Aug 25, 2020 City Council on 2020-08-25 1:00 PM

Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, August 25, 2020. It is 1.04 p.m. We do have a quorum, so I'll call this meeting to order. Our first item on the agenda is citizen comments on consent agenda items, and I do not believe we have any callers for citizen comments on consent agenda items. Second, we have requests for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda. Councilmember Meltzer. I would just like to pull out item A for a separate vote. Okay. All right. Councilmember Armitage, did you have your hand raised? I know I'm trying to find the item. Okay. Councilmember Briggs. I'm curious if anybody has any data on the item C for increasing the speed limit back up? Like during the process when it was lower, were there less accidents or more tickets, anything like that? Do we have Brian John and Todd Estes on the line? There's Brian. Just one moment. Brian's walking in. Good afternoon, Ron John, city traffic engineer. Could I get a repeat of the question? Hi, Brian. Yeah, I'm curious for the speed limit on the interstate. I know TxDOT requested to increase it back, but I was just curious why it was lower if there were less accidents, if we have any data like that, or more tickets written by the PD. Do we have any data? We do not have data. We did not keep a summary during the construction. I know we had a request from TxDOT to revert it. They did a speed study and showed that 65 was well below what the vehicles are traveling. So I think it's a TxDOT policy to use the 85th percentile approach. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? Yes. Councilmember Armitage. So a question about that. So do municipalities get any say in that issue if we would rather not take a 85% approach? I think we can have a conversation, but my experience is at the end of the day, TxDOT and the transportation commission establishes the speed limits on the access control facilities and on system facilities. I mean, we can have the discussion. I don't know that we've had one. That's an option. My experience is typically on the controlled access to freeways, transportation commission and TxDOT establishes those speeds. Okay. Thank you. And our rather the possibility of our having that conversation is not precluded by a yes vote. If a majority of council wants us to have that conversation, we'll reach out. But as Brian's stating, it's typically going to be their final call. We're happy to do it though if Forbes would like us to. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? All right. Oh, yes. Councilmember Armitage. Yes. So a couple consent agenda item issues. Okay. So I'm scrolling here. So first, A, I would like to pull that for an individual vote. Yeah, I think councilmember Meltzer pulled that if I was correct. Okay, good. Okay. Thank you. And then on item, let's see, item F, I was wondering if staff could, this is about the contract with Catalyst PR incorporated for reusable cloth face masks and surgical face masks. I was wondering if staff could speak to whether or not there were any local bids for the cloth face masks and if it would be possible to redo that RFP to prioritize our local cloth face mask makers. Apologies, by the way, if we got an email this morning about it, I've been busy this morning and was only just able to sit down. I think we have Christine Taylor and Lori Huell on the line. Yes. Good afternoon, council, councilmembers, and mayors. This is Christine Taylor from procurement. We did have several local vendors throughout the county and throughout the state submit bids. The vendor that won is local to Texas, but not within the county. They're from Conroe. So we did put it out there to local respondents, and we did have several apply that were in the area. The local winning bidder, some of the requirements for the solicitation, a minimum requirement to have the product purchased from the city of Denton is three years of experience. And that's so that we can have reference checks with municipalities of our size. We want them to be able to provide the product for a long term. So several of those companies that you did list that were listed in the article have been making them in the short term, but would not have met the minimum qualifications to submit for the solicitation. And thank you. So may I ask, so that means that the winning bidder has been making cloth face masks for the past three years, as well as the disposable surgical ones. I thought that the cloth face masks were something that is relatively new in this country, if you could elaborate on that. Sure. So the minimum qualifications are that they have three years experience providing a similar product or services. Okay. So thank you. So I would like to pull that for an individual vote. So I could request to split that up between the disposable and the reusable, so that we can have local bidders apply for or be in a more competitive position for the reusable. Can you speak to just briefly what the timeline is on that? How soon we need those surgical ones? Yes. Okay. The awarded vendor is, was selected for three sections of it. So there's a portion of it for the disposable and 95 masks that are for public safety. And they do need those immediately. The surgical mask, we do need them soon, but could wait on that one. And the cloth mask, we do have several that were donated from the beginning. So that item could go out, but since they're packaged together, the timeline would look like you'd have to, people would have to reject bid on the cloth mask. We'd redo the contract to only award disposable and surgical, and we could resubmit it, but it would be lowering the minimum specifications to open up that pool to the group that you're inquiring about. Excellent. Thank you so much. So that's, that's what I will be doing just to give you a heads up. That's what I'll be proposing. I'd like that pulled for individual vote. Thanks. Okay. Well, and thank you, Christine. And to understand that that gets pulled for an individual vote. If a majority of the council members agree with your approach, then we'll do that. If not, then we'll move forward from there. All right. Any more clarifications on consent agenda items or clarifications on the agenda? Excuse me. So I only show two being pulled off the consent agenda, agenda item A and agenda item F. Agenda item A is not, nobody's requesting a presentation on that. And on agenda item F, it doesn't sound like that we're necessarily requesting a presentation. There may just be an alternative proposal. Okay. We'll move on then to our regular work session reports. And it's my understanding, just for my clarity on agenda item F of the work session under council pending council request number four has been asked to be removed from that list. Is that correct? I'm seeing heads shaking, but that's okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Just wanted to clarify that before we got there. All right. Our first work session report is receive report hold discussion. You have staff direction regarding an update on the council directed milestones at the green tree subdivision. Good afternoon. Council Ryan Adams, customer service and public affairs. Let me pull the presentation up real quick. And this is just a brief update on the green tree state's neighborhood and declaration of disaster since council last discussed this item on July 28th. There it goes. So on July 28th, the city council extended the active declaration disaster for green tree estates to August 31st. And that's this coming Monday. And as a result of that coming exploration of the declaration disaster, temporary water service that the city currently provides to the residents of green tree estates would end beginning September 1, 2020. As of this time, seven properties have paid their fees to connect. One has actually facilitated that connection. And it's staff's understanding that residents continue to work to try to establish private easements. And they're working through that process prior to actually putting in their own private lines along the roads of green tree estates. Staff at this point in time does not anticipate any additional properties paying their fees in the near future. However, properties can pay their fees and connect at any time provided they meet any of our requirements or all of our requirements. We also want to update the council on the expenditures resulting from the declaration of disaster. Council allocated a total of $100,000 to be spent. And of that number, staff has spent an estimated $69,194 as of August 19th. So as the declaration of disaster comes to a close, staff will provide ongoing services to those properties that have connected to the city water system. Again, the exploration of the declaration of disaster does not preclude any residents from connecting to the city water system. They can still continue to do so if they pay the requisite fees and meet the code requirements. The city will provide water service to those connected residents. They will have standard water accounts like any other connected residents or property. The residents will also be billed monthly or they may utilize a pay-as-you-go option through utility billing. We will also provide solid waste and recycling services. Connected residents will be provided a solid waste and recycling cart. And they will place carts on the right of way that's adjacent to Swisher and Edwards on their collection day, on their designated collection day. For any occupied properties that do not have a connection, to be considered or to be legally occupied, structures must have a connection to an approved water source. Those structures without a connection may be deemed substandard. As the city addresses substandard properties, and this is a very brief overview of the process, but those properties would first be issued a notification of their non-compliance with city code and they would be issued a timeline to correct that non-compliance. And if that non-compliance continues, the city would initiate the Health and Building Standards Commission, the HABSCO process. The full process, if it goes from all the way to, from the beginning all the way to completion that ends with rehabilitation or some other conclusion, could last anywhere from six to nine months. So going forward, the temporary water provision will end after this coming Monday, August 31, 2020. Residents may continue to keep the water containers that the city provided. We will not ask for those back. And unconnected properties can connect at any time. The city will provide water and solid waste services to those connected properties. And we will address through the appropriate process, substandard structures, whether that's unoccupied structures that pose a risk to the public or occupied structures that do not have a connection to an approved water source. That is the end of my presentation. I did not mention ahead of time, but we do have an interpreter who is interpreting this entire conversation for any Spanish speaking residents. So I will attempt to do it myself. I know it's difficult to do, but if you can speak slowly with any questions and insert some pauses, that will help him greatly. Okay. If we can pull this, there we go. All right. Questions? Yes. Council Member Briggs. Is there a way to allow the customers who have signed up for water accounts who are getting water deliveries to continue that, but at the full cost of service without this order, is that a possibility if they pay the, I mean, has anyone asked about that who is receiving water? We've not had any inquiries to the city. I believe this was discussed at previous council meetings where council did ask the full cost of service, what that would be on a monthly basis to individual properties. I believe and I'll defer to our attorney, but I believe that would require a continuation of the declaration of disaster because it's the declaration that allows us to access the property for the purpose of delivering water. Yes. Council Member Briggs. So even if the, could the order expire if there was an agreement between those who own the access to the roads to continue deliver water or not? There could be. It's our understanding that an agreement has attempted to be worked out, but nothing has been worked out yet. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. All right. Does that conclude the presentation? That is our presentation. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. We'll move on then to work session report 3B, receive report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding an update to the city of Denton's COVID-19 response. Thank you, City Council, Sara Kuechler, 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. We do have one brief update for you today, and that's in regards to the city of Denton's local disaster declaration and order. And this will actually lead into the individual consideration item that is on your agenda later today in terms of extending the declaration and the order. So by way of reminder, we do have a current declaration and an order. Those are both in effect through Monday, August 31st, and are set to expire on Monday evening. Right now, currently this shows a summary of the main items that are part of the order of council. So just quickly, it does provide reference to some of the governor's orders that he has released that are still in effect. And that includes the face covering requirement for individuals as well as outdoor gathering limitations. It also includes a health and safety policy requirement for our businesses in the city of Denton, requiring businesses to post signage to require employees and customers to wear face covering as well as other items. The order also provides authority to the city manager for a number of items that might be necessary in order to respond to COVID-19, such as applying for state or federal assistance, accepting grants, or adopting procedures and directives related to personnel or altering the operations or hours of some of our facilities or services of the city. It also provides authority to the city manager to expend funds from the general fund reserve balance, provides flexibility in terms of scheduling city committee and commission board meetings since we are doing all virtual meetings at this time. And then it also postpones all non-essential in-person court proceedings. So those are the main items that are in the order currently. There still is some other items that are part of the order that are more historical in nature in terms of previous authority that was granted, such as providing assistance to the United Way for housing and so forth. So on the agenda, under individual consideration, staff has drafted an ordinance to extend the declaration through September 30th by an additional month and also to replace the current order of council with a ninth order of council with two changes. One to extend the timeframe just to make it consecutive to also be through September 30th and then to also increase the total spending authority for the city manager to include some of the identified facility improvements we're making in response to COVID-19. I believe these are covered by the CRF funds. Our finance director, Cassie Ogden, will give you an overview in regards to the expenditures on the next few slides. Staff at this time, after Cassie is done presenting her slides, would be seeking any direction from council. If there's any additional changes that you would like to see in terms of an order and declaration for consideration. But I'll turn it over to Cassie and then we'll complete the presentation. Good afternoon, Cassie Ogden, director of finance. Just to give you an update of our COVID emergency expenses to date. So we have expense 994,000. You can see on the right hand side, some of the major expense categories. The medical protective services includes things like thermometers, gloves, face masks, and all of our PPE. And then we have disinfection and then the homelessness care, United Way utility assistance program. And we're asking for the expenditure authority for the facility improvements. These are the estimated expenses that we are planning on making to the facilities at this time. You'll notice some of the buildings are not listed. We don't have estimates for those yet, but we will come back when we have those. We do not anticipate that these improvements will be complete by the end of September, but we wanted to ensure that we have the expenditure authority. Our anticipated total cost is $900,000 and you can see the breakout by building. So in conclusion, we're asking for an additional $900,000 to bring the total authority up to just over 2 million. And these expenses will be reimbursed by the CRF funds. With that, if you have any questions about the funding, I will answer it before turning back to Sarah. Council Member Briggs and then Council Member Meltzer. The all 2 million of the expenses will be reimbursed? Not the homelessness care. Can y'all hear me? Something's happened. I see you and I hear you. Okay, there we go. They're checking her microphone right now. Okay. All right. Thank you. So yeah, we've got a little technical issue. So we'll give you just a moment. You're good. Okay. So the majority of the expenses will be reimbursed. However, I believe the homelessness, the hotels will not be reimbursed. Okay. May I? Yes, yes, yes. So would this be the question where or the time where I ask you about the hotels and extension in Monsignor King or is that something for Sarah? Yeah, Sarah can if you want to answer it. Okay. Well, I think Paul may have questions for you. So I can wait for Sarah to come back. I had the same question you asked. So keep going. Okay. I just want to point out the United Way expense will not be reimbursable either. So it'll be those two expenses. Okay. And I'll turn it over to Sarah. Hey, Sarah. David Gaines, Assistant City Manager. Just a point of clarification. Through the CRF funds, the United Way contributions that we made aren't going to be reimbursed because there's that separate program through the county, but the homelessness initiatives will be part of our CRF fund reimbursement. Okay. To clarify that piece. Yep. Good. I'm going to get over to Sarah. Yes, Councilmember Briggs, I believe had a question. Yeah. On the on the hotel, because I know that Monsignor King has opened up for a certain few days, but they are also at capacity already. Do we still have the hotel in place? I had someone who was seeking shelter reach out to me and say they had nowhere to go. So do we have anything to fill in the gaps for for shelter at the moment? Yes, we currently have extended the hotels through the end of October. So we're still providing that assistance. And if someone needs help getting connected, they should reach out to one of the social service agencies and we'll help to connect them to whatever resources may be best fit. