month difference. So they put in their plan right before the October, 2019 plan went into effect in August, 2019. You can't tell me that wasn't intentional. And just since then there's new developments to the plan, i.e. what we're talking about tonight and other plans. And they're different from the original proposal. So why wouldn't the tree ordinance of October, 2019 apply to this request to do this development and save these trees for future generations, save this environmental wonder at the potential. Gary Packman has been out here. I know Mayor Watts has been out here. Various council members have been out here and seen the beauty of what is going to be chest mowed down because of a two month difference in law as opposed to a 200 year old tree. Just because it's law does not mean it's right. And I appeal to the city council to try to save this, these historical landmarks and make it where the developer can still make his money, less houses, higher value, whatever and have a hike bike trail through this amazing forest, which I know some of you have walked through and seen. And so if all things have been considered, in what way has the upland habitat been considered? Okay. And that's your time. Thank you. Thank you very much, Lee. And then I do want to ask one other thing. I'm just curious why Mayor Watts is not running the city council meeting and that you are. Fair enough. Just because, well, I'll answer that. Okay. Yeah, I'll answer that. Yeah, because I'm at home, not feeling well, but I didn't want to miss the city council meeting and the logistics of running the meeting from my house is basically impossible. So Mayor Pro Tem is kind enough to run the meeting there at the home office there at city hall. That's exactly why. Very cool. Very kind of you to say so. Okay. Thank you. And so Mr. City Attorney, I have a question for you. And so Jennifer Lane called in, she had not commented. Lee Todd has commented via the online written format and she called in. So I need, we're only provided one method to speak on each item. And so I don't know how to correct the record, but she emailed in as well as called in via, she circumvented that by using Jennifer Lane's name. And so I don't know how to manage that from a record standpoint. I'm still trying to follow what Jennifer Lane did. She Well, so Lee Todd emailed in her comments. Okay. And then Jennifer Lane called in and then Lee Todd spoke during Jennifer Lane's time. So she Lee Todd emailed in and spoke via Jennifer Lane. I think you would, you would note it exactly the way you describe just right now. And then that would be reflected on the record. Okay, very good. So if the city secretary could make that note that that was done that way. Council Member Briggs. Thank you. I wanted to, I know that there's a motion on the floor. I wanted to comment on that because at this moment in time, I am not in favor of this item and would be seconding, but I would also like to see because of the reason I'm not in favor of one of them is that there is not a plan attached as there normally would be. And we could see that directly. And I know that that is to provide full flexibility, but at this point, I don't know what trees are in the pathway, what trees are going to be saved, what I would just really like to have more of an understanding of the impact of those trees before we even consider approving this. So I would like to see if the motioner would change the motion to postpone this until we could get a actual plan to see what is going to be taken down and what would be saved in the process of this. Yes, I will absolutely accept that. Didn't change to a move to postpone until there can be a tree assessment. And also, in light of what the caller mentioned, an assessment of the effect on upland habitat. Okay. And I will second. Okay. And there's another caller. No, no, I'll take the second and we'll go to someone. Yes, sir. This is actually the applicant. I was wondering if I'm able to speak and present on this, if possible. After we have to take the next caller. So yes, sir. I will circle back around. Certainly. Thank you, sir. Thank you. And so I have our staff to bring up the next commenter. Hello. Yeah. Is this John? Yes. Okay. If you can state your name and address for the record, then your time will start. Hey, this is John Holman 76207. First on the privet, the Chinese privet. I wonder if we could use the goats instead of the toxic pesticides, especially as that's near a water body. And I keep the stuff from going to our water supply. And then, yeah, I just heard Keely talking about postponing until you can see just what it is that's going to remain and what's going to be taken down. I mean, if we're not doing enough due diligence on this, we can see how upset then tonight's get when you tear down their environment. There's all kind of different reasons. The other thing is this. So we're going to get less oxygen so that some people can have more houses in an area that has less oxygen. Just, uh, you start to run contrary. Um, so I got down, um, and you can't get it back. And so, yeah, if we could just postpone it. Um, and in general, there's lots of ways to preserve the environment and keep things green and sustainable that actually save developers money. I'm going to be working on showing that to more and more people. But what an idea and couldn't the developers use a facelift about now, right? So if I'm just asking y'all to postpone and take a look at it and to appreciate and listen, um, give respect to the concerned people