Sep 15, 2020 City Council on 2020-09-15 12:00 PM

Okay, and welcome this afternoon to the Denton City Council work session or meeting beginning of the meeting. We do have a quorum today is September 20, pardon not 20, 15 2020 and it is 1204. So we will get started. We do not have any citizen comments on consent agenda items, which will take us to request for clarification on agenda items listed on the agenda. Okay. Councilmember Davis. Yeah, I just wanted to ask to pull item I, the loop 288. And I don't know if there's anybody available from text dot or some additional materials that might be forthcoming if we pull that for individual consideration. Okay, do you want to list out what you would like to see or to staff or do you know? No, I mean, my request is somewhat general. It just kind of occurs to me that if we're gonna text, I can build the road where they buy them land and want to build the road, but if they're going to ask us to affirmatively approve it, I feel like we need more information than on why this is the best alignment or the only alignment they've got so. Got it. Thank you. That's helpful. Okay. I believe Becky Devaney is on. Would you like Becky to answer that or would you like her to get an answer for you for tonight? I'd like to give her more time probably. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Briggs. Thank you, Mayor Pritcham. My question I guess would be more for the city attorney on item L under consent. I know it's a correction on an ordinance, but I originally voted no on this ordinance and I'm just double checking that by approving the correction that that's not going to change the original vote. That is correct. It's not going to change the original vote. It's just changing the date from 2019 to 2018. Okay. Thank you. Great. Any other questions on consent agenda? Great. Okay. Then we will move forward to the work session reports. We'll start with three A which is item ID 2014 94 receive report, hold discussion and give staff direction regarding an update to the city of Denton's COVID-19 response. Good afternoon, Mayor Pritcham, city council, Sara Keechler, chief of staff. I'm here today to present the standing work session update on the city's response to COVID-19. So one second while I share my screen. Okay. So this is our standing work session item where we provide updates in regards to items related to COVID-19. By way of reminder, the city of Denton does have a disaster declaration and order in effect until September 30th. At next week's council meeting on September 22nd, staff will seek direction from council if council wishes to extend that declaration and order. So for today's update, we have a few updates as listed here on the screen. I'm going to try to move through these quickly, giving your agenda for the day and we've provided some of this information in the past. So I'll jump right into intergovernmental updates. Just by way of reminder, Denton County Public Health is publishing all of their statistics online at DentonCounty.gov/COVIDStats. And I'm actually going to stop sharing this screen and go to share the website really quickly. All right, so you should be viewing the Denton County Public Health's website. You can see here listed on the screen is the total case counts for the entire county. Includes this chart of case by date of symptom onset. You can also click here and you can see the different chart which shows cases by date reported. Again, this is for the entire county. One of the new features that the county has added, if you go to the top here, is you can look at statistics by jurisdiction within the county. So if I click on this link, it will take me to where you can look at the individual cities. So we'll click on Denton and it will show you the same two charts I just went over in regards to countywide by the city of Denton. So there's case by date of symptom onset right here and then you can also click and see other charts that are available, including case by date reported for the city of Denton only. So I just wanted to take the opportunity to share that with council as I know that some questions had been asked previously, how you can view specific data in regards to the city of Denton. There is also some other links that the county has added, including being able to look at some of the self-reported data from the various school districts within the county. So I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing the screen and return to the presentation. And also by way of reminder, the county is still doing the free testing on a weekly basis. And this is on Fridays at the University of North Texas Discovery Park. They are also doing the alternating sites throughout the county on a weekly basis as well and all of that information is available on their website. As far as state updates, there's not a lot to report. Governor Abbott did extend the disaster declaration statewide for another 30 day period. He has been doing that in 30 day period since the COVID disaster began in March. We expect the governor to continue to extend those for the foreseeable future, probably through the end of the year. But as important as that allows the city of Denton as a governing body and other boards and commissions to be able to continue to hold all virtual meetings. Staff has also been asked if Governor Abbott plans to have any updates or announcements coming forward soon and we are not aware of any that are planned. His G28 order is still in effect. As far as federal updates, not a lot to report here either, unfortunately. There had been some discussions throughout the last month, few weeks, if there would be an additional federal legislation for additional COVID relief. Also if it were potentially to extend the CARES Act funding, that CARES Act funding could be used beyond December of this year. Nothing has moved forward at this time. There was a bill that was introduced last week in the Senate, but it failed to advance. And so working with our consultants, if no federal legislation happens soon, it may not be on the table again until after the November elections in regards to any discussions around additional COVID relief or extensions of the current CARES Act provisions. Also just one piece of information that was included in a previous Friday report, and this was in place prior to about a month ago, is a foreclosure and eviction moratoriums on single-family home mortgages that are backed by one of these federal agencies. That has been, that moratorium has been extended through the end of this year or this calendar year. And that also includes people that are renting properties with those federally backed mortgages. In addition, the Centers for Disease Control came out with a nationwide order that imposed a moratorium on residential evictions until December 31st. And what that means is that landlords cannot proceed to evict tenants who cannot afford to pay rent. However, there are some conditions with that, that the tenants must qualify and meet certain requirements. One of those requirements is that they have sought all available assistance to try to pay their rent. And again, it does not, this order does not waive rent, rather, it only defers it. So we really encourage anyone who is in need of rent assistance to reach out now to the United Way of Denton County, where there are funds available to help them pay that rent and really want to stay current on rent. And so that's the first part of the presentation, Mayor Protom, I can stop or continue at your direction. Yeah, let's see if we have any questions, you can pull it down to see if we have any questions. Okay, Councilmember Briggs. Thank you for the presentation. I know at one point, after the first eviction was lifted, I asked about how many we had in our city or in the court, and I think the answer was four. Do you know if that increased before this next moratorium was implemented? I do not, I don't think we've reached out to the courts to get any updated data. We can do so and see if we're able to get that data to share with Council. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Armitage. Yeah, about the eviction of federal order, what would you say to landlords, Denton landlords and Denton tenants about, in addition to what you already mentioned about, don't count on that, apply for relief, what other messages should we be getting forward to both landlords and tenants about what this eviction moratorium means for them? I think there's probably some further information on the CDC's website in regards to what that specific order means, but from our perspective, we really want to communicate to our residents that may be in need of assistance to help pay their rent, to really get connected with the United Way of Denton County while those funds are available. So the tenant stays current, as well as the landlord receives those payments as well, and really helps maintain that tenant landlord relationship to avoid further frustrations down the road when that rent, even though it can be deferred, it will eventually be due. Thank you. And a quick follow-up question. When you say refer them to United Way, do you mean that for them to go directly to United Way or they can still go through nonprofits or either? I think I know the answer, but I want to hear and give you the opportunity to say publicly. Of course. They can do either. They can go directly to the United Way of Denton County, and they have streamlined that process and they can help them directly. Or they can still go to a nonprofit partner in the community that is partnering with United Way. Thank you. I'll go back to sharing the screen. We have Councilmember Meltzer has a question, I'm sorry, Councilmember Meltzer. Thanks. Yeah, I just wanted to make a request that we, for the next update when we will have a decision to make about extending, if we could request having the Director of Public Health visit with us, because it's one thing to see the charts as laypeople, but if you look at cases by data system onset, it looks like this great big thing happened and now it's essentially over, but then if you look at case, new cases added by day, it looks like we're adding them, maybe not at the pace that we were, but it looks still very present. So I think it would be helpful to get his interpretation and look at those two sets of data. Yeah, we can, we'll reach out to Dr. Richardson and see maybe on a monthly basis if he could just join quickly and provide that update. Appreciate that. Thank you. And I apologize. I'm having a little technical trouble. My screen is freezing up, so I'm just looking at our tech services support. Okay. All right. In the meantime, any other questions? Okay. Okay, we'll turn back to the presentation and for housing and utility assistance, just quick update on the housing assistance program that I mentioned through the United Way of Denton County on this information has been provided in Friday reports, but you can see here throughout the county wide, over 1800 households have been assisted with rent at almost $2.8 million expended and assisting those households to pay their rent. And then you can also see the trends of the payments made each week in these charts provided. It does provide specific to city of Denton households as well. So you can see over 600 Denton households have been assisted. And in regards to utility assistance, through that same program, we've had 778 customers assisted as of last Friday. And in total that's almost $150,000 of assistance to help customers pay their utility bills. And we have been trying to do increased communications and promotions as we discussed with city council to get the word out that assistance is available to help our customers become current on their bills and discuss options and resources for them. And I'll continue on into the next slide and then see if there's any questions. So just a quick update in regards to our education and outreach that we've been performing on the local and statewide orders. So we have made Engage Denton available if residents wanted to report concerns in regards to a business, if they were following the health and safety policy, if they had the policy posted. This was kind of the strategy that we had reviewed with city council that we would take that education and outreach approach and also going out when we received a complaint to visit with that business and see if we could also help offer any suggestions for additional health and safety measures that the business could take. We didn't have a lot of those in the very beginning and we've continued to see them throughout the weeks, although it's slightly declining as we continue. And that is the end of my portion of the presentation. I'm going to turn it over to Scott Gray next, who's going to give you a few updates in regards to what we've been doing for our city facilities and improvements in regards to COVID-19. Okay, we have one question. Councilmember Briggs. Thank you. It's just a clarification on the numbers for who received assistance. It was over 600 for Denton. And then on the next slide, it said utility customers that received funding was 778. Is there an overlap there or are those two separate counts? They're two separate counts, but there may be customers who are receiving both rent assistance and utility assistance. We can see if that data would probably be available. We'll check with the United Way to see if there's any way to understand which number of customers are receiving both rent and utility assistance. Okay, thank you. Okay. And then council member Armitter. Yeah, a question about the hotels. I got an inquiry from a Denton resident who is staying at one of the hotels under COVID. And he was wondering, and I was too, what is the latest status of both the termination date of the hotel agreements, you know, the last I heard end of October. And if you could speak to the relation to that and the opening or to what extent that relates to the opening of the services center on the loop. Because that is where people who are currently staying at hotels, if they can't find some other form of shelter with, you know, Monsignor King, et cetera, having to space out to physically distance under COVID, they're looking towards, you know, the new place on the loop as a place they would go after that. Sure. Good question. Right now we have the hotels through the end of October, it is possible that we may extend recommending extending that hotel arrangement until the end of the calendar year through December. And we do have those funds budgeted in our city CRF budget. But what we really want to do is spend the next few weeks we're working closely with the nonprofit partners who are helping us manage those hotel arrangements right now to understand what may be transition and, you know, making sure that we can have as smooth as possible or try to get as many housed as possible in anticipation of that hotel arrangement potentially ending. So whether that be their continuing their housed, there may be continuing with hotel vouchers through other sources that may be available. They may be returning to the MKOC shelter location, as it may continue it to be open or maybe may open additional nights of the week. There's all discussions that we need to have and kind of plan very thoughtfully around how we try to help ensure that those folks remain sheltered or housed. Thank you so much. Okay. And so we'll transition. Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Tem, members of council, Scott Gray, director of facilities. Good afternoon. Let me share the screen here. There we go. So today I just want to cover a couple of improvements that are in process or completed in relevance to the COVID onset for the city's facilities. Shortly after COVID impacted the city, we've reached out to an architectural firm and a mechanical and engineering firm to provide us some guidance on enhancements we could do to our facilities in response to COVID. For the most part, the three items you see here were what came from that. There's a bunch of sub items that are also associated with that. The touch free fixtures, mainly plumbing related fixtures, paper towel, dispensers, soap dispensers, things of that nature, automated doors and or foot pools in some cases automation to the doors was difficult to achieve. So foot pools were another item that could assist in touch free doors. And then lastly, the HVAC filtration and ionization type improvements primarily to our major facilities such as City Hall, City Hall East and the service center. On this slide, it's split into two different sections. On the left side are existing facilities that we identified from that list and did an inspection of all those facilities of what improvements would need to be done to address COVID. In some cases, some facilities already had touch free items and automated doors. So it was just maybe adding a few more and other ones needed a few more fixtures and so forth. So those were all identified for CARES Act CRF funding of approximately $900,000. And it included a laundry list of identified for each building. And then on the right hand side are projects that were upcoming or in the process of design that were not going to be completed by the end of this fiscal year, most likely. So they weren't identified for the CARES Act funds immediately. But we identified approximately $108,000 of improvements to those facilities that we will be working with finance to come back and see if there's an opportunity to get COVID CRF funding for that additional $108,000. So lastly is what's been completed to date. In City Hall, the HVAC ionization has been completed and some plumbing fixtures, doorpool items and then the automated door between the council chambers and the city manager's office will go in next week. I mean, as you can see, City Hall East Service Center and North Lakes Rec Center had various improvements as well. All these improvements that I listed were for the COVID funding is to be completed by the end of the year. The challenge we've had is, as you can imagine, we're not the only municipality or entity that's looking at getting these items. So the challenge has been the supply chain, the HVAC items, we were able to get much sooner. Some of the plumbing fixtures have been much more difficult. Normally it's a two week lead time. Now they're anywhere from a month to two months. So a lot of these things are already on order. We're just waiting as they get here, we're installing them into the different facilities. So just a quick update, I'd be happy to answer any questions that the council might have on facility improvements. Thank you. If you can pull that down to presentation. Thank you. Questions? Council Member Armitage. Can you go back to the slide that shows the 108,000 that might possibly be able to be used on additional services? Well, if the slides up, you can't speak to make sure we stay in line with requirements. Okay. Yeah, I just wanted, I was just wondering if you could briefly show it and then take it down just so that people could see what I'm referring to, if that's just simple to do with the touch of a button. There it is. Okay, thank you. Yeah, so feel free to take that. Thank you so much. So that's what I'm about to refer to. So that additional 108,000, can you speak to, you know, if that could potentially, and by which I just mean simply legally, you know, be used for other kinds of COVID relief, other than city facilities. Are you talking about the 108,000 dollar items? Yes. Those items there are for those facilities that are currently under some sort of design or construction phase that we did not anticipate COVID related improvements to. So they've been added somewhat after the fact. So the intent is to do the COVID related improvements and then if additional CARES Act funding is available to reimburse the city for those items, we would be asking the assistance of finance. Oh, I see. Okay. So it's for potential reimbursement. This is not about money that 108,000 has not been allotted. That's correct. The 900,000 that were on the left hand side were already allotted and we're in the process of doing all those improvements and they'll be clean by the end of the year. Thank you for clarifying. Okay, any other questions Councilmember Briggs? I did not see the senior center on the list of facilities and I know that it's closed, but eventually I hope that it would open someday and that seems like a critical facility where these things should be implemented. So I'm wondering if you have a comment about that. Yes, we reviewed all of the city facilities, the senior center is one. There was about $25,000 of improvements for the senior center. Maybe it was missing from the list. I apologize. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Scott, I have one. If we do move back to eventually City Hall for council meetings, have you evaluated the disability, the ramp or the elevator, if you will? That doesn't seem very touch free. It's pretty touch intensive. Have we evaluated that? To my knowledge, no, sir, we have not, but we will certainly take a look at that and see what improvements can be done. We are putting in the automated door in between the two. I don't know if that would be ADA accessible at that location or not, but we can certainly take a look at the ADA ramp. Sure. Yeah. I'd love to see what options are available to us understand. It's a confined space, but okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Councilmember Armitter. Yeah. Quick follow up to that because I appreciate that question. Like that could be if the committee on disabilities can maybe be consulted on that, just about where the placement of automatic door buttons should be placed for maximum accessibility. I know there's an ADA standard, but it's always good to get, in my opinion, the opinion of local residents on that within that ADA spectrum. Thanks. And then we'll be presenting to that group this Thursday, an ADA assessment evaluation that we're moving forward with, as well as some improvements that are being done right now to some of our buildings under construction. So we'd certainly bring that up. Wonderful. And I hope watching that meeting for ... Great. Thank you, Scott. That was the end of the presentation for the COVID update work session. Okay. Any other questions for staff? I do have one question, Sarah, and correct me if it doesn't fit here, but with respect to the city's, I don't know if it's executive, I don't know if it's executive order declaration around the mask. My concern before was that we did not have notice, I didn't have notice kind of time to say these are going to be removed from the door. What are our options? Obviously it's there until a vote is taken, but what are our options to make people aware that a vote is pending at the end of September and this may go away? How do we kind of get that message out early? Sure. So we plan right now staff to bring an item forward at next week's September 22nd council meeting in regards to if council wishes to extend that declaration and order with part of the order being the health and safety policy requirement for businesses. We can do a press release towards the end of this week if that's something council wishes for us to do just to let the public know that that item is coming forward and that discussion may be coming forward. That is my preference. I don't know what's the best way to get the consensus you need, but I'll just say that's my preference. Okay, well, Mr. City Attorney, give me some guidance. Can I ask directly or do individual council members need to just make their request known separately in emails, et cetera? What's the best way to communicate if we have consensus? I think staff can move forward just as a factual press release of this item will be on the agenda as long as there's no objections. Okay. Any objections to that? Don't see any. Okay. Thank you. That then will conclude item 3A, and I will call item 3B, which is ID201384, receive report, formal discussion, and give staff direction regarding an internal audit of COVID-19 response pandemic preparedness. Hello, city council members. Madison Rorschach, let me try to share my screen. Hello. All right. Can you see that? Yes we can. Awesome. All right. Madison Rorschach, Denton City Auditor here to present our second COVID-19 response audit, which covered pandemic preparedness. So as its name suggests, this audit evaluated the pandemic preparedness processes of the city, including the plan, organize, train, and exercise portions of the National Incident Management System, or NIMS, their preparedness cycle. In general, there are three major areas that should be addressed when planning for disasters, which includes pandemics. These are financial preparedness, business continuity, and emergency and disaster management. So I'll begin by going over the city's financial preparedness policies. So in general, we found that the city has followed financial preparedness best practices for disaster situations. However, these policies and practices should be reviewed in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the city has established minimum reserve requirements for all major funds as shown by the black lines on the figure. As you can see, the reported revenues for the last three fiscal years have adequately exceeded these minimum requirement, sorry, reported reserves for the last three fiscal years have adequately exceeded these minimum requirements. In addition, the city has implemented several appropriate financial mitigation measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These include the voluntary separation program, a hiring freeze, ceased discretionary travel and training, suspension of merit raises, and more. The city also secured approximately $7 million of alternative funding as part of the CARES Act. That being said, it's unclear if the current mitigation efforts will adequately preserve the city's financial stability through the end of the pandemic, because it's still ongoing. For this reason, we've recommended that finance review the financial reserve policies in the future to determine if changes should be made to better prepare for prolonged financial impacts caused by pandemics. Next, we found that the city has implemented a business continuity plan, which addresses various disasters such as fires, loss of technology, services, severe weather, and more. However, it does not specifically include pandemics. During pandemics, business operations are most severely affected by social distancing needs and increased absenteeism. For this reason, we've recommended that technology services and public affairs update the business continuity plan to include protocols for prioritizing access to teleworking infrastructure, as well as guidelines for implementing virtual meetings. These updates could easily be based on these departments' responses to the current COVID-19 pandemic, which included increasing teleworking infrastructure and implementing virtual meetings, despite the business continuity plan not actually being activated during the pandemic. Furthermore, the city has adequately considered pandemics in its emergency management plan, including having an additional pandemic influenza preparedness plan, which is not required by state law. This pandemic plan was updated shortly before the city's COVID-19 disaster declaration was issued to include CDC recommendations. The city also has an Emergency Operations Center manual that guides the operations of a centralized decision-making hub during disasters. While this manual is well-defined, it is largely focused on weather-related emergencies and disasters. Based on the COVID-19 experience, these plans should be updated to incorporate additional pandemic considerations, including guidelines for non-congregate sheltering for residents and activation and operational procedures for a socially distant Emergency Operations Center. We found documentation indicating that the EOC had been partially activated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, operational records stop after April 30th. While this may be appropriate, there's also no record documenting that the EOC was deactivated, meaning it is possible that some of the EOC's operational records are missing. Without proper documentation, it may be difficult to tell what emergency management activities have occurred, potentially hindering communication and reporting to federal, state, and local agencies as well as the public. Finally, Texas law requires that the city's emergency management coordinator, the police chief, and the fire chief complete at least three hours of disaster management training within 180 days of taking office. We verified that all three of these officers had completed at least three hours of this training, which fulfills the state law requirement. Similarly, the EOC manual requires EOC staff to receive certain disaster management trainings, which are shown in the table on the slide. We verified that the city officials specified under Texas law had completed all of the required trainings. However, the manual is unclear on which other city staff are required to receive this training. In addition, there was no centralized tracking of who had completed these trainings across city departments. Likewise, the EOC manual requires the emergency management coordinator to organize periodic discussion and operations-based disaster exercises. Typically, the city appears to hold two exercises annually. However, there was no documentation easily available detailing who attended these events or what emergency response activities were covered. Without adequate documentation or clarification in the EOC manual, it's difficult to tell if all necessary staff have taken part in these activities. Without adequate training, emergency and disaster response may not be completely effective. In summary, we issued a total of nine recommendations to four departments, all of which were either partially or fully concurred. Based on the management responses we received, we believe the identified risks will be appropriately addressed and we will verify this in a future follow-up report. All right. Thank you. And questions, Councilmember Armitage? Yeah. So first, I wanted to thank you so much and your department for this thorough audit. It was really informative and helpful. And I'm really glad to know that the improvements needed are already in process will be taken care of. I was wondering if you, as an auditor, felt comfortable weighing in on whether or not it would have been helpful had we had or to have in the future a public health director specific to the city to kind of oversee and coordinate these efforts? Or do you feel that just having a city health official at the county level who has limited time to meet with us is sufficient and that this is being managed sufficiently without such a coordinator? Or do you feel uncomfortable weighing in on that, either you're curious if you came to any conclusions on that regard? I'm going to jump in there and say that that's out of her purview. That is a council decision that's a policy decision. And there's more to why the county health official has not been available. So I'll leave that at that, but I'll say there's a reason for that. And I'll say, right, do you have another question? Yes. Was that something that you considered as part of your audit? We did look at the staffing of other nearby municipalities emergency operation or emergency management divisions, and I didn't see any indication of the kind of position you're talking about at the municipal level. But we did not specifically look at if that should be a recommendation or not. Thank you. And just one quick follow up question to that. So the other cities that also didn't have a city health director, I take it that you didn't know what I expect you to have, but just wanted to confirm that you didn't assess those cities to see if they were adequate, if they were meeting their, their COVID needs. I don't know. Is that a plot? Yeah. I would say that's outside of the scope of our audit. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That was just all I wanted. Just wanted to confirm. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Councilman Briggs. Really just a statement. I wanted to say thank you for this audit. It was very informative and helpful. And we're learning as we go along with this pandemic and it's very critical as we go forward in the future that pandemic preparedness is, is something that we look at and it's not just about the weather. Like you said, and I had a few questions. I was curious where our emergency operations are housed. In the fire department. They're in the fire department. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Council member Melzer. Yeah, I concur. This is great, Ro, although, you know, just as human beings, we're always learning from what we just went through. It's so hard to anticipate the unanticipatable, but I wonder just as a thought going forward, you know, as we look at your future recommendations for audits, if there's a source, maybe at the federal level somewhere that would kind of list possible threats, just to see if our list of what we're preparing for covers, you know, the ones that, that sort of emergency authorities have identified as likely. I'm sure FEMA or, or NIMS probably has some sort of guidance on that specifically. I will say the city, I mentioned it briefly, but the city actually has a pandemic preparedness influence, pandemic influenza preparedness plan, which many other cities do not. So in some ways we were more prepared than most other municipalities for this kind of event. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you, Madison. Thank you. Great presentation. All right, that'll take us to item three C, which is ID201368, receive report and hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the November 3rd, 2020 general and special elections. Good afternoon, mayor and city council, my name is Rosa Rios. Hope you can see my screen. Yes, we can. Thank you. Thank you. So my name is Rosa Rios and I'm your city secretary and I'm here to present information on our upcoming November 3rd, a special and general elections, as well as some voting information that's really relative to that. So to provide some background information, we did order our election originally for the May 2nd, 2020 uniform election date. And that was on February 22nd, of course, there were two ordinances adopted, one related to the general election for city council members places five, six, and seven, seven being the mayor seat and also designated runoff election if one were to be needed. And then our special election was to elect council members to districts one and two, as well as identify a runoff election if any were needed. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the city did postpone both elections on March 20th to the November 3rd uniform election date and the filing dates remained in place. It did not provide for any new applications or writings. So our candidate list remained the same. And then all other portions of the original election notices remained in place unless they were specifically noted within that postponement ordinances. So Governor Greg Abbott did extend the early voting period through a proclamation that he issued July 27th, which requires amendments to our special and general elections. He did it because of the extended early voting period. Again, that is why we need to amend those amendments are scheduled later at the regular meeting that will follow. And what we ask is that those two items be read and presented and then discussed collectively, but voted on separately. And it also does provide for runoff election if any were to be needed for any of the council seats on the ballot for December 8th. Another thing that the governor's proclamation did also provide was it extended the timeline for individuals to hand deliver their ballot by mails to the Denton County elections office up to election day where originally it would have had an earlier deadline. We did provide an informal staff report on August 21st that report did provide some early voting and election day locations, some voting times, excuse me. And then there were identified locations for the general and special elections. Of course, there's no runoff election information available, obviously, because those are unknown. Now we did get confirmation from Denton County yesterday as to what the early voting locations are and those will be discussed here in a little bit. The election day locations are still trying to be finalized. And the one thing to keep in mind about the locations is that we are not able to request the specific locations be used. We are mandated under the election code to use the locations that the county will use. They did of course consult us earlier on and we'll cover some of the early voting locations here in a little bit. We will enter into a contract with Denton County that will be presented for consideration at a later time. And the same terms of that contract would apply to any runoff election where would we need to have one. The cost of course at this time is unknown. I did provide some reference information of what the costs were for 2019 and Denton County did confirm that because of the postponement to the November election that the cost factors will remain the same as if we had held an election in May. A good thing to keep in mind with that is as you know Denton County has 46 early voting locations. We would have probably about maybe a little over half of that amount so we would not be charged involved in the charges for a lot of the locations. So that's a real cost savings to us. And also the ISR also did cover some points on social distancing. The efforts we would do on public awareness and of course the candidate packet was modified to include all of the November dates and deadlines as applicable. And this information was also provided to every city council candidate. Comments were requested by August 28th and then were forthcoming. So you see here the early voting locations which again were confirmed last night listed here are only those locations in the city of Denton however there are a total of 46 early voting locations and those are available for you if you care to see them. We will of course upload this information to our website and incorporate it into the election order that we're required to publish and we do publish twice. You see here what the early voting location or the early voting schedule is. And of course we'll also publish those as well and make them available on our website. Here as of August 21st this the election day locations are tentative. And Denton County is trying to finalize those locations. The primary delay is although some of the locations may have been determined we also need to determine the meeting room. State law now requires that we advertise the room in a location where the polling place will be. And they're hoping to get that to us later in the week. And we'll provide that information to you as well as all the council candidates. So a little information on the application of a ballot by mail also known as ABBM. So keeping in mind that the last day to register to vote for the November 30 election is Monday October 5th. The qualifications for the early ballot is you must be 65 years or older, be disabled, be out of the county on election day and during the period for early voting by personal appearance, or be confined in jail but you must otherwise be eligible to serve. On June 12, 2020 there was a letter of guidance issued by Attorney General Ken Paxton that identified that individuals would not be eligible for a ballot by mail because of a lack of immunity to COVID-19 or their desire to engage in social distancing to avoid exposure to the virus alone. However, if they met another one of the qualifications those would be acceptable. So continuing with applications for ballots by mail, to request an application the first day is the first day of the year, January 1st, and the deadline to apply, which would be to receive the application, not necessarily have it postmarked by that date, is Friday October 23rd. The county will need to receive the application or the ballot by mail by hand delivery by Tuesday November 3rd, again that was one of the changes that the proclamation by the governor provided for, and if the carrier envelope is not postmarked the deadline to receive the ballot is Tuesday November 3rd at 7 o'clock p.m. If the carrier envelope is postmarked by 7 p.m. on election day then the deadline is Wednesday November 4th at 5 o'clock p.m. There are a lot of nuances regarding non-military military voters but the main deadline of course is Monday November 9th. The secretary of state did note that the ballot by mails are prohibited if the originating address on the envelope is shown as office of a political party or candidate in the election, the candidate in the election unless of course the address is the residence of the early voters, the entity that requested the election be held unless we forward, and that means that sometimes if our office were to receive the ballots then we would immediately forward to Denton County and we would actually make sure that those were hand delivered should we receive any, and then of course the specific purpose or general political committee address. So the mail by ballot again the hand delivery is by November 3rd to 20 only. The proclamation as we noted earlier was that they can be delivered up to election day. They have to be delivered to the Denton County elections office at 701 Kimberly Drive, Suite A101 here in Denton and it has to be received by seven o'clock on election day. The individual can only deliver their own ballot. They will have to sign an affidavit and then show proof of ID that that is their ballot and then of course any supporting they have to sign that reasonable impediment declaration as to why they needed to vote by mail by early voted ballot mail. They the mail ballot drop boxes that was one of the biggest questions and I know that there's a lot of you know information flying around out there, but they're there. The Texas election code does not permit ballot drop off back set boxes of course individuals can drop off their ballot but they cannot be put into like a box in the county is making accommodations for individuals that want to you know hand deliver their ballots. So for curbside voting again that is always available at any election and the voter that's available to any voter that's not physically that's physically unable to enter the polling place the county does request that hopefully if possible that the voter called their main number and actually that number is 3200 so I'll make a correction on that especially if the voters going to be going alone the voter the individual or those elections office will verify the voter registration for that individual that's dropping off the ballot or that wants to do curbside voting excuse me and the poll worker will go into the building verify the voter registration come out with the applicable ballot and after the voter marks the ballot it's going to be placed in a security envelope however the voter does have to authorize either the ballot work the ballot poll worker or maybe a companion that they have to open that envelope and enter feed the application into the voting machine should the voter say that they do not want to authorize any individual unfortunately our ballot will not be able to be cast considered or counted so that's going to be really important. The other thing to keep in mind is the curbside voter will be asked to wait once a poll worker goes in and the ballot is processed they really they will get confirmation that their ballot was properly processed for example if it could be that when the ballot is fed into the voting machine that maybe they didn't you know they didn't mark it appropriately so that way it's kind of a safeguard to make sure that the ballot the vote was properly cast. So there is another provision the application for late ballot and of course those are there's some different timelines there. Saturday October 31st is the first day to submit an application for a vote for late ballot due to sickness or or disability and that arose on or after Thursday October 22nd for absence from the county and the deadline of course is Tuesday November 3rd at five o'clock for requests for late ballot due to death in the immediate family. The first day is Saturday October 31st with the deadline and I can't see that the deadline being a close up in this business Monday November 2nd. So in summary we are asking that you formally adopt the ordinances are scheduled for consideration at the regular meeting to follow they will extend the early voting period provide for a runoff election for December 8th which will be canvassed on November 15th and then of course the terms and conditions of the original election orders the ordinances that were adopted back in February will remain in place unless specifically modified. And that is your presentation and I'll take any questions you may have. Thank you. You pull the slide down. Got it. Councilmember Meltzer and then Councilmember Briggs. Thank you for an extremely thorough presentation Rosa I'm sure your calendar is very worn out from cross outs and additions. The one thing I didn't pick up and maybe there isn't such a date is you know when are ballot by mail ballots mailed or is it just a continuous process? Yes the county will mail them as the applications are received. I will make note that as you know for the election originally scheduled for May that there were no ballot by mail requests submitted. We had not mailed any ballots at all so there's no change in that. Okay thank you. Councilmember Briggs. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation Rosa. I have one concern and kind of a and then another question. The one on the election day locations for district two they have the most not confirmed. There's four locations there that have not been confirmed. What is so how do we balance that? What is that process? Will those locations be made with another place if the locations on the map do not confirm and so that way there will be the same amount as everyone or how does that work? All right well again that list that you saw was as of August 21st so we're anticipating that locations have actually confirmed by this time. Again the main the main delay was primarily trying to identify a meeting room in the in the locations and the county does not look at you know having an equal distribution in council districts. It looks at countywide it looks at the county precincts especially because it's a November election so it is a little bit different than what we would normally do for a May election. Okay so I guess my question is it has eight there now so will it still be eight locations no matter if the the ones on the list are confirmed or not. I guess that's my main question. I would not be able to know that because we haven't received the locations but again we're expecting them a little bit later this week and we'll make them readily available and well we'll analyze you know where the locations are. I think the county overall did a really good you know attempt to try to kind of fit every what every entity would have desired under all those circumstances. It's really good information. The next thing I know I sent you a question a few weeks ago about a concern someone had about dropping off the the ballot and I was trying to see if I could you did talk about drop off and election day voting but I'm just clarifying so if there is someone who is not physically able to get out of the vehicle but they have a mail-in ballot and they do not want to mail it in are they able to drop it off on election day and have someone there who would otherwise be doing the curbside voting turn that in for them in the same way. Yes ma'am as a matter of fact Denton County is going to be placing a mobile building adjacent to their office. It has to be at the Denton County Elections Administration building but they will actually have staff out there that will be able to identify and approach the drivers as they come in. Again we are encouraging if at all possible to call in advance however they will have staff readily available and they're actually providing for additional staff based on an anticipated increase in curbside or drop off. Thank you thank you very much. Okay any other question Councilmember Armitage? Just a question about how the locations were chosen so you mentioned if I understand correctly that so City Council doesn't have a say on changing the locations right we're just voting yes or no but I was just wondering if the at least if city staff was consulted by the county if anyone within city government you know was consulted in arriving at those locations. Yes Denton County did initially contact my office to kind of give us an idea of what you know to get an idea from us of what locations we wanted we would we would like with the understanding that there was no requirement on there and to get us those locations and we provided them what we used in in 2019 for the same seats and now whether or not they took that into consideration I couldn't confirm with you but again the the November election is very different than the May election in May we're actually able to get seek in direct input from the City Council on what locations they desire to use you know within a given district whereas in November state law mandates that we use locations that the city that the county uses and they they look at locations by county precinct. Thank you yeah and I completely understand that I was just wondering if because I would have been surprised if the city hadn't been just even consulted in any way even though I understand that the city doesn't get to this side and so was anybody so council obviously wasn't consulted but were any council members you know individually consulted or it was just staff matter of staff just saying here it here are last year's here's what we did last year right what we exactly so they did contact my office and I did not reach out to the City Council only because it was a November election hindsight 2020 I should have at least advised you so I do apologize for that but again and we did provide at least the locations that were used in 2019 as a guideline. Thank you so much and yeah so and I would love it if next time you know moving forward I don't know how my colleagues feel about this but if council if there is another city election in November that's at the same time and place as the November election that even in just making a recommendation that has no weight that the city that City Council be consulted but thank you so much for your work on that and that would just be my recommendation for a future practice if we're any other questions. Okay any other questions Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah just posting asks for us to give direction is there anything you're actually looking for direction on. No sir. Okay. Perfect segue so Rosa I have two or a couple of direction points. So I would think we need to watch closely the construction on is that Lillian Miller at that stretch I saw South Branch Library in the traffic there and so I'd really like us to get out in front of that by maybe making a note to push out kind of maybe arrows overview of how people can get in based on the phase of that traffic. And then also I'd like to educate our voters because I know it's sensitive time in public schools as is so I really would like to see us get out in front of that again on the guidance from DISD with respect to the rooms and access to the schools and what precautions are going to be taken for that day of voting and really get that information out early and vetted so that we get all the feedback necessary that obviously we can pass on to the county and the school district from what we hear just using our resources to communicate that. And then I'll note to the city manager I've shared this already but just a reminder so obviously Tuesday the 3rd we have a city council meeting on our overall schedule so that'll need to be in my estimation managed around but I'll leave that to the agenda committee but just a bookmark while we're talking about it. And then one note you're going to be amending your slide for that one phone number and so I'll give you another so on the ballot by mail page just a zip code it's 76 versus 75 so that doesn't matter but you're already going to be editing so I figured I'd give you that. Thank you. Great so any other questions comments? Great thank you great presentation. Okay how are we doing on I tell you what um let's see what's next. Yeah how about we take a quick five minute break before we get to item D and E we only have two work session items so we'll take a quick well let's stretch it a bit I know council member council member has a thing to do so let's say 10 minute break so we it is now 1.08 we'll come back at 1.20. Okay and welcome back to this meeting of the Denton City Council we do have a quorum coming back from break and we left off just before item let me make sure I get the number right I think it's three yes 3D and so I'll call that so it's item 3D 20-1524 receive report hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the FY 2021 budget capital improvements program and five-year financial forecast. Good afternoon mayor pro tem city council David Gaines assistant city manager let me pull our president up right now. So this this presentation this work session presentation is in advance of the public hearing on the budget and the public meeting on the tax rate later in the agenda today this has obviously been a long and unique budget process really starting in March as we we addressed the COVID pandemic and started to project out revenue decreases and and accompanying cost reductions on the expense side and then more recently over the past two months since we've had the proposed budget we've had the issues with the appraisal district and uncertainty in our assessed values and which has made it more difficult to lay out the decisions for city council as we look at the budget which obviously we're adopting just a week from today so for this presentation we are going to hit on an overview of the budget that we've that we've been reviewing for the past few months some of those slides will be a rehash of slides that we've seen previously but really want to start off with the first few slides in the first section of the presentation with an update on what we received from the appraisal district and what we project to receive over the next week and and lay out some of those options that we may be bringing forward to council next Tuesday so that's well I'll dive right into our assessed value discussion and then after I get through through a few slides take a break and answer any questions moving forward so our to to reset on the assessed value obviously our 2020 the 2020 appraisal process has been more drawn out than we've than we've usually and we typically received the a schedule that's unlike any that we've had before with the appraisal district as we've mentioned previously some of that is due to as a result of covid and and an updated our arb review timeline but also unique to dentin a potential appraisal district they also they they had a new software implementation which they pointed to as being a reason for their delay in getting values to us and having more than a typical outstanding protested values typically by July 24th we would receive our certified totals from the appraisal district which is just in advance our of our proposed budget and we would be able to have that confidence and and giving a proposed budget and a proposed tax rate to city council on July 24th we did not receive certified totals we received an estimate a certified estimate from the appraisal district which had about 40 percent of our value outstanding under protest since that time we have received an updated estimate from the appraisal district which has lowered the amount under protest from 40 down to about 25 percent that's still a significant amount under protest typically when we get our certified totals at the end of July we're looking at less than five percent outstanding under protest so still a great deal of uncertainty in what we've received from the appraisal district as we've discussed with council since we received that certified estimate we've tried to project how much of those protested values will be upheld so that we can have a total assessed value to base our tax rate on in our proposed budget we estimated that of that protested amount uh protested amount still outstanding that 85 of that would be upheld and that's that was based on the information we received from the appraisal district that last year about 87 percent of those values were upheld based the new numbers that we have received from the appraisal district which reduced that protested value outstanding from 40 percent to 25 percent reflected about 75 percent of that amount being upheld so significantly less than what we had in the proposed budget in fact that amount as you as we draw that out and do those calculations would anticipate values that were lower than what the appraisal district listed as the lowest values possible just a few weeks ago so um adds to that uncertainty that we've been talking about over the past few months and over the next slide we'll try to draw that out and set a framework for how we can make decisions in the next week the in one one final point on that bullet point the appraisal district has told us that we will receive certified totals by this friday the 18th so uh we have not received those yet obviously but we are uh hopeful that they will meet that timeline so on this on this table on this uh slide want to try to show what those what that means in in numbers and what that means for our proposed budget so if you look at the table before you on the right column you'll see what our proposed budget was uh was based on the assessed value that 85 percent number that we used and the total levy that we projected based on that assessed value and our proposed tax rate which was the same as our current tax rate as you work your way left you'll see new updates based on the 25 percent still under protest from the revised estimate that we received so as we kind of work our way more conservatively toward the left hand column you'll see if if we received 85 percent of the protested values still remaining that bottom line would be about a million dollars less than the total amount of property tax revenue we anticipated in the proposed budget obviously at this point 85 percent seems high compared to the 75 percent we've actually experienced over the past uh couple of months uh since we received this estimate if we received 80 percent you see about two million dollars less than our proposed budget revenue and 75 percent again let me say 75 percent 75 percent of those protested values upheld would be about three million dollars less in total revenue from property tax and that's includes both both operations revenue and debt service revenue so as that is a groundwork of what we're what we're attempting to project out and knowing that we have such a short timeline as we are adopting the budget next week adopting a tax rate next week we want to begin a conversation with council on what steps can we take depending on the information that we receive this friday from the appraisal district so to help that we've laid out this decision tree on on how how we react to the numbers that we hopefully get on friday and so i'll walk walk this forward as we again try to frame this conversation in as clear a manner as possible so scenario one if we received say of that remaining 25 percent protested value between 81 and 85 percent which would equate to about a hundred thousand nine hundred sixty thousand to one point eight million dollars in less revenue than our proposed budget i think council or staff's recommendation to council would be that we remain at our proposed tax rate absorb those revenue losses with fund balance both in the operation the general fund and our debt service fund if on friday we receive values between 75 upheld of our protested values and 80 upheld of our protested values we would then want to have a conversation with council of do we remain at our proposed rate and start to implement some cost reduction strategies from our proposed budget or do we look at increased revenues to make up that difference between two and three million dollars whether by increasing our property tax or looking at our roi the return investment from either our water wastewater starting our roi in our solid waste obviously we had that similar discussion with our electric fund earlier in the budget process so again to to help add some context to those decisions and that in this conversation wanted to show what the general fund would look like in those two scenarios again in front of you right now a scenario one which would be that 81 to 85 percent the more positive from just a strictly assessed value standpoint number coming back to us what does that look like from a general fund perspective so what you see before you is if we got 81 percent of those remaining values in kept our expenditures the same as they are right now and they were revised proposed budget you can see in that fy 20 21 column that we do have a shortfall of about four hundred and twenty thousand dollars in the general fund but we do have a surplus as we look at how we're going to end this fiscal year fy 20 which would make us feel comfortable moving forward with with that amount of a shortfall into the out years now you will note on on all of our forecasts that we see right now as we get out to 20 fy 23 through 25 we do start start to show a deficit in the in the annual revenue versus expenditures that's largely driven by that reduction of the electric roi in those out years as we plan to stop that increase after fy 22 so scenario two is based on that other decision decision point if on the 18th we receive certified values and they continue at the current rate of 75 percent of our protested values you can see that this year at our current expenses we would be about one point one to one point two million dollars as a drawdown from our fund balance in the fiscal year just in the general fund and i'll touch on the debt service fund with this presentation on this slide as well so to address that we would have a conversation with council we're going to tee up that conversation here just in the next couple of slides of what are the what are the best ways to deal with that shortfall we could first look at cost reduction strategies we could do a reduction a percentage reduction in our proposed budget across all of our general fund divisions which non-personnel reduction in operating costs would be about five hundred thousand dollars at two percent level we get we would also look to to reduce our streets transfer one of the things that we've discussed in our budget thus far and you'll see again in the slide summarizing our budget was an increase of about six hundred thousand dollars in our transfer to the streets fund this year for street maintenance and those type of activities which we could not do that additional transfer that we have planned and obviously we could look at our capital project plan over the next couple of years and see how we could delay projects or re-prioritize projects to free up some funds on the revenue side we could we could look at increasing our ROI as I mentioned in the water wastewater funds or create our first ROI from solid waste fund and we have what those dollar amounts look like here in the next couple of slides as well and we do in that second book what we do have the opportunity or the option to increase our tax rate above our current proposed tax rate we've shown right here if we increase our tax rate by one cent it would equate to roughly the amount of that deficit approximately one point two million dollars so that tax rate would have to be adopted next Tuesday as we adopt the budget and the tax rate so that's why we're trying to lay out these conversations now so that we can bring recommendations forward to council depending on what we receive from the appraisal district one point that you'll see here on the next slide and we have a couple bullet points here on it our debt service tax rate is anticipated to increase as we're aware because of the 2019 bond program over the next few years the proposed budget has an increasing a half cent this year but based on the 75 percent of those protested values coming back we would need to dip into our reserves in the debt service fund by over an additional million dollars which would then cause us to see steeper increases in FY 22 and FY 23 in our tax rate and you can see that here on this slide as we show that projection again this projection you see here on the debt service tax rate is based on receiving that 75 percent of the protested values remaining so what you see is obviously we have the half cent increase this year already planned but we would have to use more of our reserves which we had planned to use over the next few years in a staggered manner and we would have pretty steep increases two cent increases in FY 22 and FY 23 now those are in conjunction with the bond program and those are considered when the bond program was approved so still in line with what the expectations were from from the voters now they we did project larger increases in the AV but just the way that this dip in AV would would occur to what would hit us would cause steeper increases both in FY 22 and 23 so as we consider again if this worst case 75 scenario plays out would it make more sense to have a stair step up in that tax rate this year as opposed to just doing a flat tax rate this year and then having those increases in FY 22 and 23 so the next slide will go over our kind of a summary of all of our options but did want to reset with this as well to to kind of show in this is again just our straight our proposed budget is our current tax rate that we have in FY 20 carrying on at FY 21 so no increase in the tax rate and we already as we discussed in our in the proposed budget do have our decreases in the water and solid waste rates equating to about $24 per resident on average so to try to summarize I know this was a lot of detail that we've we've thrown out but again just trying to get as much information to council as we can in advance of of a conversation we will have to have next week and try to get some direction from council based on on where we stand right now and those different different ways things could go based on the certified totals that we receive summarize some of those options and try to get some some feedback from council on what direction you'd like us to head with a recommendation next week so under this scenario where we have 75 percent of those remaining values upheld general fund would have that 1.1 million dollar deficit and we would have that debt service fund have to use more of its fund balance and look at those larger increases in FY 22 and 23 what would be the best way for us to to recommend to council to deal with that situation number one would be one option would obviously be to just do those cost reduction measures that we've mentioned or look for other cost reduction measures to make up that shortfall in the general fund and balance our budget and move forward with our current tax rate we could consider a half cent tax rate increase next year which would bring about half of that deficit back to the general fund and not require as steep of an increase in the tax rate in FY 22 and you can see that equates to about 12 dollars per average residential bill third option a one cent increase in the FY 21 tax rate which again equates to about that 1.2 million dollar additional revenue and then allows kind of a step up in the in the debt debt service rate as we're able to shift more to the debt service rate in FY 22 and then the fourth option would be to not look at the tax rate for additional revenue but look at our utility funds for an increase in the ROI from those funds listed as well so obviously if we consider that option we we would bring back what does that look like to the funds each of those funds do have healthy reserves as you've seen which could mitigate that impact but we would definitely bring that back and give you a full context on that decision so at this point I can take the the slides down and open up for any questions but again the intent of these slides was to have this discussion so that we can bring back a recommendation next week depending on what we receive okay thank you and for you that Councilmember Meltzer thank you Dave one question I have that I just sorry if it should be clear to me but it just isn't what is the difference between the currently recommended tax rate and the no new taxes tax rate so you're coming in different than that as I recall right our no new I can pull up the exact numbers as I'm talking but our no new revenue rate is about over two cents higher than our current tax rate so we're well below the no new revenue rate and a lot of that is it seems seems odd that it's that's higher but a lot of that is driven by the numbers that we received from the appraisal district just the way that the calculation works when you have that much outstanding you have to take the lowest value so just the way the calculation kind of calculated our rate was higher and you'll see that obviously as we have the public media on the tax rate later today if my first impulse when you're about a shortfall I think they you know the voters expect us to solve it you know the spending if we can but if if if we can be at the no new taxes rate which I think is the other thing that they expect of us is you know not to raise their taxes I don't think they're necessarily looking at us to you know not fund public safety or something in order to to solve for it you know how much of the problem is addressed if you just go at the no new taxes rate I mean if we were the no new taxes rate obviously that would be even in in excess of the one cent increase so it would it would solve the problem yeah because you're talking about it as an increase but it but you really we're still in the in the decrease range so we're kind of like putting the screws to ourself you know extra which is good if we can I mean I would love to be able to you know deliver tax relief but it seems like there's room anyway between between what's been proposed so far and no new taxes maybe there's maybe there's you know some I'd say if there are things that that we that we could be economizing on on the spending side we should be anyway and you know and and we should just as much of that as is there and I think you guys are generally pretty brilliant at finding that I keep on seeing staff members present to present to us with new titles and expanded responsibilities and you know that shows me there's a lot of you know management magic happening in the background there so anyway that that's that's my comment is we should do the economizing that's available to us and there is there's there's room below no tax increases you know that I think is reasonable it's not we're not nobody's talking about increase in taxes talk about how much to decrease them so that's my comments for now just that no new revenue rate is sixty one point six cents so in excess of what we're discussing now yeah thank you Dave Councilman Briggs and then Councilmember Armitage questions and a point of clarity that the no new tax rate though would increase our the residential tax bill correct it it would it would it would increase some residents tax bill and decrease others so it's you know it's hard to depending on depending on the evaluation correct right yeah and and our evaluations were through the roof so over here in this in this area so I just I mean it's it's not guaranteed that you know if we do that your your taxes are going to be lower so I would like to stay where we are and try to work within that the best that we can however I'm curious do we have any more specific information on residential versus commercial protest and the values of those we haven't received that from from the appraisal district broken out in that manner we haven't received much information from them as far as how the protest have come forward any kind of detail we can definitely ask for that and try to get some information this week if they're able to provide that okay I remember seeing that before in our our budget seasons on on the the breakdown and it was it was pretty helpful my other question is we haven't discussed it but when we were going through the the different budgets for solid waste there was the the rate where the outside outside haulers were cheaper than what we charge our own for our own I think and I wanted to go back to discuss that and see if that would make any sort of difference at all in our proposed budget as far as income goes when we had our discussion about DME and we looked at the charter there was the section in there that said something about not charging outside entities less than what we charge ourselves and so it made me start thinking well maybe we should go back and and look at some of those rates and see if we can adjust there we can certainly look at the solid waste rates and bring them back you know obviously the impact of the general fund would have to be creating an ROI from the solid waste to have it come forward but we can we can all we can certainly look at the solid waste rates and bring back some options and again that's not that's not increasing our residential solid weights I'm talking about the the outside hauler rates which are cheaper than our current our current options we can we can certainly look at that I think the point David's making that really doesn't have much to do with balancing the general fund budget we could certainly take a look at those we've got the contracts in place which are contractually obligated for three years and we can identify any other issues that we might have there but it's even if we fix that it doesn't deal with the general fund issue here right but we were told that we could discuss that later on after during the budget presentations and so we're running out of time to bring that up and this was my time to to do that we'll certainly do that we'll take a look at it thank you Councilmember Armitage thank you so first I want to sit to just state that you know it's obviously real frustrating that we don't get to find out until Friday what what the property tax revenue situation is so thank you to to staff in advance and you know I hope you're keeping track of you know any overtime that you're having to put in because I know that that gives you very little time before our meeting next Tuesday so anyway thank you to staff for dealing with that I'm not faulting anyone outside of the city even about with this issue it's just how things turned out but I just wanted to acknowledge that secondly I have pretty strong feelings based on you know what I've been hearing from from residents not just now you know but but for years about kind of what kind of direction to give on that this and and that is that in a situation like this and that is that I strongly prefer it costs containment and oppose turning to raise taxes because as I think Councilmember Briggs had mentioned this is something that you know we should be doing anyway I'm looking at containing costs opportunities for zero based budgeting you know I appreciate the point that Councilmember Meltzer made about the the no new taxes that formerly known as the effective tax rate but I agree with with Councilmember Briggs that you know no matter what we call it you know it will it would end up increasing taxes as opposed to what we have in the proposed budget so whether or not it's an effective tax we have we meet the effective tax rate or are below the no new taxes rate or are below it I would still be raising taxes for some people so I strongly prefer cost containment strategies so finally I was wondering if if staff could could speak to why streets and capital projects are the suggested cost reduction strategy mechanisms and why not and I'm just going to name the elephant in the room here you know we've been getting emails you know and there have been protests people talking about you know reducing a police budget and you know reallocating reinvesting in community and in in other sorts of community services I'm curious to know if that was considered obviously could come on the table if council put it on you know as a possible way to go for a cost reduction strategy we we're just basically throwing out one-time easily implementable cost reductions that are at your disposal I don't agree with the reduction of the police budget I'm not going to recommend it if the council wants to take a look at it that's fine we have tried to guns we have tried to meet in the middle though by expanding and providing additional social services the police department trying to address some of those issues but we've got just as much if not more public input and emails asking us to add the services not cut the police budget as we did from the from those asking it so if you want to put it on the table and the council wants to vote and direct us to do that we'll do it it's just not a recommendation I'm going to make and I think the other thing that I appreciate you bring it up to point in terms of the position that we're in councilmember armature if you remember I guess about three or four weeks ago we sort of telegraphed this issue at the property tax levy these numbers David is showing you are actually lower than the appraisal district told us that we could count on just a month ago so it has put us in a real tough position at the last minute I've met with our colleagues at the county the county judge and the managers in Lewisville and Little Elm they're in the same boat several of them I've seen their property valuations drop a half a billion to a billion dollars and we are all scrambling right now so I'm not real optimistic that we're going to see any real improvement the quality of the information that you're asking for we're definitely going to follow up and try to get it but I just want to kind of put on the table that we had been relying on one set of numbers and appraisal dollars when we built the budget and these numbers are less causing us about another million dollars to deal with and reduced expenses or so that is the position that David's been a little too diplomatic in getting across to you and that's where we find ourselves today and thank you so much just to follow up on that you know clear clear to me and I just want to add that you know taxpayers are in you know even if we kept taxes the same as they were last year because of our financial situation now as a community and at the individual level and family level people are are in tougher financial positions than they were last year at this time so in a way I kind of you know any reductions we can do I almost I wouldn't so much celebrate them as of course I'd be happy but not so much celebrating it's just a feeling of relief on that we are meeting that that we could meet taxpayers in a difficult situation position where they're at that would be my personal goal but thank you I think one other thing one other strategy the council may want to bounce around right now one of the one of the dangers of just cutting our way out of this and we can do that absolutely and kind of hope that we see our appraisals bounce back next year but your plant you're gambling a little bit if that if that happens you could you could take an approach of moving up the levy a little bit less than we had anticipated and we can still cut the cost to balance the budget but I am concerned that if we continue to see this kind of trending down the road you are going to be in a position as those bonds start coming due in the next two or three years of having to make one two three cent increases if you don't do something today to to kind of smooth that out it's a very real fact we're telegraphing it to you right now we just we are just really shaky with our confidence right now after what we've been through with the appraisal district this summer and can I respond to that to mayor pro tem or should I say well let me see if there's any other questions well and let me see councilmember Ryan councilmember Davis she hadn't been heard councilman Ryan yeah I think that there's several different items that we can do different approaches we can take as long as we're staying below the no new taxes rate I'm comfortable with that especially since we're already cutting a cent off of it if I mean we could cut 10 cents off the rate and there's still going to be somebody out there whose taxes actually do go up so that's but I'm definitely opposed to cutting the the 600,000 on the street funding we're finally getting our streets back in line and getting that budgetary up there something else on on solid waste that I hadn't really looked deep enough into maybe you can answer this other waste haulers like a grease grease trap services pay a fee to be on our city streets does our solid waste department pay any kind of fee for to the to us they pay a franchise fee they do so yeah yeah okay all right so I just want to make sure that yeah we weren't cutting a better deal to ourselves and what we did to to other people so but yeah again if we want to go we're only dropping one cent below instead of we thought we might be able to get two cents below that was before we actually had all the numbers in and they're coming in worse than what we thought so I'm comfortable with that okay and councilmember Davis I think I agree with councilmember Ryan on most of what he said I mean it's not about sacred cows and either public safety or the streets it's just about running the city adequately and I think what we've done is we've seen from presentations recently that public safety needs additional funding not less to adequately police the city adequately protect the city and we had outside consultants tell us as much and we I certainly don't want to reduce what we're transferring into street maintenance in fact you know in future years when things are rosier we probably want to look at an increase there as well so we're not relying on bonds in the future so you know I'm open to cost containment on the you know the expense side of the ledger the problem there is we run a pretty tight ship already the the city manager and his staff have tightened things up pretty well in the time that he's been here so that leads me to look more at the fund balances that we that we know are pretty healthy the ROI which we know has some some additional room there so that's where that's where I tend to look of course we know won't know till Friday exactly what it is that we we really need to do there but that would be my direction less on the I think we've done a lot of good cost containment already looking more at the the wiggle room on the revenue side got it and then back to council member armature so thank you yeah so I just wanted to respond to just what city manager said and then just one other thing that had been said just kind of my own personal preference that I would prefer when we talk about budgeting just to make sure we're clear with each other and with the public when we talk about instead of saying public safety that we specify either you know police department or fire department or if we mean both and we talk about both you know when I say police department I'm talking just about that department I have have I do not recommend cutting at all to our our fire department because of how I feel that they are meeting our needs and need to continue meeting those needs and so I think it's important just for transparency sake that when so we can understand each other that we don't you know conflate those under public safety or when we do at least that we qualify what we mean by that I've never voted against a you know fire department expenditure to my knowledge my memory but what I wanted to address about what the city manager had said about you know be careful you know because I'm recommending cost containment you know strategies cost containment by turning to the police budget instead of to to streets because I and I agree with council member Ryan I know that he and I disagree on the subject of cutting police budget but I agree with him that we should not be cutting in our streets and in capital improvements I just wanted to add that the city manager had mentioned that you know we need to be careful because if we reduce costs now then at some point we have to raise taxes to meet our level of service and I you know I wanted to say just to put out on a positive note is a level of hope you know I know that you know there are times where in in in times of hardship we you know both of the individual and family level and at the city at the city level can reduce costs out of necessity and then end up sticking with those reductions and adjustments even in times of plenty in times of feast as opposed to famine because we find that you know we have successfully kind of zero base budgeted by necessity to reach a just more efficient way of spending and reducing costs in good times as well as bad I'll just say real quickly I know that my family and I we've already done this at the family level some of the adjustments we've made we've realized wow we never really had to be spending that money on those other things in the first place so I just want people to keep make sure people understand that we can do that at the city and not have anyone miss any reduction in safety or services while we're saving money thank you got it thank you councilmember Riggs thank you could we have someone discuss on the six hundred thousand for street maintenance because that that does seem pretty frightening because we are getting ahead and there's a lot of work being done what would that actually look like next year if that went away I don't think it would have much of an effect because the fund balance is so strong right now in the street fund so it's just again it's a one-time temporary measure to just not increase the transfer I think to I think to the points have been made we have we've gotten to a point we're really we have skinny down the budget about as much as I feel comfortable right now in terms of ongoing costs we're we're down dozens and dozens of positions and I still get requests for new programs which we're having a discussion here about whether we should even afford and we're trying to make the point to you that if we we can balance the budget through cost cutting but I want to telegraph if we do that and draw down these other fund balances you will be in a position unless we start scaling back services in another year or two based on the information David showing you to have to increase the tax levy a little bit more so a combination works of cost cutting raise the levy the ROI works we try to throw away around some and just a number of ideas for you that would really preserve that baseline service that we're providing and so there is there's no right answer but I don't want to put staff in a position in a year or two if we go through this again with the appraisal district and we're recommending a two three percent increase to you you're going why didn't you warn us so that's exactly what we're doing is just kind of having that discussion with you it's it's it's something that I think we all need to wear this together right yeah I mean I I just wanted to confirm if if that maintenance fund was reduced by that amount there wouldn't be any direct impact to the progress we've been making there we can handle it for one year at least okay I would like to to look at you know some of the options here and and also like councilmember Davis said look on the return on investment as well and some of those fund balances to see how far that can get us okay then any other questions okay David a couple of things one have we been or can we isolate based on the percentage of the remaining evaluations are in unsettled evaluations is there a way to get the the appraisal district to provide you which of those exceeds the maximum 10 percent right so you can only it can only increase 10 percent each year so if you have a a residence that's evaluated let's say 20 30 percent the likeliness of them walking that all the way back into a nine percent and affecting those projections is that is that am I making sense I'll try to be as diplomatic as as Todd mentioned and say we have not been able to get that kind of precise information from the appraisal district got it okay because that that to me if we could that would be a clear indicator if a home is 20 percent increased in the max is 10 the likeliness of you walking it all the way back let's say 11 percent is is highly unlikely but if you're on that bubble then that obviously affects that max so okay thank you that's helpful and then I guess I have before I summarize what I've heard just so that we're all on the same page I think on the police budget discussion I'll be very clear I don't support that but I think to help educate those that are watching that are following this discussion because it is so important for our community I would ask that on a Friday report we break that out right because just like councilmember armature points out that there's a difference between police and fire then there's there's 911 operators there's a lot that falls into the police per se department budget that I think we should educate the public and saying when someone's advocating for affecting this it affects all these different departments right that's just my ask on a Friday report I mean I just think it's important to outline what all is affected so that it's not just a general umbrella that you think oh it's just this and then that way if citizens want to come in and comment next week before the budget's adopted they can say they can be informed on what they're advocating for versus just kind of a blanket statement that that's out in in in social discussions etc etc so it's a specific thing you know I just think and again I don't support it I think chief Dixon's done a great job I think he's done a good job of mixing the two needs and I hear a lot about getting back to community policing which is the other way bringing more officers so that we're not going from call to call so that being said I think the summary is I think across the board no no real desire to get above the no new tax rate but I do hear a desire to at least maybe be at the no new tax rate or just below the ROI conversation comes up a couple of times so I think that is something an option that is available or had consensus and then lastly I think with the city manager's statement on the 600,000 not affecting the street projects we have ongoing I think that is something that I have in my notes that we had traction for and I think that's the just of that jumped out at me that there were multiple statements in support but I'll yield to so let's see your councilmember Meltzer yeah I would take the opportunity to also say as we do a little this and a little of that that the ROI is is a piece that I think we could look at as well so I concur I also think it's worth taking just a second to speak some clarity about no new taxes the no new taxes rate because I think things have been said that really don't help people understand it first of all we don't set anybody's individual tax bill council does not do that we do however already know what all the appraisals are to the extent we can before we set the tax rate so it's false to say that like we set a rate and then well your appraisal went up so your tax bill had to go up that is not necessarily true at all we try to know what the appraisals are except the tax rate so that if we set it at the no new taxes rate intention is with the appraisals already having been done mostly that if you didn't change anything about your house on average your tax bill would not be expected to go up is there some some variation out there yet there's no tax rate mentioned yet in this conversation that guarantees that there won't be somebody whose tax rate goes up and others who go down but but we target the total and and if we target below the no new taxes rate we're targeting for people's tax bill on average to be lower did I say anything wrong David that's correct that was a good assessment okay great any other notes for staff and Mayor can I just I just wanted to close the loop on one issue regarding the solid waste fund I've been emailing our budget staff and we'll get to it I think later today but we do not have a rate which dent residents are paying more money than commercial our residents are paying around twenty four dollars a ton and our putter pay agreements are averaging twenty seven to thirty four so I just wanted to make sure that that was on the table I'll ask Nick and Dave Nick David and Brian Berner to address any other questions but I think I think we've cleaned all that up over the last couple of years but and I just wanted to make sure that we had an answer before we moved on in that certainly that's an important clarification okay any other thoughts okay thank you David I do I do have a few more slides yes get through so again I and I can go through the I'll go through these sides fairly quickly and unless there's any questions obviously can stop and answer them but want to as we have the but the public carrying on the budget today and then obviously adoption next week very at a very high level summarize again our proposed budget that you've all seen a number of times and also highlight some of those changes as we have every year between budget proposed budget at the end of July and our budget adoption in September we have always have a few changes that we make along the way and highlight those as we move forward so these these were those budget priorities that we went into the year to year with that baseline budget that continues those cost containment strategies limiting the impact to residents start closing out obviously we've closed off 2012 and 14 and issuance bond programs but execute on those and then move forward with the 2019 program and enhancing the street maintenance and then continue on our homeless initiatives and prioritizing public safety and public health so a couple of those again in a very high level just a couple of those bullet points that align with those priorities you can see there obviously we just had a very detailed discussion on our property tax rate and utility rates where when we know that we're at least bringing utility rates down and not increasing any rates and are again below that no new revenue rate and regardless of how it plays out based on the conversation we just had with council the street maintenance fund we mentioned that additional transfer this year but I think that's also important to note the additional transfer we've made over the past number of years to that maintenance program and the fund itself public safety we've added those additional fts to the police budget we'll touch on how that number has increased since the proposed budget with some offsetting revenues our homelessness initiatives and we actually have a we have a slide detailing all of the community service funding that we have that's inclusive of the homeless initiatives and the bond program we have our large issuance this year for the bond program from the streets proposition and also the public safety facility proposition so here again there's not too many changes from our proposed budget but do you want to point these out we and we have another a slide that details in more specifics what how our sales tax projection has changed but our sales tax has come in much better than we than we initially anticipated in March and April and even through the summer as we were coming coming through with the proposed budget our our revenues in total have not been far off from where they were last year we're still taking a conservative approach and and know that that could change moving forward so we'll get some into some more detail on that but we are we have seen an increase in our fy 21 proposed proposed revenues on sales tax which has helped to mitigate some of that impact on the property tax side that we just discussed position changes we've had a few position changes from the proposed budget and you can see these are really almost entirely other than that final bullet offset by revenues coming in and police we have added a lieutenant position which is part of our our ISD agreements with those with the with the officers at the the school resource