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? I thought I saw Councilmember Meltzer might have had a question, but all right, anyone else? Question for Sarah. Councilmember Ryan. Well, this isn't really for Sarah. This is more for my fellow council members. And that is since the governor mask order went in after ours and as an individual, the only option we had at the time was to place the order on the businesses in the burden on the businesses. I would like to see that that portion of it is removed and allow just the individual mandate put in place by the governor and I'd like to see fellow council members feel about that. Anybody? I mean, I've got a comment, but Councilmember Armitage. I think Councilmember Armitage froze up. Okay, there we go. Got it. So I would like to keep the order regarding businesses, but I do have some questions about how that's being enforced. But I'll wait to hear others, you know, answer that question, Councilmember Ryan's question, but I do think that it's important, especially now. And I know that a number of business owners, not all, but some really appreciate having it. But people do have questions, including myself, about how and whether it's being enforced. Anyone else? Councilmember Briggs? Yeah, I am okay lining up with the governor's order as long as the governor's order allows mass to be to be enforced. And I also, I know we're still on this request, but I have a another request for this order after this one is, uh, finished. Okay. All right. Anyone else? I've got anybody else having comments? Yeah, Councilmember Ryan, I would concur with you. I was thinking about that a couple weeks ago. And I think that we've got an order that supersedes our order. And our order does place, I think, additional burdens on businesses. And if I recall correctly, so somebody can correct me if I'm if I'm wrong. It wasn't too long after our order where the governor's order was put in place in our order. I believe the discussion was also about education and encouragement. We talked extensively, I believe, about enforcement or lack thereof that it wasn't we weren't passing it to be a tool of enforcement, but one that would really encourage people to wear face covering. So I'm okay with that. I think that that I don't think it takes anything away from the business's ability to enforce their own regulations that they choose based upon each individual business needs. So I'm I'm okay with that. Absolutely. Anyone else? Councilmember Davis? Yeah, I'm not quite ready to take that out of our order yet. For a couple of reasons. One, kids are not in school yet. It will be tomorrow. And then the eighth. We don't know what the fact that's going to have on our working population. Folks are in the schools with the kids. We don't know what effect that's going to have on our numbers generally in the community. So I'm not ready to take that that jump just yet. Secondly, I think our order in the governor's is a belt and suspenders kind of a situation we have in our order. We don't just require a mask. We're asking our business owners to have in place a health and safety plan. And I think that that plan is kind of integral to our approach to educating to keeping folks safe in the community. So taking that requirement out at this point, I'd rather stay the course with our current order. You know what happens if the numbers go up, we've taken our mask order out and then the governor rescinds his mask order. Here we are having the same conversation we had however many weeks ago that was. So I prefer to keep our order just as it is. I prefer to stay the course of what we're doing now. I think it's working. I think we're doing the best we can from a city perspective and we need to keep it up for the time being. Okay. All right. Anybody else? Okay. All right. I believe Councilmember Meltzer, I think you went offline for a moment and I just wanted to circle back around to see if you had any questions. I thought you'd had a question. Did you change everything while I was gone? Yes, we did. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No. So I think you'd had a question about the hotels. No, I was I had wanted to ask whether the entire amount was going to be reimbursed and Councilmember Briggs asked the same question. So I'm fine. I think I got the gist of the conversation. Okay, great. Councilmember Briggs. Thank you, Mayor. As we are going to be revoting for the order later, I would like for the council to consider adding back in non shutoffs for utilities just at least until the first nine weeks of school. I saw a few posts online where individuals were getting their utilities cut off and school starts tomorrow. And I would hate to think that we are interfering with disrupting a child's education by disrupting and cutting off utility services while the child is in connected learning. So I just wanted to ask council to consider extending it even if it's for a week while there's a while no one has a choice or the nine weeks where parents can choose to connect to learning so that we're not negatively affecting a child's education. Councilmember Amater. Yes, so I absolutely concur with Councilmember Briggs suggestion. I would prefer the for the prohibition on utility shutoff for that full nine week period. But like Councilmember Briggs said, as long as as we can get that, that would be great, especially for kids starting out at school. I want to also just second on all of the reasons that Councilmember Davis gave so articulately to to keep this belt belt and suspenders municipal ordinance in place. I think it works well in spite of my questions about enforced about both are being enforced. You know, those questions can even could even wait to be answered till another time. I'm just glad that we have it. And finally, I wanted to make sure that I don't know when Councilmember Meltzer checked out. But but I he hasn't yet weighed in on on this question regarding Councilmember Ryan's question for Council. So I don't know how much of it he heard or didn't hear. Well, sorry, I'll speak if you recognize me there. I'm sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, yeah, I'll speak if you're okay. So I gathered that there was a discussion about whether to remove our mask ordinance was that what Councilmember Ryan had suggested? Yes, I believe so. I'm not sure I would I would label it that way. But I believe so. I was just interpreting from sort of the comments I heard after. So, yeah, I'm in the same boat as Councilmember Davis on it. You know, if you take it away, there's really no sign that there's anything in force. You know, I think the the really the real value of it is just that there are signs up everywhere, telling people to wear the mask when they go in, which which is consistent with the governor's order. Our cases, our new cases are symptomatic cases are declining, the new cases just coming on are kind of declining, slowly declining. But you know, nowhere's near where we were before they started to spike after Memorial Day. So I think we're moving in the right direction. I don't think it's going to help anybody to, you know, remove something that's working. And now we'll circle back around to Councilmember Briggs proposal. So we've had one comment by Councilmember Armitter. Any other comments, questions, Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, well, first, I think it'd be very helpful if in public and, you know, and in private, when the subject comes up, if we reinforce that the intent is simply to get people to call when I haven't been in communication, so that they can be connected to benefits that haven't been said, I just experienced a moment ago, you know, service interruption, you know, while during this council meeting, and I take the point about even for the duration of someone to say, What the heck? Oh, it's the power. Oh, I got a call. They're in school. So, you know, I wouldn't have any problem at all about supporting a pause in that program for a couple of weeks when they're going to be at home doing, you know, doing solely distance learning, but I wouldn't extend it way longer because of the sort of misimpression that this is helping people when to not do that, when in fact, you're putting them in a situation to build up big bills to add potentially to a point where we don't have the funding available to help them that we do have now. So, bottom line, two week pause, I could support that. Anyone else? Councilmember Davis. I've got to say, nobody, nobody wants to cut anybody's power off at any point, whether it's being in the school year or middle of the summer, August heat, whatever it is. I saw some of the same social media posts, and my first thought was this person's bill is so manageable. Why haven't they called somebody? Why haven't they talked with all of these resources that we have? There's more money available to folks today than there's probably ever been in Denton's history for assistance with utilities between what we re-up with Interfaith, the COVID stuff with United Way. So I think we've got to move forward with the plan we've got and connect people's resources. The very next comments I saw as soon as I had that thought on these social media posts were, bro, give me a call. I will pay your power bill. Here's who to contact. Here's the contact information for United Way. Here's the contact information for the Texoma Council of Governments. There are resources available. So I think we've got to keep the city moving forward and when people need help, help connect them with it. Councilmember Briggs. Thank you. And I appreciate that, but the help and the resources do not come immediately, which means that individuals are without power for a while, which means that kids suffers. So I'm just putting that out there as a suggestion. I know that when anybody calls and they're referred to an organization that can help, it takes a little while. They have to verify. It just, it's not immediate. So thank you. Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah, I'd be interested in knowing what the actual typical, you know, duration is from shut off to reconnect, you know, in these situations. I don't know if that's available from someone on staff that's on the call. I do not have a question sort of to tag along with that as far as in the same general subject area. Sarah, you handle that question. Yeah, I will leave Chris Foster. Yeah, I am. Okay, so Chris Foster, customer service manager. Yes. And go ahead. No, no, go ahead. I'm sorry. I was going to say to the first concern, I am aware of the account situation that was going on this morning. And that was a representative error. We have corrected that. We have retrained that rep and we've reached out to the customer. Right now, again, any of these customers that are getting interrupted, when they call us, we are going to get them turned back on with or without payment with a referral to a health agency. We are automatically putting a stay of time on their account for two weeks and sending them a personal email along with or sending them a copy of the email that's going to that referral agency, letting that customer know this is the timeline that we've set up. If you are refused funding, you do need to contact us back so that we can put you on a longer term arrangement if necessary. And hey, agency, if things are taking a little longer than expected, please contact us back so we can add additional time to this account because we do not want someone to be interrupted. So that's what's going on right now. If they're not able to make a payment, we will absolutely still work with getting them an arrangement and getting them back on. They are not being charged any fees whatsoever. But we've already seen, just from interface, close to 100 pledges for this month, when normally even in the highest months of the year, we see 40 to 50. And that's just interface. That's not even counting the stuff that we're seeing from TCOG and the things that we're seeing from United Way. You know, right now those funds are readily available for people and we're doing everything that we can to get them to those resources before funds are gone. Okay. Councilmember Meltzer, was that, I don't know if that necessarily addressed your question. It was great bit of information. I still didn't hear what is the duration from you're turned off to you're restored, typically. If you're calling us and getting something taken care of and we're putting out that restore order, it's happening within, depending on how quickly you call, but within like an hour or two, if we're having to physically go out there. It's definitely happening same day. You know, if the person calls overnight, I've already communicated with DME dispatch that they'll let the customer know that they need to contact us the next morning so we can work out some form of arrangement. But they just have an open blanket policy right now that if the person has no power and they've been shut for non-payment, that they will turn them on overnight and just make sure that we have the information to speak with them the following day. So from an hour or two to overnight would be sort of the range, right? Well yeah, it would not be overnight, but yeah. I mean, it's as quickly as the meter shop can get out there and turn it on. We report it just as soon as we get the contact and are able to work with them. Thank you. So help me understand, Krista. By the time someone gets their utilities disconnected, there's been an order issue to disconnect the utilities. If we work backwards, all right? So I thought I heard what Council Member Meltzer was sort of asking is from the time that they're delinquent to the time that they actually get shut off. Isn't that about 30 to 45 days? Am I off on that? Not the full delinquency. It's going to be, and I'll have to pull up the specific timeline, but it is something to the effect of about the 45-day mark from when they got their bill originally. Okay. All right. So if someone is getting their utilities shut off today in this environment, is it safe to say that within that 45 days from the time they received their original bill and the time that someone either goes out there and disconnects the utilities or turns it off at the shop via smart meter, is it safe to assume that they've either not called and talked with anyone to try to get things worked out? Or help me understand that. I mean, if we're referring people and if we're giving people some accommodation to get to a shutoff right now in this climate, even with our current process, what is it that really either has to happen or doesn't happen in order for that to occur? Truly, reaching out and speaking to us. The customers that are being interrupted right now are customers that have not spoken with us so that we can work with them or make arrangements. You know, it could potentially be a customer that we referred to an agency and they don't qualify for whatever reason and then they failed to call us back again so that we could work something out with them. But really it all right now is coming down to communication and that this is our means of kind of forcing their hand that you've got to speak to us so that we can try to get you where you need to go. My biggest concern would be that once they start contacting us, funds are being depleted and now they've lost the one line of assistance that they would have had readily if they had just gotten in sooner. So what I'm hearing is that if they would call ahead of time, is there a process before the actual interruption where customer service reaches out? I believe accounts if they have phone numbers where customer service proactively reaches out or is this pretty much because everybody's busy, everybody's busy but is there a time when customer service will reach out proactively sometime near the point where that interruption would be? We actually make two phone calls. One, it's about the day after the second bill produces to let them know, hey, you know, you're late, you're about to get a late fee and you need to get your payment in or you're going to be interrupted and then the day before we do interruption, we make an automated phone call out again to remind them, hey, you're about to be interrupted. We don't make physical calls, personal calls because we have always maintained communication that guys, if you're getting a call and they're saying their city of Denton and that you're behind on your bill and they want payment right then, that's not us and so we don't make those calls because we don't want to muddy the waters. There are too many opportunities for people to be taken advantage of. But we absolutely have been making the two calls for each one of these accounts and we made, we started those calls in June to let them know that they were behind. So I know that there's some policies that of course with certain heat or cold weather that those interruptions do not occur and then I believe if someone has a medical condition or a medical issue that requires power or utilities that, am I correct on that, that there's some accommodation for that depending on the circumstances? It depends on what the circumstance is. At the very least, if it is life-dependent, then yes, we have a whole set of different processes. If it's something where it's more of a hindrance or a slight risk, then we will be calling them personally before we do any action toward interruption on those accounts. On the ones that are, I say life-threatening or life-dependent, I believe was your term, which that's a good term. Are those calls typically made from the customer to customer service or also is there a physical call with a, you know, not an automated call that reaches out? No, we make physical calls to customers who are on medical exemptions. Okay, so that's something that's flagged on the exam. We tell them yes, absolutely it is and we search those accounts every day to make sure. Okay. Okay, great. I guess Council Member Briggs, go ahead. I've got a couple more comments, but I want you to, since you brought this up, go ahead. Thank you. Hi Krista. If we have any new data on numbers, as far as I know that the last time you were here, it was, you know, like 200 people had contacted you, but there were, you know, over 2000 individuals. I'm wondering since we've begun the process and we've had a little bit of time now, how many of those are still at risk of disconnection and how many disconnections we've made recently? I don't have today's numbers because recently I had been running them daily, but since now I was actually planning to put them out each week in a Friday report. I hadn't run them today. I can tell you what it looked like on Friday. Give me one moment. As of Friday, we had a total of 2020 accounts that were past due and remember that some of these numbers are going to change a bit because each day a different cycle becomes past due again. So that doesn't necessarily, obviously it won't mean that this is the same exact ones that would have been months and months behind. And it looks like at this time we have done or Friday we had done approximately 340 interruptions, but in August we've already received a total of 493 pledges and that has become $82,000 that has been given to help these customers when they're contacting us. So we've definitely seen results on that, but I will