that call in and make sure you can really defend yourself. If you're going to tear this whole place up, especially when it's heritage trees, which we tried so hard to protect. Thank you guys. Unless anybody has a question. Thank you. Any questions for the caller? Okay. Thank you. I don't see any. Thank you. Bye bye. Yeah. And, um, question. Do we want, if there's any other questions for staff, if not, I will, uh, ask council member Davis. And my question for staff is obviously this is an alternative ESA plan. What are there other options for drainage in this neighborhood and this development if they're not allowed to, uh, disturb the riparian buffer? Um, and what are the kind of things are they allowed to do and will they have to do if they can't get to the stream? I believe there are options for drainage standpoint, but I will let the applicant who is, uh, I think on the line to address the, uh, the, uh, council to address that question. I believe they are, uh, they have looked into as scenarios, possible scenarios, but I will let the engineer to actually provide that detail to you. Okay. Yeah. So let's do that. Let's bring up the applicant and we can start with that question. Hello. Good evening, mayor, mayor pro members council. My name is Brock Fister. Um, I'm actually here with Mark Harris on behalf of the developer four star real estate group. Um, there's been several questions. I think I just, I did have a presentation prepared. Um, I believe that was provided to staff, um, for this evening. Um, I think that would answer a lot of questions if you guys would like to take the time to go through that. Okay. Yes, that'd be good. And you have, uh, 10 minutes. Okay. And let's get that presentation loaded and then we'll start the time. And, and will the presentation speak to the, the other options for drainage or do you want to take that? It will. Yes. Okay. Great. Yes. And I'll give you the option to answer the question before your presentation starts and you're well, we're up and running, so it's fine. Okay. Yes. Um, I will need to know when they want me to proceed with the slides because I will be running that for, for the applicant. Sure. And yeah, if you, if you can full screen it, I can kind of give you cues to, to switch. Okay. Let me provide that to you. Okay. Thank you. All right. I'll let you, you guys tell me when I'm, when you want me to go ahead. Um, okay. If you can, you can go ahead and start now. Okay. Uh, so we're here today to provide some information on the project as a whole, but really more specifically to discuss the alternate ESA. Um, we're seeking approval for the ALT ESA plan, which will allow us to outfall the development, the drainage system into the existing creek, which is required by the city of Denton engineering standards. Well, we are proposing to impact an environmentally sensitive area. We're also proposing various methods to restore and even improve those areas. So before we dive into the details of the plan, I would like to take just a couple minutes to go through the development in general. Uh, if you will switch sides. So we've worked on this project for more than a year and a half alongside the city of Denton, to come up with a plan that not only conforms to the city of Denton development criteria, but also highlights the natural elements found on the property. We met formally with staff on July 31st with pre-development meeting, this set of plan is solicited feedback hearing from the city staff. We made some modifications to the plan and move forward with an ESA assessment and a preliminary plat. The preliminary plat was submitted first in August 19th, 2019, and then was approved by planning and zoning February 5th of 2020. Go ahead. Next slide. So one of the other things that we did discuss with staff was the desire to preserve and highlight the natural elements on this property. The development was proposing 65 acres or is proposing 65 acres of open space and which is just over 30% of the entire property dedicated as green space. Going further, we are proposing to leave 45 of those acres natural. And you may notice that the impact areas, as we discussed, you know, we will discuss in a couple of minutes do fall within the areas proposed to leave natural. A big part of the all TSA plan that we're seeking approval on is the restoration of these impact areas back to a natural state. Another really important figure to note is that we're preserving 60% of the natural tree canopy on this property. As it stands today, the open space area along the creek which includes the preserved upland habitat is to be dedicated as a parkland to the city of Denton. It's also worth mentioning that the required parkland dedication for this project is only roughly 5.5 acres and we're proposing to dedicate almost 50. Next slide, please. So the question is, what are the impacts and what are we trying to accomplish? And then moreover, what are we going to do to restore these areas back to a natural state that they were in before we impacted them? Now, Christy presented on this previously and Deborah did a really good job actually with the presentation and the material that they covered was very thorough. So rather than reiterate all of what was said already, I'm just going to try to highlight some of the key points and give a little bit of background as to why we're pursuing this option. So with that, you can actually go ahead and just move to the next slide. So as you'll see on the screen, this is the actual impact area of the proposed plan highlighted