officers so that position is going to be paid for entirely by the school district we also had a crimes a half ft unit for a crimes analyst associated with a grant that will be that's been added to the budget we have added the public safety communication positions to the budget those are those eight dispatcher positions council just recently received a work session on that agreement with little elm a providing service to them so as that obviously that is increasing our expenses but as you saw in the presentation as you'll see when the agreement when it's approved that is completely offset by the revenues that were received from the city of little elm from from a net perspective no change to the budget for that but they are increased FTEs and then on animal services there was there was such a need right now with at animal services for the new kennel technician that we decided to put that into the budget and gave that a priority moving forward I just wanted to highlight that as it's a change from the proposed budget the final change there the non-personnel change this was really just simply an oversight that didn't get added to the budget when we made the proposed uh put uh published the proposed budget and wanted to be clear with council that it is in the budget moving forward and that was that 200 000 um in our cash funded capital plan for bike lanes that is included in the budget now for uh that will be considered for adoption next week so sales tax revenue again I'll touch on this in a very high level but essentially as I stated earlier uh sales tax predictions have just come in much stronger than we than we thought they would based on the pandemic and the partial shutdown of the economy you can see there on the line graph our initial projection in orange um and and how we thought we would it would play out over those months from march on through september and where we where we got what we've actually experienced obviously we haven't got all those months in but really from may until until july what we've seen and just how how close that's really been to our budget so that's about a 660 000 increase to our proposed budget as we start to project that out and still take a conservative approach we know things can change and the economy is still not strong across across the the area the region or the country but but obviously taking that into account that it's coming stronger than than we thought and have made that adjustment in our proposed budget increasing that revenue so overall just again another high level summary you can see are just in the general fund our total revenues as as we always see in our budgets we're about 38 in our property tax revenues 30 in sales tax and then you can see our cost of service which is those transfers that we get for for the administration functions of the general fund from our other funds the return on investment which obviously has already increased slightly from from what we were last year with the increase to the dme roi and as we discussed next week we could bring bringing back options for further increases to other funds and then our fees and our fees and permits and one point on on the fees and you'll be adopting the fees next week as well across the city we are still at that cost of service rate on our fees for development services that change that we made last year as we went through that analysis with city council on expenses again a very high level as we always see in the general fund about 70 of our of our total general fund is those personnel services with with those non-capital non-personnel services operations making up about 11 of our total budget so to touch on personnel a little further our compensation of benefit assumptions we have in the budget kept kept to our civil service pay adjustments that are that are laid out in our meeting confer agreements which is five percent above surveyed cities so above our market average we shoot for five percent and for our total plan for public safety and the step increases associated for the non non civil service employees we are not offering to employees a salary increase that recurring hit that or recurring expense that we would have moving forward as we typically put in that three percent salary increase for all employees but we have included a one-time payment for employees that won't have that recurring impact to us moving forward but does provide some some some payment to employees above their current salaries we've had no changes to our health insurance fund which obviously is a result of our health insurance funds staying positive and then slight change on on the retirement side slight change increase not not too significant on our tmrs rate which is our retirement system for all employees that aren't in our fire pension that didn't fire pension but our fire pension for those employees does remain stable from a city contribution standpoint at eighteen point five percent community development one of the attachments that we sent out to you this morning and is now attached to the agenda or was just a list of all the questions that we received from our online portal over the past few weeks related to the budget a number of those questions were related to serve social services what are we spending on social services and and what kind of priority do we have on social services so we wanted to lay this out as a detail of what what those were what those look like for our community development expenses i think it's important to note these are just what we're really focused on the general fund what focus on what we're spending from from the general fund or related to general fund we have other sources of funds throughout the city that are also could also be considered community development we have other cdbg funds that are that are going towards community development but did thought it was worthwhile to point this out as we move forward with the budget of that commitment to community development you can see in our table there really last year and in the current budget about 1.6 million in operating cost associated that operating cost is really carried forward to this year but we have shown here that two million dollars that we're issuing to to renovate the loop 288 building which obviously will be related to our homelessness initiatives and i think it's important to note as well that grant that we've gotten that yes the emergency solutions grant for for coronavirus for 1.4 million dollars as well that is pretty pretty recent news and that will that plans are are coming forward on so can definitely answer any questions on this as we get to the end of the presentation and staff are available wanted to point this out as we've had a number of questions asking what are our resources we've devoted to community development are in this budget so position summary i it's been such a such a long time since march and and how we got to this point but you know we have made a number of changes in the organization as we move to the voluntary separation program as we had the hiring freeze and then as we started to really evaluate any position that came back to look for alternatives to provide the same service and that resulted in a total reduction of fts across the organization of 85 fts from our baseline so 85 positions were eliminated from the budget and then we then we did add a few of those new positions and really 21 total new fte's but as we mentioned most of those really the majority of that 21 are offset by either revenues coming in or grants that we have as as as you can see with the three fire positions the we have the sro position the public safety off communication positions devoted to little elm so um really not a large impact on from a net perspective but does focus on trying to get those um those police positions increased in line with the analysis that you saw uh for for our what we need over the next five years to start stepping our way up to to what what was shown is necessary for the police department so here you can just see a summary of those positions similar to what we saw with the um during the proposed budget only with those changes that were discussed at the beginning of the presentation and how we result in that net decrease in fte's our capital improvement plan again you know those tops so what we plan on issuing debt for this year are in the in the top section really focusing on general government which is which is paid the debt service is paid for by our debt service tax rate we have our our we did our first year of significant issuance for the 2019 bond election we were able we did start some of those projects and issued some of the funds toward our 2019 bond election program this fiscal year but next year you can see our first significant issuance really mostly for the public safety facility or the police facilities as we move toward completion of those and really have significant progress made with those and then our streets projects as well we have already we said discussed with council oh a couple of months ago about a month and a half ago the additional funds that that are needed to close out the 2012 and 14 street reconstruction program so we are planning to issue the 8.9 million for for that program for those streets the vehicle funding which we bring forward to council each year and then our facility improvements really and again you know i know scott scott mentioned our facility improvements that we have related to the covid improvements that we're making these are separate from from those and then what has been added the only change from the proposed budget was adding two million for the loop 288 building as we look toward the renovation of that building itself we also have again all everything else is in the proposed budget we have our expansion of the fleet fleet facility the cr311 crm system which i have a couple of those slides to rehash what that is and make it clear the benefits that we're going to see from that from that software and then we have our utilities debt which were detailed each of those were detailed in those utility presentations over the past couple of months as well so again we showed these slides during the proposed budget but there was a question that we received on that on the budget portal related to what why why are we doing this 311 system versus other priorities in the city so we wanted to bring these up again both now and during the public hearing tonight to show why this is a priority for the city and why we've placed such an emphasis on it so this this software this this initiative will really centralize all of our activity planning and coordination throughout the city and become that both internally allow us to to limit the number of software that we have right now that are doing the same thing four or five four or five softwares that are doing the same thing that we can combine into this one and eliminate some of those services so a big help internally for efficiency and then also externally becomes the primary point of contact for residents as they have needs to just come to one point and then we're able to not only track those internally but but have an ease of service for residents as they call in so that plan's already begun and and we'll be rolling out very soon just we do have our our graphic here showing again what this 311 system will do really combining with our current customer service operations and over here taking a number of those a number of those software of the number of those programs that we have those work order programs across utilities across the streets department and and combining them into one where if a resident calls in or emails in or sends a request and it's it has one flow of information and then gets distributed appropriately and ultimately will allow us to know if there's one street that has had an issue with water with streets with with drainage a number of those requests coming in we can track those and better address those issues as they as they come forward so really a significant improvement in both the way that we operate internally and for the residents to get problem solved so our enterprise funds and i'll go through these at a very high level because we obviously have our discussions on on the utilities and in a deep from a detailed standpoint each year so i'm just going to hit on the the financial forecast for each of these again at a very high level but here's the electric fund we have increased that roi from three and a half percent to six percent all the way out through the end of fy 22 and we do remain at a fund balance that's significantly higher than our our target fund balance of 21 you can see there at 20 26 percent this fiscal year water fund is a similar story that we talked talked for to council about we are showing that two percent rate decrease in our residential water rate water rate and then our reserves even with that decrease are staying above our minimum and that's also not only having a rate decrease but having a separate reserve for some of those large projects that we have coming up like the like the plant facility at the lake wastewater which obviously also includes drainage again no rate decreases but no rate increases in this forecast in our in our same with water we're able to plan for some of those those large projects coming forward while remaining a healthy fund balance and solid waste again the same same story we're able to have that rate decrease and keep our strong fund balances which allows us to have those conversations on is is an ROI an opportunity between the water wastewater and solid waste funds so as we bring those options back next week we'll definitely bring updated forecast to show what any decisions would have on each of these funds so over overall really like looking at our rates this week this way because you can see just a change in the philosophy of how we've dealt with the utility funds over the past four years what this chart is showing our our increases and decreases in our rates since FY 2015 so you know up through FY 2017 we're really seeing rate increases in each of our funds every year year over year when they change that philosophy where we looked at whether it's do we have money sitting out in capital projects that aren't being used do we have a fund balance that's not needed to do are we are we projecting our revenues correctly the change in that philosophy has allowed us to as you see here just every year have at least some decreases in rates and have no have not had any increases in rates since FY 2017 so really think this helps tell that story of the change of philosophy and it really goes hand in hand with those property tax charts that we show as well where you've really seen us stick to that that effective tax rate the no new revenue tax rate over the past number of years is that rates you know come down close to 10 cents so next next steps tonight we'll have our our tax rate public meeting and our budget public hearing and then next week on next Tuesday we'll be adopting the budget the tax rate and all of our rates throughout the city and really hope that we get those certified totals on the 18th so we can have that that full discussion with city council in advance of adoption and that is the end of my presentation so I will take it down okay so any any questions councilman barmichard yes I want to respond to one of the the slides that came up since our last break um so I just want to say actually and before that I'll mention I appreciate council member has this request to and I agree that it'd be good idea to have kind of a breakdown of the police budget in an upcoming uh friday report you know because I agree that there's so much that that entails and if whether people are calling to um reduce police budget or increase it it's more helpful to us as council members to know you know what aspect of the police budget do you want to increase what aspect do you want to decrease um and you know even if people have made up their minds or just wanting to keep it at the same level it's important to see just that breakdown so I support that I wanted to say also on that note um uh that I was really pleased to see um that there were that there was a new um uh crime analyst uh added because that's a that is a real need um that's me that I support and have have advocated for um so I'm not saying that had anything to do with me but I was just just a note that I was pleased um to see that added in there uh you know and I continue to think that there's a real need uh you know for an increase um in um you know crime analysis lab capacity investigators follow-up with victims uh that could be accomplished by kind of reallocating within the current um police budget shifting things around um anyway I also wanted to say I support um the additional dispatchers I was nervous and initially about but I ended up approving and still continue to approve the agreement with little elm uh because I was worried about whether we could um you know meet that uh you know uh capacity uh whether that would be to the city I've been you know convinced that it's actually an advantage um because the additional dispatch it would come with would also help us as well so I'm really pleased you know with those additional dispatchers um and ditto for the animal services and uh and bike lanes uh so I just wanted to mention that since though that had come up um you know and to acknowledge that uh that even though you know I'm for um uh not to increase the the police budget uh I do strongly support um those uh those additions and uh I would prefer however that they be you know added um through you know reallocation of budget internally to the police department but I just wanted to make that clear and to thank staff for doing that so thank you okay um any other questions Councilmember Brayson and Councilmember Meltzer on the community development thank you for this slide um it may have been in another I know last year we had on there we were funding a housing coordinator is that showing up anywhere on our budget and in what category um because that that's an important uh position and so I'm just I don't remember seeing it specifically but I know that it had been there in the past I think Dani is on the line she can probably be the best one to answer that okay Sarah can come up hi this is Dani Shaw community services can you hear me yes so yeah the housing navigator funding is actually not included any longer we did do the initial funding to pilot it but that funding has now been picked up by other sources so the United Way is still funding that position but we are no longer um funding it okay but the the position is still active and funded just through another organization it's not hasn't gone away that's correct uh she's still active and works for the United Way but they've um they've identified additional funding sources for it so we were able to to do the initial piloting with a couple of other sources and they've picked it up now fully funding it okay perfect and I have another question about this um while you're on it may be Dani um on the chart it says um it the the budget for community develop is proposed 3.6 um million which is is really good for the proposed budget and then at the one of the bullet points is that there was a um money awarded for the the aid 1.4 is that amount separate from the 3.6 or is that included somewhere over in the proposed budget I mean would that be separate right we were just conditionally awarded that the esg through the cares act funding through a competitive grant and it is not included in the budget yet oh okay so potentially if that was to be over in the develop I mean it would be um close to five million is that that's correct and then we haven't announced it yet but just two days ago we got a notice from HUD for the third round of cdbgcv we'll have an additional allocation of that that's not included here as well okay because I do know that there was been a lot of community calls or you know ask for this budget to be increased and so from 1.6 to over five million that's that's a pretty good pretty good increase for us so I want to commend you and uh everyone on that thank you thank you okay uh any other questions council member davis on this topic and just kind of ask everybody to know the ridiculous poodle over my shoulder here we're watching my grandmother's dog um on this topic I want to direct everyone to a staff report it's available on our open government page on the website July 24th of this year talking about the additional 72 million dollars of social services funding available in our community there's kind of this idea out there that we have to pit police funding and social services against each other that's just not the case we just heard about the increase that came from other sources this year uh from danny on the phone uh and then that staff report it really details out all of the groups that are working together to provide social services in our community it is not just the city of denton's responsibility with our tax revenue to turn around and provide every single one of these social services so everybody please take a look at that uh that staff report it's got a ton of good information it tells you all about the millions and millions and millions of dollars that are available for this kind of stuff out in the community already very good thank you um council member armature uh yeah so two things number one i'm curious to know um if danny's if danny's still on the line i would like to know how much um of uh that additional hud funding cdpg funding will be coming in that was really good to hear um it's in the first round we received uh 618 736 which is included in these figures and with the third round we've just received notice that we'll receive another 866 704 dollars excellent well so that is wonderful to hear and so when will that be uh materializing when is that coming we'll need to wait for the um uh funding agreements to come through for that funding the 618 is available to us now to to start considering how to allocate yeah excellent so thank you and so and i wanted to respond also you know and to echo some of what has been said um so far you know maybe remove myself a little bit from some of it but but i do agree and want to emphasize um engraving for those who brought up you know that our um you know human services uh funding which is within community development you know has actually increased um it does appear to be a perception you know that there's been a decrease and there hasn't been um so i don't know where that perception came from uh but uh it's uh i i'm i'm pleased that um we have not backwards you know from last year um so anyway that that is really good you know that said um i will say that i think that i agree with people who are uh with members of the public who have a sense that um our our needs at the city level uh regardless of who's paying for whether city or county or collaborative effort you know that our needs in these areas and social services are not being met um that's something i agree with and that's something that you know for me um just from reports that i hear from you know community development i mean y'all aren't claiming that uh you know all our needs are met and everybody's housed and etc um so there still is a need so but but i do i do agree that there has been an increase it's just in my opinion it hasn't been nearly as much of an increase that we need okay to meet our needs got it and it okay councilman breaks just one one last question uh just to wrap up the solid waste conversation um on the on the gate rate what does the resident pay for for the gate rate because i went back and i saw that the non-resident increased from 46 to 48 tons so does that mean that we pay um less than the the 48 as a residential for the gate rate or the same i'll see if brian burner or nixon can answer that okay this brian burner director of solid waste currently a resident of the city of uh excuse me city of dentin will pay 44 dollars a ton uh the current rate is 46 for residents outside of dentin we've proposed a rate increase for outside dentin residents to 48 dollars a ton and that's the budget cycle thank thank you i appreciate you're welcome okay uh any other questions got it and uh for me david i made this request early on and i didn't follow up on it and so i can send you an email but heads up i'd like to kind of get a feel for maybe the top five sales tax generators i do think i take note of the the the kind of steady increase if you will even despite the challenges so i want to kind of get a feel for that just who's producing in our community but then also i would like to see a full 12 months of the bucky's sales tax because i'm curious what that is uh so i'll follow up within that via email but wanted to give you a heads up of that request and then um real quick on that mayor pro tem sure some of we can summarize some of that information but you know there are some confidentiality so we can get some specifics but we can definitely get a response to you okay we can generally provide it to you by sector i think it is but we can't provide it by a specific vendor got it okay that additional insight would be helpful for me just to see where that production is and then um i had a question on your slide david that the community development slide uh since we're forward looking obviously i don't know if it what phase it's in but should we combine mon senior king out rent center and our daily bread to the new entity name for uh continuity sake going forward i think danny can probably answer that that's correct mayor pro tem we will be making those changes through the contract and then be reporting it under that uh that new operating name okay got it great okay thank you very much for that so any other questions all right council member armature i just got a quick question um to city manager so i understand that that that individual uh you know entities named uh you know can't be released if we're having a report on on where the sales tech revenue is coming sales tax revenue is coming from but but surely i just wanted to clarify when it comes to an entity like bucky's that were that has a tax incentive agreement with the city those are exceptions right we can we are entitled to know how much sales tax is generated from our 380 agreements correct we can we'll need to go back with our with our legal department and see exactly what kind of uh uh confidentiality provisions are in there um i think to your point though somebody could simply divide whatever the rebate is and probably figure it out but uh we'll need to we'll need to be sure that we can disclose that uh there are uh very strict uh rules about what you can do you can disclose per businesses in texas but i will i'll check with erin and his staff just and ask their opinion on that thank thank you yeah because i you know i would be troubled to find it in the case of 380 agreement we couldn't know those details because those are a condition of course of the you know continuation of those agreements so i'm hoping you know that that is the case that the public can know those well okay and mr city attorney mayor prattam i have deputy city attorney mac ryan one on the line he may know the answer off the top of his head well if council member armature wants to ask it i'm i'm satisfied with the previous answers so uh this is unique to her and i'll allow her to ask her own question i mean sure if he's here i would love to know mac yeah mayor council mac ryan one the city attorney's office um like the city manager mentioned there are some very strict confidentiality requirements related to releasing individual businesses records that said i believe in the past we have under very strict circumstances provided that to just the council in a certain role as the council has to oversee these types of facilities and type of agreements but we can go back and look at that again but i believe you've given you pretty individualized information but just to the council under a confidential memo got it okay well thank you very much for that and if there's no other questions uh david no other slides no i'll be back tonight though until then okay well council member melzler yeah it's just uh you know i feel it's it's worth underscoring just a couple of points that you know because some people are only paying attention now don't generally follow what we do uh and you know you heard us talking about how tight it's going to be given how appraisals are coming in that we're trying to solve for the budget and that notwithstanding you're seeing a tripling not just a 10 increase that's just a 20 increase a tripling of resources going into community development and human services a lot of that coming from state and federal funds but you know that that's appropriate and then you know i just want to call everyone's memories back to the presentation from chief dixon on his budget and there's certain realities our population is growing car thefts up sexual assault up aggravated assault up those are very real things uh so you know uh you can triple attention to community development human services and still look after very real public safety policing needs and by the way in that same presentation he shared with us that in the year going forward one out of eight calls will be responded to by civilians including mental health professionals which we don't count as part of social services but when you can rapidly deploy mental health professionals where that's appropriate you know i i think that's great it's it is a reallocation of resources into social services of a form uh and you know and that's part of his his budget ask so uh i needed to say that now i did all right thank you all right thank you david that will take us that completes item 3d takes us to item 3d 3e the last of our work session before the closed session items uh so we'll take on this and then we'll take a 10 minute break uh to get ready for the close and into the closed session but this is i'm going to call item 3e which is id uh 2012 02 receive report hold discussion and give staff direction on pending city council request um so then i'll give it oh there you go good afternoon everyone let me share the screen here okay good afternoon this is rachel ball through mendoza assistant to the city manager and i'll present for you the city council pending request for information today just by way of reminder for those that may be joining us for the first time um we have up to seven requests per meeting and i'll introduce each one we have one today okay i'll have to get with you uh mayor pro tem sorry okay yes i think he's excuse me i'll continue um and the elected official that made the request will have up to one minute to describe and justify the request and the remaining officials will have up to one minute to provide feedback and indicate their support for the use of staff time to respond and we'll respond to all requests where a consensus is reached the one this week is from mayor pro tem and it's about installing a wall of fame at the american legion hall um you have some information provided in your backup and and here for us so i won't go over everything right here but um mayor pro tem if you're ready i'll go ahead and bring this down okay and then i do have a timer with me if that would help you perfect yes it does thank you sure um so yeah i mentioned this proposal earlier and the just of it is when you walk into the new american legion hall uh you i want to provide down that corridor an opportunity to recognize all the significant people not only in southeast denton but in the kind of denton's history and so in in practice someone rents it or someone's in the building they walk in they and gary touched on this in the parks department the technology is you scan it with a qr code or you scan a qr code or a medallion and it tells a story so then you have someone like a uh uh miss clark or ruby cole or uh miss betty speaking directly to those and telling their story and then also we capture council member uh melcher's hard work on the rail trail and pull that in so people can now scan that and learn about fred moore and ch collins etc so it's just a wall to recognize all that have contributed to the city of denton and that southeast denton area and it's digital and it's unique and gives us an opportunity to try out that technology there and then carry it forward to other places but it's a living and i would think we could um create videos directly to people so thank you so um council member council member melzer and then council member armature hey uh i think it's a cool idea uh for sure and i'm happy that anybody's reading the material they wrote for the rail trail i don't know what the process is for it but it sounds great there's certainly great you know personalities with great stories that that should be shared uh so i don't know just go to the pac or you know process wise i'm lost i'm not sure also what what you're looking for you're looking for a work session on it but anyway i like it curious what the process would be okay uh councilman i don't yes okay so yeah i support the idea as well um and uh you know i love the idea of the medallions that reminds me of what they have there is um uh being um is what's in the works uh for the the veterans hall of fame what they're doing the medallions in the cemetery although in this case it would be living um as you know as well as a deceased legend so i love that we uh um that it's a living wall um i too be just be curious to know about you know what the the funding uh a mechanism would be but i think it's wonderful and would of course you know hope that it would be maximum uh community involvement uh and input on who on who uh the people want recognized on on this wall okay um council member breaks uh yeah there's a very important members of our community that would definitely need to be recognized i support this going to the public art committee or however however that needs to go through the process um the and the community to weigh in on on who all would be um on on the wall thank you and then did i see council member ryan and then council member davis yeah i'm supportive of this as well i'm concerned about the budgetary items you know how it would affect that so i'd like for it to that to be the first step in the process is to bring back some idea of what where the funds could come from are there public art funds available and so forth to handle this but i am supportive of the idea of doing this okay council member davis it's a really cool idea so i just wanted to make sure it was an even six and uh it sounds like from the backup there's a lot of good work already um put into it and a good way forward from staff so let's get it done okay and so yeah i think in summary uh taking council member uh mostly council member point about the the funding being primary and then council member briggs the art committee and in that approach i think maybe through that avenue you then it elevates to us having been vetted and the funding is analyzed without a lot of cost but i'll leave that to city management staff to to execute but thank you very much okay so that there's uh are there any other very good okay so that concludes item 3e so we will take a 10 minute break it is now uh we'll call it it's 2 57 so we'll come back at 3 10 to start our uh closed session welcome everybody to this meeting of the denton city council it is 6 38 pm i apologize for us being a little bit late we do have a quorum so i'll call this meeting to order our first item on the agenda is our pledge to the u.s and texas flag and please stand with me if you're able i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all honor the texas flag i pledge allegiance to the texas one state under god one and indivisible okay we've got a couple of proclamations here this evening um the first one will be nationals fall prevention and awareness day and what i will do is read the proclamation i believe we have someone here to to say a few comments about that they'll be sitting in the staff chair with the staff camera and then we'll get together for uh for a photo if i tell you what if uh whoever's there uh with the proclamation if you could just tell us a little bit about you know national falls prevention and awareness day sure falls are preventable medical city denton and many other surrounding organizations participate in an evidence-based practice fall prevention program for more information about this in our local area they anyone can visit the area agency on aging which is a program of the north central texas council of governments fantastic uh thank you all for being here this is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of denton whereas individuals who are 65 years of age or older referred to in this preamble as older adults are the fastest growing segment of the population in the united states and the number of older adults in the united states will excuse me population in the united states and excuse me the number of older adults in the united states will double from 52 million in 2018 to 95 million by 2060 and whereas one in every five or 16 percent of the population is an older american and whereas more than one of four older adults in the united states falls each year falling is not an inevitable result of aging whereas falls are the leading cause of fatal injuries and the most common cause of non-fatal trauma related hospital admissions among older adults every 11 seconds an older adult is treated in an emergency department for a fall every 19 minutes an older adult dies from a fall and whereas the financial toll for older adult falls is expected to increase as the population ages and may reach i want to make sure i get this right there's a lot of there's a lot of zeros in there um may reach this says 67 billion dollars 67 billion 700 million by 2020 and whereas evidence based programs reduce falls by utilizing cost effective strategies such as exercise programs to improve balance and strength medical management vision improvement reduction of home hazards and fall prevention education and now therefore i chris watts mayor of the city of denton texas do hereby declare and proclaim september the 22nd 2020 as national falls prevention awareness day in the city of denton and encourage all citizens to recognize these organizations as they promote the mental well-being of older adults and families of all ages in our community so thank you so much for bringing this to our attention and that's a staggering staggering cost uh by 2020 so it's critical that we continue to become educated on this issue i will be stepping out uh for a photo so i'll be right right in and did you have any additional words you'd like to say after the proclamation i just wanted to say thank you so much and on behalf of medical city denton's trauma department we accept this proclamation thank you i'll be right out thank you everyone thank you that way oh i'm coming you oh yeah thank you i'm coming here yes come on yeah right here oh let me get the proclamation move the chair that's what you're saying okay fantastic thank you thanks you bet thank you i had to hold my press on my glass all right thank you very much thank you good to see you okay uh our next item on the agenda under proclamations and presentations is national suicide prevention week i believe we have someone here also on that council member breaks did you have a question or comment yeah isn't it awareness month or is it prevention week or i guess it could be all of the above yes that's correct okay but okay all right uh so um is it prevention week or month it's prevention month and it also has been prevention week as well okay all right well i'm going to make an executive decision and change it to month on the proclamation it says week so i'm going to make it suicide prevention month because i think we need that awareness thank you you bet um wanted to invite you to say a few words about the proclamation and just sort of what we're trying to bring awareness to the community with with this proclamation well i wanted to let you all know that we've had 62 suicides in the city this month this month this year alone last year we had 65 suicides so it's slightly less so it's very important that we bring awareness to this matter and it's it's continued to grow we have a loss team at denton county mhmr and it's available to anyone in denton county the loss team will serve anyone that has experienced a suicide it's free we don't receive any funding for the loss team and we partner with the medical examiner and it's it's a wonderful resource for anyone that has lost someone to suicide thank you pam thank you so much for that and it's and it's with my pleasure to read this because i think it's certainly an issue that we need to continue to raise awareness with in our community thank you so much for the work that your organization does greetings whereas in the united states 123 americans die by suicide that's one person every 12 minutes every day according to to statistics from the center for disease control and prevention whereas in our country suicide is the second leading cause of death from ages 10 to 34 years old and the fourth leading cause of death for ages 35 to 54 suicide is the tenth leading cause of death for people of all ages whereas each person's death by suicide intimately affects at least six other people over 250 000 newly bereaved family and or friends each year are affected by suicide and whereas many of those who died never received effective behavioral health assistance or services services for many reasons including the difficulty of accessing services by health care providers trained in the best practices to reduce suicide risk the stigma of using behavioral health treatment and the stigma associated with losing a loved one to suicide and whereas the suicide prevention subcommittee of the texas governor's behavioral health services planning council which is comprised of representatives of behavioral health organizations state agencies military and veterans organizations and many others who are dedicated to reducing the frequency of suicide attempts and deaths through research projects educational programs and intervention services and bereavement surges services excuse me urge that all texans recognize suicide as a significant public health problem and declare suicide prevention a statewide priority support the development of accessible behavioral health services for all counties of our state implementing national best practices in reducing suicide risk for all ages and backgrounds and to encourage initiatives based on the goals and activities contained in the national strategy for suicide prevention zero suicide of the national action alliance for suicide prevention and the way forward by the action alliance's suicide attempt survivor task force and now therefore i chris watts mayor of the city of denton texas do hereby declare and proclaim i'm going to say the month of september 2020 as suicide prevention month in the city of denton and encourage all citizens to recognize and make an effort to learn how to help with many suicide prevention efforts and organizations within our city and our state so thank you so much for bringing that would you like to say anything uh after the reading of the proclamation any comments i think this helps to reduce the stigma and it helps people to reach out for help so thank you all thank you fantastic thank you and i'll be in there shortly for a photo thank you thank you sir did does she say 62 suicides this year in denton 62 it's heartbreaking thank you so okay we'll move on now through the next portion of our agenda which is agenda item three presentations from members of the public i do not believe we have any pre-registered public comments or reports from the citizens but we do have i believe a couple of open mic speakers so we will uh bring them on the phone at this time and we'll take them one at a time caller are you with us caller can you hear us hello miss lane can you hear me yes i can okay all right uh you're on with the open portion of my open mic yes i can hear you can you hear me yes okay all right once you state your name and address your time will begin you have four minutes and since this is under the open mic portion of our agenda item outside of policies of factual nature the council will be unable to respond or deliver deliberate on your comments thank you you may start yes okay thank you um it's tricky because trying to run around and get two shots and so on and so forth you never know when you're going to get the call um i called my name is jennifer lane i live in uh deanian neighborhood 76205 i called because um the issue of even just doing this it struck me as needing some comment uh it's it's so difficult now and your staff has improved matters as much as can be for um remote calling they're doing everything they can to make it possible for people to reach you and to be able to call in and speak in the meetings however it's still a great difficulty um for all kinds of reasons just because we can't just sit around and wait for the phone to ring we have to live our lives but also because no longer are the comments in used in a way that they can sort of stack say for example during a um a hearing on an item uh in the past we would be in the room and we would hear what one another had to say and if our own comments were going to include something that was said right before we speak we would be able to sort of eliminate the maybe that point and go on to the other points and have a bit more time to get through everything that might need to be covered and we would be able to know what others had said so that we wouldn't be maybe we've emphasized the point if we did specifically want to be redundant now we're sort of working in the dark and the other issue is that um the comments that come in through the written format are no longer read out loud which is understandable because the meetings are already long but that's another aspect they're no longer public comments in the sense that the public gets to know what others think so both of these have been a cramp on the public dialogue aspect of this process and i wanted to point that out because i think something um still further needs to be done to make this possible like for example a you know we should be able to comment directly on the video process so that we're as close as possible to real time and not not experiencing a complete quiet or having to stop listening to what's being said before we contribute you know for minutes and minutes while we're waiting to be put on the line and having to you know not be on the zoom or whatever it is not be able to follow the city's live stream so that is what i had to say about the in the open mic section here there are items on the agenda that are worthy of attention as well but this is regarding the process of petitioning our government thank you okay thank you miss lane so we'll wait on our next caller and the uh the other aspects you never notice you can be actually heard i don't know if you can even hear any of that yeah miss miss lane yeah i mean you're you're still on have you have you concluded your comments i have no idea whether you could hear any of them yes yes we were hearing all of them okay good okay thank you you bet thank you bye bye bye all right um we will all right i believe that that does conclude our open mic portion at this time so we'll move on to our next agenda item which is the consent agenda chair would entertain action on the consent agenda mayor pro tem move approval uh for all except for i okay and so i is being pulled for an item for individual consideration that correct that is correct all right so we have a motion council member ryan second we have a motion and a second for the consent agenda except for consent agenda i which is id 20-1708 all right so we have a motion to second mayor pro tem houseiu all right council member ryan aye council member melzer aye council member armater yes council member briggs yes council member davis aye mayor watts is an aye so the consent agenda passes uh unanimously seven zero we will now take up agenda item four i as an item for individual consideration was there a presentation requested on that when it was pulled okay all right so i'll call that item agenda i which is id 20-1708 consider approval of a resolution of the city of denton in support of the texas department of transportation's