absolutely make sure that each Friday there will be an update that shows you week over week how many accounts there are and what interruptions have been done. Okay, Councilmember Briggs. And is there a way, I appreciate this and all the data that you've been keeping up with. Is there any way though, I think going back to Councilmember Metzler's question, not necessarily the mayor's as far as the first time you find out, but from when the connection is actually out, I think you said maybe it's an hour or two. Is there a way you can get a more of an estimate on the ones that the 300 that have been disconnected and I'm just, I'm concerned about, you know, children at home learning, losing those hours. Sure. It's a little harder to get to. I can certainly research and see if there's a way that I can get data on that, but I can't necessarily promise that, but I can try and if I can get something I can do, it's part of my Friday report. Thank you. Councilmember Armitage. Would Council agree to get consensus to have a press release that's seeking input on that, seeking people to contact customer service if they're concerned that they've got a connected learner at home and might have an issue. I'm not, I'm not really, I'm not understanding what you're saying. Are you saying to create a separate policy whereby somehow, so, all right, what are you suggesting? Just a press release, just sending out a press release, you know, that the media creator can pick up just to let people know to contact customer service if they've got a connected learner at home and are concerned about possibly not being able to pay their bill, just no change in policy, just letting them know to contact customer service and to let them know so they can make arrangements with customer service, just sticking to our current policy, because I think that a lot of people just still don't know, you know, and I'm trying to spread the word. I can't see the harmony. Okay, I'm sorry. Sorry to interrupt you. Council Member Meltzer? Yeah, a few points. In the spirit of, you know, I really want to get this, this help on the street as effectively as possible. I think we could address the issue of the students actively, you know, being involved in connected learning and not being able to bear an hour or two of, you know, kind of getting thrown off by just avoiding those hours. I'm interested in hearing from staff whether that's in any way practical, just avoiding the hours when school's open, because I think they're done by three. And then, but I would, I think the suggestion of adding a little weight to our voice with a press release, not specifically about connected learners, my point of view, but just about this fact that we want you to call. I don't think people get it. They just get, they got turned off somehow. They're not getting the message. Or, you know, I think when people are in tough, you know, money situations, they get a little paralyzed about it. And just anything we can do to break through and say, just communicate. So the idea of a press release to say, this is what's happening, this is why, here's what to do, I think is a great suggestion. Okay. Anybody else? All right. So let me see where we are. The first proposal that was mentioned was an extension of the shutoffs, either for a week or nine weeks of anyone that's getting, that may experience an interruption. So we'll take these one issue at a time. What's the consensus of the council, Council Member Meltzer? Could we get a staff response on whether it'd be practical to do the alternative of not doing the shutoffs during the time that school's actually in session? Just time of day? Because that would affect, you know, my thoughts on the first proposal. Okay, I want to make sure I understand your question. Go ahead, Kristin. I apologize. I was gonna say, honestly, I don't know that that would be a realistic expectation, because it would then put us into a situation where people would be getting their services cut so late in the day, that they would run much greater risk of not having enough staffing to be able to easily get them all back on, you know, in that two hour window that we would have. I think that you would find that people would be out of service much longer that way, and very quickly they would be outside of service hours. I don't know if someone from DME is on here that could speak better to that, but that would be my thought on it. There's a reason that we put them out earlier in the day. Is that word done in the evenings, and is customer service operating in evening hours as well? Customer service is operating at our regular standard hours of 8 to 5. We also have agents who are doing outbound calls from 5 to 6, because our call volumes have been so high. We've implemented some strategies to make sure that we can screen those calls, things that aren't emergent, we're calling back between 5 and 6, emergent things like people who have no service, people who need to make a payment arrangement or get a referral to an agency, we're getting those people worked throughout the day. Well, then, having heard that answer, then, I could support a two week pause in the shutoffs. Councilmember Armitage? Yeah, I just want to share a personal perspective as a mom. I'll try to just keep it brief as a parent, I should say. Gender doesn't matter. You know, I've got two kids who are connected learners at home. I'm very fortunate to be able to pay my bill, and that's not a problem. But, you know, we've had two situations where our kids who are 15 and 12 will well behave, so they're safe to, they can be at home while we're at work, and we know they're going to do their connected learning. But there have been two occasions so far where there have had, where there have been no adult in the house, and they had difficulty, you know, connecting to Wi-Fi, and that's just a pretty ordinary problem. It turned out being fine. My son had to retake his AP geography exam, but it was frightening for them to be without an adult and unable to do their school work. Really horrific. You know, they survived, they were fine, but this is without an outage. You know, so I would multiply that however many more times. You know, the idea of just imagine kids having an outage, and there's no adult at home to call the, I guess the kids could be told to call, you know, but so anyway, to me that's just an unthinkable situation. I don't want any kid or family to go through that. Okay, anybody else? All right, so it seems like we have Councilmember Briggs, Meltzer, and Armentor supporting an extension of some length of time. I think Councilmember Meltzer had said two weeks. I'm not quite sure exactly how long have we been operating under normal procedures. Was it since the 1st of August? Approximately two weeks. Okay. Do we have any data? I guess before I make that decision, I'd like to at least see the data on is this, how many people have had an interruption, how long did it take to get them back on? How is it, what's the deviation between this time of the year under these circumstances and last year under the same circumstances? And then if there is a way to, if there's a process that can be implemented to where people can call it, the press release, I mean, I don't necessarily have any heartburn against a press release, but we've had press releases, we talk about it almost on a weekly basis when we meet. It's on our Facebook page, it's on our website. I presume some of this information has been placed in our utility bills that go out every month to people. So I mean, if the Council wants to do that, okay, I just, people, if they're not calling, they're not calling. So, but, so is there any other question or discussion on the service interruption policy that's been put forth? Because if not, then we don't have the consensus to sort of do that temporarily. Yes, Council Member Briggs. So school starts tomorrow and the data you're asking for may not be here for a week. So my question is, can we pause for a week until we get that data? And if not, I'm just curious if Ms. Foster knows how many interruptions are scheduled for tomorrow or through this week? Like if there is a number, I'm curious if that information is available. That should be. It may take me just a moment to be able to get to the list, but I believe we may have some, at least estimates on what would be happening this week. Okay. So give me just a moment. And one of the things, too, that you need to remember is, especially right now, because it happens every single month, is a lot of the accounts that is, when I go to do the research, are actually off and they've been off for a day or more since the interruption. Generally, it means someone has moved and they failed to tell us that they've moved, but we can't go and check apartment complexes, like go in the building and see if someone has actually vacated the building. And so that happens a lot, too, especially as students are moving in and out. Sometimes they just don't call and they don't tell you that even left. Okay. I'm looking for a pair. I'm looking for a pair. I am going to guess that we're looking at maybe in the 500 to 600 range as possibilities. And again, that's assuming that the day that we send them the reminder call, that no one takes care of their outstanding balance that day before or calls us the day before, which many, many times that's what we actually see. We send out that call that says, "Hey, tomorrow you're going to be interrupted." And so they call us today. But it looks like it could be as many as 500 to 600. Okay. All right. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. So what I understand is right now, it seems like the direction of the council is to do... Krista, on these interruptions, there's really no way to know if they have remote learners there. Is that correct? There's no way to know that. I mean, that's when somebody talks to them. Yeah, they would need to talk to us. Okay. All right. And I could get more comfortable with... Because what I'm hearing is a specific need, a specific problem. And what's being proposed is that we sort of suspend shutoffs for interruptions for everyone that is experiencing this. But what has been brought up is the specific need and interest of people who have remote learners at home. How can we do that? And if we can find a way to tailor a program to that temporarily in the beginning of sort of the school start tomorrow, I'm okay with that because I really want to make sure that we tailor it to the need that's been presented instead of just saying, "Okay, we're going to go back to what we had two weeks ago and we made that decision then." And of course, we knew that these circumstances were going to present themselves because the school districts did give options for different methods of instruction. So if we can come up with a way to think how to do that, I might can support that. I just don't know if we're able to do that like we do with medical circumstances and things such as that. In the end, people need to understand, and I understand that the times are difficult, but if you're getting letters and phone calls about your utilities being interrupted, what I'm hearing is if you will just call that they are finding a way to not have an interruption. So at some point, we have to say, where does government end and personal responsibility begin? I know this council and I know certainly customer service is doing all that they can to maintain service. So I just don't know how far we take this. We've given a tremendous amount of accommodation. So if the press release will do it, if sending something out in the next utility bill cycle is something, we can do another big push of communications across all of our channels to remind our residents to call customer service and the assistance that's available. And then we'll also reach out to DISD and see if there's any opportunities information through their channels as well. I'm not sure that that would be possible, but we will reach out. Well, that's a great suggestion. Councilmember Davis. I was just going to add to that. I know we have some technological limitations with our different apps and websites that we use to pay your bills, but literally every time I log in to pay a bill at some place, it says, are you experiencing trouble because of the COVID pandemic? There's a banner that says, here's how to contact us if you're having trouble paying your student loan or your mortgage or whatever the bill is. So maybe something like that on the page as well. But if they're landing on the, if they're trying to pay the bill, but they're really having trouble and having to choose between what they're paying that month, we're offering assistance at that stage too. Okay. All right. Okay. So I'm hearing that what we want to do is try another push on our social media and our other communication platforms and reach out to DISD. Maybe they have some platforms that, I mean, they're specifically probably have platforms where they're targeting email addresses and things such that with people who have children enrolled in school. And so I think that's a great idea to get the word out to them specifically. All right. So then it seems like as far as the order changing, at least from this work session, that doesn't seem to be the case as it was presented. I haven't heard that we're changing the business policy and or we're not adding any new requested orders or direction to the current order. All right. Was that the end of the presentation on that one? Yes, that was. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Sarah. All right. Then we will, let's take a quick five minute break and we'll come back about 2.05. Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Dent City Council on August 25th, 2020. It is 2.25 PM. We're moving through our work session items. Our next work session item is receive report and hold a discussion that's actually three CID 20-1585. Receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding the energy management organizational financial review conducted by Deloitte. Good afternoon Mayor Watts, members of council, Mary Nolte, Assistant General Manager at DME. Let me pull up the presentation. We have been engaged with Deloitte for several years on the evaluation of the energy management office, energy management organization at DME. They did an initial review of the cost effectiveness of the EMO shortly after DME exited a full requirements contract. And this presentation looks at the continued evaluation of the EMO in 2017-18 calendar years or fiscal years. And joining me is Stephen Engler with Deloitte, who is going to run through most of the slides. Thanks, Jerry. Good afternoon, everybody, Mayor, members of council and staff. This is Stephen Engler. As Terry mentioned, I'm a managing director in Deloitte's energy risk advisory practice. And yes, I am the same guy that presented to you several years ago. I would say this is what happens to a consultant when I'm locked in my home office for five months. So it's nice to see you all again. I thank you for your time. We have some prepared remarks and I'm happy to take questions throughout the presentation or at the conclusion. So as Terry mentioned, Deloitte was engaged to complete two work items. And Terry, if you don't mind forwarding, advancing the slides just to the summary of what we were asked to do. Number one, as Terry mentioned, we were asked to update an assessment that we initially performed, I believe, in fiscal '15 to compare the financial performance of the EMO against a benchmark. And then the second piece of work was to take a refreshed look and update the progress that DME has made against several recommendations that we provided at that time as it relates to commodity risk management and risk oversight. So moving to the assessment, the first part of the assessment, I want to point out a couple of things that have changed at DME, specifically with the scope or with the EMO, is focused on that drove us to consider and then ultimately implement a couple of changes to the methodology and the model. First is that at the time of the first assessment or evaluation was completed, we had effectively in hand a recently quoted full requirements price to serve as a proxy that we could compare the EMO performance to. Given that several years has passed, we did not have that same proxy. We didn't have a market provided a full requirements price quote. So we needed to rethink the proxy or the benchmark that we would compare against. The second item that I would point out that's evolved or changed in the time since our first assessment is that really the composition of the portfolio that EMO is managing has changed in the sense that a number of PPA agreements have come online providing renewable power sources to DME. Those are contractual obligations. They are not within the scope of what I would say would be manageable by EMO in terms of making real time or day ahead or even longer term power procurement decisions. So we needed to rethink kind of what the components of the model were and what we compared the performance of EMO to. Essentially, Lloyd was asked to work with staff to agree on a methodology and the model that we would use for the benchmark comparison. We would obtain the data and then we would re-perform the assessment. And in those discussions of agreeing on what the approach would be and the methodology would be, we further agreed that there were a couple of items that predated the decision to establish the EMO. And so those cost components were not included in the benchmark comparison. And then further to the point that I mentioned around the renewable PPAs that have been in place and that power is now online, it was further agreed that removing those contractual decisions or the components of the power that's provided by those contractual decisions, we would calculate but then ultimately remove from the comparison. Consistent in '17 and also the '18 benchmark, it was decided that the appropriate proxy for the comparison would be the observable day ahead ERCOT electricity prices. So effectively comparing the EMO's performance over that period of time against the day ahead price. So the components of the model, the first step was to establish what I would describe as the all-in costs. And this is the all load served by DME valued at the day ahead market prices, including adders for relevant and related ancillary services. This was effectively the benchmark in the analysis. And then we calculated the actual costs for that time period, for that total load, accepting the debt portion of the TMPA, as I mentioned before. And that served as the all of the all-in comparison of the actual versus benchmark. The second component of the analysis was to do a deeper dive into the PPA portion. As I mentioned, those contractual elements determine that the cost impact associated with those PPAs and remove those from the all-in cost. And what we're left with in that phase three component is what I would describe as the manageable portion. So this is the portion of the load that the EMO manages actively on a real-time day ahead and go forward