in red. Although this option does propose impacts to the ESA, those impacted areas are relatively minor compared to other options. So other options that we have for developing this property require more grading adjacent to the creek area and which in turn results in a larger number of trees being impacted. This option, the one we're presenting right now, has a net impact area of less than an acre. Go ahead and switch to the next slide. This is an illustration of an alternate plan that we would implement if the ALTSA is not approved. So by not being able to drain directly into the creek, we would have to grade a much larger area to accommodate the flow of water from the development, holding it there until we can release it in a non-erosive manner. These would be flat bottom ponds. So please note, while these impacts do not affect ESA, they will impact more trees and likely a larger area or they will impact a larger area. Go ahead and flip to the next slide when you do it side by side. As you can see, option A as presented will result in a much larger or much smaller impact area overall. As mentioned previously, the total impact area for option A is less than an acre. The impact area for option B would likely be in excess of four to five acres. Go to the next slide. For the sake of time, since there's only the four impact areas are generally the same with respect to the type of impacts and the restoration proposed, we will focus our discussion on just one impact area. We're proposing to grade the channel from a concrete headwall as placed as far away from the creek as possible and then grade the channel through an ESA and revegetate that area with native trees, shrubs, and grasses in order to promote the recovery of the impacted ESA. It's worth noting that these channels being proposed, they're being proposed as a means to limit the erosion to the ESA. Now that seems kind of counterintuitive, but since we are going to be directing, directly impacting them in a controlled and isolated manner, outfalling the drainage without this kind of channel would actually allow it to spread and disturb more area than if we grade it like we are proposing today. So we're planning to utilize a couple different types of plants and grasses that have been outlined in the packet that was handed to you guys. For trees, we're looking at cedar elms, pecans, red buds, and Mexican plums. For shrubs, American beauty berry, the city's holly, and then grasses is mixed between a drain field mix for the flow line and then a riparian recovery mix along all other disturbed areas. As part of this recovery process, we're actually going to be responsible for annual monitoring of the impact areas in order to confirm viability and survivability of the plants that we plant. This will occur every year for three years. A report will be generated and provided to the city for them to confirm that we have maintained a 90% survival rate of all the planted species. Next slide. So the image that you're seeing is just a typical cross-section of what the impacted area could look like. Please keep in mind this is like a five to 10-year rendering and understanding that does take some time for the native species to reestablish, but we wanted to give everyone just a quick visualization of what this channel could look like down the road. Next slide. So to recap, we are seeking approval of the alternate ESA, which would allow us to impact the riparian buffer and the water-related habitat ESA for the purpose of draining to the creek and proactively managing potential erosive situations. The impact to the riparian buffer is less than 3% of the total area found on site, and the impact of the water-related habitat is less than 5%. As mentioned previously, we're not only going to be restoring the areas to a natural state by planting native trees, shrubs, and grasses, we're also looking to plant or we're also planning to go a step further and remove the invasive species Chinese privet. The privet will be removed by hand, and I think it was mentioned that there are concerned chemicals in that nature, and so we did make an intentional effort to say that the privet will be removed by hand for the entire impacted area as well as for an additional 10 feet beyond the impact area to help buffer it and allow it to slow down the time for the privet to return, which will allow the native plants to reestablish. As part of this plan, we're also responsible for monitoring the areas for a period of three years in order to verify the survivability of the plants. Switch to the next slide. That concludes my presentation. Thank you guys for your time and consideration. I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys have. Hopefully that did answer some of them that were asked previously. Okay, thank you, Brock. So we'll have questions. Councilmember Davis will pick back up with you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. My question is about option B. You said those were flat bottom ponds and they were significantly larger than the the kind of channels that you've been talking about in option A. What's the overflow outfall from those flat bottom ponds? You know, if you have a significant storm water event, where does the water go? Does it have, do you have other channels kind of in the direction of the of the stream? Is there some additional grading that's done there? Can you explain what happens if you had to go with option B? Yeah, so in addition to a larger grading area and just the general impacts of the ponds themselves, one, I