proposed alignment and construction schedule for loop 288 west northbound and southbound frontage road construction project authorizing the city manager to sign a letter of support staff presentation hello my name is rebecca davini and i'm the city engineer i'll be here to present on the loop 288 west letter letter of support all right mayor yes council members thank you very much for having me today i'm here to present on the loop 288 west letter of support just to walk you a little bit through kind of the overview of the scope schedule and budget and the project overview and this is a planning effort that's underway by text dot and for loop 288 west and i'll have a map to show you in just a moment it's from i-35 the loop 288 connection moving all the way down through 380 and then from 380 back around to i-35w and the project is considered the northbound frontage roads constructed to be first and then the southbound frontage roads to be constructed second this discussion was held at mobility committee the overall project schedule just to kind of give you a brief rundown of what's happened to date on march 20th of 2020 the schematic design was approved there was a public hearing held on july 9th that was virtual on august 7th there was a final environmental assessment that was submitted to text dot which is currently waiting approval the plan for that approval is september 20th of 2020 so sometime this month and the 100 construction plans are estimated to be completed in june of 2020 they're currently working on right away mapping for the project my understanding from text dot is there are 32 parcels to acquire for this project and the right away mapping should be completed in december of 2024 all of the utility relocations along with allowing this project to be ready to issue for bids for construction for the northbound frontage roads are estimated to be in april of 2026 i was given an overall budget of the project of 40 million from text dot just to show you kind of a map overview where the project starts basically you can see the connection where the existing loop 28 kind of dead ends at the intersection of loop 288 and 35 the first limits of the project are from that location to 380 and the second limits of the project are from 380 continuing south all the way to 35w the reason for the letter of support this is something new it's a new policy that text dot projects are requesting a local letter of support through the district this is a cooperation effort between the city and text dot and the reason for the letter also is because it impacts the city of denton this also provides for the formal endorsement of the sequence to start with the northbound frontage roads first some of the questions that i've been asked are in regards to the route considerations there were actually two options that were evaluated the first one is the location map that i just showed you along with some varying connections to i-35w the second option was to not build the project at all and basically what this is going to provide is an alternate route for trucks to limit the truck traffic that's actually going through town the north south portion must be a minimum of 5 000 feet from the airport runway you probably noticed on the map that all of this roadway will be due west of the denton airport i also wanted to explain kind of what the environmental assessment was the purpose of that is to identify the local and technically preferred alternate to be cleared and that alignment was shown on the exhibit so at this point i'd like to recommend the approval of the resolution ratifying the letter of support to text dot for the loop 288 west northbound and southbound frontage road construction starting with the northbound frontage roads and that concludes my presentation all right thank you very much chair would entertain any comment council member bricks we recently received a letter i think it was um last week or this weekend about the outer loop and that's not what this project is is about right this is the regular loop just on the west side it's not it's not concerning the outer loop project i would have to look at exactly what you received so i could clarify and answer that question appropriately and this is considered the loop 288 west project and there are there is another project that's currently being looked at that's east of town also and it's currently shown on our mobility plan i'd be happy to review the information that you received and give you further clarification yeah this is around aubrey it's the outer loop around aubrey so i just if they were listening i just wanted to to clarify that it's probably likely not the same project we're talking about tonight absolutely thank you for the clarification yes ma'am this is nowhere near aubrey this is on the west side of denton okay thank you no problem council member melzer um i don't really understand the um sorry background noise here that's okay i'll come back okay great council member armeter did i see a hand up no okay council member briggs it's going to make a motion to approve okay so you're making a motion to approve okay council member melzer yeah sorry uh so i didn't really understand the rationale uh how how would this affect trucks going through town i can understand that as an alternative for expand capacity you know for trucks going on 35 but how does it relate to trucks going through town my understanding is is that and maybe that terminology town um you know there's a lot of traffic that happens um from 35 w where the merge interchange happens between i-35e and 35 w along with um the traffic that's heading northbound so what this does is allow an alternate route from 35 w around to the west side of town and then bringing them back around on to actual 35 um i'm sure you've noticed that there's a lot of congestion where those two areas are coming together so it just allows for another alternate route yeah taking pressure off the 35 uh university uh merge that i understand very clearly thank you absolutely sir okay we still have a motion uh looking for a second council member ryan a second any other discussion council member davis just a quick question i think a quick question this project has been in some various stage of planning for 30 40 years um with lots of conversation back and forth and i know there's lots more to come um as they move from frontage roads to the the actual highway and all that kind of stuff this letter is asking us to approve a couple of things uh can you tell us the degree to which the city has been involved in those conversations and you're making the recommendation obviously that we do make that we do approve that can you tell us what our involvement has been in that planning um but you know before this letter came to us sure i absolutely can um i can tell you to the the level that i'm aware of um being that i'm new to the department and new to the role so and if there's additional information i need to um find i'll absolutely do so um we have been involved with the public hearing and it's also something that we're working um with when we have the on system task force meetings it's definitely a project that always gets mentioned we have those meetings um two to three times or every two to three weeks um and so i know there's been a lot of conversations i also know that this has been a part of the mobility committee for some time and some of the mobility planning so i know it's something that the city's been aware of and i've seen it definitely on the mobility plan um i've reviewed some right of entry documents and worked with the airport um you know due to the proximity of the airport so i am i am very familiar with the project and that the city is aware of it and that we're working with our partners at tex dot this project is not being done at the denton local office this is being performed at the district office and so there is a lot of collaboration that's going on and if there's anything additional that you'd like to know i'd be happy to find that information out for you later okay okay council member breaks and then council member ryan yeah just to also comment that this project is on our um text on systems report that we get and that is shared so the progress has been on there and followed through and we've talked about it on mobility and i think if somebody can help me remember was this one of our top three or four projects that council um approved or wanted to get funding for from and maybe council member ryan has more information on that okay council member ryan yes yeah i do believe it was one of our top projects but it's also been discussed at the regional transportation council for a number of years it's it's the only project in the denton local area that is on their mobility plan for a unified transportation plan which means that it is in line to get funding through that that source okay i thought i saw another hand council member ryan did you have a hand up before other than the second because i think you seconded it yes i seconded that was actually the comment that i was going to make is okay about it being discussed for quite some time at regional transportation council fantastic thank you any other yes council member davis just then thank you to all y'all for getting all that information out there on the record there will after we sign this letter there will be somebody who looks back at this meeting and says what did the city didn't have to do with this highway that's going through my field and uh and they'll know they'll know everything that they came up to this point so thank you great okay all right uh we'll go ahead and now uh take a vote council member briggs i believe you made the motion how say you yes council member ryan aye council member davis aye council member armater yes mayor protem i didn't hear you you're on mute sorry all right council member melzer aye uh the mayor is an i i believe it passes unanimously seven zero and that was agenda item four i so we'll now go on to agenda item five a of items for individual consideration id 20-1870 consider approval of a resolution of the city council of the city of denton a texas home rule municipal corporation approving a negotiated settlement between the atmos city steering committee and atmos energy court i think uh tony puente will be uh doing this actually it's me oh it's you okay don't say somebody else is sitting there good evening mayor and council this is rachel bother at mendosa let me get the presentation up for us okay here this evening i'll talk about the recent atmos race rate increase with you just as a little bit of background uh we're a member of the atmos city steering committee and the acsc is a 172 member coalition of cities that represents over a million customers in the area atmos has over 20 000 accounts in the city of denton the rate review mechanism is the process that allows acsc cities to review and validate costs recover expenses and avoid litigation over rates it's generated significant cost savings for acsc cities in uh historically this year's rm filing this is just a little bit of a um kind of a breakdown in how the costs um and and the savings that are represented here um i won't read them all out to you but if i'll call your attention here down to the final 80.8 million which is our realized increase to each acsc member after the review and negotiation and implementation delay took place as far as the negotiated settlement goes the effective date this year is december 1 that comes after a two month delay was negotiated that two months delay value to the acsc members is approximately 9.2 million dollars and as far as the average customer impact goes which we equate to the difference on people's average monthly bill for um residential customers that ends up being about five dollars and 15 cents which is a 9.9 percent increase and then for commercial customers that's 15.48 cents for a 6.56 percent increase the resolution that is before you this evening approves the negotiated settlement and the new rates and just as a bit of information if that resolution is denied the city would be responsible for appealing the rate increase directly to the railroad commission and that's the end of the presentation but if you have any questions i do have john manganilla with atmos and i have um thomas percato with loyd goslank if we have any questions i believe tony pointe is also on the line for us as well council member briggs could you refresh my memory i know there's two groups um the cities are divided into two groups and at one time we were in one group right and then we moved over to this current group and both groups um i guess go back and forth for rates so do we know what the other group was able to to get as far as what the negotiated amount was is it similar more less i do know what you're referring to council member but i'm going to ask that tony pointe um if he's able to speak on that for us i think tony's having some technical difficulties so i wonder if our rep from loyd gosling can help answer that i was going to say thomas is on as well okay on the on the phone correct yes okay thomas you should be able to unmute yourself now good evening mayor council members can you all good evening yes we can thank you this is thomas percato loyd goslink our service council for the amma city steering committee um the representative from atlas can correct me but i believe that the other city group um has rejected the rm and opted for grip filings um i don't have the numbers in front of me but i'm certain that our rates that is the rates of acsc members is lower than those cities that have grip i've actually i do have those numbers i just don't have them in front of me i'm happy to follow up and send those to you i can't give you the precise numbers um at this moment okay council member briggs um i do know that ever since i've been on council every time we have this um at most it goes up significantly um the the increase i am curious i think it was maybe the last time or the time before where dallas decided to um not agree and appealed to did and i don't know that any um there was any follow-up on that i'm just curious if there's information on what happened in that in that situation dallas has a mechanism similar to what we have they do not have grip within the city of dallas they have what's called the dar dallas area um i think rate rate adjustment um you are correct that dallas did reject it two years ago and again last year i believe that they did reach a settlement with atlas this most recent year the prior year um again i'd have to defer to the atlas representative i don't know off the top of my head whether they were able to ultimately reach an agreement or not i believe that they didn't and atlas got their full request but again i i would defer to the atlas representative if he has those um numbers in front of him or that information okay that that's fine i can provide you with that as well we're very mindful of the fact that different cities and different environs pay different rates and we want to make sure that the rates paid by acsc members are the lowest and so we check that frequently uh and i have that analysis again i apologize i don't have that right here in front of me okay all right anything else any other questions all right thank you okay chair would entertain action on 5a council member armator i move approval we have a motion do i have a council member davis second any further discussion council member armator has say you on the motion and the second for agenda item 5a id 20-1870 yes council member davis aye council member ryan all right council member briggs no council member melzer aye mayor protem mayor watts is a i'm going to do an i said six to one motion carries on agenda item 5a i will say just in closing that agenda item out i i agree with the sentiments of council member briggs that it seems like these these continue to go up it doesn't take very long when you have a 10 increase to equate to quite a bit over two or three years all right we're going to move on to agenda item 5b and then 5c i'm going to call them together they'll be presented together but then we will vote on them separately all right agenda item 5b is considered option of an ordinance amending ordinance number 2-741 postponing the election to be held in the city of denton texas on may 2nd 2020 and if a runoff election is required on june 13 2020 for the purposes of electing council members to place five and six etc agenda item 5c is considered option of an ordinance amending ordinance number 20-742 postponing the special election to be held in the city of denton texas on may 2nd 2020 and if a runoff election is required on june 13 2020 to fill the vacancy in districts one and two for the unexpired term ending in may 2021 to november the third 2020 so we have a presentation i believe on these two items but we will take discussion on them corporately but we will vote on them separately yes mayor protem yes mayor so rosa had presented during the work session okay sure it's the same thing just an action item right no presentation council has additional questions okay she could she'd provide that okay thank you mayor protem i appreciate that update yes sir any other questions for the city secretary on either one of these items and if not the chair would entertain a motion for agenda item 5b which is id 20 oh we do have a caller we also have a caller so let's let's hold off on that we're gonna go ahead and take the caller i'm gonna go ahead and read this as well item 5b id 20-1694 there are what there's one caller who's requested to speak and we will hear that caller now caller are you there okay all right just give us just a brief moment yes caller you're on the line on agenda item 5b once you state your name and address your time will begin and you'll have four minutes hello jennifer lane uh denia neighborhood 76205 i wanted to thank you for moving the election to november and if there's anything i can do to help in that regard um thank you very much for encouraging voting throughout the city and the polling places and working with the county as you have and um appreciate it very much it's not going to take four minutes to say that but if there are any issues pertaining i guess i would say that one thing would be if you would encourage uh everybody that works the polls to wear masks all right let's say we'll be working in the city of denton okay all right uh thank you very much appreciate it thank you for your comments all right chair would entertain action on agenda item 5b mayor pro tem move approval council member ryan i'll second any discussion mayor pro tem has say you on the agenda item 5b aye council member ryan aye council member melzer aye council member briggs yes council member ometer yes council member davis aye mayor watts is an eye the motion carries seven zero we will now take up agenda item 5c we've had discussion on that or really just uh we heard y'all heard that during the work session so chair would entertain action on item 5c i don't believe we have any callers on this council member ryan move approval grab a second mayor pro tem second all right council member ryan has say you on this motion for id 20-1694 motion for approval aye mayor pro tem aye council member melzer aye council member briggs yes council member ometer yes council member davis aye mayor watts is an eye motion carries seven zero we'll now move on to agenda item 5d which is id 20-1871 excuse me consider approval of a resolution of the city of denton expressing support for mayor watts to approve certain outdoor components of the north texas fair and rodeo organized by the north texas state fair association to be held october the 16th through the 24th the year 2020 at 221 north carroll boulevard in compliance with governor avid's executive orders regarding outdoor gatherings mayor and council ryan adams customer service and public affairs pardon me public affairs got a brief presentation for you and we also have a presentation from the organizing organizing the organizing committee for the north texas fair and rodeo that'll follow the staff presentation so just to provide a an overview of this item what is being requested is or what is being presented is a resolution for the council support for a mayoral waiver of certain outdoor components for the north texas fair and rodeo just to provide a little bit of background the north texas fair and rodeo is an annual event that is proposed for 2020 to take place between october 16th and 24th a brief overview the event has been rescheduled from august it is proposed to include a rodeo exhibit hall events a carnival which would be an outdoor carnival outdoor music stage and an and a parade the organizers have submitted a backup material that was provided to council as part of this agenda item in addition to this item requesting the mayoral waiver for outdoor events there there are two other items related to the parade and a noise exception so currently under state order ga 28 executive order from governor abbott activities certain activities of this event would be restricted particularly rodeo and equestrian events would be restricted to 50 occupancy of the building that they take place in this case an arena additionally indoor areas such as the exhibit hall would also be restricted to 50 occupancy as a reminder outdoor events unless they are otherwise accepted as part of ga 28 they are limited at 10 or more so anything above that would require mayoral approval and as we reminded council in the ais the in the agenda information agenda information sheet the mayor had committed to the council to bring larger or significant events back to them to for their support if you were to issue a waiver or his approval for outdoor events and the three events that are being proposed for a mayoral approval or a mayoral waiver are the parade the outdoor carnival and outdoor music performances and i'll remind the council that we do have a representative from the fair and rodeo who will go through in a little bit more detail these elements so just to provide some additional background the state as part of their minimum safety protocols does provide some approval factors that a mayor or a governing body can consider when determining whether or not to approve an outdoor event those include what are the projected attendees going to be for the event what is the crowd density going to be in this case for either the parade or the carnival or the music performances and what is the ability of the requester or the organizer to manage the occupancy the density and the social distancing and the appropriate use of face coverings with other smaller events that have been approved there have been conditions of approval and i've listed several that we have placed on smaller events so in making the recommendation or passing a resolution of support for any of these items any of these event components conditions can be placed on them some of those examples are all individuals must wear a face covering it can include specific social distancing requirements or occupancy limits it can require sufficient staff or volunteers to ensure social distancing and face cover use and we have requested with any event that has received a waiver that they comply with the open texas minimum standard health protocols for outdoor events again those state guidelines so as a reminder the council with this event and before i turn it over to glenn carlton with the fair and rodeo there are three separate components that will each require a waiver and so council can treat them all as individual components and in giving support with this resolution it can be all some or none so i'm actually going to turn over to glenn i believe he is on the line and glenn will speak to the presentation and i will be here to move the slides forward okay great okay good evening everyone uh good evening uh what i'll do is uh is go through uh ryan will go ahead and get me to the first slide uh the first slide is just uh kind of an overview of our covet 19 plan i do believe that staff has provided you with the detailed plan uh i won't go into all the detail in the interest of time but uh it is it's it's uh uh there are components of this event that we you know are asking you to approve that honestly if you don't approve that we won't be able to go forward financially the the concerts are very important to us financially as well as the carnival so those are those are items that kind of have to be part of the overall picture for us to be able to move forward so um in the covet 19 plan there's there is a slide for overall there will be a slide through our touchless cash system and this will be our second year with this system it just so happened that it's a good timing for this year it's a great system for safety and sanitation our workers and volunteers food concession operators livestock shows commercial exhibit building we are primarily an outdoor event so normally at our event uh occupancy inside the buildings is not an issue but we we do have plans in place to staff that and count ins and outs to make sure we don't have issues there competitive exhibits and displays the carnival the parade rodeo our musical performances and our disability accommodations okay ryan if you go to the next slide please yes sir yeah he's got it you got it okay it's not up on my computer yes so i'll go on um overall we uh we we will limit the overall attendance of the historical attendance numbers to 50 and i'm sure you're wondering how we're going to do that well part of that is uh we've actually hired a less popular music lineup than normal we we backed off of of the entertainment to the to the so we would not have the crowd problems that we have had or crowd sizes that we've had in the past we will assign counters at every gate as people enter and they leave our scanning system everybody that comes in gets scanned so that's a pretty easy uh pretty easy catch right there and we will assign people to count people as they exit because it is a come and go event uh people do come enjoy it during the midday uh then leave and then others come back for rodeo or concerts at night and we'll keep this stuff updated hourly on the website so if somebody is is trying to decide whether or not they're going to come out to the fair they'll be able to see that attendance for that day we plan on color coding it to where if it's it's green that means there won't be any issues with attendance if it's yellow we may be getting close if it's red we're at capacity we're going to do that through our social media and on our website we're going to post signage on on all the gates and all throughout the grounds on on the whatever facial covering mandates are in place at that time city and state and and we will comply with whatever mandates are at the time encourage social distancing throughout the event the biggest i think advantage that we have on on this event being safe is we're on 33 acres that is a is a blessing so all the signage will be bilingual when needed a lot of times it's just simply a symbol washing your hands is a symbol sanitizing hands is a symbol but when needed it will be bilingual we'll increase our janitorial staff 30 at least we are appointing a an infection mitigation coordinator and that person's job is going to be just to make sure that we're safe there's plenty of sanitizer out there he's and he'll be in this person will be in charge of all the areas that need to be counted and monitored for safety to to limit attendance and then of course we're going to add 100 hand sanitizers throughout the grounds we've we've always had them but we're going to add 100 additional hand sanitizers and then on the overall attendance just to touch on this most events are just naturally seeing this this lower attendance and so i think this is something that that is naturally going to take care of itself so okay ryan next slide please you know when that comes up because i think i'm a little delayed behind y'all you're good okay the touchless cath system these are kiosk that are placed throughout our gates and reloads throughout the grounds uh the consumer uh only comes in contact with the kiosk all kiosks will be cleaned regularly um and these cards are good for for all purchases on the grounds once you once you load your card that's your admission that's your food that's your beverage that's rides and then there's also an app so even if you don't want to touch a kiosk you can do all this through your cell phone this is our second year with this system um it not only allows safety and sanitation but it also allows us to keep a current count on what's coming through the gates next slide ryan go ahead glenn okay workers and volunteers uh posted signs for social distancing hand washing stations facial coverings uh there's a little more detail in the detailed plan that you have our uh infection mitigation coordinator will also train these people pre-event uh to where we'll they'll know what the what state and local uh ordinances are still in place that we need to adhere by concessions will all be permitted by the health department gloves will be required and sneeze guards will be installed on all that don't have them now next slide please go ahead okay our livestock shows uh we will adjust the schedules for shows to be spread out with classes uh as well as the grooming and washing areas um and i don't know if you've ever led an animal on a lead but they pretty much social distance you you don't really have a choice so anyway animals on leads naturally for social distancing we're going to we're going to split the class sizes so we don't run into issues with this and of course add additional hand sanitizers in that area and mark those bleachers in the livestock barns for social distancing next slide please go ahead our competitive exhibits and displays displays will be we'll have staggered times for check-ins and pickups uh one-way traffic marked inside that commercial exhibit building uh total number of attendees will be limited to 50 and we'll actually have counters on those buildings watching this this uh items will be judged in non-public hours a lot of times your judging creates a crowd and so we'll judge those while we're closed and then when they come back they'll see the results items will be placed where they can't be touched by the public uh and then of course all state and local mandates will be followed inside commercial exhibit hall uh next slide please go ahead okay the carnival area uh the carnival area uh social district minors place throughout and there's also in your code plan there's an additional code plan that tally amusements turned in for just the carnival so there's actually our code plan and their code plan in addition uh added hand washing sanitizing systems down there they are also on the ticketless system the same uh system that the magic money system uh extra emphasis placed on cleaning and sanitizing i think in their code plan they wipe down lap bars and cars between each ride and they use the every other seat rule when it's applicable sometimes it's not applicable because you have families that ride together uh and then you'll see that map that carnival area is 134,000 almost 135,000 square feet we backed out 50,000 square feet of that just because the rides take up half of that area so that leaves you 60 67,000 square feet at six foot a person that's over 11,000 people that could be that could be social distance in that area we've never had 11,000 people in our carnival area before so i don't think that's going to be an issue the parade next slide please reminding all of our participants of state and local mandates upon entrance encourage parade attendees to utilize carol boulevard i've already got parking lot permission to use on that saturday from the chamber of commerce from independent bank and i expect to have permission in the next day or two from the cross timbers church i've noticed for years during that parade that carol boulevard and a lot of that area and carol boulevard is very park-like and really nice trees to set under i think and and with it not being as hot this year i think people will be able to park walk a couple of blocks enjoy the parade and then that may maybe we can back off some of the density on the square so and we will do that through social media website print advertising and have all that stuff way out in front postcard notifications are also being sent out to everybody on the parade route and that main list is being provided to us by staff okay next slide please go ahead okay rodeo rodeo is uh is already restricted to a 50 capacity by certain by the current governor's executive order miss keith rodeo has been going on since mid june the north side coliseum since mid june under these guidelines and they have had a nice successful run we will have attendance counters at all entrances and exit on the rodeo arena really fridays and saturdays will be the only nights that that's an issue down there we are adding a new video screen uh that we're going to place it's called the up front in the poly on the polygon that you see on the slide and uh and so we the overflow will be directed to that grassy area where that video screen is and we'll have the sound piped up to that area as well the rodeo bleach receding is going to be a 50 capacity so we'll only allow 2000 people in the arena each night next slide please go ahead okay musical performances uh the front up front of stage will be barricaded to allow amount of people to social distance six feet uh you've got a map i think it's on the next slide that will that that square footage will allow about 877 people in front of the stage and we'll put security on that and uh and make sure that that is also counted into here too all of our music is that is outside so um that's another advantage so and we'll also keep the rodeo video board up with the concerts and the sound pipes there as well so we'll have two big video boards pulling people away from the stage areas and basically what we've done we've taken what we normally would put a concert on in 7 000 square feet and we've increased that concert area to 90 000 square feet and any local state face covering mandates will be followed next slide please go ahead okay there's your map showing those areas so you'll have your live area right in the center with the stage and that's 877 people uh the rodeo arena area that video board will stay up and running with live with the music uh on it with sound pipe down there so there's a um that area is excuse me the arena 47 000 square feet uh would allow at six feet 78 81 and then the open area where the other board is would allow 62 12 again this is a lot more people than we've ever had at any concert we do not anticipate anywhere near these numbers and then of course the disability accommodations every precaution will be taken from patrons who have disabilities who may need special services all points of ingress and egress will be to accommodate those in wheelchairs wheelchair space well companion area will be offered even in reduced capacity we will comply with all disability laws um and our we have a parking committee these guys are phenomenal they do a great job they're part of our uh thousand member uh volunteer team if they see a handicap sticker on a car then then they they take care of them they actually escort them to a to a handicapped spot and then they they pretty much get great service throughout the event this is nothing new for us just with some some added amenities this year so and i'll be glad to stay on here and answer any questions that any of y'all might have if we could thank you glenn i appreciate that uh if we've got a couple of callers so what i'd like to do is take the public comment and then we will uh open it up for questions so yeah if you'll just hang tight we'll we'll get the callers on and get their comments okay yeah and i know i i think okay i was gonna say we could still hear glenn so but i think we just change callers okay hello caller are you with us yes okay well you're on with the denton city can't the denton city council and items for individual consideration on 5d uh public portion just a caller information public input so once you state your name and address i'll start your time and you'll have four minutes okay i i was on hold 20 minutes fyi uh but anyway okay uh 33 lianne todd 3316 rose lawn drive denton texas and uh i just wanted to say in relation to this item um that let's see arts and jazz has been canceled due to covet 19 um the blues festival the autumn twilight tunes the day of the dead festival uh thin line uh black didn't black film festival and i don't think that the north texas rodeo should be any exception uh i request that it not that permission not be granted for the north texas fair to uh happen uh because it could contaminate um the you know with covet 19 our community okay all right thank you very much thank you very much for your comments okay i i thank you and uh i will be back for item h okay all right thank you thank you bye bye bye bye and we have uh one more caller who will be joining us here shortly oh my gosh hello yes okay uh yes you are on uh on the line with the dent city council for agenda item 5d if you'll just state your name and address i'll start your time and you will have four minutes hello yes i just heard someone speaking yes hi jennifer lane um i'm hearing uh echo i guess it's let me figure out what's going on all right do you do you have a the meeting on or anything there with you yes i have your meeting on i think is the problem yes so let me yeah there we go turn the volume down yeah it should be off um it's hard to get like i said in the earlier comment it's hard to be following and coming all right so i'm going to start my four minutes now um but i don't think i'll need them all um jennifer lane denia neighborhood 76205 um i'd like to just point out that uh regarding the um the the market um keeping that open would be um you know almost nearly impossible to make an event with 17 000 people safe as i understand it uh the rodeo would need a huge number of staff to monitor and it just doesn't seem that they will do that i did hear only a few things that were being said one was that they would have chosen less popular bands but that doesn't necessarily speak to the fact that people are starved for live music and will come out for anything also uh everything else of this nature has been canceled day of the dead has been canceled that's more outdoor than the rodeo and fair um the uh july 4th parade was canceled the um state fair of texas was canceled and all the events that have had these kinds of outdoor activities have not really been controllable and hundreds of thousands of people have become ill from them even though they're outdoors it's impossible to to keep them safe and fun at the same time and i i do ask the city council to really look into um you know just sort of what is driving this and whether there really is an understanding of how dangerous COVID-19 actually is or whether there's you know just a kind of denial going on because there's a large factor of the public that doesn't think it's happening it doesn't think that it's as dangerous as it is and doesn't mask it doesn't you know it creates a great deal of stress for all of the public officials who have been so roundly educated about how serious it is and have done all the right thing and then you know huge swabs of the public are being persuaded not to pay attention to that so you would have a pressure from the public within the event to not you know follow the safety guidelines because the driving force to have this event is not following the safety guidelines and not following the city's ordinances so with that in mind especially with the day of the dead being canceled and with the prospect of halloween being restricted or canceled and already there are you can see all over the country that there are steps being taken that this is not a particularly good time to try to have an exception that the you know many people are just saying wait till 2021 like everyone else is doing and also the flu shots are now you know out and about and the flu is starting to make an appearance which only makes matters more confused people outdoors in the cold we don't know if it'll be a cold snap usually it's hot but who knows the uh you know in october could be much colder especially since this summer is not as quite as you know we're getting so much more rain and uh that's really about all i have to say is that the uh i've been to the rodeo many times and i know that people like to have fun there it's a lot of fun and there's the indoor component the um the stalls and all that stuff are under a tent that's not an outdoor aspect and all that sale would be probably necessary to financially keep it especially at half at mass so to speak so it just doesn't seem like it can happen in a way that could be financially or or public safety wise um really achievable thanks all right thank you it's too bad i have to say because it's fun but it's too bad it's just we have to be adults here okay thank you all right thank you i believe that ends our public portion comment of this agenda item 5d so we had two speakers we had one person making a comment using our online form uh there was zero in support and one against all right opened it up for questions deliberation council member briggs and council member armature yeah i asked earlier and i received the the email that if the denton county public health department had weighed in and reviewed the documents and i understand that they did get the plan but they didn't respond yet i'm wondering if we had an approval or any kind of response from the public health department council member we did send the materials over to denton county public health they have received them staff has not had a chance to discuss the event within county public health okay all right council member armature i believe you had your hand raised yes i was wondering if there would be food at the rodeo this year yes yeah we address food concessions in the uh covid plan and can you speak to so when people are uh eating and drinking which i know is my um i was about to say my favorite thing of the rodeo that might actually be true i love the rodeo um and i love the food at the rodeo um and uh you know i have fond memories of just walking around and just eating and drinking uh will that will people be able to obviously you can't eat and drink with a mask on that's impossible what are the rules you could kind of go into that more in detail the rules would be whatever city ordinance or state mandate is in effect at the time if it's if it's if it's okay to have your mask off while you're eating and drinking then that's what that's what we'll do if it's not then we won't so whatever whatever the city ordinance is at the time is what we will we will comply with thank you and so yeah just to follow up on that um that uh it it is okay to have your mask off while you're uh eating or drinking because obviously it's impossible to do so otherwise um that is um maybe my main concern about you know safety at the event of all of the the wonderful eating and drinking that goes on um okay uh councilmember briggs i think yes and then councilmember melzer councilmember melzer can go since he's all right councilmember melzer yeah well you know i've been thinking about this talking to people uh quite extensively but it didn't occur to me till this moment that that there might be a little uh wiggle room in timing uh if i have to make uh a decision on my input based on you know what i know now uh i'm i can do that but if there's a chance that we will hear from the director of public health with a recommendation uh that you know because there has been quite an impressive amount of thought and care that's gone into the plan and uh without weighing in on whether you know i find that persuasive yet i'd be very interested in knowing whether the director of public health uh you know would have a recommendation one way or another so is there what what are the timing considerations glenn are you there yeah i am uh we we purposely pushed this uh to this date on the agenda to to try to give covet time to improve uh statewide county-wide city-wide and it has improved um i mean if we had honestly if we'd have seen the numbers that we were seeing 30 days ago we wouldn't even been asking this we would have done done this ourselves but we we see uh some optimism um and if we got to know if we're going or not you can't put an event on i mean we've done a lot of pre-planning and we've got a lot of things setting on go you know where you just got to push the button and hit start and with that being said um once we say go i mean now's the time we we're out of time if we're going to do the event you got to pull the trigger and that means you start spending money and you know so i i i absolutely get all that and uh you know it's such a huge thing to put on any kind of festival uh or fair what you do is such an impressive scale i i get it's a big machine i was really uh asking not could you delay the event which is a totally different topic it's just do we have a chance to hear you know if it were pushed a week i'm not saying we'd get a different outcome but if we're pushed a week to hear from the director of public health is are we like kind of past your point then yes yeah um we um we're not at we know we we know you're not asking for us to postpone the event but but honestly we can't postpone the decision i hate to do that way but that's the way that's just the way it is i understand a lot of including musical artists i mean we're we're finally given about 100 musicians jobs uh and they've they've rescheduled once for us and now they're waiting and and if we mess them out of another week then they're giving up employment they could get elsewhere and and that's just that's just a fraction the rest of it's rogo and so we are we are down to the wire and i understand i mean i'm glad to ask and pandemic so yeah i mean i'll go and say you know i have the floor i mean i'll i'll share my i think sure um you know first we're all tired of things being the way they are we want fairs and festivals maybe even need them and north texas fair and rodeo you know such a fantastic hallmark event for denton and i am glad we're talking about something that's outdoors there is a very impressive level of thought and care it probably could not be planned any better but you're asking me for input the mayor can you know make his decision as he will but he has asked for our input so i i looked i was hoping to hear from the director of public health so i'm not a public health expert i looked at the cdc considerations for events and gatherings it says the more people an individual interacts with at a gathering and the longer that interaction lasts the higher the potential risk of becoming infected with covet 19 and covet 19 spreading and then it goes on to say it rates the kind of levels of risk and it says the highest risk is large in-person gatherings where it's difficult for individuals to remain spaced at least six feet apart and attendees travel from outside the local area so i i agree things are trending better but i haven't heard any public health officials say we're anything like in the clear really they're saying the opposite especially while we're getting our bearings you know with kids going back to school i asked my own doctor i mean this is really a difficult one i didn't feel good about saying yes or no my doctor gave a flat no he said absolutely not not a good idea without any wiggle room i would like to support this i don't see how i can i love the people who put this event on doing it for 75 years i respect the work i know all the other great events that aren't going to happen this year texas state fair and so on that we've heard the mayor has the power to do this on his own i hope he'll reconsider things have been trending better but the last thing we need is to blow that all up with god forbid a super spreader event hundreds of thousands of people coming here and then going back out into the wider region i lean toward the mayor's original statement that i'm sure he still feels that he would be very reluctant to make any exceptions to the governor's orders that was a very tough position but you know i can support that i hope i hope we can do something this year livestock shows small classes i heard you