basis. And that's the component that we felt was appropriate to compare against that proxy price component. So our approach was we requested and received all of the actual cost detail from DME. We prepared a summary of the actual costs and also the benchmark costs and reviewed that with DME staff. As I mentioned, we discussed with DME staff and EMO staff the methodology and the components of the methodology that I just described and agreed on what would be in versus out and what would be appropriate to use as a comparison, including breaking out those PPA costs. At that point, DME prepared a model and did the overall calculation to do the benchmark comparison. Part of the reason for that is to develop in staff a repeatable methodology that can be revisited going forward. All of the data then was taken by Deloitte as well as the model and we independently re-performed and re-calculated the benchmark assessment as described. So in the next slide, Terry, if you wouldn't mind walking through those kind of three components and the results resulting from them. Sure, Stephen. So in the top table, you see the portfolio performance. That is taking our total load and filling or meeting the load obligation in the day ahead market. And that became the benchmark. And as you can see, actual costs were considerably under by 6.2 million. That would be the benefit that the EMO provided. The second table delineates the renewable energy power purchase agreements. And there you can see the metric against day ahead is 18.8 million. Actual cost for that portion of the portfolio was 24.3. And that was a cost of 5.5 million. Again, I have to remember that that component of our portfolio is really not really managed actively because it is a take, we must take the energy when it's delivered and we must liquidate it into the market at the then market price. So that's why you can see it's $5.5 million against us. The last section is all the other portions of the portfolio that we use to supply the load. And there you can see that the metric was 45 million. We actually were able to supply that at 33.8 for a savings of 11.7 million to the good. So in general, you can see the range at the top, somewhere between 2.4 and $10 million. Interestingly, we've rerun this analysis for the next fiscal year and the numbers were just a little bit lower than the numbers that are reported here. So if we said 13 million, if you had these numbers together and they total a $13 million net positive for the benefit of ratepayers, for fiscal year '19, it was 11 million. Okay, Stephen, back to you. >> Thanks, Terry. So the next part of the assessment that Doyle was engaged to -- >> I tell you, Steve, before you go, if we could pull the slide, I just want to see if we have any -- since this is sort of a stopping point here, let me see if we've got any questions that the council has on any of those slides. Any questions from council on the slides that were presented? Just for my own clarity, so the metric was just using the formula that you described and then the actual cost was the actual cost. And so that's how you were using those comparisons, is that correct? >> That's correct. For, you know, based on the load as it was served, given the time of day or time of day of the week, throughout the course of that evaluation period. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. I just wanted to check to make sure we didn't have any questions. It seemed like we had sort of a break in the presentation. So, yeah, feel free to resume. >> Thank you, Mayor. >> You bet. >> Okay. Just a couple more slides. So as I said, you may recall that Doyle was engaged a few years back to do an assessment of the -- what I would describe as risk management and risk oversight capabilities of DME as compared to or as we see in the industry as relates to leading practices for those activities. So we prepared a report during our first engagement that included, I believe, 60 recommendations for DME to consider to -- for implementation. And as part of the advancement or progression of the risk oversight capabilities of DME, given the expanded role of the EMO and the active management of the load and the risk associated with that load. So management asked us to basically come back and do an evaluation of how they're doing against those recommendations. Excuse me. So we made a number of additional data requests, asked for updated documentation, had a number of interviews and discussions with staff. And through that activity, you can see on the next slide we've kind of got a pictorial depiction of where staff is against the recommendations. The recommendations initially were grouped into four categories, governance, process, people, and technology. You can see that we evaluated the current state as well as the recommended future state. And associated recommendations that were designed to close the gap between the current and the future state points on this chart. Those recommendations were further stratified into high, medium, and low priority. And with apologies for the small font on the screen, we've noted how many of those recommendations are complete under the SC column, how many are in progress under the IP column, and one after discussion with management, they decided or determined that that was no longer relevant to DME. So there was one recommendation that was set aside. I'll pause there, but the next slide also basically summarizes the same chart. So out of 60 total recommendations, 27 we deemed are complete at the time of the evaluation. 32 were in progress. I would say the majority of those relate to the implementation of a commodity or an energy trading and risk management system, that ETRM acronym there. So many of the recommendations of both process and technology specific recommendations relate to the selection and implementation of that system or would be enabled by the implementation of that system. Currently DME is leveraging a cloud hosted trade capture and risk reporting solution with Deloitte and a decision has been made recently to select and implement a vendor for a new ETRM system, which will take place over the coming months. So the majority of the remaining open items will be, I believe, addressed by the implementation and the go live with that system. So that's the conclusion of our remarks. Any questions? All right. Okay. I believe that go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Appreciate it. All right. Moving on to agenda item 3D ID 20-1667. Receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding a request by historic Denton to be delegated as a third party administrator on behalf of the city didn't apply to the historic commission for a certified local government grant. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Richard Canoni, service department. I'm going to pull the presentation up. The request that we have to present you today for the work session is from historic Denton Inc. We received an email approximately two weeks ago where they were interested in applying to the Texas historic commission for a certified local government grant to conduct a neighborhood survey, historical survey of the neighborhood, North Texas state normal neighborhood, which is outlined there on your right. See Calhoun middle, sort of the prominent in the middle to the right. And then to use that survey as a basis for a nomination for a national district. Just to give a quick reminder of the difference between a what the national district is in a local district, probably the easiest way to remember national district identifies local district protects. So there aren't any specific regulations that they must follow if they are a national district. That really comes from the local district when those zoning regulations or zoning overlay is put in place. I also did want to remind everyone that last legislative session, there was an amendment to the to sub chapter 1211 of the local government code that establishes when a owner's consent is required to designate it as a historic landmark, including a overlay district, and that it just gives them the ability to withdraw at any time. Now this this particular grant, if it was authorized, again, would not designated as a local district. This is just for that local designation. The Texas Historic Commission does allow for for third parties to apply on behalf. It just requires delegation from from the city, and then as well as they can apply directly and then it requires either the historic preservation officer or the city representative and chief elected official must sign must sign the application for that potential benefits. Again, it does allow for the national being in a national registered district does does allow for certain tax tax benefit tax benefits for renovations of income producing properties. This isn't for single family homeowners, and there is no city obligation. In this instance, it's a 50 50 match, but it is a reimbursement grant. So once those funds are expended, the third party would apply then for that reimbursement through the Texas Historic Commission. It would not it would not come as a pass through through the city would be directly with them. And with that, be happy to answer any questions, but staff was seeking just some direction from Council on whether or not it would be beneficial to have historic Denton Inc be authorized as a third party grant administrator. Okay. Councilmember Mouser and Councilmember Amater. Richard, to be perfectly honest, I didn't really understand the last point. Well, what is the expenditure that would be reimbursed? You know, that that if you wouldn't mind going over that bit again, that that that was 5050. I mean, this is the part I do understand. Historic Denton does this work. If we give approval for the application to be signed, it designates the area potentially as a national historic district that provides tax benefits for those who renovate who have who are using the properties for commercial use basically like those who rent the properties out, so they would preserve them. So that part of that part I'm very clear on. And I understand there's no cost to the city, but I didn't really understand the last point. The 5050 reimbursement would be staff time, I guess, for Historic Denton Inc to conduct those studies and submit submitted on behalf or any materials that they may. So Historic Denton could be reimbursed. Correct. With their time. It says about the city at all. Correct. And then that 50% would come from them, whether it be in kind or their their staff time. I got you. Thank you. Councilmember Armitage. Yes, I just wanted to say I'm strongly in favor of this. And I wanted to add that, you know, it has it has the benefit of incentivizing owners of commercial properties of which in that neighborhood, as I understand it, there are about 50% of those of those own properties are by renters, you know, it incentivizes people who are already renting properties to keep them historic. And therefore, you know, preventing gentrification and preventing the kind of SROs or, you know, giant developments, giant rentals that would change the character of the neighborhood. So it would keep it keep the neighborhood looking like a bunch of single family homes, whether or not the people who are living in there are family or, or renters who aren't related. It's really great incentive to keep it historic, so strongly in support of it and at no expense to the no cost to the city. Councilmember Riggs and then Councilmember Davis. Can you, Richard, talk about our lack of having a preservation officer and how if that matters here in this in this discussion, like if we had one, would we be exploring the third party? Would this be something that preservation officer did or or not? The preservation officer at least in the time that I have been here hasn't really hasn't been in the work plan to to go out and nominate some of these areas as as national National Register districts. I think once we get someone on board and that you know the position is being advertised, that's something that we will look at and pull the recently adopted plan pull those implementation strategies and then start moving forward with that. I have a question. Yes, of course. And does this designation does it does it change the zoning at all or any kind of use of the building? No ma'am it does not. It would not. No. Okay. So if somebody wanted to change it from a single family home to a multi family or a or a hotel or bed and breakfast or any would that require a zoning change? I'd have to look at because I know the zoning depending where you are within that area there's there's different designations. I know there are some that have a residential I just don't have the map in front of me. Okay, there would be some uses that they could do some of the if it's MN which I believe you might have some it does allow for multi family I believe with a with a SUP with a specific use permit. Okay, can I can I do a hypothetical? Sure. So on those so there is a it's an MN there's a few or three older houses and so if MN allowed that would provide that would allow the an individual or developer to buy those homes and then with an SUP create a a larger multifamily even if this district is in place or if this district is in place that would prevent that. It looks like the only most of that area I believe is R3 east of the area just west of Ponder and I know it kind of zigzags I don't think it gets to Ponder where it's MN on the map but most of the area would be would be R3 so it'd be strictly limited to single family residential. There's the ability to do accessory dwelling but that really would be it. I think it goes down maybe close to oak so you do have that oak that oak hickory the overlay district already in place. I think the only might be one or two parcels along Carroll otherwise it looks like most of that area is R3 maybe even some R7. Thank you. Councilmember Davis. Thank you for remembering me Mayor. So I support the National Register District I grew up in this neighborhood and I think it's a it's really key to keep promoting preservation just not in our big recognizable historic homes but our kind of single family smaller homes. Some of these were built as multi-family you know decades ago some of them were built with accessory dwelling units many many years ago and those are historical in nature so I think it's important to recognize that in this conversation. I think I also want to be really clear that this doesn't come with any preservation protections. The district itself doesn't impose anything on the property owners it doesn't mean they can't change their property that's all zoning stuff so I've heard the argument that this will encourage more multi-family or it will encourage more rental properties fewer owner-occupied. I think the market pressures in that area are going to do what they're going to do that this isn't really going to move the needle for most owners on incentives to turn these into money-making properties or be owner-occupied. I would like to hear though my only real real concern here is this is an arrangement we haven't done before CLG is somewhat new for the city to begin with using a third party. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that arrangement but I'd like to know about how the counting is handled how that that third party reports back to the city. If they're essentially acting as our agent for the purposes of this grant how are we keeping tabs on how the work is progressing how the money is spent all those kind of things that ultimately we're going to be accountable for. It was it was my understanding when we when we heard from when I had staff reach out to the Texas Historic Commission that once that third party once once if that third party is authorized then it is it is really there's not much oversight to the city other than what we would want but all of that is done through because it is a reimbursement all of that all of that essential oversight or reporting is done directly to the Texas Historic Commission. Yes Councilmember Davis. Thank you. Can we can we attach conditions or can we require an additional accounting? Yeah I don't want to suggest anything on toward but I think it's really important that if we're going to kind of deputize a third party to act on our behalf that we need to have a full accounting even if it's not necessarily required by the grant terms. I think it's important to know what's being done on our behalf. Certainly. Anyone else? Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah Jesse raises a good point and I'd like to hear him on this so my question for my colleague is when you when you're talking about single family not being targeted tell me what I'm missing because if I'm an investor and there's a family in this car in this area or this zoning if you would I know that's not the proper term but if it's in this area and I can receive tax credits it then maybe motivates me to pay a little more understanding I'm going to be benefited on the back end if I turn it into an income producing property. So it's a single family now I'm willing to pay more for that single family home because I can get tax credits to turn it into a income producing property. So help me understand what I'm missing or just kind of your look at that that challenge. Sure well you know obviously not my field I think my only point there was those things are happening regardless you know there are some properties are going to go from being single family excuse me we're saying single family I really what I want to say is owner occupied you know income producing single family home versus owner occupied single family home. What we're seeing over here in the neighborhood is some folks are buying rental homes and living in them as owner occupies but many others have been doing it for years investors are buying up the single family homes and putting college students in there putting you know families in there whatever it is I think those market pressures are going to happen regardless I think this isn't necessarily going to move the needle for your average person who can afford to buy up a rental house. Okay Council Member Briggs. And somebody just go over really quick so having this designation I know it's not a local designation so there's not a lot that restrictions that we put on but what is the benefit that if somebody does buy it whether to live in it or to rent it to qualify for the tax credit they have to renovate it and keep it historically accurate instead of tearing it down and rebuilding or completely changing the look of it so is that is that the benefit here that we're that we're trying to to do is just so that that home stays historically accurate. That would be the that the ability to get that grant would be the I'm sorry that the tax credit would be an option for them if they wanted to pursue that. Okay but so if they did not want to I'm sorry may or may I continue? Of course yes. So if they if they did not want to pursue that grant would they still have the ability with this designation in place to do whatever they wanted to the home and not keep it historical and tear it down? Yeah until there were those local local standards or a local district put in place with those zoning regulations then they could do anything that would be permitted within that R3 R3 district with the with the exception of those areas I think there's a little bit of the area that's in the Oak Hickory historic overlay. Okay and is that grant is that grant can can a homeowner or owner occupied apply for that grant? For the for the tax credit uh-huh yeah for the tax credit yes if it's in that local if it's I'm sorry if it's in the in the national district. Okay okay thank you. Okay a couple of questions just want to make sure I understand. When you talk about the tax credit for basically non-owner occupied properties so what I'm hearing is that if it's designated a national register historic district then those may be some of the tax credit opportunities afforded to non-owner occupied properties within that designated district is that correct? Correct. But that district does not bring with it I mean we're looking at a slide here number three national restore registry districts identifies local district protects so if it's a national register district historical district that doesn't have the protections that we have implemented in our local district protection ordinances if you have a local historic designation then you are under certain obligations to go through the historic landmark commission to get a certificate of what is that not convenience that's a CCN appropriateness appropriateness okay. So really this doesn't really provide any protection from a historical perspective if it's a national register historic district because I know we've got the square is that correct? Correct but then the square has certain I think there's certain prop but then we have the local you know local regulations not necessarily the district but we did the the downtown overlay. Right so my not my concern my observation here is that I really don't know enough about I'm going to be hesitant to designate a third party there's no there's no sort of budget here there's no sense of what is going to be spent what's going to be asked for reimbursement unless I missed it is there is there something in the backup that that has that? No that that we did not have that. Okay because if we're if if they're asking for us to give them that authority then I would like to know exactly what exactly is going to be charged what the estimate is as we would any other particular kind of entity that we're either hiring or that we're engaging we want to know exactly what are you going to be doing what's it going to cost just because it costs the city nothing doesn't mean that it's necessarily something we want to do I think to be prudent we need to make sure that we have a full understanding of what the project really is what does it entail what are the costs how much is the estimated reimbursement costs because it says this is a matching grant so help me walk through this specifically let's say for instance oh the grant is just to do the survey correct? Survey and then ultimately submit submit the the documentation right right which if we had a certified officer the city can do that as well is that correct? Correct. All right so in this case someone's asking we want to be your sort of agent slash representative in filing for these these grants with the Texas Historic Commission we believe that this grant process by doing this survey we believe this project will cost seventy five thousand dollars let's make it fifty thousand let's just say fifty thousand to do the survey to get everything ready to make the application do the survey and then to submit it to whatever department they do to get the National Register Historic District classification. Then what I'm hearing is that if the so tell me if it's a total cost of fifty thousand you're saying that the the grant only covers twenty five? Correct and the the max under the program is thirty thousand. Okay is that the Texas Historic Commission's portion or is that total both fifty that's the total of the 50-50 match? My understanding is that it it's typically the the 50-50 match that they'll that they'll reimburse up to. Is a total of thirty thousand? Yeah between two thousand and thirty thousand. So help me I need to understand this so again let's let's use the fifty thousand dollar project cost. So Historic Denton funds that correct out of their out of their funds and they are only expecting to get twenty five thousand back. Correct. So that means they've got twenty five thousand in it themselves. Correct. So that makes me even more it makes it more important to get some more information about the organization because if they're going to be funding we I want to make sure that number one they have the funding. Number two what's the structure of the organization? What's the budget on the project? What's some of the oversight that they have implemented within their own organization on this because yeah that's that's what I would need to see to be able to to agree to this. Councilmember Meltzer. When we're saying it's x dollars aren't we really talking about hours for this sort of work? In other words somebody from Historic Denton would put hours in at some kind of a you know established fair market rate and then they would look to be reimbursed for their hours but I don't think it necessarily means they're writing a check for something. Is that correct? It's my understanding most of the work would involve would be would be their their staff time if you will. But that's even I think that's even as important because we would need to see what what is the projected staff time of this what is the amount that they're allocating for the different levels of staff interaction, surveying, research. I mean I don't think this is necessarily a bad concept I just don't think we have enough I don't have enough information to be able to make this decision based upon it's just hey sign this and we'll do the rest and we have no idea what the rest entails. So I would like to go ahead go ahead Paul. I think you know the point it's related to the point that Councillor Davis raised I personally would be comfortable going forward with the requirement that we get a statement in advance about what the projected work would be and then and then a update of what hours are actually submitted or you know costs and then what the reimbursement was so those three points but I'd be supportive of doing this. I think it's sort of all plus there's no no cost the city no burden on the property owners and there's potential I and as far as what's incented this is a judgment call and while y'all get to weigh in my opinion is that it's unlikely to change somebody's decision on whether to occupy a place or rent it out but if they are going to get out it might we hope motivate them to stay within historic guidelines rather than you know destroy the appearance. So I think it's a win and I'm happy to sort of suggest that we include those those checks. Now just to verify when you said it encourages them to stay within historic guidelines is that a requirement under this under the National Historic District? To get the to get the tax credits it is yeah yeah okay in other words they don't have to do anything that they can do whatever they or would anybody else in any other part of that with the same zoning and you know other conditions would be able to do but they would have the opportunity if they chose to stay within guidelines to get this tax incentive so I think it's just you know some some things you do with a requirement like you know a local landmark district some things you do with an incentive and you know I don't see any downside. Okay all right any other discussion is this is this an act I believe is this an action item tonight no all right this is more direction seeking direction okay Councilmember Davis. Yeah I just kind of want to piggyback off what you said Mayor I wasn't aware that this would necessarily be historic Denton as a grant recipient not only administering the grant you know and you're paying somebody to go out and do it but also members or employees or whatever historic Denton doing the doing the work to receive grant funding as compensation now that's not necessarily a problem that's not you know necessarily a bad arrangement but I think like the Mayor said that underscores the need to know precisely what they're like can we get a scope of work can we get something more like a like a RFP or RFQ like we would normally do if we were going out to the world to ask for they're bringing this project to us so I understand that it's something that wouldn't happen without their involvement which is why they're asking for this this kind of blessing to go after the grant but if they're doing it in our name I think we need to know a lot more about the whole process if we're going to give them our blessing. Okay anybody and Councilmember Meltzer I know your thoughts on that you're okay with moving forward with some conditions placed on it based upon Councilmember Davis we'll just go with Councilmember Meltzer's who's in favor of moving forward or giving staff direction based upon go aheading and go ahead and executing this letter of intent with some conditions on some of the things that Councilmember Meltzer had mentioned anybody Councilmember Meltzer okay yeah he is anybody else Councilmember Armitage so all right are we raising hands for consensus are we raising hands for questions Councilmember Davis I'm gonna go to you because I saw your hand about I'm not sure you're agreeing with but I'm just trying to understand right I wasn't sure which I'm trying to get to consensus I want to move forward with the things that you and I have talked about the the needing to know but I think because it's not an action item because we're just giving direction I think it can be a both and I think we can move forward in the process and gather more information and give direction that we want we want more information so my my direction is that I'd like to see it happen I just like to see that scope defined in that both conditions all right well so I guess the difficulty is the city manager and or the mayor I believe have to sign the letter of intent in order to move this forward I personally am not willing to sign the letter of intent until I get this information that you're requesting so if receiving the information is still moving that process forward defined as that I'm okay because I just want to see the information if I can get comfortable with it I have no issue but I can't say that I'm okay with signing the letter of intent at this moment without having that additional information Councilmember breaks so what would be what would be the process so that we go back and ask for that information and it come back to a work session again to keep it moving forward is that what is that what we would do I believe so is that correct mr. city manager yes I've been taking notes and all the questions and requirements that you'd like to see more or less after reach out get that prepared and get on the next meeting that when the information is ready to go okay all right fantastic okay all right any other questions on that agenda item all right then we'll move on to the next one which is agenda item 3e receiver I thought oh I thought I heard somebody receive a report hold discussion to give staff direction regarding whether Denton City Street should be allowed as a medium for messages to be placed by citizens upon request via the city's special events ordinance or other city ordinance and whether any ordinance revision should be made to regulate this activity I'm sorry mayor did we decide to go forward and ask the information yes I think I think we did yes yes yes yep we'll gather it and be back to you the next meeting when we have everything ready to go so what no they don't have the full screen you don't need to do we need to take it we're good technical break okay mayor and council this Sarah Hensley deputy city manager here there we go to share with you some information and get some guidance in regards to street messaging just a little bit of background during the August 18th meeting council meeting an individual presented an item about her desire to paint a message on the streets on downtown square oak street hickory locust and elm streets currently there are no policies or ordinances that apply to the similar request and none none that specifically address placing messaging on a city street today staff is seeking direction on whether the city streets should be allowed to have messaging placed by citizens or individuals and whether any ordinance revisions should be made to regulate this activity staff in looking and trying to respond to the request looked at it as a first amendment activity which requires an event that be pre-planned scheduled and promoted for a future date and that you must file an application seven days prior to the intended due event date because there's no current policy which addresses street messaging staff identified the most closely associated process which was under special events which is as you are aware in the parks recreation department and we requested that that individual to fill out the specific section of that application we attached that information along with other information on how to fill it out and how to go to actually the website for any further questions that they might have the sections allow staff to complete her request and identify any concerns in regards to traffic traffic participant safety any type of restrictions what we did do though however was include two stipulations to this individual one was that the messaging could stay on the street for 24 hours and two was that that person use a chalk based product or a similar product so that it could be removed easily or wash away after 24 hour period any messaging that needed to be applied on Elm and Locust Street had to requires a special use permit application with text dot and text dot doesn't really have a precedent for approving any product in their right of way except for transportation related paint so that was new for them they would have to approve the permit and that's through the Dallas district office as to the post as opposed to a local area office today and the policy discussion centers around basically whether or not the ordinance does that it doesn't specifically address messaging on city streets and we're asking that we get some type of direction in in regards to policy one should the use of messaging on city streets whether or not it is related to the special events ordinance be amended or two what restrictions or other considerations should be included in this update if directed by city council staff would amend the current ordinance to include the policy decisions that were made and will include the updated ordinance on an upcoming city council agenda for consideration if you do not recommend any amendments to the current ordinance we will inform the individual that messaging on city streets is not permitted in the city of Denton that concludes the presentation and um i have several staff are here including uh city attorney's office to answer questions okay all right questions uh and also mr city attorney just to verify that if something if a council member has a question that's more appropriate for a closed session then we do have the opportunity to call a closed session for this agenda item is that correct that is correct okay thank you council member davis then council member armature then council member melser thank you mayor i think this is really simple i just don't think political slogans commercial messages anything like that that belong on the city streets i don't think it's worth like waiting into the legal morass of first amendment issues you know let the kids draw on sidewalk with sidewalk chalk let people use sidewalk chalk in their own neighborhoods or in front of their businesses or whatever they want to do but using the city streets for messaging i just don't think there's a place for that at all whether the message is one thing or the other so um i'd rather just not get into it at all okay council member uh melser i think you called council armature oh i'm sorry council member armature yeah so i i just i wanted to confirm so uh there's there's nothing no special ordinance prohibiting uh chalk on public sidewalks right that that's something that is is just tolerated and and people get to do that is that correct whether it's in front of your residence on the square not that not this time not that we know of that there's any any ordinance that prohibits individuals from having uh doing chalk drawings on a sidewalk thank you and so for me you know i see this i see street uh sidewalk i'm sorry street chalk um uh drawing you know messaging as a kind of similar first amendment uh form of public art but with one uh you know difference uh meaning that there are kind of additional safety issues that would come up when the just when it's actually being done um because cars drive drive on uh so that really the the kind of the safety issue um it really while the chalk drawing is happening is my my only concern otherwise i i approve of it uh and and i'm not sure and i'll be curious to hear what others think you know what others who are fine with it think um you know whether or not it should be you know there should be a special rule about chalk drawing on streets or whether it should be as staff has kind of interpreted it just just a part of just one of the many possible ways of doing a first amendment activity because we can't we can't predict this is my adding to it you know we can't predict what what forms these first amendment activities are going to take uh nor nor should we um but as long as there's a there's a process and we can make sure that people are safe so anyway that's that is really my only concern uh but otherwise i approve okay councilmember melzer um i think if there's you know sometimes we have events where streets are closed off like festivals and things like that uh and you know i i can't imagine that that would be an issue during the period of time that there's an event so i think you know staff's impulse to say this is something that would have the duration of an event and would be you know sort of removable right after uh is is probably a good guess and if i can think out loud a little bit uh i see three different categories uh that would be outlets for somebody who wanted to do such a thing uh there's there's civil disobedience and when you do that there are consequences you know uh people go to jail for civil disobedience and and where that probably if you do something that breaks the law you you you're broken a lot john lewis was i think jailed something like 45 times in his life five or six times as a congressman so i don't think you say if something is first amendment therefore it's legal it may not be uh so civil disobedience civil disobedience you do that you accept the consequences a second kind of thing is an event request we're calling it a first amendment activity but uh