guess to your question, the outfall structures for those we have not designed at this point in time. We've, the path is focused on option A currently. Now some of the options that we can do and would likely do given the types of ponds we would have would be V-notch weirs or just a concrete overflow structure with whether it's detention or retention or just a pipe outfall with a bermed edge. And so then it would then it would allow it to sheet flow and just basically make its way naturally from a low point to the creek. Okay, thank you. And I'm going to take a break here and close the the public hearing for this item and then we'll continue with questions. I know there was a couple others. Councilmember Meltzer, did you have a question for the applicant? And then Councilmember Briggs. Yes, I did. So I don't know, you know, how much of the previous discussion you're able to follow, but given that option A is only an acre, I believe you said only affects an acre, do you see any obstacles to seeing what the trees are that might be affected and where the channel might go on foot rather than, you know, from the scene of the bulldozer as one caller indicated? Sure, yeah. And I think we're absolutely open to doing a tree survey of the impacted area that we're proposing and understanding and even presenting that to staff to get their feedback on how we can, you know, best accommodate. Now I think the question was generally previously stated, you know, the flexibility, you know, we have people that can go out there, you know, during the construction and check it and kind of set alignments for those things. And so part of what we are willing to do is, you know, on top of the tree survey, we can have somebody set the alignment by stake and then go out visually inspect that alignment. And if it's possible to make slight adjustments, you know, five to 10 feet downstream or upstream to avoid a heritage or a post oak or one of those trees that we'd like to preserve, we're definitely willing and happy to do that. I'd certainly be interested in seeing that plan. Thank you. Yes, sir. Okay, Councilman Briggs. Thank you for that presentation. It was very helpful to understand all the thought that you have put in it. I have a few questions. So how large are the actual channels, the concrete ones in the beginning as well? Okay, so they vary based on the pipe size that would be ranging from anywhere, a 24 inch reinforced concrete pipe to a, you know, 36 to a 48, depending on where we are on those there's four different impact areas. But I will kind of steer clear, none of the channels are concrete. Those are all going to be grass bottom, grass lined, seeded with a drain field mix and a riparian buffer mix that is consistent with what staff has recommended and that we've used previously in these type of applications. The concrete portion is actually outside of the ESA and as far away from it actually as we can, but still allowing us to get positive drainage down to the creek. Okay, yeah, that's I was wondering how big that was. And so they're just going to be varied different sizes depending on? Yes, ma'am. And the widths can vary so that I guess part of the pipe outfall itself with the concrete headwall and then you've also got just the grading of the channel can range anywhere from 12 feet wide to 30 feet wide but, you know, given that it's, you know, it's a relatively small impact. Right, so I am more inclined, I'm inclined to do the alternate ESA but I really like the idea that you've had with the walking out on foot, the alignment with the trees and the stakes. I know that some sometimes we have an actual plan and now we don't because of the flexibility, but there is a concern, you know, that having that flexibility will allow for pretty much anything out there if there's not anything known before the work happens and then anything to compare it to after. So I'm not, would you be, would you be open to working with staff and creating a plan so that when we approve it we know what we're actually approving? You're saying in advance of the approval go putting together a tree survey and a plan of the areas that we're looking to impact? Is that the question? Yes, sir. I would have to confirm with the client on that one. Okay, okay. And I, just to clarify that I'm reaching out as we're talking and asking questions, so I should be able to get you an answer on that one. Okay, Mayor Watts. You're still muted, sorry. We have a motion and a second on the table to to postpone. Yes. So I'm assuming all this discussion is regarding the motion to postpone. Fair point. And so I guess my concern is we passed an ESA plan to provide flexibility for a reason and now we're saying well it's too flexible and we need something that's a little bit more set in a plan. So what's before us outside of the motion on the table is an approval of the option A for the ESA. Is that correct? If we get past the motion to postpone? That is correct. All right. And so I have a question for the applicant that's going to help me decide whether I want to have a motion, whether I want to vote for a motion to postpone or not. So I want to make sure I understood when you're talking about these concrete pipes. Are these pipes therefore buried underground? Partially. Let me think. When you say concrete pipe with a diameter, I'm assuming those are fully enclosed concrete pipe sectionals for drainage, stormwater drainage, and I wouldn't think that those would be sitting on top of the ground just exposed. Sure. They'll outfall at grade