said about you know the financial case but i just don't see how i can uh in good conscience say say yes to this with great appreciation for the work and care and thought you put into it okay council member davis a couple of questions glenn in your in the back of materials we received and then again in your your comments a while ago you said that the the event would require masks if it was required by local or state ordinance in place at the time staff's recommendation or i guess the one of the guidelines that staff pointed out to us was that masks be required regardless regardless of if the city has a requirement in place or if the governor has a requirement in place would the event be willing to do that to have a blanket mask requirement aside from the exceptions that we all already know about in the governor's order the eating and drinking that would be the event be open to doing that i would be open and that's open to taking that to my board of directors as the executive director i don't feel comfortable making that decision when you know if if the math mandate and we're the only ones doing mask i mean i think that would be a deterrent for anybody to come to our event if there's no mask anywhere else and it's just us but i would be willing to take it to my board but i'm not sure what the result of that would be sure same same yeah well i mean to be fair you'd be the only ones holding a fair and rodeo at the time but um wouldn't be the only ones gathering people though i mean sure well maybe the fool going on you got jury selections you got a lot of things going on sure sure and all of those folks are wearing masks so my other question is uh the other some of the other recommendations or guidelines that were mentioned in staff's presentation included social distancing and the open texas guidelines that the governor's provided in y'all's in y'all's plan that's in our backup i saw that uh i guess it said social distancing would be required in concession lines if it were required so if we were to require that as staff kind of pointed out in their presentation uh same same answer you need to talk to the board about that or is that something no i feel comfortable that we can do that without any interruption in business yes that was okay did you have any other reaction to any of the other um i'll call them the guidelines that staff had in their presentation the things that um if the mayor was going to grant the exception that uh staff thought would be prudent to include you know the slide i'm talking about yeah is it possible to get ryan to put that back up um sure he's yeah he's working on that now so okay i found it i found i had a hard copy of it no i don't uh i don't have a problem with any of those other issues thank you mayor um do you want to take other questions would you like me to to give a little bit of my feeling now well you can share your thoughts now yeah sure so i've done quite a bit of research into similar outdoor events i know there are some that are taking place in in states that have much less uh covid exposure that we have than we have some have gotten kind of famous for not having any covid requirements and holding outdoor events and rodeos and that kind of thing but on the whole these events have been very very safe there have been worries about super spreader rodeos and they just in my research have not materialized i'm familiar with what council member melter pointed out from the cdc there are events that happened over the summer that i didn't attend in person for exactly that reason to the point that some other events have been canceled i mean quite a few almost every other event has been canceled this year but none of them have asked us for that exception the council hasn't had to been asked to weigh in on whether arts and jazz took place or rescheduled they made that decision on their own or whether thin line or the black film festival or any of those other things uh that we all missed this year um i i'm of the opinion and i think that i think there are health authorities that agree with it i'm of the opinion that an outdoor event properly managed can be very very safe the caveat to that is that if it's not properly managed if people are not required to wear masks if they're not required to be socially distant if there's not a friendly volunteer kind of going from concession line to concession line making sure people are spreading out and just sitting with their friends and family at the uh at the rodeo and not with friends that they just met at the rodeo arena arena at that point the event can become very unsafe so i'm i'm wary about it but if the event organizers can commit to those safety measures then i can be okay with the event going forward it's primarily outdoors they have a plan for handling the indoors if they follow that plan i think the event can be safe councilman briggs thank you mayor um yeah so i i'm a fan of the fair i i think it's great and fantastic i'm just would really like a little bit of time to see if the public health department would give their approval um because none of us are public health officials and it would just make me more comfortable um hearing those things i do realize that there's not time as i heard um glenn just say but i i wonder are you going to require your guests to sign or will there be liability waivers um for people entering the fair or the rodeo and um also maybe our city attorney can weigh in if we approve this and it does it does become a super spreader is the city because we specifically approved it are we liable in any way for that first question for me yeah go ahead waivers yes uh uh councilperson briggs when they when they buy their card when they get here uh a an agreement will pop up that you are relieving us of any liabilities our sponsors and which the city is a sponsor and uh you'll have to hit i agree and then your transition goes so yes we are getting an electronic signature on all all attendees okay and so does that then waive our liability for approving it that's for the city attorney right yes sir okay as far as our liability anybody can sue the city as far as whether we would be found liable for exercising a regulatory function such as this the answer would probably be very slim okay and i have another question for glenn so what happens um what is the fair or the individual volunteers going to do if you have people who just do not want to follow the guidelines do you have a plan for that if if i mean we know that there are people who refuse to do certain things um is there do you have certain policies or guidelines for the volunteers to follow or do they just um do you can you speak to that a little bit yeah i staff asked this the other day in a meeting that we had a zoom meeting and i and i wasn't ready for it then but i am now i did some research on how six flags handles it and how actually disney world handles it all of our volunteers will be um uh taught that if if someone is is not wearing a mask or supposed to be wearing a mask we will go up and we will politely ask them and remind them that this is a mask event they need to they need to put their mask on um other than that you're you're you're asking me to put people into an enforcement situation that they're not trained in so um i would just after that if we can't handle it and from what i read from six flags and from disney world disneyland that that 90 percent of the time people they're fine they just okay sorry and they put their mask on so it's that 10 that you may just have to uh walk away alert a police officer or something because i i really can't put my people into an enforcement situation they're not trained to handle so member riggs yeah just to follow up i just want to say i the plan looks great it's very careful and thought out and everything is is really good i have no issue with like the livestock or the rodeo or the arts and exhibits i i'm concerned a little bit about the um well a lot about the carnival aspect and the music and i know that those are the two things that that um are the big draws and are the the money makers for you i just would really like to have the approval of the the public health office before before the vote personally okay all right councilmember armater um yeah so i want to thank uh glenn and the rodeo for really going to such efforts um to take such precautions uh we are it is a city um are are limited you know by our own the limitations of our own ordinances the limitations of county ordinances and state ordinances and as it is um through uh obviously no fault of your own are the uh state mask law on uh on uh mask wearing is almost unenforceable uh it is really hard to enforce um and uh you know i wouldn't nor would i want um our our uh you know law enforcement to be in a situation where they had to go around uh you know finding people or you know pulling people over from not wearing a mask so it's really a difficult situation um but for that reason um and because of the um there's an article that you know i encourage folks to look at um it's from july so much earlier in the summer but about parker county in weatherford uh there was a rodeo and this was under the mask ordinance and people at the rodeo uh didn't and by the way the rodeo they tried to it seems to have people wear masks as i'm sure you will do um but some people didn't wear masks and uh uh it was not policed nor should it be policed um because that would be a terribly unfun rodeo i think so for me it is just a really difficult and sad situation i'm very sad uh to say that i can't approve this um uh even if uh the as city attorney mentioned and i thought it was a good question about liability you know liability waivers if folks would be signing a waiver uh with the rodeo um if the city would be a limited liability you know for me uh i um you know legal liability is important but most important is you know the the sanctity of the public health and the human life and us caring about it and taking all the precautions is not enough so for me the liability of the human health risk where you've got people eating and drinking out and about i couldn't live with myself as a public official if i approve this but i will say it is very sad for me to vote no i know some people will be angry with me and i understand that and i will take that anger um and again i understand it because i know how fun and how good the rodeo is uh but that that's my very sad uh but but confident opinion okay uh anyone else need yes mayor pro tem yes glenn could you speak to uh because we we all receive those emails and so i want to give you an opportunity to speak to the parker county road parker county rodeo and the motorcycle event those seem to be the most cited so i'll give you an opportunity to be heard on the record on those things okay uh yes i'm very familiar with the parker county event um basically there was no oversight put on that committee down there from the city of weatherford or from parker county themselves they they asked for an exception to gather more than 100 people and they got that and they went on with it and there was a little bit of print where they encouraged face mask use but they did no social distancing on their concert they just ignored the whole thing and it's hurting us now uh i saw the pictures i saw the video i knew then that it was going to hurt us and uh parker county is not an example of a responsible rodeo if you want to see a responsible rodeo then go to mesquite this weekend go to northside in fort worth or if you want to see a responsible carnival go to six flags go to disney this stuff's been going on and we can do it and we can do it because we've got a thousand volunteers that are out here and and that's in addition we have contract people so and then the sturgis event um that study that that that event actually that that was a lot uh it was a study done by four economists not epidemiologists from san diego state university these guys were economists they put that study out based on cell phone pings and where they were saying that 200 000 covid cases were because of sturgis well it turns out that tracers have only connected 200 cases to sturgis last friday john hopkins researchers released a letter on september 11th that basically said that the study on the from the san diego university of san diego was relatively weak and should be interpreted cautiously so um we are not going to be a super spreader we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna treat this thing seriously the whole covid plan was put together with health officials um and so i i know that y'all would like to hear some more from the county health official i wish we'd have thought of this sooner because we turned this covid plan in back in june this has been in the works for a long time when we thought we were going to have the august event well then everybody knew in july that we postponed so to bring it up now i think is a little late but uh but anyway i just i hope we get your support and i and we will lead by example if we're allowed to do this so okay all right thank you thank you and so mayor let me give my thoughts i just i think it's important to look at the data and and i'll say it again i said it earlier i'm trying to not say anything and maybe i'll lean on and i don't want to put staff in a bad situation but there is an obvious issue with the county health department and why they don't report to us and it's frustrating that that's then used as a um that it's just not known widely and it's just frustrating so i'll just i'll just leave it at that that there's a reason uh that we don't hear from the public health official uh regularly and i'll leave that for for people uh just so they understand that uh then i'll say um i i look at the events that we currently have so we have the community market that's ongoing we have football at the peewee level at the high school level and at the unt level unt according to the didn't record chronicle article from saturday had 8 000 people so i'm gonna i'm not gonna speak from just the the hip this is what i've looked at this is um my analysis based on just general research glenn touched on the two issues that were raised um there's two sides every story i accept his side of that and the other sides and kind of looking at it holistically but let's look at what's going on right now so unt is a major employer in our area known fact yet and still they had a football game saturday that they by didn't record chronicle standard had 8 000 people there's no one on this body that i'm aware of raised any issues with that game or that attendance and it's a simple it's three hours so 8 000 people three hours major employer touches a lot of lines here no one really reacted to it so uh then i look at the rodeo so rodeo um says they're gonna have 2000 people in the stands it's not gonna be three hours uh then they're gonna space them out just like unt did so i'm talking equity now uh and then i look at wikipedia wikipedia says the and so then you look at out of town games right they came up from houston so that team came up from houston last weekend and they brought their fans so there's the out of town component so the apples are apples wikipedia says the north texas state fair is going to bring 100 000 people over nine days that's old that's not current standards but i'm just using what's what i can find so nine days 100 000 people that's 11 111 people uh over the on average nine days i divide that out in half that's 5 556 people per day in a in a in a larger area than the stadium that no one complained about uh or that that no one advocated to shut them down no one advocated to end unt season um and and and so then i look at the the governor's orders governor made an exception so that bars can open the governor said hey i'm going to allow you to have he didn't rescind his rule about bars but he opened a door for them to proceed and conduct business that's what we're doing i believe we're adjusting accordingly so that the this group if done the right way can open a business so it's in line with the governor and the county health department is not elected and so for an elected body to defer to someone that's not accountable to the people that's your prerogative if you decide to do so uh and and and that's i'm not begrudging that i'm saying i look at the numbers daily just like everyone else they've accommodated they've enhanced they give you the information we need to make a decision but somehow there's value i guess in uh having it read to you uh and and i'm not begrudging that so that being said the numbers tell me um and the data and and i go back to where we started we started so that we wouldn't overrun the health system that's why we shut things down just a couple of weeks ago the governor amended his order to allow bars to open i i think that it's fair for us to amend our order slightly understanding glenn has got a mighty task in front of him i understand his volunteers they're dynamic they're committed and the city's going to hold him accountable and i think he'd accept that so um just like there's a football game from smu this weekend uh i'm not going there's no call to cancel that unt football game so i i think it's it is equitable we're not calling to shut down the community market we're not advocating to close down bars again uh we're saying we can move forward cautiously and and that's what i'm willing to do okay all right uh thank you council member ryan uh comment yeah i would agree with uh what mayor pro tem just said um as well as the comments that have been made earlier about the mesquite rodeo has been going on there have been concerts going on there six flags is open so that's the carnival aspect of it that um you know is he's there was a safety plan that's being put in place and uh i don't see any reason why this should not move forward okay all right uh council member armature do you have your hand up yes yeah so i i just want to respond to mayor pro tem's comment because that that um hit a nerve with me uh i will say that you know the events that he listed um did not come before council so it was not to council to weigh in on um i will say that so i happen to be uh and this is a that means of disclosure um i am employed by university of north texas that is separate from my job on council but as a university of north texas employee it just so happens that i signed and helped to compose a letter uh objecting to the fact that we were even having classes on campus and football games so i and i just wanted to say i'm speaking for myself not for the whole i'm definitely not defending you know the university in that decision but i i objected to that decision um that was not uh something i did in my role on council and so we all make our different uh you know protests and objections in our different roles in life but when something comes before me such as for instance parks you know i had said no and i was in the losing majority and i will be on this one it appears um but i i did not approve um of having uh you know ball games of opening up our playgrounds um i think we're i think we're getting off i think we're getting off posting you get the idea but anyway i just felt like i had to kind of defend my record uh you know because that was mentioned so so thank you for allowing me that all right uh council member melzer i can see the writing on the wall there's no need to go around and around about it i'll be delighted and relieved if uh if if i could turn out to be right and it works out well and i'll pray for your safety okay uh a couple of questions first of all i don't think that uh the county health department there i would be shocked if they made a recommendation quote unquote i just i don't think they're they're in that uh the governor's not given that authority to the county the county has availability for those types of decisions in the areas that are not contained within a incorporated municipality from what i can remember from the order as far as the exceptions are concerned i agree with council member or mayor protem that first of all glenn i want to thank you for you're right you started working on this plan back in june and and that's come before staff and of course we've been looking at this and we wanted to get you on as quick as we could in that regard and i think you've got a good plan for the staff so glenn let me let me make sure i understand one thing uh i thought that when council member uh davis asked about a mask requirement i don't know if i understood your answer exactly are you saying that you would or would not be amenable because all those things listed on that slide one of them was that you know the participants wear a mask is that is that something you said that you could decide but you'd have to take it to your board yeah and what my concern is about that mayor is that if if by then the city doesn't have a mask mandate and the state doesn't have a mask mandate i'm the only one that's got that makes people wear masks masks by then then i'm going to drive people away i mean we're planning on being down 50 and financially that works but if i'm down 60 or 70 financially that does not work no no and and i understand what you're saying and i would not uh if if that's going to be something that is going to be part of this resolution it would be simply to adhere to the mask requirement that exists at the time because of course if if there's not a if there's not a mask mandate for the state level and there's not one for the city level then why in the world would we put that on your event so that's not that's not really what i'm but i'm talking about i think what council member davis was saying is that if there's a mask and council member davis correct me if i'm wrong that if there's a mask requirement in place at the state level or at the local level that you would be willing to adhere to that mandate and if not then there's not a requirement to do that yeah no we yeah whatever mandate is local and state we will comply with that yes we no problem that's all through the covid plan that yes we're okay with that yeah council member davis mayor not to correct you in public but i i feel okay it's real okay it happens all the time i i feel strongly that if an event that is bringing thousands of people together even outdoors is to take place um you know while we still have cases going on and spreading going on they're not even they're going to keep bringing the school kids together with masks on even if the governor takes the mask requirement off they're going to keep having mask requirement in other places for certain events even after the governor removes his requirement because it's the safe thing to do for large groups of people i think the governor's mask requirement our mask requirement are for certain things in certain situations i think a mask requirement for a large gathering of people um is it is a different consideration just by the fact that it's bringing together thousands of people in one place so i i personally it's it's your uh your decision ultimately to make even after the council gives our recommendation uh but i personally can't support an event as soon as october unless covid actually went away by then that didn't have a mask requirement okay so my understanding for you councilmember davis is not withstanding the existence or non-existence of any mask mandated any jurisdictional level that you would want that imposed on this event regardless of those others yes sir that's that's correct all right uh okay uh glenn comments on that i mean personally i think we're sort of we're splitting hairs because i would be shocked if come a month from now is it a month from now glenn when is it um right at right there right i would be shocked if somehow there is that kind of uh restriction that's being lifted simply because now unless things dramatically change but it doesn't seem like that that's necessarily the case especially with some of the the data out on uh potential vaccines and things such as that so thoughts on that glenn well i i think state guidelines are are put out there um with events like this in mind i mean they they don't just throw uh executive orders around they consider stuff like this and and let's leave that up to the state of texas if if the governor wants to come out start start dropping mask mandates but then make it apical for events that draw a certain amount of people then that's fine but i just don't want to be singled out i don't want to be the last guy in texas that's requiring it right okay all right okay uh any anybody else on that and and i tend and i tend to agree with that i mean um if if schools and things such as that still were requiring masks even with no mandate i get that because that's a decision that they're making uh within their their local organization and so glenn is that something so what what i'm hearing you say is that if somehow there is no mask mandate and and you may i'm not trying to put you on the spot or you know it's still a month away what you're saying is you probably would move forward without that maybe request or suggest or recommend we definitely would recommend suggest and and you know yes and ask for people to wear masks but but then being the only one standing that's enforcing it no i don't i don't know how right okay and i got to my board yep okay all right um and but but i understand that that still is a time issue as well yes yes it is okay uh mayor pro tem it seems like and glenn i'm not putting words in your mouth but i think uh if i if i understand um uh councilmember davis's point because i don't know that it even if it resolves itself let's say covet resolves itself in the next two weeks won't happen you still have people and let's say the vaccine's available that won't happen in two weeks either but at the same time even when it is available you have people that aren't going to take it you know so ultimately i say all that to say for the timing sake glenn i would advocate you consider uh that request of councilmember davis in that you can always come back if uh somehow everything goes if you're the last man standing quote unquote with a mask mandate i think you could come back with a sup um and have that conversation at that point with the new data uh but if it's not you have your answer you have kind of a read of what this council feels not making any presumptions with the way it goes but at least tonight you have a clear a clearer not you know maybe as clear as mud i don't know but that's just my thought just uh thinking out loud but um it'll be we'll see okay comments glenn um i really i mean so you so if we require a mask for our event and and nothing else is requiring mask i'm a little confused but then it's going to come down to detail okay is that where they everybody has to have a mask on or if you if you're outdoors then social distancing is is uh easy to do because the way the ordinance reads right now is if you're outdoors and you can social distance you don't have to have on a mask or if you're eating or drinking you don't have to have on a mask is that the same thing or um it gets it gets real complicated um for an outdoor event because i'm i'm taking 7 000 taking a concert group that we normally put in 7 000 square feet and putting them in 90 000 square feet i think it's going to be pretty simple to social distance and when you can't you put on a mask i'm fine with that but like i said to say when you're when you cross these gates you have to have a mask on and i'm the only i'm the only place left doing that and that's that's a deterrent that takes me from that 50% attendance level that allows us to be financially okay to maybe a 60 or 70 percent down that just adds to our losses that we've already experienced with the covid pandemic okay council member davis i have a question for you sure um and notwithstanding the what you had shared and that is regardless of whatever local jurisdiction or state jurisdiction has in place whatever type of mask regulation that you would want uh them to be required to wear a mask is that even when social distancing is possible or is that i mean help me understand that sure so um first i'll point out the reason why mesquite is not a super spreader is because everybody there is required to have a mask and they socially distance both in their stands um the recommendation is for maximum safety you're outside you're distant and you're masked all three the problem with saying uh you kind of being a little loose about it and making the recommendation hey as long as you're staying distant we don't really want you to have we don't really mind if you don't have a mask on the problem there is we know at concerts and walking up down the concourse of a fair and carnival people are not going to stay six feet apart at all times that's why you know when i'm walking into my job at the courthouse even though i am far from people somebody could come around that corner at any moment so i wear masks the whole way to my desk it feels stupid it feels silly but it's keeping people safe um i don't think i agree with you mayor i don't think the governor is going to remove his emergency declaration or the mask portion of it between now and this october event i don't know what the city council will do because i think it depends a lot on what happens here in our county with the numbers um but in none of those situations that we're talking about stopping in at the starbucks or me walk into my office or any of those kind of things are we talking about thousands of people um in one place i think that's why the the mask requirement is important i hope i answered your question i talked a lot no you did um glenn quick question i and you know i like the way that the the my colleagues are are posing the narrative of well we're going to share our thoughts but ultimately is the mayor's decision so it really comes down uh so glenn question um notwithstanding the okay let's just say for instance there wouldn't be a requirement for you to for your organization to wear a mask or for the event people participating to wear a mask if there's no other mask requirement but with there being a mask requirement do you have an objection with people being required to wear masks while they're while they're on the grounds so so it would be uh above and beyond what the what the current city ordinance is well i don't i think the city ordinance is uh probably overridden by the governor's ordinance is that is that correct mr city attorney is do we have a do we have a separate mask ordinance uh we've got the business ordinance i believe but is this considered it would this fall under that i don't i don't think it would because it's not indoor our order was written consistent with some cities in texas we're doing we're requiring a health plan from different businesses from businesses to put together that included a mask wearing requirement so this does not fall under that so we don't have anything that really is on point so it'd be just simply subject it would be subject to the governor's mask requirement right and under the governor's order that you have for your approval you're allowed to to add appropriate conditions to these type of events the outdoor events so you have the authority under the state governor's uh governor's order to impose conditions kind of like the ones that were presented to you in during the presentation okay all right does that uh make sense glenn is that it's yeah yeah the city doesn't have one the governor has said that it's that the cities can add additional requirements as they as they deem necessary okay so yes uh which go ahead i'm i'm gonna say if this is a condition for approval then then right now tonight i'm gonna accept this and uh hope we approve and then uh uh just so we can can move on and and keep the ball rolling and then uh i'll convene my board and uh and then let them make the final decision um this was not something i was expecting but i understand it right yeah we'll accept the condition what what does you'd mentioned the mesquite rodeo as an example i believe what what do they do i mean how do do are you aware if they require a mask on at all times except for eating and drinking yeah that's that's the requirement and northside in fort worth is the same thing down stockyards 50 attendance uh of course they're both indoors so it's masked and unless you're eating or drinking yes okay all right okay um any other questions on this yes council member melzer i've already expressed myself generally but i'm not sure i understand the last minute if if uh if this is approved but then the board doesn't approve it what happens then i i think we would be the masters of our own destiny we would decide whether or not to go forward with the event or not um and then we would notify city staff that if we don't and that would happen real real quick i got thousands of people waiting on this decision yeah okay all right uh so i just want to make so mesquite is an indoor arena how big is that is it i mean it's got to be pretty good size i think it seats around uh five to seven thousand and it's all totally indoors yes okay climate controlled northside in fort worth uh seats i think around 3000 same thing all totally enclosed um a lot of rodeos have been going on in unincorporated areas you know and and uh throughout the state small areas okay um well you know i i really struggle with um for me at this moment uh i'm satisfied with the governor's regulations i mean you know social distance because those are indoor arenas and i think it's it's there's more than enough science to say indoor indoor anything indoors can create some potential issues that anything that's outdoors certainly does mitigate that um my only thought is how do you uh really encourage the social distancing because when you've got people walking by you know each other three feet or two feet uh and then when you're watching the concert sounds like you've and you've increased that area of square footage for people to stand which means you're saying that there's going to be distance between those groups of people of either you know family members or those who come to the together to that event they're not going to just be shoulder to shoulder like we've seen on on some of these other uh photos correct correct and we're going to encourage launch errors and blankets because we have the space you know through these new areas right so is that really uh i mean i know that three of you have expressed a reservation just in general um is that is it sounds like all the other conditions that would be put on um uh put on this event outside of masks everybody's the ones who have expressed a desire that it's okay to move forward you're okay with that other than the mask concept there were these four conditions these additional conditions from staff and one of them was a mask requirement staff could you put that slide back up please yes sir thank you okay so uh i think i can be seen if i'm talking mr city attorney you said that whoever speaking needs to be and i think i think i am um let me let me just double check something right quick i tell you what let's take a five minute break we've been going at this for almost two hours not this particular agenda item but let's take a five minute break and and we'll come back at about uh close to 8 45 so about an eight minute break thank you welcome back to this meeting of the dent city council on september 15 2020 at 8 49 p.m so is the city attorney on the call is he uh oh there you are up there sorry uh erin i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm not sure what you're doing oh there you are up there sorry uh erin i mean so we've got this we've got this uh glenn are you with us are you back with us okay we need to go ahead and get glenn back in as well if we could but while we're waiting on him mr city attorney this agenda item says consider approval of a resolution so it's what i'm hearing is that we move we move through with either a vote a vote on this either way and then i i ultimately decide is that correct that is correct so what if i just ultimately decide now we still want to have a vote i guess we'll have a prerogative yeah i'm gonna have a vote yeah just so that the council can can weigh in um okay all right yes go ahead that's why don't you just do it i mean everything else would just be for show i mean if you're if you're going to make the decision make the decision well i did council member briggs i'm not trying to have a show all right i'm trying to give the opportunity to colleagues here who very much enjoy voting on things that if somebody wants to vote on it they can vote on it so uh would y'all rather not vote on it i'm not seeing yes council member mayor pro tem i think your point is valid and and i think it gives a record and people have uh i mean it's you know hey you get a chance to to vote your conscience and then you can make a decision on how you want to execute your office but i don't think there's anything it's on about it's on the agenda we've been talking about it for an hour and a half and and i don't i don't mind voting on it at all okay all right council member davis you know the governor punted this to you and uh he left it on your shoulders i don't mind picking it up there with you and making the decision alongside you okay what you're saying is to to call for uh some type of action on the resolution in so many words okay all right well so this is what this is uh and i don't know if this is the resolution that eventually gets done and if it gets voted down if it's still but glenn are you with us yes i am okay all right well from what i've understand i've done some research and during the break the nord text the mesquite rodeo since it's an indoor facility is subject to the denton county uh mask mandate for indoor facilities all right so that's that's why they're doing that six flags was a company decision uh university of nord texas was a institution decision and uh i'm not going to substitute my judgment uh for i mean the governor's obviously taking steps to occupy this space with these type of regulations giving some kind of uh room and authority to mayors or judges uh just to not be maybe held to such a rigid standard i don't feel compelled to necessarily uh create my own sort of by fiat regulations on on this event so i'm okay with moving forward with this event given that uh is staff available because i know when we've talked about this because what i'm understanding is this there's three things we're talking about here there's two things that we really don't have any purview of control and that is the rodeo and what was the other one the in the stock the building right so this oh sorry aaron did you want to no that was glen that was glen yeah so so yeah go ahead ryan this item only pertains to outdoor events not including the rodeo indoor events and any rodeo activities are already covered under ga 28 and so they would not be purview for mayor approval and so the only things that we're talking about are the carnival the the music and the parade correct sir and what complicates that is the the carnival and the uh concert space is co-located with the rodeo and the other space that is not subject to any mayor uh modification is that my understanding that's correct all right so i'm going to uh say that i'm i'm good with the plan that north texas fair rodeo association has presented to me and to this council and to staff and to ask them to follow the recommendations of the mayor's of the governor's order regarding any type of either mass policies or social distancing and things of that nature and that would also apply to the parade as well so my understanding is ryan correct me if i'm wrong that since that's an outdoor gathering then people would be required to wear masks unless they're able to social distance is that correct yes sir that's correct all right so i'm comfortable that the governor stepped into this uh this arena and he had the authority to pass these type of regulations the other regulations are have been primarily adopted by individual business entities they've made those decisions on their own i'm not going to substitute my my decision or my judgment in the place of a board of directors and things such as that when we've got a statewide mandate that does regulate these particular items because that's my understanding is this the the order from the governor does regulate these other three items the parade the music and the carnival with those guidelines and they only simply say if the mayor or judge want to add additional guidelines that they're able to do that is that correct erin somebody somebody is that is that is that what i'm understanding that's correct the mayor can add additional requirements or guidelines but but this is under no obligation do i understand the question correctly yes yes that's right yes so then all of these events two of them by right i have no authority to add additional regulations three of them the music venue the carnival and the parade i have the authority at my discretion however if i don't then it simply defaults to the regulations the state regulations in place uh currently under the current governor's executive order that's correct and we do not have a county order in in place either is that correct i mean requiring masks or things such as that that's correct any county declarations orders reference the state okay so that's that's what i'm going to suggest is you know glenn you've got to follow your plan that you've submitted uh and then you also have to follow the guidelines pursuant to the current guidelines at the state level at the time that your event takes place and if it's the current guidelines then you know people need to wear a mask unless they're they're able to social distance and your organization is going to be responsible for trying to monitor that and encourage people to social distance if they're not wearing a mask and if they're going to be somewhere in close proximity just put your mask on we're good with that okay all right okay i so that's i'm going to say that's going to be the resolution um and so council's going to not get opportunity to vote on that uh if there's a motion in a second so if there's not a motion in a second then i guess we'll we'll move forward just with the recommendations and uh that i've that i've just stated so ryan could you glenn could you just repeat back to me what you understand uh and i'm not saying that in a derogatory way i just want to make sure that we were everybody's sort of understanding what i've tried to communicate because sometimes i don't do a great job of it could you just sort of share with me what you what you see as the direction i understand the resolution being that the plan that we've put forward would be accepted and that we would comply with any local and or state mandates or regulations yes i believe that's correct because that's what that's what we have now all right okay any questions discussion on that yes councilmember davis i'm looking at the draft resolution that's in our backup and and i don't know if that's what you're you're asking us to vote on or not it's a it's a resolution um supporting you in the decision to grant the the exception to the group i'm i'm not sure where though in that resolution i guess we have it it recites that there's an attached exhibit right i'm not sure what we actually intend to be attached as the exhibit if we're attaching the safety plan that they submitted this these supplemental event waiver request materials that have some additional details in there and then if someone were to um you know move approval of that resolution subject to the additional conditions that the staff recommended or that were in the staff's presentation i'm not sure they're recommending those or were to move to amend that resolution i'm not sure how that would even come into play with what we've got in the draft so um that my main question is as to the exhibits it references an exhibit and i'm not sure it's clear what the exhibits are okay do we have a response from staff on that staff's intention is to include all of the submittal submitted materials by the by the requester as that exhibit within that would be their covid safety plan that answers my question okay and then uh so then the language that they would be required to comply with any local or state regulations regarding outdoor events that language would be where amended to a change modified in the ordinance in the resolution no doesn't have to be no that's in your it's my understanding that you would be signing a separate approval letter that would contain those conditions and that approval letter is not in in the backup okay so then the resolution would just simply contain the the business plan and the other attachments exhibits submitted by the rodeo association that is correct all right is that your understanding councilmember davis uh yes that's my uh with staff's explanation there about what the exhibits are intended to be and then yes i understand what erin's saying about an additional letter this is all in in uh in kind of leading up to you assigning an additional letter later on okay all right and and my laptop went dead so i haven't been able to review that resolution back up this evening so um okay so we've got this agenda item with we know that now the exhibits will contain the business plan and the other associated exhibits that have been submitted by the association and that a letter would be forthcoming with the requirements that i just shared and summarized prior to everybody understand that mr city attorney we're all on board and we're on the same page with respect to what you said yeah and to me yes as far as your fellow council members no no i understand i'm just trying to make sure everybody has a basic understanding of what yes the action is and what the subject matter is of any action if taken okay thank you for clarifying yes you bet all right okay uh and and ryan you feel we're all we've sort of all got the same information and the council's gonna be able to decide what they want to do with that information yes sir okay all right uh okay so this is an action item uh chair would entertain either action or no action so obviously it requires councilmember davis mayor i would move approval of the draft resolution in our backup uh with the addition of a section four uh that the council recommends that the mayor require the additional considerations from staff's presentation okay and were those those five bullet points i i think there were were four yeah yeah if we could if we could pull that back up just so that i'm familiar i can familiarize myself with those again so glenn you're still on the line yes i am and you know the the possible conditions of approval we talked about those and you were okay with all of them but the all and all individuals must wear a face covering yes i feel like that uh that uh complying with state and and local guidelines should be sufficient i don't feel like we should be singled out okay all right uh thank you and mr city attorney if the resolution passes with these four including the all individuals must wear a face mask covering that's just a resolution so my final letter of approval could or could not contain that based upon what i shared earlier in other words that's not forcing me to place that in an approval letter now because it it's a resolution support okay all right thank you okay i think that's helpful so uh council member davis your motion was to add those four requirements to the resolution that's correct and if i can very briefly respond mr carlton's assertion that we'd be singling him out uh that slide tells you those are the things we're requiring every single t-ball team every single uh you know every single school in the city is doing it um it's it's kind of the bare minimum for safety in our current environment okay and is that is that uh correct on on what i mean what the schools are doing we don't really have any purview on that but when you say t-ball teams and all that is is are those the requirements that the city's requiring on a lot of different things that's what's been represented to us here on council and that's what the slide says okay all right well i uh i have witnessed softball games in city parks here recently where that's not the case but okay okay all right um okay all right so we have a motion uh with the addition of the four items that were uh presented by staff and uh is there a second okay one more time is