within i think staff is very reasonable and what they've suggested that and and you have to understand if we're talking first amendment you know you're gonna have a lot of disagreeable speech uh you know it may be you know one thing one day and another thing another day another day but to the extent that people are qualified for them to have their event and they want to have chalk or whatever i don't see a big deal and then there's public art and that's where you would use durable materials like paint and public art is different than individual expression that's a municipal collective expression so if you know if somebody wants to go to the public art committee as i have done and then they do a great job of weighing in on whether this what's proposed is civic and uniting and enduring there's a process may involve public input and that's a community expression so i think those all those three avenues uh could exist okay councilmember briggs yeah councilmember metzer just kind of um mentioned or i you know uh stated my question it's more about when i saw this if you're talking about words and pictures is that a public art process um is that is that a way where we have a community board a public art board where if they wanted to hire an artist to do certain things or if an artist wanted to express something is that is that where that would go through that board and is an ordinance like this does that need to be in place for them to hear something like that or would it be you know a separate type of policy in relation to public art instead of first amendment right my other question would be because i do know that we have talked about painting crosswalks on the street like 3d crosswalks a design you know different colors as a as a an attention getter to make sure that you know people see the sidewalks or just as public art design um how does that fit into the conversation or is that something different i mean are we specifically talking about first amendment right here and if we or if we do not allow this policy are we prohibiting like painting crosswalks with a design and such and such of that i don't i don't know um specifically i know that if you're doing art projects uh that there is a process through the arts committee the and so there if to place art and to put art in different locations there's a process for that in this particular situation we looked at it as because there was there's not any kind of um document or any kind of ordinance here that has anything to do with uh someone uh putting messages on or putting information on a street we looked at it as first amendment which is different from public art okay um anybody else council member ryan mayor this this may probably our city attorney weigh in as to whether he feels that this is an open session question or if we need to go into close but um if we were to allow any of this you know the chalk type and someone were injured because we said they were allowed to go do this if they were hit by a car they didn't do proper track is does the city have any liability on those situations it's a question that i would prefer to answer in closed session council member ryan okay but i'll say once the other any other questions are answered i'd prefer to go in a closed session on this okay all right all right any other questions comments i uh my comments are i i agree with uh council member davis and and the sentiments that he's expressed i think the streets are for traffic markings and as far as crosswalks that are painted with design there's still traffic markings there's still uh things on the street that provide and communicate traffic type related activity so uh i certainly share those same sentiments uh with with council member davis so if there's not any other questions or comments we will uh any other questions or comments before we go into closed session all right and refresh my memory on the uh local government is it uh 551.0 yes it's low it's uh item d of the closed session we oh okay for closed session gotcha all right i forgot about that you bet all right okay then what we will do is we will go into closed session uh pursuant to texas local government code section 551.071 consultation discussion deliberations and receipt of information from city attorneys involving legal matters related to the use of denton city streets as a medium for messages we will be convening in closed session at 323 let's take a five minute break to allow uh the technology to catch up with uh our meeting and we'll we'll meet back here in five minutes welcome everybody back to this meeting of the denton city council on august the 25th 2020 it is 357 p.m we are on our work session item we're reconvening on our work session item 3e uh we had took a break to convene in closed session regarding agenda item 3e id 20-1680 so we will resume the deliberation on that item at this time colleagues questions comments all right uh well i think the question for staff uh staff could you repeat this here could you repeat those uh the options were to craft a policy to allow yes the if directed by city council staff will amend the current ordinance to include the policy decisions that were made and will include the updated ordinance for a future council um agenda for consideration or if you do not recommend any amendments to the current ordinance staff will inform the citizen that messaging excuse me on city streets is not permitted in the city of denton okay so i'm going to label those as option one and option two so um i would just ask to see who wants to give direction to pursue option one council member melzer well i don't know if i can you know since one or two okay uh just i'll give my direction to the extent that uh any group with any point of view objectionable non-objectionable can uh request a street closure for an event uh during the duration of a street closure if they want to use uh materials that uh would only last for the duration of the street closure and have responsibility to remove uh you know any alterations by the end of that street closure you know i i see no problem with uh you know something being on the street under those parameters uh outside of that you don't do permanent materials on our streets if you do on your own that's civil disobedience and there's penalties and consequences if it's a collective expression that goes through public art and that's not a matter of an individual it's a matter of community saying yes we think this is a civic united enduring message that's an option that's a possibility that's open that's entirely different okay all right uh mayor pro tem so two things mayor process question do you want to take those this kind of feedback individually i could see it getting very confusing for staff i mean paul's laid out an option there if there's any traction for it let's vet it and if not let's move on so that we can then uh get traction under one kind of uh approach versus uh that's that's my thought but i'll tell you i'm firmly in two that it's just not permitted because that's the control we have all right all right uh who else mayor council member armator yeah i think uh council member mouser's uh option is is really reasonable okay so you're uh supporting that okay all right council members council member davis just to reiterate what i said earlier i guess we're calling option two um that i just don't see city streets as a medium but there's that kind of messaging council member ryan i'm on option two as well right mayor uh i support option two as well i've expressed those sentiments before we broke for closed session and and we'll republish those right now so it seems like we have a consensus for option two which is we keep the status quo with no uh uh no markings on the streets save for the traffic the transportation related markings that i believe that we we've been talking about is that correct okay all right fantastic thank you thank you uh-huh all right we'll go to agenda item f which is receive report whole discussion gives id 20-0151 receive report hold a discussion and give staff direction on pending city council requests for and then well i think staff is going to go over these uh three items now instead of four yes hello mayor and city council stuart birdseye assistant to the city manager i'm trying to share the correct screen maybe curtis can help me out there it goes all right i am here for our pending council request work session uh by way of reminder uh we will review up to seven requests per meeting today we have three requests that we're going to be reviewing uh there are four posted the incorrect uh caption for item number four uh was posted so we are going to fix that caption and repost it uh for council member armator to uh present next week um so the elected official that made the request will have up to one minute to describe and justify their request the remaining elected officials will then have up to one minute to provide feedback and indicate their support for the use of staff time to respond to this request uh item number one today comes from council member melzer it's discussing the possibility of closing the square to vehicular traffic on friday evenings through sunday evenings for the duration of the emergency order i will point out that in the friday report uh staff had an item that said that we would distribute a brief informal survey requesting feedback from the downtown denton community we did uh send out that that uh survey and we do have uh preliminary uh responses if uh council is interested in that so okay all right i'm interested okay uh is it if that's okay with you uh yeah yeah if you've got that data uh if you want to just either read it or pop it up on the screen and and then we'll move forward because we don't we don't want to turn this into a a discussion about it but just yeah if you'll just pop the data up absolutely um i i don't have it on the screen but i will read it we had 47 total responses um about the question about uh considering temporary street closures around downtown uh we asked the respondents would temporary street closures be beneficial to your business uh 27 percent said yes 46 percent said no and 12 percent uh said na so okay results i will take down all right we'll screen oh and i'm oh can someone uh is someone there able to keep time my my time uh keeper my phone is is is dead so that's what i kept time with so is there somebody in staff that can keep time on that i can uh do a countdown here on my phone and so i will turn the floor over to council member melzer my my sole interest in even discussing this is to see if there's uh something that we can do uh as the city government to help uh businesses be able to do more trade uh you know especially during these challenging times that's why i was attached to the order and uh if if the businesses on the square as a whole don't see this as an opportunity for them then you know it's nothing to me unless it helps them so what i would suggest is that you know as a modification to what i'm putting forward here uh is is to have staffed um yes can i can i deviate mayor well i'm i'm not i i well keep going because now i'm using your time so i don't think so but go i i don't think we can make amendments to your request so well just keep going all right let's see how it goes you know just to ask staff to explore whether there are successful ways that parking and sidewalk areas have been used in other cities uh and and to share those with that same you know dent main street association business community to see if there are ideas that they would like us to pursue for them uh that's that's all right okay um i'll let the time keeper get ready to reset and when you're ready just let us know we are ready uh councilmember davis thank you mayor so i'm supportive of a work session on this going forward i got about 100 emails i think we all did on this subject um a lot of folks responding to a little bit of misinformation out there about what our agenda item actually was today um but when i responded to people and they responded back to me everyone i heard back from on that second round was in favor of further conversation about how can we address the issue in the way that's best for all the businesses so what i'd like to see is a posting in the future remember this work session kind of came request came up after some something was outside of posting on a particular issue i'd like to see it posted in a way that lets us talk about safe speeds streeteries and parklets uh closures all of those things as a solution in total um otherwise we're just going to keep doing this back and forth back and forth on what exactly the solution looks like and what's best for everybody downtown so i'm supportive of the of the request but i'd like to see a broader posting so we can actually talk about all the different moving pieces okay all right councilmember briggs and then councilmembrometer yes thanks uh councilmember davis i i agree we need a full discussion about parking parking solutions um the uh where where uh disabled parking would be how individuals will be able to use the square and streeteries um maybe allowing one parking i think we just need a full discussion and not not a discussion of closing down the square all weekend every weekend but just uh just an open discussion on creative ways that we can um we can look at this councilmember oh let's let it get set for the timekeeper all right councilmembrometer yes uh so i i was initially open to just having a discussion about the uh uh closing the streets on on the closing the downtown on the weekend um but uh based on their responses that i've heard from people with disabilities uh people who use uh curbside who want to drop right uh stop right there and get something under covid have something brought out to their car and local business owners who aren't interested in it i don't want to have a conversation just on this one issue okay all right uh mayor pro tem yeah i just want to understand better why i think we're doing this in reverse and i think a conversation at this level is not what we need i think we need a some sort of joint meeting with main street or interest interested parties not outside parties but parties affected and the key point is this uh we're saying we want to help them we're saying we want to help the businesses downtown but actually you're using them as a test we're testing something with their business model with razor thin margins and so all of a sudden you're going to say hey let's try this out see if it works and oh by the way if you lose more money on that saturday we'll know it didn't work or it'll be either you'll be more successful but we're not hedging that test to say if your business drops off significantly then we'll make you whole somehow and so that's the problem is your people don't have the money to be a test for some project we want to explore we you have to make the people whole if you're going to uh try to take away or potentially take away their business okay all right anyone else okay so it looks like the specific request that is posted on the agenda um even though it was expanded during our presentation i don't think we've really allowed that in the past to be part of that discussion but what i think i am hearing and i will uh concur that i think that um we're wanting a mulligan on the discussion we had before because it seemed like the posting was was narrowly tailored that might have excluded some additional options and discussions that we can find and one being such as what the mayor pro tem brought up and that is you know to consider all of those so i would say uh what i'm hearing is a consensus not on this particular thing but um to bring back the the work session that we looked at before but bring it back with a broader posting so we can get more into the detail and the policy making discussion of uh you know all different types of alternatives those being some that were expressed here and then it allows us to talk about those that may be developed during the course of that conversation is that is that clear enough uh mr city attorney mr city manager okay all right okay all right then we will go to request number two steward you're gonna yes and again uh request number two is from council member davis it is using the tree fund to plant 100 or more oak trees in the i double o f cemetery um in the backup is information about recent plannings challenges opportunities and recommendations so i will take this down and turn it over to council member davis thank you steward i don't have much more to add to the request only that uh kind of on further reflection i had oakwood in there as a kind of an afterthought after maybe a pilot program at i double o f i think it's better to kind of proceed on both fronts what i'd like to do is is make a major planting in some prime city real estate and i'll point out that you know years and years ago uh before cities started building big central parks and big uh big properties cemeteries were public land you know where you'd go and you might have a picnic or you might uh enjoy a little bit of natural beauty as you visited your loved one so i think they're a good opportunity to enhance our urban forest with resources we already have all right okay council member melzer uh i made a similar request a couple of years ago uh talking about using the cemeteries for tree banking uh and i recall at that time that parks didn't view it as feasible uh to do with just existing graves uh but if they look at it again and decide it is feasible i'd certainly be interested in having a discussion about it all right yes council member breaks i would be interested in hearing a little bit more about it i would be concerned about um the tree roots um affecting the graves and the the tombstones and the um i i would just i would like to have more information about how that would be affected with all the trees and see what it would look like with those trees implemented on the property okay council member ameter same i feel the same way i support it and interested in knowing you know the pros and cons but i like the idea all right i believe we've got uh i believe that's for uh customer melzer were you were you supportive of just the discussion about it with parks coming back with uh same issue really i mean okay all right so i think we have four there to to bring that forward on a work session item uh the next one is number three let me bring that up and item number three today comes from council member briggs it is naming the new senior center in southeast denton the betty kimball senior center miss kimball fits into all the criteria for naming a city building after an individual under naming policy guidelines this request came from and has been supported by many in the community she's a lifelong resident community activist graduated from north texas state and was a member of the denton women's interracial fellowship she facilitated necessary improvements for southeast denton miss kimball has been committed to helping others known for volunteer work and was the driving force behind the establishment of the past american legion senior center i'm asking that