and so typically we would when we do our subdivisions, the edge of our property, the back of lots or however you want to say it, will grade down to an existing slope and that slope is generally a four to one or something of that nature. And so the pipe would basically meet that edge and then drain from that point through a head wall at grade to the creek line. Okay. All right. Okay. Yeah. I'll just say up front, I'm going to be voting against the motion to postpone. I think we have enough information to approve this. I think we added flexibility in the ESA to provide staff and the applicants the ability to work things out, which is exactly what they've agreed to do here, to look at this impact of less than what was a quarter of an acre or a half acre impact compared to four or five acres, especially with flat bottom ponds, which can pool water, which obviously in times of spring and summer can also become a haven for mosquitoes and all other kinds of things that are common to these detention ponds. So I think I'm going to call the question on the motion to postpone. Okay. So we've had someone call a question. So that means that requires a vote and Aaron, remind me what level that vote has to meet. It's superior to a motion to postpone and it requires, I believe, a second and a two-thirds vote. Right. Yes. That is correct. Okay. And just so I'm squared away. So this it's to call the vote on the motion to postpone. Am I, am I correct? Yep. That is correct. Thank you. Do we have a second? Council member Ryan's a second. So we'll vote on the call of the question. Mayor Watts, how do you, how you say? Oh, yeah. I call the question to get to the vote motion to postpone. Yes. Council member Ryan. Yes. Okay. All right. And then council member Briggs. No. Okay. Council member Meltzer. No. Council member Armitter. No. Council member Davis. Can I have the motion to postpone restated what we're calling the question on? Yes. Yeah. We're moving to the question. It's calling the question to what? Correct. To, I guess, an action certain. I don't know that that's been. It was until a tree assessment is made and an assessment on the upload habitat is also made. Yeah. I'm fine moving forward with that question. I'll vote aye to calling the question, not having any further discussion on the motion to postpone. Right. That's that's all. That's what it is. And Mayor Pro Tem Hutsmith is an aye as well. That's I have it as four three does not pass. But so there's more discussion or if there's any more discussion, I guess is the question. If not, we'll vote on the motion to postpone. So let me get to my notes. Council member Armitter motion to postpone. How do you how to say you? The motion to postpone. Correct. So it can you explain to me? So the question was called and it was four to three. The question was called to terminate discussion and get to this very same vote. Oh, okay. I see. Okay. So yes. Yes. Okay. Council member Briggs. Yes. Okay. Council member Davis. Yes. This is the motion to postpone. Yes. Okay. And council member Meltzer. Aye. Council member Ryan. No. Mayor Watts. Question of clarification. What are we postponing for? What's the action item or a tree assessment and an upland habitat assessment to be made? A tree assessment for which which I mean, I don't think there's enough clarity and direction and I'm going to vote no to the motion. Okay. And I'm going to vote no. But I have the vote four to three to postpone. And so if you could state for the record again, Aaron, it's postponed until until a tree assessment and an upland habitat assessment can be done and then provided to council for the for the next hearing. And is that could we have a is there a way to repeat that? Is there a way to find a record of that motion? Because I don't recall that being that clearly stated on that motion. Is that how that motion was stated exactly like that? I'll defer to either Aaron or Rosa. This the specific wording that was used, I don't word for word. I don't have that. I wrote down the two key assessments that were being sought, which were those two, a tree assessment and an upland habitat assessment. And what is the tree assessment, I guess, is my question. You have to ask the movements. Well, we just voted on something and we don't know what what we're voting on. I guess the motion passed. So it's immaterial now. So the motion to postpone obviously has passed. Okay. So then staff, I guess you'll you'll work with the applicant and get that scheduled quickly as possible and to bring it back. Is there anything else that I've missed, Deborah, that you need from us? We will work with the applicant and we will bring it back as soon as possible. Okay. And I'll read for the record for this item 6C. We have four people make comments using our online forum. There was one in support of this item and three against all all of these comments were emailed to the entire city council and to the city secretary for to be recorded. All right. Okay. Well, then that concludes item C, AESA 20-003C. And that will take us to our next item, which is concluding items. Okay. I don't see anybody moving. So, oh, Councilman Marmotor. Yes. I just wanted. There we go. I just wanted to wish a speedy recovery to Mrs. Bilodeau, who got attacked by a cat recently earlier this week and she's recovering at home. I just wanted to send her best wishes and speedy recovery. So real, real scary event and I hope she does well. Okay. Anyone else concluding items? Okay. That'll conclude this meeting of the city council at 9 15 p.m.