there a second okay the motion will die for a second any other discussion on this matter okay all right we'll move we're gonna we're gonna take up um we're gonna take up agenda item e but then we're also going to take up agenda item g which is also related to the fair uh out of order for f just because we've got glenn here and it's all the same subject matter so let's go ahead and move on with agenda item uh five e consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of dentin approving a city oh did we have a oh we got a speaker on e right uh considering approval of co-sponsorship to the north texas fair association in amount not to exceed six thousand five hundred one dollars of in-kind services and resources for the annual north texas fair rodeo parade which will be held on saturday october 17th 2020 do we have a staff presentation on this mayor we're queuing that up right now okay good thank you okay the next items do not have a presentation is that jennifer it is how are you doing i'm doing good thank you you bet all right uh old family friend i'm sorry um okay any questions on this or comments uh any questions for staff councilmember davis move approval of the item all right we have a motion for agenda item five e councilmember ryan i'll second all right we have a motion and a second uh for agenda item five e councilmember davis how say you i oh we we also have one person before we take the vote uh we've got a public speaker uh we're going to get on the phone so sorry about that thank you um all are you on the line yes i am uh yeah caller you've signed up for agenda item five e and five g which we were going to be taking up five g right after this item so you're welcome to make both of your comments at this time or you can take each one individually that's up to you thank you very much i'm looking up the specifics i know i've been following the discussion on the rodeo i already spoke generally about it okay i do find well once you start your name and state your name and address i'll start your time for four minutes you said it's it's um g five d and e no no ma'am five e is what we're on right now and you've signed up to speak on five e and you've also signed up to speak on agenda item five g which is also related to the rodeo as far as i believe in noise variance so you're able to okay the noise there okay okay so we'll just take these up individually so yeah just speak to five e and i'll start your time once you state your name and address jennifer lane uh i mean willowwood i used to live on the side next to in uh 76201 in the um north lakes area so i will want to speak on the noise noise ordinance yes but at the moment i'll speak to this um this is the parade correct this is agenda item five e which is the in kind uh uh sponsorship from the city so i'm going to i'm going to stop your time right now so what i'm going to do is if we're going to we're going to reset if you'll state your name and address i'm going to start your time and we just need to move forward all right got it thank you um all right so here's my time what i wanted to say was following the discussion that you just had i really wanted to express appreciation to council member davis for his efforts to explain um how this could be approved and under what what considerations following the step the additional staff requirements if you go forward with that then i think the city could participate but if council decides that this should be a mayoral decision only you know i understand why um these other events these other non-city events have not brought their their events to the council to try to push the council into stepping away from its own ordinance to move forward into approval of of events that actually are require waivers like this so i would say that if the if the council if the city is going to sponsor in-kind participation it has to be dependent on the decision whether or not to even approve the event in the first place thank you okay thank you i believe that's the only caller we have on this item is there any discussion before we had a motion in a second and we started the polling but we'll start that over is there any discussion uh on the council proceeding the caller's input all right let's refresh my memory council member who made the motion on this council member davis and we had a second council member ryan okay okay well that pointing isn't on yeah uh council member davis how say you on agenda item five e aye council member ryan aye council member melzer yeah just to make a comment you know it's a little i'm a little um perplexed like if it's gonna happen then you support the in-kind services in the decibel living i could see a rationale for for sort of accepting that but but i i don't fundamentally think it's a wise thing to do so just to be consistent with that i'm gonna vote no okay all right mayor potem all right council member briggs um again i personally would not have um voted to go forward but mayor it's in your discretion and it is going forward and being that way i am going to say yes to the in-kind services council member armature no uh mayor watts is an i i believe that uh motion carries five to two we'll move on to agenda item 5g which is id 20-1786 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas granting the north texas state fair association an acceptance exception pursuant to section 1720 of the city of denton code of ordinances with respect to sound levels and hours of operation for the neck to north texas fair and rodeo do we have a staff presentation on that we do not also just as a reminder to the council this was approved for three years we are just requesting a date change for the noise variance okay all right because of the change of the dates for the uh actual event that's correct okay all right and we do have a speaker that is going to be queued up here momentarily hold on just a moment just just a moment all right uh change of direction uh we we don't have a speaker i believe they just decided uh they changed their mind on speaking on this agenda item so chair would entertain either discussion or motion on this council member davis move approval to the date change council member ryan a second all right any discussion all right council member davis i say you on agenda item 5g aye council member ryan aye council member melzer be consistent i'm gonna i'm gonna say nay mayor potem aye council member armature no council member briggs um so can i ask a question right now or of course okay um so on the the decimals decibels that is it's normally um 70 so we're not asking to exceed it's just the time limit um it's just the time that's going to go over right we're not we're not asking to exceed the normal decibel level with this ordinance the decimal level is normally at 65 so they actually are asking for an increase in the decimal and the time of the noise as well okay five decibels okay um yes all right and mayor watts is a is an i so i don't believe i missed any votes there council member davis you you made the motion so the motion carries five to two and we will go back now to agenda item 5f which is id 20-1755 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton at texas home rule municipal corporation authorizing the approval of a fourth amendment to professional services agreement between the city of denton and graham and associates okay we about ready all right good evening mayor council my name is seth garcia capital projects project manager uh this evening i have a presentation for you on bonnie brave phase four design amendment number four so for a quick project overview uh bonnie brave phase four starts at interstate 35 and runs to the roundabout at scripture it is a divided four four lane roadway that's got a street lighting uh system a drainage system a 10 foot mixed use path five foot sidewalk we're also doing some sanitary sewer and water main improvements and then of course the roundabout that was constructed at scripture to date we've processed three amendments uh we have some items including survey subsurface utility engineering additional design that have all been passed we did a traffic study for the roundabout that was included during amendment one as well as some additional right away services and i did want to point out as well on amendment three the design consultant did agree to a 10 labor rate reduction for the coven 19 savings the amendment before you tonight is amendment number four with this we are asking for some additional level a suit work traffic signal designed for three signals at oak hickory and the i-35 service road right away appraisals environmental services for a few right away parcels as well as landscape and irrigation design franchise utility coordination and bid phase and construction phase services a project schedule an update for you phase 4a the roundabout the construction was complete in summer of 2020 we do have a loa that's going to be issued here shortly for that phase 4b we had 90 design that was completed as of april 2020 we're expecting to have 100 design by february of 2021 and then the construction schedules depending upon the remaining right away acquisition we are currently working with cog and text dot for some external funding sources to help fund the remaining right away and construction funds so with that staff is recommending the adoption of an ordinance and the amount of five hundred and ninety four thousand dollars and we do currently have funding available within the budget for this amendment number four okay all right i can take any questions thank you seth questions council member davis two quick ones i hope first you mentioned that the roundabout phase we're going to do an loa for that here pretty soon do we do we have some additional pedestrian infrastructure that was intended for the roundabout that's not on the ground yet or is that for some future phase or am i totally misremembering that so we do have some sidewalk that's going to be installed a part of the mckenna park project that's handled by a separate project manager and then the remaining sidewalk we do have sidewalk currently on the southwest corner the remaining sidewalk to the north on the northwest side will be installed with phase five the roundabout at scripture is kind of the dividing line between the two phases so when we move into construction the west side sidewalk will be constructed and then the east side sidewalk will be constructed with phase four as well we currently have north south phase three water line going through there so installing the sidewalk with that we would have come through and and tore up a good chunk of it if it was installed with the with the roundabout good deal my second question is about timing we knew that there were change orders coming with this project from from day one but you mentioned that that some of this involves signaling all the way down you through those three major intersections yes sir was there a price increase on the on the signaling or the engineering for the signaling surely we knew that those intersections were going to be signal controlled because we decided that at the same time we decided the the roundabout so can you help me on the timeline there yeah so uh some of the signalization money was actually used uh for the roundabout when we went from uh scripture being signalized to the actual roundabout we had to go back and do some redesign work since then who was subcontracted to do the uh signal design was bought by a different design company and so that is who we are now using uh but price wise it has stayed the same uh and that is for the design of these signals at oak hickory and the 35 service road okay thank you all right council member briggs when is phase five uh set to set to go i know there has been some public complaints about the the area there in bonnie bray and how it doesn't look complete and it's been under construction for a while so i know it's in different phases so it's kind of hard hard to understand and absorb what's going on yeah so so phase five is from the roundabout 2380 uh north we're currently at 50 design um that design contract was actually pulled in-house as a part of the covid relief efforts to to save funds um we're currently working with our in-house designers to do a transfer of information from the design consultant to our in-house design people uh once we have that we will we will move forward with design process yeah let me let me because we're talking about phase five but this is an agenda item for phase four so i don't want to get necessarily outside of posting so if we could just yes go ahead council member briggs my question is more so can that sidewalk from phase five be included in phase four is that is that something is that possible maybe maybe later we can talk about each uh each respective phase of bonnie bray has got its own project budget so it's something we can look at i don't think ses can be able to answer your question right now until we sit down with becky and our finance team and and make sure that we understand how all the financing is lined up for phase five each each one of those phases has various uh financing portions cobbled together so he's not gonna be able to answer that really easily all right thanks okay all right any other questions see no callers uh if there's no other questions for staff chair would entertain action on this item council member melzer i move approval mayor protem second all right we have a motion and a second for agenda item 5f id 20-1755 how say you council member melzer aye mayor protem aye council member ryan aye council member armater no council member riggs uh no council member davis i mayor wass is an i motion carries five to two moving on to agenda item h which is aesa 20-000 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas regarding alternative environmentally sensitive area plan for approximately 213.9 acres of land generally located north of 35 uh 100 to 3600 block of rose lawn drive so this is i believe the one that we had a motion for reconsideration is that correct i i really don't i don't think we need to necessarily go through the whole presentation again if we could just get a real high overview and just uh of what what is being proposed and then we'll move from there uh because we do have five callers on this so we we went over this extensively so if we could just have a brief presentation from staff going over exactly what is being proposed and i'll read this real quick uh for this item two people making comments on our online form one was in support one against there were six people who called in on the 349 7800 to register there were six in support there are five who were requested to speak and we will be hearing from them shortly good evening mayor council members deb reviero with environmental services um i will skip through the presentation quickly okay so i'm going to give you the updates based on the tree survey that the applicant provided okay thank you i'm going to start right there um the applicant was directed to provide tree survey information for all areas related to the construction of the proposed uh stormwater channels uh the big difference is that the total disturbance areas what significantly reduced the initial plan asked for 0.7 acres of disturbance as identified in on the first row with the um with the proposed amendments that area have been uh reduced to 0.55 the water related habitat would be the most benefiting from that reduction as 0.31 acres of water related habitat will not be touched or uh encroached upon uh with the uh proposed channels um the tree survey indicated that it will require the removal of approximately seven 77 uh dbh inches of healthy trees for the construction of those channels those 77 dbh inches is uh is equivalent to approximately 21 500 square feet of tree canopy the applicant in exchange is proposing to plant 80 dbh inches that when fully grown it will uh represent approximately 25 000 uh square feet of canopy so the mitigation and the proposed uh replacement is pretty is very close it's almost one to one or a little bit more the applicant also have um indicated their desire to increase the amount of trees that they are wanting to plant in those areas uh all areas that will be uh disturbed will be reseeded with native grasses and with forbs um the additional trees have been identified on your screen in red so it's approximately uh 20 uh i'm sorry 18 additional trees that they will be planting in comparison to the previous plan um the removal of uh chinese privet is still part of the mitigation um strategies and anything that is removed will be reseeded with native grasses and forbs nothing have changed from notification standpoint we haven't received no additional letters therefore the opposition and the favor percentages stays stay the same um the recommendation at this point is for approval uh with five conditions we have revised the acreage's number and the number of trees uh those changes are identified in red on the screen for you those are the last two conditions associated um at this point staff is available to answer any questions and i believe the applicant is also available on on the line and it is planning on presenting to you as well that completes my presentation all right um we've got five callers let's listen to the callers and then we'll take staff presentation after council discussion i mean not staff presentation applicant presentation and hopefully we can move through this rather quickly this is just a reconsideration motion all right well so we got five callers let me get my clock ready caller you on the line caller you on the line yes yes please state your name and address and i'll start your four minutes all right lianne todd i live at 3316 rose lawn denton texas i am 200 feet from the proposed four star razor uh subdivision development i wanted to thank the city council for their job on revisions of the lowland environmentally sensitive area um the modifications are definitely an improvement by putting the drainage ditches on the east side as opposed to the west this does prevent uh destruction of a lot of post oaks which are more on the west side the only amendments i would like to see in relation to that is that for large tree replacement that they specify the type of tree and that the trees and shrubs that are replaced with the drainage ditches be done in the fall and early spring for improved survival rate and that per inch of any significant trees that are taken out and if they are significant trees that the developer be responsible for paying per inch under the tree ordinance of october 2019 since this is a provision and different from the original proposal in relation to the upland environmentally sensitive area and the 32 acres of post oaks that i know they're leaving 50 of the trees which is mostly in the floodplain and some of the upland historical endangered post oak forest 32 acres are are are slated to be destroyed and a city of denton did a report uh state of the urban forest in 2016 and breaking down by the specs of this uh report ecological services and values of this 32 acres of post oaks is equivalently three hundred and sixty thousand dollars per annum in environmental services and six million in structural value and over a course of 20 years would be 11 million 663 231 dollars and the city is basically giving this 32 acres of forest away to a four star razor and the development companies without be no recompensation for this 32 acres of post oaks so i appeal to the city council to consider buying in some way or recouping this property from the developers either through parks and rec five million funds that they have for parks and rec and maybe in conjunction with the university of north texas environmental science department and the deep pockets of unt that it could potentially be used as environmental study center and other creative ways to maintain this upland environmental sensitive area and also if these trees are cut down then it will increase uh there won't be as much water retention and what they mean by environmental and structural value water retention soil retention carbon offset wildlife habitat that was as was presented earlier and reduce the heat index water retention and soil retention is crucial and removal of this 32 acres of trees could increase the floodplain despite the lowland drainage ditch efforts and flood neighboring properties in that area which according to a neighbor down the street he got with an engineer who's involved with the project and a large con culverts will be installed as well as raising of the bridge uh at the road at that low water crossing on rose lawn meaning that there will be expected already increased water flow miss tod that your time has expired do you have just like a wrap up sentence okay well basically uh it's you can't you can't replace the value of these 32 acres of trees they have economic and aesthetic value and i appeal to city council to figure out an alternative way to save those trees okay thank you very much for your comments all right you bet you bet all right we will have our next caller caller you're on the line with the public portion comment of agenda item five h once you state your name and address your time will begin all right then thank you it's jennifer lane and i'm in genia neighborhood of benton 76205 mayor watts i wanted to say that when you were in the meeting on 5g you separated that out from 5e sort of on the spot and i was expecting a call back as a result of that didn't i wanted to point out very quickly that uh at the moment um people cannot get away from noise if it's uh loud in their neighborhoods like they normally might be able to by going out going to a movie going to do something else if they don't want to hear nine days of rodeo they will not be able to do that now because of the pandemic most people are staying at home whenever they possibly can and if they do go out there's no place to go because most uh most things are sort of closed now on to uh 5h i just want to point out that the um you know the floodplain isa looks good that looks sufficient but the downstream impact will still be exacerbated by removing um uh removing the canopy cover uh in the upland isa and uh the mature trees removing mature trees does not improve denton's goal for achieving 40 coverage the hoa lots are the best compromise for the preservation of this space but pushing for parks and acquisition funds to be used for this is a great starting point and i highly recommend that you do it i believe others have spoken to the uh the value of the trees that are being suggested to be taken down i also should point out that the the post folks do not easily withstand this kind of invasion and that if a lot of them are removed the others will likely die off we know that from the walmart situation where the intention was to keep them but by interfering with the drip line they they all died off except for one tree which is extremely sad they can't be replanted they they don't accept uh being moved they don't accept being planted and at your last meeting the the staff member who was representing the developer actually had something truly crazy like leaving the the decision making to the bulldozer operator as to which trees to keep and i just couldn't believe that so please um link these two together the two eases belong together and they uh they need to work together to preserve as much as possible um having done a good job with the uh the lowland easer they really need to address the upland easer in connection with it they're not really separable okay did you get um mayor westwood did you get the um the information on the actual value of the trees was that shared uh i believe i'm not sure what information you're talking about but i don't want to eat into your time uh and have any dialogue with you so i want to make sure that you've you know completed your your comments that you wanted to make on that issue and then we can ask some staff can council can ask staff some of those questions yeah i just wanted to make sure that you got that because i believe someone else was calling about that but i do have that information if it's um something that's useful to you i can send afterwards but it's you know thousands even millions of dollars worth of value of trees and um just to quickly get out of um you know because i think the people who live nearby it's a very emotional situation for them um it's harder to step aside and and say you know this is how much these trees are worth i'm in the neighborhood i see that you know i think i've sent to the city uh the fact that you know you remove these trees and the heat for everyone in the city especially in the neighborhood goes way up um you know and this becomes you know an issue for the whole city not just for the for the neighborhood of me adjacent properties but there there is still nonetheless um a value to these trees that the city should assess and should know about before allowing developers to just destroy them uh the value for them is quite high all right that that's that concludes your time do you have a real quick maybe single sentence wrap up that you'd like to share uh yes i would like to say that they are worth uh probably a million dollars okay they want to destroy okay all right thank you thank you very much you bet and so we'll wait for our next caller to come in a caller are you on the line i am yes you're joining uh this is mayor watts you're joining the denton city council meeting on agenda item 5h and uh this is the public portion public comment portion of this item for individual consideration so once you start to state your name and address your i'll start your time and you'll have four minutes okay thank you mayor watts my name is kim mckibbin i have been before the counselor the planning and zoning folks previously uh i stumbled upon this council item today looking at some other things and i do have a few comments to make about the environmentally sensitive area that you guys are discussing repeatedly the city of denton likes to chop these up and to re-change the guidelines for environmentally sensitive areas and i'm not an environmental scientist i have been around quite a few but i can tell you that uh what you've heard other people say about these trees surviving as a community is extremely important for the old post oaks and you need to to try to keep these this large environmentally sensitive area intact and work at it to survive everything now a few things that i did want to to point out to you is um there's no way to eradicate chinese privet that's a that's a thing right there that if you think that's going to happen it will not happen the also the tree inventory i'm glad that they did finally decide to do one of those and there's lots of numbers being thrown around but i do think that you need to look at something else in the constructions of the drains themselves if these uh flumes are created and they just flat out empty onto the soil you're going to have a a different kind of erosion that uh will just turn into a big mud pile i believe the flumes could be re-engineered redesigned to slow the water down that is coming out of the neighborhoods and give an alluvial effect at the end of it which would slow down the water on multiple occasions in working with parks boards i've seen where environmental um environmentally sensitive areas have these huge flumes coming out of residential communities and it literally destroys the sub subsoils and everything else so slow that water down get them to fan it out there at the end and you'll have a better result and once again the privet the privets you're not going to get rid of that so there's please have them re-examine some of the damage to the areas where the drainage is going to go it's also going to be full of trash who's going to take care of that trash that's coming out of these neighborhoods also the street pollutants will be going into the environmentally sensitive areas and the yard pollutants and this three-year thing about keeping these trees alive you need to knock that on up to 10 years and make them responsible for not only keeping the trees alive but for digging out the privet because privet has to come out by hand digging so there is better usage of plants at the end and really and truly the value of the trees cannot be um stated in a way that that really shows what it is and Denton has a chance Denton always has a chance to keep some of these places together to make the community itself that they're trying to build a better place and our environmental people there and our parks department should be working with these developers to keep these mature trees together in one place and that's all I got right now all right thank you very much I appreciate your call and your comments you're welcome sir I'll see you I'll talk to you again in a few minutes you bet okay we have another caller caller you are on the line uh with the Denton City Council on agenda item 5h once you state your name and address uh your time will begin and you will have four minutes yes my name is Randy Sorrels 3501 Roseline Drive Denton Texas you may you may begin oh good uh first I'd like to thank the City Council for uh saving some of the trees mainly the post oaks uh over there in this uh razor ranch development across the street from me uh all the trees we can save is always a great thing uh and and one of those concerns I have is if uh all those trees get pushed down over there and hate to use jago public but they're behind me and all the stuff they're refining every day blows over this way and the trees aren't uh recycling and helping purify the air it may be a little health issue for this whole development and anyone living around here uh but my biggest issue is the water drainage and runoff from this development since it drains right onto my property then I had a letter from Erica Aronica from the development project uh saying that they're you know everybody stated that we're not going to have any downstream um change or you know stuff from this water running from such the trees and the grass from the gongs against concrete and stuff but in the email she sent me that they're going to take out the three culverts that are there and elevate the road on bonnie bray and then they're going to put in six eight by eight uh culverts which the ones that are there are six foot tall and dome shaped so roughly 36 wide by six foot tall but being domed and go to a square covert that's eight foot tall and 48 foot wide you know I'm not a rocket scientist but if there's no downstream effect why are we the city going to increase the water flow and elevate the road right there uh on bonnie bray where that everything drains the creek creek runs in it's just uh a little bit concerning uh that they're going to increase the water flow from across the street uh onto my property and uh if there's not really any effect from the development going on why are we going to enlarge this drainage under the road elevate the road uh if there's not not going to be any effect on my property so anyway with that being said thanks for everyone listening and uh good luck with your uh stuff this evening thank you very much I appreciate it thank you all right we have I believe one last caller caller you're on with the dent city council on agenda item 5h and once you state your name and address your time will begin I do understand that you have a presentation is that correct or some type of video or slides that you you want to also queue up yes sir okay all right okay uh I believe we have the slides up so you can begin okay wonderful thank you sir um uh this is diana legged to 19 alien street denton thank you mayor and city council members and uh as we scroll through this presentation let me give you a little background here I have been a wildlife rehabilitator for the state of texas texas parks and wildlife since 1989 since moving to denton 12 years ago I have witnessed firsthand the decline in wildlife population across the board due almost 100 to land development and the resulting destruction of habitat I walked behind the bulldozers and retrieved leverage cottontails and two infant gray fox at razor ranch as the destruction continued everything fled the area and coyote sightings along with that of many other species were now in our neighborhoods close by or dead on university in 35 when you take out 50 of a habitat you reduce the wildlife population by 50 habitat fragmentation and loss of connective corridors disrupts the gene pool that's why it takes so long for species to recover from habitat disruption if they ever do when you destroy habitat you see an uptick in calls to animal services pest control companies and local wildlife rehabilitators which is me and I don't receive any compensation for my work on either the local state or federal level but I see over 1 000 forms of wildlife per year and over 80 come from right here in the city of denton raccoons squirrels possums and coyotes have become classified as pests and urbanized pets start to disappear and you have terribly upset citizens demanding the relocation or destruction of whatever animal they think is killing their pets this has a negative impact on city resources as our animal control services receive an uptick in calls trapping and relocating wildlife is not the answer as almost 100 percent of them will die due to starvation as they try to battle for food sources as competitors in somebody else's territory wildlife should stay wild but that means we need to preserve the spaces in which they already live the rapid loss of habitat is happening on a global scale but we can act locally by preserving parcels rich in diversity the slides I've shown you during my speech represent the animals that I have rehabilitated already from urban encroachment in the southwest denton area if the city values the quality of life it provides for residents if the city values the rich natural heritage of the land we live on and if the city is serious about building a resilient future of denton then we must act to preserve intact ecosystems I am requesting that the city using part of the 9.9 million dollars currently allocated to parks for land acquisition purchase full 30 acres of upland habitat in the forester rager project I'm happy to take any questions okay all right there's uh there's some time left but all right anything council member Briggs so thank you for the presentation and the the pictures that you were showing that's very impactful um when it said nearby or saw is that when the rose lawn is that the property in question that we're speaking about today yes ma'am okay okay thank you okay all right thank you caller I appreciate it thank you for calling in okay and sharing your comments under slides thank you we have no more callers so council uh discussion deliberation motion action council member Briggs I have a couple of questions on the on the tree survey I could not pull up on my screen it was blurry I couldn't tell details so I don't know how many trees the 77 um inches equals or what type we're talking about removing I couldn't I couldn't tell these the information is provided on page five on the alt isa document um table two provides the listing of the trees the dbh the common names and the conditions that it was found uh also as a part of exhibit one further into the document uh you will have a individual uh close-up of each individual um channels and the trees that will be removed are also listed there I'm sorry could you exhibit one I that was not on my uh no it is part of it is the let me get the list okay okay so let me make sure council member Briggs I think your original question was you just wanted to know what the list of the trees were is that right right yeah on the presentation it says tree survey on page six and it has at the bottom pretty small I know that it has that information I'm asking for I just can't read it so yeah could you yeah could you maybe just uh is it is it a big table I don't have my backup pulled up or can we can we get that email to us if we can't I just don't know how much information the number the total number of trees that equals like the actual number of trees and and and the types that are being removed I can't that's all okay yeah all right uh do you do you have that information yeah okay yes um and I'm looking in exhibit number six in your backup uh label the razor branch ESA restoration plan updated September 2020 right no go ahead um under appendix one there's a close-up for each one of them for example the first um crossing is labeled as a crossing number one that will entail three trees uh they are their common names are listed and also the condition of each tree and the dbh size for each one uh on crossing two and three that will be the next page we are talking about seven total trees to be removed uh then uh their common names and their conditions are listed some of them are declining uh with the last two be healthy for crossing number four uh there will be three trees removed all of them considered in health and cognitions okay all right okay anybody councilmember armature yes so just to clarify so this is no change from the the email I believe it it just went to council it was in a different format but um we got an email at the last meeting when we discussed this it had a list of all the trees uh within numbers this is that same tree survey there hasn't been a new tree survey since then right no no I think part of the reason why we did the motion reconsider was somebody had asked for a tree survey on what would be in the channels uh what would be removed in the channels and I believe that's what uh miss diar was just referring to was the the trees that were being removed in the channels with corresponding dbas and tree types yeah but in it so sorry yes so in the but with the additional trees um because with the the list of trees that we got the last time it included increase for the whole area that is still uh there's there's been nothing to that has there just to clarify no I'm synthesizing the information from last week with the information that we have now I don't understand what you're asking what I'm hearing you ask so you correct me if I'm wrong is that the tree information we had in our original presentation on what's going to be removed based upon the easter proposal and and all the mitigation and all those things that has not changed what has changed is simply additional detailed information that was requested at the meeting regarding the specific trees in those channeled areas that were the alternate esa request that's what I'm is that your question yeah yep I just wanted to confirm that that was my impression I just want okay so nothing uh miss vera nothing's changed outside of the channels that we're speaking of now the tree survey mitigation plans and all that are still the same ones that were proposed in the initial meeting that's correct the information that the applicant provided to you it just zoom in on those areas and based on the amount of trees that they found they have re realign some of those trees to reduce the number of losses okay all right so in a better position from the standpoint of tree preservation correct yes all right any other questions is the applicant on the line do we I mean if is the applicant is the applicant on the line yes I am okay are you going to make the same presentation you did before or uh yeah if you've got some comments or things such as that you feel for mr city attorney how long do is there a time limit on this even though this isn't a public hearing and if somebody could keep that time because my my timer is going out okay we've got somebody here that can do that I think it's three minutes three minutes okay yes uh so yeah you've got uh three minutes if you once you state your name and address we'll go ahead and start your time you're referring to myself yes brock yes okay yes yes it is I so we have a uh a presentation prepared it's slightly different um and it kind of goes does a better uh more of a side-by-side comparison some of the changes that we made I'm happy to go through that it's like I said we're not going to I won't touch on everything Debra already did um I if you would like to see that we can kind of show that comparison or I can kind of address some of the questions that y'all have uh let's go ahead and start with addressing the questions because we're sort of we've got three minutes and I haven't seen there weren't that many questions on on the change but go ahead sure so uh yeah we we did do a tree survey um and in looking at those we made some pretty substantial changes as far as um the alignments of those channels and what we were trying to accomplish um such that in the the one crossing that she's referring to on that first one where there was a three trees that were removing um previously there was 40 um the the alignment that was going through there was taking out about 40 trees and so we've actually gone through and realigned that um and moved the outfall completely such that we were only um taking out those three trees now if you want to flip a couple slides if we got three minutes I don't want to go through that one um you can keep going there and so one more okay so this is a comparison side by side just showing the two previous and the updated plan um so the one of the northeast corner is the one that we had a pretty substantial change uh and a reduction uh we actually ended up reducing the impact to the e.s.a almost 40 from what was previously shown um in doing that and so the there's only eight healthy trees that we're removing uh the other trees that were listed were actually declining or in a hazardous state and so we we didn't really classify those when we were talking about the ones that we were preserving uh we're showing to plant 20 trees at four branches each um and then mitigating those and maintaining those over a three-year period the uh the other couple points um that we were going to make so I guess just kind of comparing this this is the the at the end of the day this is the least impactful option for managing the drainage from this development uh it's in line with what city staff and engineer requires and you know there we we have I think last last time we presented this we we touched on a uh the our alternate option um but frankly it doesn't impact the e.s.a's but ultimately does result in the greater impacts to native and natural open spaces and additional tree canopy that we're trying really hard to preserve here um I think this plan does a good job um mitigating for the impacts that we have um trying to capture as much um you know this natural landscape that's there and then you know revegetating it and improving it back to a native state um I I'd ask about as quick as I can go through this um I'm happy to answer as many questions as you guys have for me okay if we could pull the slide down please any questions council member Briggs okay can we go into closed session uh sure Aaron do you need any more information on that than just that request specifically the nature of the request to go into closed session is it to seek consultation with the city attorney yes sir okay then that would be the the reasons mayor okay five five before we do that uh do we have any other questions for the present presenter okay so at this time at uh 10.02 we're going to go into closed session we'll take a five minute break and we'll come back all right welcome back to this meeting of the Dent City Council 10 17 on September the 15th 2020 we're on agenda item 5h I believe uh Brock you were before we went to a break you're in the middle of a presentation so or question and answer did you have any additional comments I did I just wanted to I guess point of clarification I on the the three minute restriction I I guess just wanted to kind of ask and kind of follow up on that I think there was a lot of discussion that was had over the the callers and then you know staff and the presentation that was made previously and frankly I trying to go through a lot of the information as quickly as possible I don't think you know having the ability in the three minutes to address those concerns appropriately just kind of wanted to check and see on that restriction or if there's an ability for kind of those questions to be answered are you talking about the presentation from the fair which presentation were you talking about uh the one the the presentation Debra made and then the follow-up uh the five callers for the uh the all tsa okay well uh yeah we've got questions so I'm sure you're going to be able to present your information if you have some additional information um yes sir I guess for me I mean honestly this day's already gotten long I know y'all been here since 10 since 12 o'clock so and this is an item for individual that is a that is coming back for a reconsideration um based upon I think a letter that you had sent and that council member Davis had made a motion for reconsideration so I guess what I'm saying is I don't want to rehash a bunch of old stuff that if we have some new things to consider let's do that but if not let's go ahead and get through the discussion and deliberation and see if we can't get some action on it so um so Brock what other council member Briggs has a question I believe for you go ahead council member Briggs yeah um if you I know that one of the callers was really concerned about drainage and a few of them were and mentioned something about flumes can you talk about that what type of flume you're going to use yeah absolutely um and if you can I guess I could speak to it I guess if you want to pull up the slide um we can look at it it's going to be the fourth or fifth basically showing impact one um there's a rendering of it but we can I can speak to it either way so the I guess kind of reaching to the first part of your question so the the caller I think it was uh Randy Soros was speaking on the drainage downstream um I guess just wanting to clarify it so the the impacts to Rose Lawn and the raising of Rose Lawn and the culverts being installed at Rose Lawn um are required just based on the fact that in a current condition Rose Lawn is actually overtopping with water based on the models we've come up with and what the city has presented and we've we've discussed uh we we've submitted plans to the city there's been a downstream assessment a clomer submitted we've worked with engineering on that and so as far as what's what's going to go to Rose Lawn we are not allowed to and cannot increase the runoff through Rose Lawn the only thing we're doing at Rose Lawn is improving the roadway and that crossing to a state that it's no longer overtopping and then as far as the the channels were concerned the question I think one of the one of the callers said um kind of talking about what we're doing there and if we can do kind of any erosion control measures to try to slow the water down so yes um I I think the the measure she's referring to would actually kind of impact additional trees widening things out the the consolidating of the flow that we are doing with these channels um they're they're all grasslined they're the only concrete of these uh outfall structures are going to be up towards the back of the lots on the natural uh grade graded or on the graded slope down to the existing natural ground and then from there it's a grassline channel that's being cut in to the creek uh we're going to re-sod that um so it'll have revegetated uh riparian seed mix and drain field seed mix that's consistent with what the city staff has asked for and then the the slopes of those channels are such that we will be maintaining velocities that are within the city's requirement so this city has their city criteria states certain allowable velocities for outfall and doing so in a non-erosive manner and so we will be setting those channels the slopes of those as we've designed it to be in a non-erosive manner uh consistent with the collar okay all right any other questions council member briggs okay could we pull the slide down please any other questions for the applicant council member briggs i mean i think i'm sorry i want to move approval okay uh council member davis i'm gonna second that thank the applicant for going back to the drawing table on this saving a bunch of trees in the process and let the callers know that their issue with the upland habitat separate deal and uh stay tuned for that okay all right all right we have