we have a work session to discuss this naming and in that process we can gather more community input okay uh mayor pro tem let's do uh whenever steward just go ahead and give us the green light okay yeah so uh i i respect miss miss kimball uh a lot she's done great things but she doesn't stand alone in that and she'd be the first to tell you that i mean i live around the corner from her have a great relationship from her with her and i think it puts a lot of pressure on her and my sister clark who works with her there at the american legion and uh miss cole who who lives there i mean there's there's a myriad of people uh council member melzer has worked on a ton of people along the rail trail so my suggestion is that uh if the work session could include applying gary packins digital aspect uh to this property not remove an american legion hall hall name because that's a staple in our community but more saying hey we're gonna we're gonna list a myriad of people in southeast denton that have contributed and not put pressure on one person or create angst that sort of thing but really highlight the entire community and the hard work that we put forward with a new technology that allows people that are renting the facility to learn about our community okay all right council member armature yes so i love the idea of naming it after miss kimball and i too you know think that it's important to reach out to the community and to see i would love to know uh do people who especially people who use the american legion center in the community uh is this a name change that people who use this center support uh do they want the it to stay the same what do they want somebody else to be named after somebody else because whatever that you know people who use the center want is is what i want and i don't want to you know do anything that people who use it don't want so uh right now i don't know because i haven't gotten emails on the subject or at least haven't seen any um but i'm definitely open to it so if if it could be expanded a little more to a larger discussion uh i would be definitely all for it uh i see uh council member melser i certainly support uh work session on naming the new the new senior center in some form of fashion uh and mostly to generate options and then i very much like uh council member armature suggested to then take those to that uh area right there to get community input on it one very important point there are two betty kimbles i think there's a betty l and a betty r you got to make sure you get the right one oh okay uh council member davis so i think the sentiment is really good my only concern is we have a naming policy uh we we just put it into place i feel like what we ought to do is invite someone to fill out an application and then we would take it uh take up the issue as a council through the application process um you know we wouldn't necessarily have to decide in a work session you know or or go through voluminous emails and all that kind of thing and do it on the fly we have an application process and sort it out that way okay uh it seems like um because we need to continue to maintain the integrity of this process and that is what's really what we're talking about is do we want to work session on what's the specific request that's posted in the agenda so in applying that process this particular one uh didn't garner the the necessary um consensus to move forward in that strict narrow sense so i think council member davis had a had a good observation is that we that we do have a process already in place and i think it's important we continue to stick to those processes and it's very clear that there is an openness to the council for the naming of that particular facility and people can nominate individuals and and run through that process so we'll i think we will continue with keeping the integrity of this process uh it's not saying that the request is is insufficient or anything like that it's just we didn't get enough consensus to say specifically we're going to have a request or work session on that particular request but i think there was certainly enough discussion and interest to consider the general topic and the general question of you know is that we can present that with the people who follow through with the normal process of naming all right we'll move through okay that now i just want to confirm number four has been pulled that is correct we'll repost that and uh present that next week okay all right so that concludes our work session items in open session we will now convene in closed session at 421 uh our first uh well we'll convene in closed session at 421 let's take a about a five minute break and we'll come back and oh pursuant to excuse me texas government code section 551.071 we're convening in closed section pursuant to texas government code section 551.072 and i believe those two sections cover item 1c as well and we will take i believe it's item 1b first is that correct and then 1a is that is that correct mr is that correct yes okay all right okay all right let's reconvene in closed session in five minutes oh i can't do the countdown anymore welcome everybody to this meeting of the denton city council it is august the 25th 2020 it is 644 pm we have concluded our work session and closed session and so i will now convene the city council in a special called meeting to consider the following items we do have a quorum so i'll call this meeting to order our first item on the agenda is action on the consent agenda any actually council member ryan approval of the consent agenda except for items a and f all right and and we are pulling those is that correct council member ryan correct following her individual consideration i saw council member melser did you have your hand up yes i'll second okay so we have a motion and a second for the consent agenda items except for agenda items a which is id 20-1441 and agenda items f and uh i think i doodled on this work id 21572 i believe if that's correct uh so agenda item 1f so we have a motion and second for the consent agenda save those two items how say you council member ryan aye council member melzer aye council member armature yes council member riggs yes mayor protem all right council member davis mayor watts is an i uh the consent agenda items pass unanimously we will now consider agenda item uh 1a which is now an item for individual consideration consider id 20-1441 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas approving a second amendment to an economic development agreement with buckies limited to clarify the term of the agreement and providing an effective date this was pulled but there was no staff presentation requested on this uh so we will move forward with the with the item do chair would entertain any mayor protem move approval all right we have a motion do council member ryan a second we have a motion and a second a mayor protem how say you all right council member ryan aye council member briggs no council member armature no council member melzer hey council member davis i'm sorry what was that i was an i with a quick mute afterward because there's a family in the background okay all right we got an i from council member davis uh mayor watts is an i so the motion carries four to three we'll move on to agenda item f id 20-1572 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton a texas home real municipal corporation authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with aileron international ink for section a n95 masks for various city departments etc did we have a president i don't think we had a presentation on this council member armature i think you had a couple of comments is that correct yes yes so so i want and i had mentioned this at the work session um this involves uh a request for surgical masks and a request for a non-disposable cloth masks so i wanted uh to remove the i wanted to move to uh remove the cloth mask component from this item uh and uh to have a separate rfp for that okay okay mr city attorney are we able to do that with this posting or would that the whole thing have to be brought back with that division made at that time because i understand this was a a bid a corporate bid or the amounts i don't know if in the staff if we've separated them out in this 125 is just an aggregate amount of three distinct prices and i don't mr city manager do you know how that or i'm sorry mr city attorney go ahead i was gonna say if it was brought as one or made one bid for all three items and one one vendor one to be to take this out from the other two when every other vendor including this one voted or bid on all three items you're going to get a bid protest so if you're going to exclude one you might as well throw out all bids and start over again okay all right if it came that way okay is that how it came to council mr city manager uh this is christine taylor from procurement appliance so the item for mask was actually two items and sections were awarded so one of the items that just passed on consent was a section that had gone in the original bid this item bringing forward is to for different sections that went out in the bid so the cloth mask the disposable surgical mask and the disposable in 95s all being awarded to one vendor okay so this is coming as one award so if that's the case then mr city attorney what i heard you understood you to say is if that's the case if we wanted to split them out then we would have to somehow i don't know if the procedure is just to vote no on this and then you'd come back with a rebid is that is that correct that would be it it would be known into directing that the entire process be rebid and separated according to what you um you all want to see okay all right councilmember armature yeah and so um so i'll explain why i would i would like to go ahead and do that um we have uh some local cloth mask uh makers businesses who are struggling now um and even though the bidding was open to local makers as i understand it because there was a requirement which is fairly standard that uh wouldn't be in the business of having done uh something like this for the past three years uh local bidders were were ended up being excluded so you know for that reason i would like to i'm going to be voting no to this and i hope that my my colleagues will consider voting no so that uh there could be a new bid done uh that would remove that that three-year requirement um and and that that only that only apply and be removed for the cloth uh reusable mask not for the surgical one the surgical one i would like to go forward and separate i'm just explaining why even though we're not voting on that that is that is my reason for voting i understand uh councilmember briggs so is there a um if it were to fail and then go back out for bid um how long would that take and would that leave um individuals without ppe and protection uh which is a concern of mine and also the bid is for 500 mask would it be possible just to do um if 500 isn't enough just do another rfp for more um individual cloth mask by themselves the the bid actually went out we opened up this bid in june and it ran so it ran for a couple weeks and closed at the end of june so it will probably take us about another uh two to three months to put it back out and perform the evaluation so doing that does prevent the two other awards the public safety mask from getting um from us being able to proceed with ordering those for public safety okay well councilmember breaks yeah so i'm i'm not comfortable leaving them without protection um but i would like to see if the city does need more mask um if they could do the cloth one separately to allow a local vendor to to do that with with another order okay all right uh do we have a action on this councilmember melzer it wasn't a pretty big motion yet just a question uh i forgot what the question was what was the purpose of the requirement that they be that they have have to have been doing this for three years and is that typical in our contracts that's standard for any procurement that we put out that's the minimum specifications the three years um so that we can check references of cities aside to ensure when we're entering into long-term contracts that they can continue to provide the product yeah well i i will move i understand uh uh the points that councilmember armaturas raised and i think they're well considered but on balance i still want to move forward and okay and i take councilmember breaks suggestion that maybe there's something different we can do in the future maybe not but i'll move approval of this as it's stated okay councilmember davis i'm going to second the motion and just point out that we have a procurement process because we don't get to pick and choose i know everyone's intentions here are the best but we we pick firms based on uh level playing field criteria not because they're folks that we want to help out around town okay all right councilmember ryan yeah i did have a question on the the total numbers because it's when you look at the bid sheet uh the the winning bid is a total of seven thousand three thirty-five and this is a five-year contract and says it's four hundred and twenty-five thousand so is this like a anticipated quarterly amount or you know how often are do we think we're going to be going out for these mass on the bid the bid estimates were indicated quantities based on an annual amount so those are just estimates we don't have to order all of that it's on an ad need basis so when we spoke with departments we don't know how many we would need so those are just estimates based on an annual with a projected dollar amount tied to them okay thank you all right just member riggs did you have your hand up i did i just wanted to confirm that since that there was a three year that the this company that we're um approving has been making the cloth mask for three years or just has been in business for three years or is it every single product for three years is that the requirement they have to demonstrate i'm sorry i'm going up to my nose um so for the three years respondents must meet the minimum specification that they have experience providing the product or a similar product or service okay okay okay councilmember armater yes uh so anyway thank you to staff for clarifying on the time i had not uh realized when i had asked about this um in advance of the email and also at the work session i didn't realize that it would be another two to three months to put out the whole uh bid again so of course so i would not want anyone uh you know to be without the surgical uh masks during that time so apologies for the misunderstanding but i'm glad we're having this conversation so i will be voting yes then to this um but i i will say that as far as you know in the future if we need to do a future bid um i would encourage us to do away with with that three-year requirement for cloth masks and i wanted to mention that i'm not uh thinking that we award it to any one particular business i have in mind it's just i happen to know you know that there is at least one but i want it to be just a fair and open process open to all bidders but just not excluding uh local local bidders who we know are struggling i want to make sure that they can be at the table so thank you so much all right thank you uh council member melzer has say you on this ordinance to approve agenda item f aye council member davis aye council member ryan aye council member briggs yes mayor protem aye council member armater yes uh mayor watts is an i the motion carries seven zero we will now move to items for individual consideration and i believe we have uh one speaker on this particular one that we will take after a staff presentation agenda item 2a is uh yeah i'm sorry we don't have a speaker on this one it's the next one my mistake i apologize uh 2a is considered the second of two readings and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas annexing approximately 140.607 acres of land generally located on both sides of vintage boulevard and mr city attorney there's no formal action on this or is there on the second reading yes you're after the second reading there will be an adoption yes all right thank you good evening mayor council richard canoni development services department um the item in front of you tonight is the second of two readings of an ordinance annexing approximately 141 acres of land this property is located on the west side of fort worth drive and is on either side of vintage just the to go back over the land use and zoning on the sorry the the land use on the property the current property has a land use designation on the north on the north parcel is low residential and on the southern half it is rural areas there is not zoning assigned because this is currently in the etj but but a zoning case will come back in front of in front of you in the near future assuming the annexation is approved just a little bit of background on this property it was part of donut hole four there was a non-annexation agreement for this property but that has since been terminated if you will once the voluntary annexation was applied for the applicant intends to develop the property with 110 residential lots the gas well will be will be capped and plugged and the remaining track the eastern track the 97 acres will remain open space most of that is within the floodplain and just kind of a recap of the schedule on july 21st we approved the ordinance for the municipal services agreement held the public hearing and first reading of the annexation ordinance and then tonight is the second second reading and adoption of the of that ordinance and i'll just go ahead and read the read the title and the record in ordinance of the city of denton texas annexing approximately 140.607 acres of land generally located on both sides of vintage boulevard and west of fort worth drive to the city of denton denton county texas providing for a correction to the city map to include the annex land and providing for a savings clause and an effective and an effective date with that i'll be happy to answer any questions if you could pull the slide down that'd be thank you quick question i have on the plat figure richard the graphic it shows homes platted it looks like on the gas well current gas well pad site that's what was being anticipated but the the actual wellhead the would not be within a residential lot or a or a city right of ways kind of where where we are hiding that towards it would be in an hoa lot okay so that well is scheduled to be plugged and then that plugged well would be in some type of open space that the hoa would own correct okay all right any other questions all right this is an action item chair would consider action on this item councilmember armater sorry this is a question so just to confirm that this is a voluntary annexation correct that is correct okay councilmember ryan with approval all right do we have a second councilmember davis second all right we have a motion and a second for agenda item 2a which is a 20-002c councilmember ryan house au aye councilmember davis aye councilmember