a motion in a second discussion council member armater uh yeah so i'm concerned about the upland habitat uh but i'm i also remain concerned about all that acreage of irreplaceable post oaks and i want to um would like to hear an opinion on uh if it is at all possible uh what the one caller suggested about you know the city offering at least as i understand that that's what she was saying um i think i believe it was miss tod uh the city offering to buy uh that part of the property to preserve it it is that at all a possibility well using our our park's money that we have a we have a motion on the table i don't believe that's part of the motion and we have a second not but yeah it's just it's a question about to whom uh to i i guess it would i'm not sure if it would be to the city attorney or miss fiera i think i think we've already we've already gone over this discussion i believe looking at buying the land i think we heard some information in closed session which we cannot talk about that um uh may i'm just saying i think that issue can be addressed later but that's not really this discussion right now okay okay i was just wondering if there was anything we could talk about publicly um on that on that subject the answer is no then it's no well that's not that's not really what we're talking that's not the agenda item um so we have a motion on the table in a second uh is that for um approval for agenda item five h mayor pro tem how say you all right council member davis aye council member ryan aye council member armature i am so against this no uh council member briggs um i'd like to thank the developer for coming back and saving all the trees i'm really glad that council didn't just approve it the first time and i am in in favor of this uh council member melser yeah the the asa on the table is to my understanding very much a restoration of of uh kind of damaged area and bring it back uh so you know i'm i'm an eye on that and i'm very hopeful that you know uh that there'll be some creative exploration of other possibilities for other parts of the property okay uh mayor watts is an eye so that motion carries six to one we'll move on to agenda item five i id 20-1882 okay we got the callers um considered option of an ordinance of the city of denton texas authorizing the city manager to execute the certified local agreement sub grant fiscal year 2021 grant letter of support for historic dent inc and we uh do have one speaker on that so um is there a presentation on this i'm on mayor this is uh sarah hensley deputy city manager can you hear me i can hear you but i can't see you there you are there we are um this item is being postponed to the 22nd there was um the letter of intent didn't correctly state what was being asked and so it didn't match the ordinance and so we've asked uh we did make a call to mr hunt and we'll be bringing it back next week um his request has changed just a little bit it's still it's still requesting the letter of intent but it's a it's a new survey with an area to be determined and the one information that we had was specifically related to the north texas state normal neighborhood so we needed to change that and we discussed it with the city attorney's office and felt like it'd be better just to make sure that it matched okay uh so i've called this item i guess i think what i heard you say is what we considered the first time has changed the request has been changed up to this point is that right so we're basically being asked for something different the letter of intent okay just a little different yes okay survey but to an area to be determined all right then in addition mayor the referenced at the very end of the caption to north texas state normal neighborhood is not correct anymore so you wouldn't be able to act on it anyway okay all right so we will uh i guess we've got a caller on the line uh minister city no she's she's not okay all right okay uh all right so we're postponing this till next week yes okay thank you all right we'll move on to agenda item 5j consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton approving a specific use permit to allow for a multifamily dwelling use on 16.2 acres of land generally located on northeast corner of duchess drive councilmember briggs i move approval councilmember davis second all right we have a motion and a second i don't believe we have any callers uh is the applicant on the line i believe she is that all might have happened too fast she is on the line one moment okay would this be gene that's going to be joining us okay yes uh gene will be right there if you give one second i apologize that maybe it did happen too quickly oh no no you're good we're good yeah it's all right this is john cornellson with evolving texas so appreciate you guys working through this project with us and uh julia staff have been outstanding it's been a long journey and we're glad we're here and uh we're excited to have your support okay fantastic um all right well uh i was just going to see if gene wanted to join us and and um but that's okay we're gonna we're gonna move forward we have a motion and a second any discussion councilmember briggs i say you yes councilmember davis aye mayor protem all right councilmember melzer aye councilmember armater yes councilmember ryan all right before i cast my vote i want to thank everybody involved who has helped uh really uh bring this to fruition because i this has been a long journey and i think it's taken a lot of collaboration and cooperation with a lot of different stakeholders and this is really how things get done this is how it becomes a win-win and said instead of a zero-sum game so really appreciate the developer and the applicant working with the property owners in the area and also working with the city uh so all right i'm going to say aye so this motion carries uh seven zero we'll move on then to agenda item 5k consider adoption of an ordinance approving an escrow agreement between the city of denton texas and ped core investments a limited liability company i believe this was referring to the uh signal light and all those those legal requirements that we had that we talked about before while we couldn't approve it before uh councilman councilmember melzer yeah i move approval councilmember briggs i'll second all right any discussion all right councilmember melzer i'll say you aye councilmember briggs yes councilmember armater yes councilmember ryan all right uh mayor protem all right councilmember davis i mayor watts is an i motion carries seven zero moving on to our public hearings uh agenda item 6a id 20-1544 hold a public meeting on a proposal to adopt a tax rate of 0.59045 with the maximum allow rate of 0.615454 and we do have one uh caller good evening mayor members of council david gaines assistant city manager you have a short presentation for this item so we reviewed uh this the previous version of this presentation and our the current um status of where we were with the appraisal district and how it relates to the tax rate at the work session today at that time we did spend a considerable considerable considerable amount of time going through options of how we would mitigate a loss in revenue if our appraisals came in in accordance with our most recent estimate from the appraisal district which if you recall was about 75 of that protested value with still 25 outstanding i have updated numbers we just in the time between the work session in this item we have received updated numbers from the appraisal district after we we called and asked them for an update really as a result of of learning that the county had received updated numbers as well so um the numbers have changed things quite a bit and i can just kind of jump straight to this slide and set this to for reference the new numbers are less than five percent outstanding so close to that certified total that they still anticipate to give us at the end of the week and really changes the picture significantly from what we talked about this morning and puts us right in line with budget so what you see before you on the right is what we estimated at the proposed budget and then on the left is based on our our current assessed value just received a few hours ago and you can see those essentially came in right at that 85 percent protested values that we anticipated in the budget so um was obviously a good exercise to go through that process earlier today based on the information that we had at that time but with this new information we would we would recommend going forward with the tax rate that we had in the proposed budget in accordance with the budget itself okay all right and this is a public hearing and we do have a couple of comments but i do have a question uh david if we could pull the slide down please absolutely oh i'm sorry i think i saw my the answer in that slide i was going through it real quick if you wouldn't mind putting that back up so this is this shows that proposed tax rate or with the proposed tax rate you see there on the first bullet point the 59 cents which is the same as our current tax rate as we always do especially this year with the uncertainty we had that max tax rate which was a few cents higher than what was in our proposed budget both of those are lower than the no new revenue rate and our voter approval rate so we're still moving forward with the recommendation to stay at our current tax rate which is lower than all those other options you see there so just as a question of sort of nuance and nomenclature where it says no new revenue tax rate if that used to be the effective rate correct right so if our tax rate is lower than the no new tax rate based upon the state formula right what what what's the implication of that does that mean that people uh that were collecting less taxes than we did uh last year on average because it's that's what the effective rate sort of represented outside of new construction value right so yeah property of the the set of properties that were here last year versus the set of properties that are here this year if we're lower than the effective rate than in aggregate they're paying less taxes those properties okay all right so then technically we could say i mean we are lowering not just the tax rate but in many cases on average aggregate lowering property taxes the actual property tax that's levied on average not specific properties are going to have more or less but that's really what that no new tax rate is supposed to represent right outside of new value that's right okay all right fantastic okay we've got one we got two callers and we will get the first caller on the line and we'll have someone keeping that time all right caller you on the line yes i am okay uh thank you you're with the denton city council on the public meeting for agenda item 6a once you state your name and your address we'll start your time and you will have four minutes thank you this is eric pruitt 2111 westwood drive i'd like to give my annual reminder that the future tax liabilities are not determined when you choose a tax rate those tax liabilities decades from now are determined by policy decisions we make today since an inflection point in 2016 the lowest quintile or cheapest 20 percent of homes in denton have appreciated at almost twice the rate of the highest quintile expensive homes because of this the city property tax bill for expensive homes is now less than what those homes paid in 2011 while taxes paid by inexpensive homes have continued to rise to 15 higher than in 2011 we need more smaller homes and missing middle housing that is what is in demand based on this price fluctuation we see building new smaller naturally affordable homes is probably only possible if they are single-family attached dwellings or when parking requirements are reduced in compact communities like the cottages of razor ranch south but we only allow single-family attached dwellings in r6 r7 or r4 zones with an sup which makes it difficult to build this sort of housing that's in high demand in fact roughly one year ago this very council restricted the supply of these high demand affordable homes by removing town homes and duplexes from the r3 table of allowed uses in the ddc and requiring an sup for them in r4 zones we pat ourselves on the back for reducing density to r3 and r2 in outlining areas like ojave ranch which serves to continue this affordability crisis of smaller homes the four-star razor and other developments in r4 simply aren't considering building these smaller homes because they cannot do it by right as we try to keep taxes affordable let's also try to do that specifically for those who can least afford them let's do that by embracing a policy of granting zoning requests that developers bring forward who want to build these high demand missing middle homes so that people can afford a home and afford their taxes thank you thank you all right we've got a couple more callers councilmembrometer sorry yeah just a question for the caller he's still there eric you there uh the caller has left us okay can i can i comment on that or can you hold it till we get through the public comment additional callers okay all right caller you on the line yes all right yeah we can once you state your name and address your time will begin you have four minutes and we are on agenda item 6a which is a public hearing for a proposed tax rate yes thank you wanted to remind the council that i had worked very very hard in 2017 to problem that mr pruett just described which was the lower tax rates and lower tax amounts being paid by the higher end homes than the middle and lower end homes i lived before i where i live now i lived in north lakes area and i was filled with these sorts of homes that are in the middle price range and are not mostly benefiting from the tax freeze whether or not they get it the tax freeze basically benefited only homes 340 000 and more so i would urge the city to at this time when everything is in flux to reach to request of austin to repeal that it has to go to austin that was the problem with the tax freeze is that once passed it was already agreed to down there so the city would have to request to be able to repeal it of the government there and i'm asking you to do that the other item i wanted to mention is i i would like those who voted in favor of the waiver of the noise ordinance in the rodeo to please ask for a revote because i don't think there was a moment to stop and consider the fact that in the past and i mentioned this briefly when i called before that the persons living near there could do other things there was lots to go out and do and get away from nine days of the same sort of noise ordinance breaking but now you cannot now it's not possible there's nothing going on and people are pretty much trapped at home especially if they're older so i beg you to please uh revote on that thank you all right thank you okay we don't have any more we have no more callers so council member armater you had a question or comment uh yeah i i just wanted to state um well the caller's not here to ask a question but i will just state just how much i i appreciate um his his comment and and i agree and i also want to just recognize our staff who um actually did they did propose um in at least one of those uh uh zoning zoning districts uh to in to include uh to expand to town homes duplexes triplexes etc i i was excited about that and supported that um but you know council majority didn't want that um but but i do i i just wanted to recognize that uh and just to really thank the caller for making that point because even though that's not what's on the table for us today it should very much be in our minds so mr city attorney uh honestly i cannot recall um if i open the public hearing or not which i don't i don't believe mayor this is not technically a public hearing this is a public public meeting okay all right well thank you i i was wondering i knew that somebody would have jumped in and asked me to open the public hearing so so this is a public meeting and i think this is one that we really didn't necessarily we didn't need to have based upon the statute but we as council decided to do that because our rate was lower than the new than the uh no new tax rate is that correct okay we're still required to have it uh we just oh oh we are yeah we are we're required to call it a public meeting not a public hearing with okay got you all right i thought i thought if you if you were under that rate that you didn't have to okay all right councilmember melzer thank you yeah i'm i'm still feeling the difference that's a public meeting instead of public here i have i have a question uh for david do you happen to have uh calculated out for the average home uh what the the expected change in the tax bill would be and if not if you don't already have it you know be interested in seeing that in the future sure we we we can provide either in the friday report friday report in next week that updated chart that we typically do we don't have that that figure yet the updated number is the average taxable value but we can provide that appreciate it and uh you know just kudos for amazing uh flexibility and generating options and just dealing with you know the smoothing target we've had well done thanks great thank you any other questions for the public meeting all right so the no action is taken here correct mr city attorney that is correct all right okay then we'll move on to the public hearing portion of our agenda which is 7a uh the first agenda item hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas regarding a change in the district and classification from rural residential and district to general office and i'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing and then we'll take staff presentation council comment and then public comment you see reserve i know sir is all right good evening mayor members of the city council um hayley zikorski with the planning department this is case z27 which is primaris corporate offices the request before you is a rezoning on approximately 55 acres of land you can see it outlined in yellow on the map it does include uh portions of three tracts of land that are currently zoned rural residential and the request is to rezone these to general office or geo district if you noticed in the backup the applicant originally requested and p and z did recommend approval of six overlay conditions associated with this request these conditions related to the the placement of temporary modular buildings on the property for the purposes of office employees on site temporarily while the the main campus offices were being constructed and also related to the decommissioning and removal of the equipment that's on site today for an asphalt batch plant since the planning and zoning commission meeting staff and the city attorney's office have worked together and we've determined that the requested overlay conditions actually are not necessary under the current permissions that are in the dentin development code related to the director being able to approve unlisted and undefined uses and temporary uses so because of that we've we've worked with the applicant and they've agreed to remove the request for the conditions and in lieu of that the director is giving a conditional approval of a temporary use permit for modular buildings on site to allow them to office their employees during the construction of the permanent office building those conditions are contingent upon council approval of this rezoning request of course they relate or they stipulate that all equipment and structures that are associated with the batch plant would have to be removed off site within 12 months of issuing a co for those temporary buildings it further specifies that the modular buildings must be removed from the site within six months of the termination of the temporary use permit and in accordance with the provisions of sub chapter two of the ddc this permit would be valid for an initial an initial period of 12 months with one option for an extension that could not exceed 12 months and again these are all contingent upon this rezoning request being approved so with those conditions removed what we have is just a straight rezoning from rr to go so you can see the current zoning map on the left the proposed zoning map on the right you can see here there is go existing all around the property today so this would be a continuation of that existing zoning pattern as you're familiar with there are general criteria for approval for all applications within our code these 13 criteria are outlined in detail in your backup so i won't go through all of those specifically this evening we will look at some of those some of the more important ones in addition to the specific criteria for a rezoning request we'll go through each of these in turn so the first of those criteria relates to consistency with the comprehensive plan you can see here the future land use map does designate this area for business innovation that's the light purple color on the map business innovation is a designation that is applied to areas where we intend for there to be kind of well planned large-scale office and employment type parks such as research and development facilities or corporate campuses as well as it allows for some of those supporting commercial uses the general office district is consistent with that designation it allows for exactly that that type of use mixture primarily offices however also includes trade schools low impact manufacturing and some of those supporting commercial uses we would expect to see in these areas another key component of the comprehensive plan that i wanted to to bring your attention to is the focus areas that were designated around the city the comp plan called out certain centers as key corridors gateways and travel centers this particular area which i've circled in red on your map you can see is called out as a gateway focus area because it's kind of that that welcome to denton that you would get if you're traveling south on i-35 so it's one of those key focus areas the comp plan calls for small area plans to be developed in these areas that has not been done in this particular area to date however we do find that geo is suitable for these um this gateway area because in lieu of some of the industrial districts that would be also compatible with the business innovation areas geo does have our commercial design standards applicable to it so we could make sure the buildings are compatible with what we would expect to see along a major thoroughfare and in addition all of the uses that are permitted in geo as well as the conditions that we would tie to that temporary use permit would provide for a more compatible use than what is on site today with the decommissioning and removal of that non-conforming batch plant one of the other criteria is that the proposed rezoning be consistent with the purpose statement for that zoning district so geo is intended as it's defined by our code to provide locations for a variety of workplaces and complementary uses with the principal uses being research and development and supporting uses also describes flexible office space encouraging research and development facilities and opportunities for business innovation this location is consistent with that it is continuing that existing zoning pattern providing for those broader areas of land where those larger campuses could be built and those uses would be appropriate in this area the further criteria is whether there have been significant changes that would warrant a zoning change this particular site as we see it today with the split zoning of geo on the frontage of i-35 and rural residential in the back is a product of the annexation history of this site the frontage was annexed in 1969 the rear portion of the property that's shown in green that's currently designated rr was annexed into the city in 2015 and it was given that temporary place holder designation of rd5x to date no rezoning request has been made so that rd5x transitioned rr and that leads us to where we are today with with a potential developer requesting this rezoning to get consistent zoning across the entirety of the site and to be in compliance with the comprehensive plan our criteria go on to require that there be a minimization of adverse impacts to surrounding properties so geo is as you can see here consistent with the zoning in the area it's not expected to have any adverse impacts with its location here further the uses that are permitted in geo would be typical of what we'd expect to see along the highway they would also be more consistent and let have less nuisance potential than the current industrial use that's on site again that being this asphalt batch plant that you can see here on the map and then finally we look at whether there are public facilities and services available to serve the property with respect to transportation again this property is part of three larger tracks that do all have frontage on i-35 as you can see here this corridor is on is slated for improvement in the near future by tech stock currently they're estimating construction to be 10 years out or or a little bit more than that the applicant did provide some trip generation estimates they did not trigger the need for a full traffic impact analysis because those numbers are fairly low with an estimation of 487 total daily trips and then just over 70 am and pm peak trips water and sewer facilities are both available to the site you can see here just to the south with the construction of the blue beacon truck wash those facilities have been extended to the southernmost boundary of the site so they would be expected to extend those along their frontage to serve this site notification was sent out regarding this request prior to the planning and zoning commission and to the council meeting we received two responses in favor from the current owner of the southern two tracks and we did have one one written opposition provided at the planning and zoning commission meeting so the planning and zoning commission did recommend approval of the request with the applicant's original six requested overlay conditions that was a seven zero vote as i mentioned earlier since that meeting we've determined that those conditions are no longer necessary based upon the provisions of our code staff is recommending approval of the requested rezoning to go as we found it to meet all of the criteria and i did want to call out one change that's been proposed to the ordinance that was provided to you all after discussions today regarding the the decommissioning of the batch plant and the phasing in of this development the applicant has requested and staff is recommending approval of the effective date of the ordinance being adjusted to november 1st of 2020 in lieu of the standard 14 day time frame and with that i'm happy to answer any questions okay great thank you any questions for staff at this time uh we i have no callers so far for the public hearing so any questions for staff all right so i'm just going to go ahead and say uh this is a public hearing and we oh yes i can't see you councilmember barmter go ahead okay sorry yeah so question for staff uh so can can you just confirm and just to uh validate for for the public so you said that of the the responses the two yeses um were both from the person who owns the property the person who also owns the property uh that is that we're voting on correct so there's three different ownership entities associated with this with it being three different tracks and um the the owners of the southern two tracks did provide that response in favor yeah okay thank you and i'll just say for the record because i i know that there are people in the public who are watching now especially with the the tax hearing um coming up you know this is one of the things that i don't like about our notification process uh that that only uh notifies people within a very small range uh when you're you know when you're that far out um and it's not very dense you just get uh the for the property owners uh these giant properties nearby and sometimes they're the very person you're voting on uh so anyway i just wanted to mention that in case anyone in the public heard it um and thought they were maybe hearing things now that that is really true okay any other questions for staff all right this is a public hearing uh anybody wishing to speak please call and we will let you in all right we have no we have no callers for this agenda item so i will now close the public hearing and would entertain entertain action on this item council member melzer yeah i think it's the right kind of uh the right kind of uh project for that place and i move approval all right we have a motion to approve we have a second mayor protem second all right we have a motion and a second any discussion council member melzer house au aye okay mayor protem all right council member ryan all right council member davis hi council member briggs yes council member armature i'm sorry you said any discussion and i raised my hand oh i didn't see you i'm sorry uh go ahead a discussion go ahead yeah so sorry um next time next time if if you know that i don't see you because i'm proceeding with the vote please don't hesitate to interrupt me that'd be fine sure okay okay i'm not okay so i'm not quite sure why you can't see me but why well because when i'm looking at them acknowledging them and their vote i'm looking at them on the screen so i don't understand how you have it in yes and not in gallery view okay right okay got it so yeah go ahead i just i wanted to ask so there was a question um asked by the um the one uh uh person who uh commented against um and they say here uh let's see denton third 2030 action plan uh says council member armature is this an email we received earlier is this an email you just received during the meeting during after we closed the public hearing um no because this was on the agenda it's it's in the backup okay all right thank you it's in the backup i i think i assume it was here before the meeting but maybe it was added to the backup but i don't think so anyway but there's just a question here um it says that then plan 2030 action states action 3.10.1 states established procedures to conduct fiscal impact analyses to evaluate potential short and long-term impacts of future annexations other land use decisions uh staff analysis states the proposed office campus use could reasonably be expected to generate tax revenue okay is there is what's the question council member armature i'm i'm about to get well you're you're reading the whole email what's yeah there's one more sentence the next sentence is a question actually it's two sentences but they're short i'm literally representing a member of the public who had an issue and this is in the back well we we all received that backup as well so if you could get to the council member armature please get to the question okay the question is why not wait for a fiscal analysis so we disclosed an rfp for a fiscal analysis tool why not wait for that to decide that is okay my approval of the two sentences well we have a motion and a second and we've we proceeded with the vote and the only people that i'm going to go back and repoll the council members just so i i'm not sure who's but so that wasn't part of the motion we've had this discussion before about this impact analysis is there anybody that wants to discuss that okay council member melzer i believe you made the motion is that correct and council mayor pro tem you seconded yes that's right so we'll go back and and repoll i apologize for that that's my fault council member melzer how how say you hi mayor pro tem all right council member ryan all right council member davis aye council member briggs yes council member armature no mayor watts is it yes so that motion carries six to one and that was on agenda item seven a we were moving on to seven b which is hold a public hearing and receive citizen input on the fy 2021 proposed budget for this item we had 14 people making comments using our online form there were zero in support and 14 against we've got uh there are nine speakers who have requested to speak now mr city attorney this is not an action item once we take public comment then basically that concludes this agenda item is that correct that is correct mayor okay so as far as um council discussion this agenda item is strictly for a public hearing to receive input on the fy 2021 proposed budget is that correct so it's not like this is going to become an agenda item to discuss the proposed budget am i correct on that or am i wrong you're asking me again mayor yes it's just to hold the public hearing and receive citizen input you all have the opportunity to do that next week when you adopt the budget or in a work session yeah i just want to make sure i understood the scope of the posting which is simply to have the public comment and then we terminate the agenda item councilmember armature yeah so just a quick question of procedure so can people call in while other calls are happening i know that in an in-person public hearing you can do that as opposed to a regular individual item if you could remind me if in the case of a our zoom public hearings it's mr city attorney it's my understanding that if it's a public hearing and people call in after the agenda item has been called while there's current speakers already speaking in the public hearing that we that they're allowed to make their comments okay is that correct mr city attorney i'm going to have to defer to ryan adams who's in charge of sending out the notices and the procedure for the zoom meetings because it's very slightly okay mayor i apologize could i ask you to repeat your question yeah the question is um we've got a caller set for the public hearing we've opened the public hearing and as people are talking people can call in and queue up and for public comment as they would be able to if there if it was an in-person public hearing because there's no reason there's no need to to register or sign in so that was the question and i'm i think i recall that that is how we do the public hearing procedure that's correct uh anyone who calls enduring they will likely be placed on hold until their turn comes up okay uh they can elect to be called back if that's the case as well okay all right okay then we'll move forward with the uh i'm sorry one more point of procedure question and that is so even though we're not uh deciding on anything voting on anything today uh if we have uh if someone on council has a question for uh someone in the public hearing uh does that count as uh deliberating if we ask them uh questions can we still do that or is are there special rules when on when the um budget tax public budget public hearing what go ahead go ahead city attorney in the past when we've had these public hearings there have been well one not many people have showed up to them but two when they have i can recall that there were questions asked by the council of the members of the public um there is no rule that says you can or cannot so so so so the chair is going to take liberty on this we're not going to turn this into a full-blown deliberation on every every comment that's made so we're going to we're going to play that by ear uh because this is to receive public comment it's not to engage and begin to deliberate a de facto deliberation on the issue so the chair will be mindful of that and and be accommodating but if it becomes something that seems to be a pattern then if the question is for clarification i get it if it's to deliberate we're going to we're going to move on we got plenty of time to do that in the upcoming budget hearings okay all right we'll go to our first caller hello caller you're on with the dent city council on agenda item seven b which is receive citizen input on the fyi 2021 budget when you state your name and address we'll start your time and you'll have four minutes all right thank you and you may you may begin oh um so i am caller do you do you have the meeting on in the background i do i do i was waiting for the uh you'll need to turn that you'll need to turn that sound down because you're going to get a a delay and and so if you turn that down you'll be able to you won't have that delay ah okay gotcha yeah and so whenever you stay you can state your name and address and what we'll do is we'll start your time and you'll have four minutes so you can begin okay uh my name is elise colder up uh i live in district three uh address is two three one one houston place um i am calling to urge you to increase funding for human services to 1.5 million and to not increase the police budget again contrary to popular myth police are not making us safer in this time of pandemic and the economic and social hardship human services are more necessary than ever housing assistance utilities assistance wait oh okay the delay on this is really bad anyway um food assistance mental health services all desperately need funding there is no public safety issue that will be helped by increasing the police budget and denton is being massively irresponsible by underfunding human services a paltry 500 000 is not anywhere near enough and there is no justification for the wasteful allocation of 37.5 million to the police the local government has the responsibility uh to respond to the needs of our residents especially our black working class and unhoused residents um who experienced the brunt of systemic violence from our police in the worst of our current economic hardship at this time we need to be rethinking and changing how we approach public safety not pouring an ever-increasing amount of money into this major source of social dysfunction and harm to vulnerable and marginalized residents addressing poverty food and housing and security and the other root causes that today routinely result in police intervention is the actual effective approach this is a tall order and does not begin with this budget but it's a place to start police are a metaphorical hammer and none of these problems are nails so we need to change our methods i urge you to listen to city residents listen to the movement for black lives to not increase the police budget and to instead increase funding for the assistance that is desperately needed for real long-term public safety and well-being thank you thank you all right we'll wait on our next caller caller are you there yep uh caller you're on with the dent city council on agenda item seven b which is hold a public hearing and receive citizen input on the fy 2021 proposed budget when you state your name and address we'll start your time and you have four minutes okay my name is eric metro address is 2019 mercedes road denton and um thanks for having me thanks for staying up so late i know i'd rather be asleep right now but um i just want to say about the budget um it worries me that there's gonna there's a proposal to cut more human more human services and to me it's a bit confusing if during a pandemic we're gonna cut more money for that um especially because as you know um evictions have um started again since like end of july or something and y'all have continued um the uh utility shut off so if y'all could speak to the reason behind um cutting human services money because i don't see what the reason for it would be and after reading the budget report and after watching previous budget meetings the city councils have had i don't have i don't see a reason why that is being proposed and um so i do not support um the budget if the human services are being cut and that is it thank you okay uh council member melcher i believe i saw your hand i hope this stays sort of in the lane you want to stay in just so that if people are listening they have the same sort of data points to respond to from the work session today uh we were we were shown that human human services community development basically social services we're going to more than triple so not be cut and be increased from about 1.6 to 5 million okay i want to make sure that i adhere to my original uh plan to try to keep this so yeah that's i appreciate that clarification thank you council member armature uh yeah so i was going to ask this kind of similar question to ask you know if the caller was aware of that um but i wanted to note to the caller um that uh i still believe that we are not funding human services enough uh so just because we've we've tripled it since last year uh that does not mean if you triple a small amount it's still a small amount and most of all if you're not meeting the need you're not meeting the need so i would encourage everybody who's calling in i i hope that the additional problems don't say oh no there was my whole argument council member armature council member armature i don't think they are council member armature if you could thank you all right uh next caller please uh caller you're on with the denton city council on agenda item 7b which is public comment uh public hearing for citizen input on the fy 2021 budget once you state your name and address your time will begin and you will have four minutes okay so you can begin caller are you there yes you know you can go ahead and start with your name and address and in your comments do you have the meeting on in the background uh i do but i haven't muted okay all right go ahead go ahead okay um yeah i'm i'm christin fox my address is 1713 carlton um so you started the meeting by talking about suicide prevention months but awareness isn't good enough um so what actually decreases suicide uh it's a budgetary issue as much as anything else um material support through human services things like stable affordable housing access to food accessible mental health care and not getting your your utilities shut off are all very much factors um on whether or not someone chooses to end their life and if we think of who notoriously responds inappropriately to mental health crises um the answer is definitely the police sentin has a history of the police responding inappropriately to mental health crises um so i don't know why we would want to give them 37.5 million dollars um in a time with nationwide demands to defend the police we can't accept just a routine increase of the police budget uh we need to be moving money out of the police budget and into other social services that can perform many of the functions currently assigned to the police furthermore we need to support an increase in the human services budget and we need to support people struggling through this crisis rather than support an institution that evicts residents and feeds our racist mass incarceration system okay okay is that does that conclude your comments yeah okay all right well thank you very much for calling in and we'll wait on the next caller caller thank you for joining us at this meeting of the dent city council on agenda item 7b which is hold a public hearing and receive citizen input on the fyi 2021 proposed budget once you state your name and address your four minutes will begin all right uh yes my name is uh andrew bennett i'm at 1713 carlton street and um yeah i'm really just going to make this quick because it is very late and i actually have to wake up early in the morning to go uh but um yes i am uh concerned about the this trend of increasing the police budget annually i do not think that it is helpful um uh increasing the police budget will not improve the lives of the people of denton of your constituency and as the previous caller had mentioned um yes uh police responding to uh mental health crises uh people who are going through uh these things have responded very um negligibly uh resulting in the deaths of of many people throughout the u.s and in tech and in denton um specifically a number of times um and i do believe and am in favor for increasing the budget for human services and i know you said that that uh um the the budget has increased uh for this uh for this uh year um but yes i think that is a good start and it should continue to increase and we should continue to um uh push for and prioritize access for housing um like rental assistance for food uh for um uh mental health services and utilities assistance uh especially during uh a pandemic um and yeah uh just i am wholly uh not in favor of increasing the police budget uh it is not an institution that needs any more funding uh and yes that'll be all okay thank you caller appreciate you calling in thank you all right we'll wait our next caller caller you're on the line with the denton city council on agenda item 7b which is a public hearing to receive input on the fy 2021 budget once you state your name and address we'll start your four minutes uh hi hello this is dason kintzer uh my address is 3504 and my comment is like other callers have said i'm in favor of increasing the human services budget uh to at least 1.5 million if not more uh during this time we have shown that human services is a very necessary part of our country and this city um evictions are lowering uh the homeless population is possibly going up uh and we need to help people as much as possible especially in this difficult time i am against increasing the police budget by 1.6 million i understand that there is a need for more public safety as our city grows but i believe this is the perfect time to focus that approach to public safety differently by funding more of that into human services and getting to the root of the problem of crime which is usually motivated by desperate people um who are just trying to get by and so i think that you should not increase the police budget and if you're going to put that 1.6 million to anything you should put it to the human services budget any firefighter will tell you the best way to decrease the chance of a fire or make it less severe is good code enforcement of fireproof fire safe materials and fire code enforcement so we should get to the root of the problem instead of fixing it up trying to fix it with police later um i i think the mental health unit is a start with the city of denham police department but six officers out of a bunch isn't going to do anything um and if anything human services is best suited to take care of that and if you're going to give them more money then make sure it all goes to that health unit they don't need more patrolmen if anything they should have less money and put that to human services um so that's everything i have to say thank you okay thank you thank you for calling okay um just as a while we're waiting on the other caller i just had a most a message pop up on my computer saying that it's fixing about to restart so if i lose y'all mayor pro tem if you would take over um so anyway all right caller are you uh on the line with us i got the same notice by the way oh okay um caller thank you for joining us on this meeting with the dent city council on agenda item 7b i apologize apologize we were having some we're having some technical difficulties but we can hear you uh and so what we're going to do is go ahead once you state your name and address we'll give you four minutes to speak and you can begin hi yes uh can everyone hear me okay i believe so yes okay uh yes so my name is victoria falcone i live at 2500 north i-35 i'm in district three and i just wanted to you know talk about the budget and say that i oppose this budget um because following suit as the previous years this budget only increases police funding and continues to severely underfund human resources and just like calling on to what council member um deb said was you know just because it increases funding does not mean just because it increases funding for human services does not mean that it is not still severely underfunded um so i just wanted to touch on that and say that like increasing police funding every year has no proof or correlation to safer communities or a safer dentin and i think when we over police and continue to add to the scope of policing um of course we're going to find things that are considered criminal but it does little to serve rehabilitate or or improve the communities we police in so we cannot just keep punishing and ridding people out of these communities without addressing these issues and unfortunately these issues police are not equipped to handle uh so i want to you know task council with the need to promote public safety and well-being by investing in these alternatives rather than increasing the scope of policing there are trained professionals who deal with these issues and instead of tasking them and utilizing them and and better funding them to help address these issues at hand we are allowing that budget to sit sit so devastatingly low while police funding is 75 times higher and it will continue to get higher if we keep this unreasonable tradition so i think it's completely removed from the national racial reckoning we are having and so detached from this pandemic which is upending lives every day council needs to raise the human services budget to 1.5 million to be divided equitably between housing utilities food assistance and mental health resources for our low-come residents i am asking council members to ask yourselves because i think low funding for these resources is an exact correlation to the quote-unquote crime and how we justify the need for more police so i just want to leave y'all with that thought and ask yourselves like what will happen when we leave police without funding resources and choices what other options are there for people and why are police the only response team we have um thank you for listening thank you very much for calling in i appreciate that thank you all right we're going to be uh we have more callers i tell you what let's um take a break yeah let's take about a five minute break uh and see if we can't iron out some of these uh technical problems it may be able to extend a little bit longer but we need to come back and see what we've got going welcome everybody back to this meeting of the dent city council at 11 34 p.m on september 15 2020 we are on agenda item 7b we are uh receiving public comment during this public hearing on the fy 2021 budget so we will now resume our callers once again so we will wait on the next caller caller you're with the dent city council for agenda item 7b which is hold a public hearing and receive citizen input on the fy 2021 proposed budget once you state your name and address your time will begin and you will have four minutes all right thank you yeah my name is matt solman i'm a dentin resident uh now the proposed city budget cuts five hundred thousand dollars in much needed funding from human services the proposed city budget increases the police budget by over one million dollars at the expense of human services the proposed city budget cuts five hundred thousand dollars from human services in order to increase the police budget to 37.5 million dollars when human beings are being evicted from their homes having their utilities shut off are going hungry because they don't have access to food and are having to be penalized and be over policed because they are poor in a global pandemic that is for sure damaging our town as well as the entire globe the human services budget needs to be set at 1.5 million dollars because people in dentin need human services the police do not provide human services so the police do not need a budget increase human services however does provide human services so set the human services budget at 1.5 million dollars and equally allocate funding for food assistance utilities assistance rental assistance mental health services and housing because again the people of dentin need human services not more policing thank you thank you have a good evening thank you sir thank you for calling thank you we have one more caller caller you're with the dent city council on agenda item 7b which is hold a public hearing and receive citizen input on the fy 2021 budget once you state your name and address your time will begin okay hi my name is dors ferry i live at 2932 stockton street i'd like to uplift the 14 white cards that were submitted today in opposition of this budget and the zero that we're not given at all in support and i'd have to lift i'd like to uplift i think the eight seven or eight callers before me who've all spoken to the same problem we as a city are facing and that is our need to continue to fund something that does not yield us the results we need as a community right so i'm here to uplift all these voices and share and say we need to invest more money and human services i need to see some crisis intervention teams which are proven to work and help save lives i need to see i need to see more communication with organizations and folk in the community for example the take me home program you know we see many people in the disabled community who were not consulted whatsoever in this program on how they'd like to see it be done and yet it went ahead anyways if some guys to help i believe to help boost why they need an increase in money we have a use of force committee as a response to you know nationwide protests sweeping across our country because of the targeting and murdering of black folk in our country we need to we need to normalize being wrong and being okay with being wrong and and being accountable right we need to be okay with being told that our opinion is not factual and instead is actually incredibly damaging and harmful to people just because we don't experience does not it does not mean it doesn't exist you know giving this money to human services isn't going to benefit any one of you sitting on this zoom call because it's not meant for you just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist you know as someone who has closed their business and is on unemployment and who is working whenever they can to make any kind of money i can tell you my friends in the service industry are actually avidly deciding about whether food is more important than rent because addictions are going up their utility bills are due and they're terrified and furthermore i'd like to bring up a really good point that someone brought up to me today that i was not even fully aware of i want to bring us back to when animal services used to be controlled by the police do all of you remember that and then it got moved to customer service why because police shouldn't be equipped or they're not trained to handle animals so what did they do they moved it to customer service they allocated money to customer service which did two things one it took financial pressure off the animal shelters foundation so that this non-profit could save elements money because the city began allocating funds to them to buy things they needed and two adoptions went up services improved people's overall excitement about this whole program increased so if we can do this for animals why can't we do this for humans we're asking for 1.6 million if you if you approve as is we're talking about 27 of our budget right going to police whether and i just re-looked at the the proposed budget it's 133 pages i did my best to read as quickly as possible i still see it sitting at 500 000 which let's not forget a big portion of that comes from grant money the city's not actually putting in some revenue into this program we're asking for us to invest invest in all the people that live here including the poorest most in need we have to do better right it's our job it's your job you're elected to do this and i believe you can and i hope you will because at the end of the day 1.6 million dollars is a drop in the bucket to 37.5 million thank you so much uh thank you thank you caller i believe that concludes all our callers on this uh agenda item so since there's no action we will move on to the next agenda item which is agenda item 7c s19-0013 b hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas approving a special excuse me specific use permit to allow for a multifamily dwelling use on approximately four acres of land generally located on north side of mingo road good evening let me pull up my presentation so okay sorry for the delay let me share the screen hold on do we need to take a short break i think they're trying to fix the screen sharing feature okay all right let's oh is it coming up it worked okay let me find my presentation um let me let me should i try this that's um that's the files that you're sharing we uh making any progress okay we might have to uh just just checking to see if we're able to get these last two agenda items in which looks like we're we're really struggling with that so we might have to move those on to a different agenda which would mean the meeting would be concluded how can you cut it short like that just pay the price next week so you need a second i really want to round out the full 12 hours oh yeah apologies here we go no i understand but i you know this these these presentations probably should be about what five ten minutes a piece so yeah we'll uh not even that yeah we'll move through these very quickly anyway okay julie all right um i think we've got it solved i'm julie wyatt i'm a senior planner with the city of denton and um i'm presenting s 1913 b mingo road apartments uh the request is for a specific use permit for multifamily dwellings the subject property is about four acres it's located on the north side of mingo road near near the void mingo road intersection it is it has a zoning designation of r7 district which requires a specific use permit for multifamily dwellings this may look familiar to some of you there was a previous sup approved for the site a few years ago however that sup expired in february of 2020 so they're coming back to um to seek approval of of the sup again so just to familiarize you with what was approved in 2017 um it was a it was for three two-story buildings 48 two-bedroom units parking along a loop drive here in that brown with 84 spaces oriented to minimize the lights on adjacent properties um there was some discussion in 2017 about the solid waste receptacles um they were placed 149 feet from the nearest residential lot and vehicular access to mingo road only um the current site plan is very similar to that 2017 plan there are a few exceptions um there are three two-story buildings once again they have um changed the the bedroom mix they're proposing 48 one-bedroom units 16 two-bed and 16 two-bedroom units however um the site some of the site details are still remain in place that that easternmost building is set back 44 feet from that east property line that parking is along that loop drive again they have increased that parking to accommodate the units as well as the the revised parking standards within the city once again oriented to minimize those lights on adjacent properties and as well as those visual impacts of large uninterrupted parking areas um the the um solid waste is in the same location and vehicular access to mingo road only they also provided a landscape plan with the um with the submittal the intent of the site was to preserve this large 13 000 square foot central open area to preserve some nice um trees on the site um just for an example there's a 36 inch post oak a 29 inch pecan a 30 inch post oak so that it's really laid out to maximize that um those tree areas they are proposing a buffer in accordance with the dent development code which includes fencing ornamental trees and also tree preservation and then landscaping at the right of way which includes a berm a hedge as well as street trees the the elevations are are shown here these are the concept elevations they they include pitch roofs porches with awnings that that are oriented toward the street in accordance with the code and this is consistent with the architecture of the surrounding area the maximum height this two stories and it really does have that residential feel which is consistent with the um the adjacent neighborhoods um so with any sup we not only look at what's on site but also what's surrounding because so much of what an sup refers to is just the compatibility so um and looking to the east and the south and the west and the north of the site there there are single-family neighborhoods mingo road is a secondary arterial it is not um developed to is to a secondary arterial standards there aren't any plans right now to to expand that road there's an age-restricted multifamily to the west of the site sequoia park is just to the north and that is about a quarter mile distance walking distance from this the subject property um and as i said mingo is that secondary arterial um the general criteria for approval for all applications is in sub chapter two of the debt and development code as well as sup's have specific criteria for approval i won't go over all of these but i'm going to hit on most of it as we talk continue to talk through the project uh first of all looking at compatibility with the surrounding area so we talked about the surrounding uses when we talk about the specific use it is a residential use and so it is not anticipated to introduce activities that would be inconsistent with the character of the surrounding areas they're they're all kind of residential uses in this area the maximum two-story buildings increase sat backs that large open space those help to increase compatibility with this with the nearby single-family neighborhoods that that uh vehicular access is only to mingo road so there wouldn't be any vehicular access to the adjacent neighborhoods as i mentioned that parking lot orientation does minimize the visual impacts and then those buffers reduce the potential noise and light associated with use we looked at dent plan 2030 the site is designated as neighborhood university compatibility area these are areas intended to encourage encourage additional housing to accommodate increases in university enrollment but also provide that that development is consistent in scale and architecture with surrounding areas so that it is compatible the use is consistent with the future land use map it provides that necessary housing but at a density in a scale that provides a transition from from the intense uses around the university toward going toward that that residential area to the east additionally those site elements like the increased setbacks the limited height that that limited access really does increase that compatibility with the surrounding areas and then and then finally it is an infill site so it it takes advantage of of already developed areas impacts related to access traffic emergency services utilities parking refuse noise glare and odor have been mitigated so first we'll talk about transportation so the six the proposed dwelling units would generate about 468 trips during a 24-hour work weekday that doesn't meet the thresholds for a tia but but it we did discuss the project with our engineering group and and the the 24-hour traffic generation as well as the morning peak hour of 36 trips an evening peak of 43 trips mingo road has the capacity for those trips additionally there is transit within 500 feet of the site it's shown here this red dot and that and that provides an alternative mode of transportation additionally with the development of the site they would be required to install a sidewalk which would connect to the existing sidewalk west of the subject property which would provide which would provide a improved pedestrian path from the site to that dcta stop because this is an infill site water and wastewater are available and there is capacity to to serve the development there is adequate emergency services to the site and then also looking at the parking and refuse once again the parking is designed in a way to minimize impacts to adjacent properties and then the solid waste containers are screened and also located 149 feet from that near a single family residence a public outreach was sent out we have received one letter in opposition and then two in favor um the this was presented the planning and zoning commission they recommended approval of staff conditions with one additional condition there was a concern raised at the planning and zoning commission about vehicles on site and potential for speeding and maybe leaving the site and entering the adjacent properties so so the pnz asked that for an additional condition that they add speed mitigation signage either something like a speed limit or slow signs throughout that internal drive aisle to just remind residents to maintain their speed staff also recommends approval of the sup with with conditions first we have our standard landscaping condition that the the proposal it has reflects an intent to comply with the dent development code however there may be minor alterations to to specific locations of individual plannings or final plant selections could be approved by city staff provided that it overall complies with the site plan landscape plan and the dent development code the zoning map would be modified to reflect that the sup would be approved on the site and then number three just allows that i'm not withstanding that administrative approval in condition one we still reserve the right to require a revised site plan and approval from council for any changes to the property we also provide that text text support in in the ordinances to support that those site plan and landscape plan as a part of that we we have our standard that staff would have the ability to approve increases up to and including five percent of the amount specified but then anything over that would require a new application and approval by city council and we've listed out the 48 one bedroom units 16 two bedroom units those three two-story buildings connected by a loop drive aisle and then each building footprint has a maximum of seven thousand six hundred and forty four square feet the 101 parking spaces that central open area of seven of thirteen thousand square feet the solid waste containers separated with that 149 foot buffer and that the buildings would be designed with those pitch roof porches and awnings that that correspond to the concept plan that you that you saw that concludes staff's presentation i do believe the applicant is on the phone i think okay i'll be happy to answer any questions any questions for staff council member breaks yeah on the on the units are the the the porches from the apartment's going to be facing the backyards for uh to the single-family neighborhoods are they going to be facing the courthouse let me they would be um they would be facing i'm at the courtyard not the courthouse sorry the are you talking about that eastern building well i'm talking about the the buildings yes that line up with the single-family homes um um i believe those will be facing the parking lot uh that's kind of the intent of that area uh it was important on that that front building that faces mingo that they do have those pedestrian connections and those porches face the street to kind of activate the street um but but the remainder buildings that's my understanding will will um face the uh the parking areas for ease of residents um access to the the buildings okay and the on the on the in the same vein there is a pretty nice um treed buffer already around the the back property line are those going to be taken out and then um a new buffer put in place or is that going to be part of the buffer you mentioned that um that will actually be a part of the buffer they have incorporated those two buffer they have incorporated out those trees into that that buffer um to to keep that existing naturally occurring um um uh landscape area okay so all around that l shape yes the there um there the trees around the property are intended to be preserved okay thank you mayor protian thank you julie i understand staff's position on mingo as far as trip generation but when you talk pedestrian traffic um this is i mean to add this density and and i just don't think i guess i want to hear you on pedestrians because there's nowhere for them to walk now and we're adding to that and then then you you work into the the and and the applicant i assume would say it's student housing to some degree assuming the student doesn't have a car they're walking and they're walking in the road so can can i hear you on why um we are okay with not just the not okay i understand the regulations i'm just trying to hear you on your thoughts on pedestrian traffic on a road that is highly trafficked very fast and a problem uh that we've already discussed as a body why why are we why would we add to that yeah so there is not a a continuous pedestrian facility on mingo road um i would you know i don't anticipate that a lot of residents there would be walking along mingo road of course you're right there is near the university and and there could be uh pedestrians uh you know we kind of looked at it that that that bus stop there does help that it helps mitigate that and that um there will be a a safe pedestrian passage for residents to um to to exit this site and then get to that dcta bus stop and then to get to points beyond there okay and can you tell me now i looked at their website and i get it that it's it's probably not up to speed but i so route six is what i'm looking at because i thought in talking to the neighborhood they moved that there's been some iterations of that bus stop so are we certain there's a bus stop there like we've seen it because when i look at dcta's route route six there's nothing that that i'm looking at mingo i'm looking the next closest bus stop is texas but i i'm willing to be wrong i just want to make sure we are certain we've seen it versus we were told it's there i have seen it but has been a while since i've been out there so i can't confirm like really recently um uh but i can i can look at that and see if i can uh report back to you yeah i i'd want to confirm if again just for yours for staff's sake if we're saying it's there let's let's make sure okay thank you all right any other questions and i believe the applicant's on the line um is there a presentation from the applicant i'm gonna go ahead and open the public hearing we don't have any callers on the public hearing but the applicant i believe is here is that correct yes sir all right and who's speaking yes sir this is lauren toldorf at allison engineering uh 2415 north elm street okay um i'm speaking on behalf of dan howe uh the developer of the property um he is available here as well uh or on the call as well and can answer any questions uh also um i would like to thank the city council for letting us move this forward tonight um i'm going to actually forego my presentation if possible i'd rather just um just say a few things um because julie wine did an amazing job at representing this development and discussing the major features of our proposal um i just want i i think i just want to hit a few more few major um or additional items and then i think we're we should be good with um representation of this project hey i'm sorry to bother you is there a bus stop on mingo there in just outside of y'all's neighborhood didn't they move that okay yeah uh hey mayor pro tem mayor pro tem your mic's not on mute mayor pro tem if you could mute your mic please okay all right there we go all right uh i'm sorry go ahead um i don't think that must stop question was addressed to you lauren so go ahead sure um just wanted to say that that we have uh developed a site that preserves the majority of the trees even so much so that we moved the drive on site uh meandered it such to preserve a lot of the trees we provided a um we provided more landscape than necessary um for the um residents so that they could um live in a in a better uh environment um or more green environment we have worked with the public on several occasions to incorporate their comments and revise the site to address their concerns um we believe that this is a quality development and will be a great uh addition to the city of denton um to discuss real quick the orientation of the building uh all the buildings are oriented towards the middle of the development um there are um windows on the back sides of the buildings but we are putting in uh buffers and putting up wall uh fences um to help screen those we have moved them far away from the property line um and have discussed that with the the residents um and to my knowledge i know that we have a a one uh in opposition but from our meetings that we've had have not had any additional concerns so um um we we believe that we have addressed the the major concerns um real quick on pedestrian orient uh pedestrian uh circulation uh the mingo road um is slated to have improvements i know it's not going to be immediate but we have dedicated our right away we have provided sidewalk improvements for our development um such that we can um in the future when the roadway is expanded um orient that so that pedestrians will be able to um travel uh appropriately from our development um as to the bus stop it may be something that we may need to reach out to um them to see if they're willing to relocate it if it is no longer there um unfortunately that's the best i can can really um do on that um the development we believe again is is a quality development that that is is one of a kind uh the landscape is above and beyond and uh will be a great asset to the city of denton um at this time i'd like to relinquish my time and uh and available for any questions okay all right thank you lorence uh did y'all have any more presentations from anyone else on your team i'm not sure if dan howe would like to speak um he had told me that he was going to be on the call but i wasn't sure if he actually was going to um have something to say why don't we see go ahead this is dan uh hail and uh and yes i've been on i've been listening and uh as to the bus stop unless it's been moved uh it's as it is located uh on the uh on the map and that's uh as of i don't know i think i it's been a few months since i've been there uh but in unless they've moved it it's still there as far as i know okay uh all right council member brig she had a question yeah can you speak to um how tall because i know i know the um the property is raised it's kind of up on a hill so um how much taller even though it's just two story did the do the buildings raise up do we know over over say like a six foot i mean over the fence at this time we don't know the exact grading situation however we are trying to cut down the buildings so that we do not raise them significantly above the property lines so that the walls and the buffers will um screen those uh homes from from it and and accomplish the the job of those buffers and walls okay thank you all right any other questions and i did open the public hearing uh we still have no callers so we're going to be closing the public hearing oh yes julie i did have an answer for um council member husbeth it um it's on connect route four so it is it is on their current schedule yes yes mayor pro tem thank you so i'm looking at four and i'm sorry to belabor the point but i see mingo and noddingham there's one there's i see one through eight stops can you tell me which one you're looking at um i'm not it's the bus stop the it's a it's an orange dot um oh okay yeah okay all right yeah okay uh cash memorandum uh yeah so i was wondering if um i don't know if either staff or the applicant would want to talk about it i guess i'd ask staff um is there someone here who can talk to i know there are plans um at some point uh to make uh mingo more uh you know pedestrian friendly it's got such potential that area uh someone can talk to what the timeline is on that i know it's probably been shifted because of covid i've asked our capital projects team to at least get a preliminary design in place for both mingo and rodel they're working on rodel with twu right now um and so i think i think it's going to be probably at least six months before we have a solid concept design for that and there's not going to be the funding right now to to get it built out to its ultimate configuration and but we we can at least do the conceptual engineering so we know what we're looking at great that's great and um yeah that's that for me that doesn't hold up my um my approval of this is just for me it's something to look forward to thank you all right any other questions if not chair would entertain action on this item council mayor protem i just want to get on the record and say well i'm going to move uh denial for a couple of reasons uh the traffic off of mingo is is a concern for me the pedestrian traffic's a concern for me um it's less of a concern but i'd love to i'm curious why it took year two years to get to this point but either way uh i know the folks in the neighborhood very well i was just there um this week and someone was driving uh at least uh 50 miles per hour right around this bend it's just a problem and so i'm not willing to um support something until we get the pedestrian infrastructure in place if it's important to us then we need to uh elevate it to that to that level and and i would say i'm concerned about the bus stop i'll drive it tonight but uh i i think just uh shame on me for not getting the question in earlier but i think they moved that and i can't find it anywhere on the website to confirm it so thank you all right we have a motion for denial is there a second council member melzer yeah i'll second that all right we have a motion and now uh it's been motioned and seconded so mayor pro tem house say you on the motion to deny this um sup all right council member melzer aye council member davis nay council member ryan nay council member armature no council member briggs i i didn't hear you council member briggs i still can't hear you you're on mute sorry yes okay so that means you're you're uh the yes is for the for to move for denial okay uh mayor watts is a nay so the motion to deny fails uh three to four chair would entertain action on this item council member ryan i move approval this is to me this is just a uh they've already had an sup just expired and we're we're just taking another look at it and i'm comfortable with it council member ryan is that a move a motion for approval with staff conditions and p and d i know there were several conditions with all conditions as presented uh with all conditions yes as presented yes all right okay council member armature i second that all right we got a motion in a second council member ryan house say you all right council member armature yes council member melzer nay council member briggs no mayor pro tem no council member davis aye uh mayor watts is an aye motion carries four to three we'll move on to our last agenda item besides concluding items hold a public hearing as pd 20-0003003a hold a public hearing consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas approving a detailed plan for charter school on 37.3 acres three acre phase of plan development district number 139 good evening let me share my screen and i will go ahead and open the public hearing okay good evening i'm julie wyatt with the planning division and this is pd 20-0003a so the request before you is for a detailed plan approval for plan development 139 to develop the site with the charter school it's an institutional use in this plan development it's an overall 37.3 acre site it's generally located on the southeast corner of i-35w and vintage road sorry vintage boulevard so this is one of our older pds and and because of when it was submitted it is actually going to follow the pd procedures and amendatory regulations in the current development code however it still falls to the permitted uses in development standards within that established pnz so it still has to go through that dual public hearing process recommendation from city pnz and then approval from city council so just some history on pd 139 it was established in 1991 as a 450 acre business village it's outlined its original boundaries are outlined here in yellow the subject property is located in this location the institutional uses are permitted in that plan development and that includes educational facilities and you can see the that that concept plan that plan was revised in 1999 to refine that mix of land uses phasing and infrastructure however it had a very specific phasing plan and because it did not develop in accordance with that phasing plan it actually had a language in there that that that plan expired there were there was one condition related to roadway improvements i just want to highlight there was a requirement that no development other than single-family detached and one convenient store would be permitted until the interchange at i-35 and ponder road which is now a vintage boulevard was reconstructed as a standard diamond configuration or ponder road was extended to three highway 377 as a four-lane roadway those improvements are under construction so even those this expired and it still complies with that further development of the pd has been limited and 213 13 acres have actually been zoned out of this pd so their current plan as i said is for an institutional use they're not requesting any any modifications to that original concept plan in terms of permitted uses or development standards it complies with that original plan but so this is really just kind of that site plan associated with that use so just to kind of orient you to that site plan they are proposing two classroom buildings one upper school which would be kind of the high school and then the lower school which would be kindergarten through eighth grade they're proposing this building be two story and this would be one story in total it would accommodate approximately 1052 students as part of it they're also proposing an athletic field an agricultural teaching garden a playground right in this location two access points one to vintage road or boulevard and then also one to john pain road now there isn't a road in this location right now the mobility plan calls for a collector that connects vintage road with crofford road to the south so this is actually would be the right-of-way dedication in the beginnings of that northern piece of that john pain road they're also proposing a looped driveway as you can see outlined here in the in the blue because it follows those those development standards and that 91 pd it does fall to that 1988 landscape ordinance and and i know y'all saw this recently but we'll just go over it quickly that ordinance had really three elements to look at it first street yard landscaping so that street yard is defined by the front of the the area between the front of the building and then the right-of-way so this building is oriented toward the buildings are oriented toward the future john pain road and so that street yard is this location within that area that 88 ordinance required many minimum 20 landscaping and then one tree per 2500 square feet of total street yard that would be 36 000 square feet and 74 trees they are proposing about 91 000 square feet of landscaping as well as 109 large canopy and ornamental trees in that area parking lot landscaping within the street yard was also required five percent of this area had to have landscaping in that parking and that would be about 3800 square feet they're proposing 10 000 square feet with that with this large landscape median as as well as landscape islands and then parking lot screening that that 88 code required screening between the parking and the right-of-way they're proposing a shrub hedge in conformance with that that code so not only do we look at the 88 code but we also wanted to compare the project to what we what we expect out of current developments and so as part of that they are proposing landscape islands one every 10 space not only in that street yard area but also in the rear to provide to provide tree canopy within the parking areas as well as a landscape median in this location the criteria for approval for pd's is in sub chapter 2 we've got the general criteria and the specific we'll touch on these as we talk through the project first of all why I always look at the comprehensive plan so this area has a future land use designation of low density residential that is generally our our primarily residential areas one to four dwelling units per acre now why this proposed why this proposal is not a residential use it does support residential areas so educational facilities are embedded within a variety of our zoning districts and are needed throughout the city and so the future land use map is really instructive for the potential expansion of schools so when you look at areas that have a future land use designation that favor residential development those are kind of the areas where you want you have that need for schools so the the low density the moderate residential density those are the places we typically want to see schools develop some places like industrial areas would require fewer schools there's there's just fewer houses fewer residents out there and there's also other goals associated with education in the comprehensive plan first of all economic vitality dentin plan 2030 states that 20 percent 23 percent of the jobs in dentin are education services so this would just go to support that that existing economic trend within the city and then mobility so our our mobility element talks about how we need a mix of uses that are within proximity to each other so we want homes within walking distance to shopping and education employment entertainment that allows for a diversity of modes of transit this proposal we understand it would attract students beyond the city's borders but that location near residential an existing residential area and then future and growing residential areas along an arterial width that has a 10-foot bike head path will allow for a variety of transportation options for those nearby residents if they choose to go to that school not only for students but potentially employees compliance with the dent development code in the original pd the proposal complies with the pd amendment process within the 2019 dent development code as well as the permitted uses and development standards within that established by the pd provides greater level of building design quality and amenities not only do they provide that additional landscaping they're also providing two plaza areas for students this kind of between the buildings here it just allows a gathering space for students kind of that social area it's also landscape with trees and planters there's also pedestrian connections throughout the site connecting all of the different the different elements associated with the site that connect to the right of way while they haven't finalized their their buildings yet they did provide examples of what they typically build so since they haven't finalized those buildings staff does recommend a condition that the proposal meet the site design standards in the dent development code when it relates to building including things like building orientation to be oriented toward the street you know architectural design and and articulation in the case of non-residential uses that the development would be appropriate in the area so this is situated in an interesting area it's in southwest denton it is near an area that is anticipated develop with several residential projects in the near future so those starred areas are kind of just in the general location of future residential projects i believe this one's called cambridge it's kind of moving forward with platting or it was a recent zoning case you got hunter ranch that has um residential plan for this general area sagebrook if you recall recently came before you so there's there's quite a bit of residential growth that is imminent in this area there's also two park areas there are planned one in this location and one in this location while we don't know when they're going to be fully developed yet that does help support that residential population in the area so this proposal would add the correspond a corresponding educational facility schools are often found within neighborhoods or on the edges of neighborhoods and so this proposal being near neighborhoods on that arterial is consistent with that typical development pattern we see for for schools and then more specific to the site we worked with the applicant to orient that site away from 35w to to focus the main entrance toward those growing residential areas kind of away from the bustle of i-35 and be more integrated in that future development on this side of town additionally just on site that intensity is limited they've got large open areas for that active recreation and then they are proposing that 33 foot maximum building height that kind of one and two story buildings the provision of public facilities first of all we want to talk about traffic so so we kind of looked at traffic in two ways they provided a traffic impact analysis that's under review within the city and as part of that they provided a traffic management plan for on site so that that looped driveway that that i showed you that will have a queuing capacity for 119 vehicles which by their analysis is an appropriate capacity for this many students while they do anticipate a greater queuing in the afternoon of course there will be delays for in that are anticipated for exiting vehicles for morning drop off now this doesn't really have to do with the physical structure of of the site that's more related to that queuing capacity but they did recommend some some things they could do operationally to ensure that traffic moves smoothly both in the morning and afternoon drop off first of all stagger dismissal schedule separated by 15 minute intervals to just keep traffic moving more smoothly staff assistance to ensure safe unloading and loading of students and also discourage parent parking in the queue lanes and then temporary traffic control devices to guide motorists we also looked at beyond the boundaries of just the site so first of all vintage boulevard as you're aware that the pandemic is making current traffic counts a little difficult to get so we kind of looked back at at some some numbers that denton police department had from a study in 2017 based upon their traffic counts there was a total of 5900 vehicles per day that traveled vintage road i'm sorry boulevard according to the applicant's tia the proposed use would generate about 2500 trips that would be 809 am peak 520 pm peak however vintage road is under construction right now to to construct the the four lanes with that center median so that the capacity for vintage boulevard will will be increased to about 24 000 trips per day so vintage boulevard will be able to accommodate the proposed trips not only existing but but with the the proposed use and then also they will be dedicating that right-of-way for the future john pain road and then to look a little more broadly at the surrounding intersections so their tia also looked at the 2022 conditions during peak periods and i want to highlight three general areas so first of all generally all intersections are anticipated to operate at an a or b level of service in 2022 except for one and that is this area at vintage and 377 especially that turning movement if you're turning from vintage north onto 377 if you've ever done that you know it can it can it can get busy and by 2022 it is anticipated to be a level f which would be wait times over 80 seconds now that that condition will be will be an f regardless of whether the charter school would be constructed or not it's just with the growth in that area there that is anticipated and so they they anticipate that design interventions would be needed in the future maybe a channelized left turn lane to help smooth that traffic flow or at some point in the future as signal when 377 is widened in this location i want to look at a the the an area closest to the subject property and that is that area where it's going to be connecting to vintage boulevard so they are proposing channelized left and right turn lanes into the site to allow parents when they're dropping off and picking up picking up to move out of those travel lanes and allow for that turning movement and then finally the intersection at i-35 and vintage that is being designed right now by text dot to to improve that that interchange in in that location and and although we don't have a a timeline of when it will be built it is it is forthcoming soon so notices were sent out for the subject property we had not received any until i was received i was provided a a a mailed a notice as i came to the meeting this evening it was in favor of the request by the property owner who owns this property right in this location they did have a neighbor a virtual neighborhood meeting they did not have any attendees so this was presented the planning and zoning commission they recommended approval with staff's conditions staff recommends approval of the request it's consistent with the criteria for approval and with the plan development standards we are proposing two conditions one that the landscaping and the attached plans reflect an intent to comply with the pd requirements however the condition proposes that staff would be able to approve minor alterations to a depicted locations of the individual plantings as well as those individual plant selections provided that they comply with the the plan as proposed which includes 91 large canopy trees minimum number of shrubs of 1558 and then the minimum number of ornamental trees of 59 and then all buildings would have to comply with the site design standards and then we've just provided some text support that two classroom buildings as they're proposing with the total ground floor footprint of 81 800 square feet maximum building height of 33 feet and then the 357 parking spaces and and then the 10 000 square foot plaza improved with those landscape beds and trees and the applicant is here to answer questions and i'll be happy to answer any questions any questions okay councilman barmiter yeah can you speak to the the gas wells in the area how close they are to the school and if they're kept i believe they are active wells i have measured them there is a well north of vintage boulevard that is the school property boundary is 3200 square feet it's not square feet linear feet from that well pad site and then the pad site on the south side of vintage boulevard it's 3100 feet from that pad site good okay all right mayor pro tem yes julie quick question um one thing i would ask did staff consider a emergency signal controller right in front of the school understanding that the police substation's there it's going to be there and the the fire station's there so that we can get through traffic or give that time to clear out for emergencies in terms of a uh in terms of on vintage boulevard yes you know so for example in some streets they'll have a flashing you know right because there's a fire station nearby yes yes so what is our plan um well you know it would engineering is not anticipating that there would be any conflicts with that so um we haven't recommended any additional interventions regarding that but but it could certainly be something that would be um that we could look at yeah i yeah if they could just email me and tell me that they're uh send me just i just want to make sure someone documents they're good with that and have no concerns you bet all right thanks okay any other questions we do not have any callers uh did open the public hearing but we have no callers so i will now close the public hearing and chair would entertain action on this item councilmember riggs i'll move approval councilmember davis second we have a motion and a second we will have a vote councilmember breaks i say you yes councilmember davis aye councilmember ryan aye mayor protem aye councilmember melzer aye councilmember armater yes mayor watts is a yes motion carries seven zero concluding items councilmember melzer now that it is wednesday we're only one day away from north texas giving day and uh you know we know lots of people are in need and there's a great range of of non-profits that you can support and i hope if you if you stayed up to watch this you might care about your community and be reminded that we could participate in that all right councilmember breaks i too was going to mention north texas giving day but also just wanted to circle back to the very beginning of the meeting when we heard that there were 62 suicides in the city uh so far and that was heartbreaking and shocking and so i'm going to be asking for information i don't know if that's something the city can get on on age breakdowns and what we can start to do to help our residents and reduce that number maybe set um set some education goals so okay thank you anyone else seeing none all right then we will adjourn the meeting at 12 34 am thank you