melzer aye councilmember riggs yes councilmember armater yes mayor protem aye mayor watts is an i so the motion carries seven to zero we'll move to agenda item 2b which is aes a 20-000 consider motion to reconsider the 18 august 18 2020 postponement of regular agenda item 6c regarding the alternate environmental sensitive area we do have a speaker and are we going to have a presentation on this no sir we're here to answer any questions okay what i would like to do is take the speaker first before we move into the discussion of the motion to reconsider if that's uh if that's if if that's appropriate uh mr city attorney is that we can do that yes sir all right then we will go ahead and get the caller on the line and if staff uh could if somebody's got a timer because mine if we could have somebody keep time that'd be great i think we've got someone in here that'll keep time okay yeah all right so we're uh we're just waiting on the caller if if the caller isn't he's coming okay okay yeah this is randy sorrels am i in the yes yes you are uh mr sorrels welcome to this meeting of the denton city council uh you are in the public comment point the comment portion of agenda item 2b which is a reconsideration of an alternative environmental sensitive area uh vote that we took i think is last week so you once you state your name and address you will have four minutes uh to speak okay my name is randy sorrels and i live at 3501 rose lawn drive here in denton and i have some concerns with the development that's going over on razor property across from me uh south of willow wood and then north of rose lawn several of the items of course you know the oak trees that they're going to just push down they're supposed to be protected it's one of the issues but the biggest issue that i have is all the water that runs from that area over there not all of it but most of it comes across rose lawn and right onto my property and on hard rains we have a little bit of flooding goes on down here it's washed a lot of the there's a little creek it that runs through here and it's just eroded some of it that years ago we could walk across there now it's just dangerous it's eroded so much ground and i'm afraid when they build and put all this concrete and do all this stuff all that water runs over here it's just going to flood us over here and just make it you know dangerous the other issue or situation that i am concerned with is that rose lawn drive years ago the city came to me i haven't my old office was at 2408 which was right next to fort worth drive gng tractor was there and then me they came to me and wanted them to me to give them a piece of land to put a they were going to put a cul-de-sac out there and close off rose lawn drive and pave me a private drive up to my office because rose lawn at that time and i don't know how it could have changed wasn't a legal wasn't wide enough to be a legal street according to the state of texas so if nothing's changed and then they build this giant housing development let people drive all over here i don't understand how we can let people come drive down the street that's not really wide enough to be a legal street and just put a bunch of more people on it but that's just a concern i need to find out who i need to talk to at the city i'd love to visit with the engineer or whoever is over this project to see about the water flow traffic flow and i'm curious to see if they're going to let footwork drive and rose line meet if the state wasn't going to do it 12 or 14 years ago how they're going to let them do it today so anyway that's a couple of my concerns the water being number one it's just a little scary on a real hard rain i can't imagine if all of the trees and shrubs and dirt's gone over there and it's all concrete it's just going to run over here like crazy okay mr sorrels i have a question for you this is mayor watts do you do you mind if we pass your contact information on i think we had to call you back to get in do you mind if we pass that on to the appropriate staff that maybe could answer some of your questions now or as this property develops because i know there there'll still be some engineering plans and things such as that is that okay for us to do that that would be super i would really be happy with that i'm mayor watts thank you appreciate it uh and if we staff can make a note of that and we do we have any more questions for the uh for the caller okay mr sorrels thank you so much for calling in i appreciate it all right good luck on your meeting tonight thank you all right we don't have a uh a presentation but i do have one question for staff as we oh go ahead councilmember davis you can go ahead and ask your question i didn't want to cut you off okay sure uh and this is to maybe give us some information on the motion to reconsider if we're going to you know how we want to decide on that this is uh we are at the preliminary stage of this development so there's still engineering plans there's still platting plans there's still engineering studies that will have to be done to conform with the city of denton's development process regarding water flow things such as that is that correct that that is correct this is a a four foot the platter plat was approved with four phases and so the first phase is they're starting to the north north and west um the large piece on on rose lawn where the um upland habitat area is that is phase four that is the the last phase of the proposed development but the water from the from the previous phases one two and three is that not being directly i think that's part of what we're reconsidering here is is the isa which provides uh the water moving through that channel either through a couple of various options that we had looked at last time uh but so there still will be water uh moving in that channel was was has the engineering and water study engineering study been done that determines you know the downstream impact of the water flow on from the development i believe they have done a downstream assessment i would need to confirm that but i know they are in the um they're in the in that stage now between preliminary and final okay complete those construction engineering plans sure well then in in that case if i think it's even more imperative that we pass uh mr sorrell's number along so that you know he can begin to have those conversations with your staff and maybe with engineering to help him understand uh maybe there's going to be less of an impact because of some improvements they might have to do upstream thank you so thank you councilmember davis for your patience go ahead thank you sir at this time i move to reconsider our august 18th 2020 postponement of regular agenda item uh 6c just as it's captioned here on our agenda okay we have a motion uh now mr city attorney refresh my memory the only one that can make the motion to reconsider is one who was part of the prevailing vote but as anyone can second that is that correct that is correct all right do we have a second on that on the motion for reconsideration councilmember ryan i'll second all right so we have a motion to reconsider agenda item to be uh councilmember davis how say you on that motion aye councilmember ryan how say you aye mayor protem aye councilmember melzer aye councilmember briggs yes councilmember armater yes mayor watts is a i so the motion to reconsider passes seven to zero we'll move on to agenda item 2c which is id 20-1918 or is that right i've doodled here is that right okay consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas a home rural municipal corporation approving a bill of sale uh an assumption agreement with denton power llc yes and that is id 20 159 oh no this is c id 20 where are we have i got the wrong agenda oh this one right here okay id 20-1418 okay good evening council mayor council terry nalty assistant general manager dme i come to you this this evening to discuss the ordinance to purchase the denton landfill generation facility currently gas landfill gas is collected off the landfill and combusted in a facility at the landfill that facility is a 1.6 megawatt facility it's owned by denton power llc a texas subsidiary of dte biomass energy the facility began operation in 2009 we have been there is a 15-year contract uh that contract is terminating uh in march of 2024 and uh under the terms of the contract uh the solid waste department receives a 12.5 percent uh revenue royalty payment from sales of power from the facility those sales of power are under a power purchase agreement with dme uh the price of the energy is an escalating fixed price beginning in the first year of the contract and ending at 112 dollars and 84 cents per megawatt hour in the last year of the contract and uh while this is renewable energy it represents less than one percent of our renewable energy supply the economics of the landfill purchase the landfill generation are not favorable to rate payers as you can see the contract is way above market and is the highest cost of any of our resources in the supply portfolio at between 96 and 112 dollars for the remaining term of the contract we are proposing to purchase the facility for 2.75 million uh that purchase price would offset a future value i'm sorry a present value cumulative payments of staying in a contract of 5.35 million and represents about a 2.5 million dollar savings for customers the only way to achieve the savings is to purchase the assets and take assignment of the agreements that the assets have so when we purchase uh if you approve the purchase of this facility we will um achieve a 2.6 million dollar npv savings for rate payers that does assume the shutdown of the equipment and the flaring of the landfill gas um as i mentioned the future payments are 5.35 million on a net present value basis and uh we could purchase the same energy for 1.53 million if we bought it in the market our 100 renewable goal has been achieved uh we're anticipating in in the next fiscal year we'll be at 100 renewable uh the elimination of this facility would not affect our ability to meet that metric and to the extent that we decided to continue to operate the facility um we would have to invest some some capital dollars as as the facility is and nearing end of life and we would reduce our savings to customers by about half and reduce to about the 1.3 million so the the beneficial use reuse of landfill gas is is um limited to the hours of operation of the facility and as i mentioned the facility is nearing its end of life and the availability is is is decreasing each year uh any any waste gas that is not combusted in the in the uh engines is flared at times during the year the landfill produces more gas than can be processed by the facility and that excess gas is combusted in the flare solid waste department is and has an in hand a engineering study of alternative beneficial use options which will be brought to the council in the next month uh including the business cases for each of the options that are under consideration from an environmental perspective uh the bypassing of the generation facility will result in lower emissions uh it's actually better for the environment to flare the gas and to run it through the machine and i do have some uh slides i can show you the data on that with that we seek your approval and i would be glad to answer any questions if we could pull the screen down that'd be great any questions council council member briggs can you um can you let us know uh the amount of flaring that happens now versus the amount of flaring that will happen when it shuts down i don't have the exact numbers but my understanding is about between 20 and 35 percent of the gas is flared that's produced today um obviously if we shut the facility down it would be 100 well do you know i guess what i'm asking is would it be flaring all day all long all day long through the the business hours i do not know the answer to that question okay miss briggs this is brian burner uh director of solid waste currently the flare because we do have excess gas does operate on a 24/7 basis uh so the the flare will continue to operate uh at that time just just for longer periods of time no same same amount of time uh but it will have more throughput uh uh going through the flare so as mr nolte said currently we're we're flaring about 30 percent of the gas that we produce uh we would have the additional 70 percent that is currently going to the uh engine will then be flared and this is not uncommon because when we have to take down the the engine uh for maintenance repair uh upkeep things of that nature that gas is currently flared through the through the flare uh at this time also so it will just be 100 percent of the time as opposed to just during maintenance procedures okay council member riggs mr nolte did you did you say that uh solid waste would be coming back with some ideas uh so that maybe this resource will not be completely wasted yes ma'am uh we have the engineering study we are working on the business case to bring to council with recommendations on alternate beneficial reuse options okay thank you all right any other questions chair would entertain a motion on this item mayor pro tem move approval do i have a second council member ryan a second all right we have a motion and a second for agenda item 2c how say you mayor pro tem all right all right how say you council member ryan aye council member davis aye council member melser aye council member briggs yes council member ometer yes mayor watts is an aye so the motion carries seven zero takes us to our next item on the agenda 2d id 20-1597 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton a texas home rule municipal corporation extending the effective period of the declared state of local disaster to september the 30th 2020 mayor city council sara keichler chief of staff i've presented this afternoon at the work session in regards to this item that would propose to extend the disaster declaration and the current order of council through september 30th for additional month the other change to the order would be increasing the expenditure authority and so those are the two changes as proposed by staff i'm happy to do any further presentation if you wish or if you have any questions for staff to address okay any questions for staff okay chair would entertain a motion on this item council member davis move approval council member melzer i want to point out that what you heard in work session that the lion's share of the additional expenditures are reimbursable to the city and i second all right council member davis i'll say you on oh council member briggs yeah i just wanted to say that i'm not going to be voting for this order um because of the utility shutoffs that weren't included i just can't find myself to vote yes when i know that there's individuals starting tomorrow that may be uh needing help so okay council member melzer yeah i'd like to take this opportunity to say to anybody who themselves uh feels that they may be in arrears on utilities or if you know someone who is the the only thing you need to do is to call there there are resources available right now it'll connect you directly uh with through interfaith ministries or through united way with federal money that's available uh and and the whole point if you are shut off is only to get you to call so call right away you'll be reconnected as quickly as possible and arrangements will be made and uh yeah that's it thank you uh councilmember armater yeah i just want to add that i too can in good conscience vote uh yes to this although i'm glad we're extending the emergency declaration um i i i am just i'm just disappointed that we're not going to be extending it until the beginning of at least the first week of the connected learning period for our local schools so that's why i'll be voting no as well okay all right so we have a a motion a second now just to clarify with mr city attorney if this uh action item fails then basically we're still under the current order which will expire at the end of this month and then that we won't be under any orders except the governor's orders is that correct that is correct and the the only difference in this order is an is an increase in the city manager's spending approval which was how much um i'm going to rely on sarah for that it is increasing the total expenditure authority to two million uh and fifty thousand dollars and that's an increase of nine hundred thousand is that right that's correct and if this and if this motion fails that can still be brought back under another uh either budget amendment or something to that effect is that correct uh mr city attorney or mr uh city manager okay all right yes okay all right thank you all right so uh we'll go ahead and pull the council uh council member davis i'm sorry council member melzer you who made the motion council member davis okay uh council member davis i'll say you on this council member melzer aye council member hudspeth aye council member ryan nay council member briggs no council member armatyr um i'm i'm going to turn back on and vote yes because um i'm i'm afraid uh that this might get an another uh no vote and not not pass so i i will vote yes but i'm still really disappointed about the uh utilities shutoffs okay um uh mayor watts is a is a no and so i believe the motion carries four to three if my math is correct is that right i believe so okay all right we'll move on to agenda item 2e consider nominations appointments to the city boards commissions and committees committees on persons with disabilities um mayor yes yeah i believe we're waiting on a staff presentation i was just going to motion to approve okay all right uh we've all read our backup so that's that's great we have a motion to approve do i have a second council member armature second all right we'll uh pull the council council member briggs i'll say you for this agenda item yes council member armatyr yes council member melzer aye council member davis council member ryan aye mayor protem aye mayor watts is an aye motion carries seven to zero we'll now move on to our last item on the agenda concluding items i'm going to go ahead and start out with this one because we've got a a certificate that was delivered to us that i want to read uh and i'll just sort of show it up here on the camera right quick this is a certificate of appreciation presented to the denton city council in gratitude and appreciation for your leadership dedication and service to the citizens of the city of denton and thank you for your service and this is uh awarded to us by the denton odd fellow lodge number 82 and i want to thank them so much for that and all that they do for our community so thank you any other concluding items council member briggs i just want to wish everyone who has to do the connected learning tomorrow good luck i know we've already started off with a few issues today in in our home so um just uh good luck and have a great school year okay thank you anyone else concluding items seeing none we will then now adjourn this meeting of the denton city council at 7 28