Oct 06, 2020 City Council on 2020-10-06 3:00 PM

Good afternoon and welcome to this meeting of this Denton City Council and so after we do have a quorum and so we'll convene in work session on today Tuesday October 6th 3 p.m. in the virtual City Council work session room City Hall 215 East McKinney, Denton, Texas and the following items will be considered and then we do that'll take us to callers from the calls from the public on this work session agenda and we have one so finally we have one who is requested to speak over the phone on this item staff currently loading up phone lines which is already there will allow them to speak for four minutes and first up is Jacob Moses and we'll let him get on the line Jacob are you there Jacob are you there Jacob okay it's like we like we lost him let me see if we can get him back okay and for the record he's calling to speak on item number 4E20-1454 okay should we move on with council questions and then come back to that thank you so that'll we'll save a placeholder for item one if Jacob comes back on the line and move to item two request clarification on the agenda items listed on this agenda any questions for staff Jacob are you on the line oh okay yes uh council member Briggs I am going to need to pull beat D and M for uh just a separate vote and uh recuse and then I do have a question about the uh tennis court um it's item aj on consent it's 62,500 and I'm just asking is that just for the design and do we know how much the the total cost for the um tennis courts will be and is that is that a typical amount and is that not something we could do in house just for the design part of it if Scott Gray and I think Gary may also be on the line uh good afternoon council Scott Gray director of facilities um this item is for um the design work for the tennis courts and the lighting including um subsurface work survey um as well as um some material testing um this is uh basically architectural services and we do not have that uh the um expertise to do that in house the other question was regarding the total cost the uh the design team will actually come up with the engineer's estimate um as we put this out to bid I believe right now it's it's um budgeted for about 350,000 okay thank you I just I knew that we have a tennis center coming up and I wasn't sure if we were gonna have to do another design for every tennis court so but thank you yes this would be the one over at the south lakes facility the north lakes facilities already um under design thank you okay thank you and okay and then councilman Ryan did you have got to unmute there sorry thought I thank you thought I'd hit it uh I need to pull item i for individual vote uh and I'll be recusing on that item thank you sir okay any other questions on the agenda councilman barmiter uh yes I had a question about uh G about the united way the barriers fund and then a question about a I wrote down a D but I think it might be a C about uh the audit yeah it's a D so should I do G first whoever's ready to take that question yeah Danny's just sitting down okay so I was just wondering um if you could just update uh just us on the public on you know has has uh anything changed regarding the definition of the the barriers fund it's it's uh limitations no the guidelines have not been altered on the barriers fund they still exist as they are and they're working in conjunction with the CRF funding through the united way as well okay thank you uh and then for for AD my question was just uh if if you could just kind of summarize in a nutshell what you see as the changes to the auditing policy you know just in a sentence or two not so much auditing plan but auditing policy is included in this the council member request um policy that's what you mean yes yeah I just um some of the questions that y'all brought up during our work session I just wanted to clarify them so um a little the clarify that um not uh an audit idea that didn't get consensus that doesn't mean it can't come back on the audit plan we clarified that in a footnote um and also just clarifying the steps and that if it did not get consensus there would be no further steps that was one thing um I believe that was basically it um so okay thank you and if if council want and this might be a question more for the city manager than for you I'm not sure but um if if council you know in the future decided to tweak that uh the the that policy that's something that could happen at any time during the year right just with the consents of council to change the consensus of council um to change the policy this is not a once a year that's correct for all of your council appointees you can change the policy or work plans anytime you like as a group okay so thank you very much thank you okay any other questions okay I don't see any so that'll take us to the work session reports section three so I'll call the first item item a id 21531 receive report hold discussion and give staff direction regarding options related to the management of landfill gas generated landfill gas generated at the city of dentin landfill good afternoon mr mayor pro tem members of council brian burner director of solid waste for the city of dentin I do appreciate the opportunity to talk a little bit about landfill gas and our options to manage that material as we move forward let me show my screen please all right my objective today is talk a little bit about landfill gas discuss the regulatory environment that we operate within describe what we're currently doing with our landfill gas at the at the city of dentin landfill and then look at our operation or evaluate the options as we go forward based on cost and the revenue emissions and then the timing to implement a solution before we get started uh do need uh feel the need to do a little language opportunity to talk a little bit about what some of the the technical pieces we're going to talk about first of all we talk about landfill gas we're talking about that byproduct of decomposition of the organic material in the landfill so anything that that comes into the landfill whether it be garbage whether it be wood waste whether it be paper anything that comes goes into your trash can and ends up in the landfill it can decompose that ultimately becomes landfill gas at some point in the process renewable renewable natural gas again is that natural gas that's derived from that organic waste material so within landfill gas you have renewable natural gas and you'll have other gases what we call balanced gases or natural gases that make up part of that renewable natural gas or make up the landfill gas now by epa standards renewable natural gas or that biogen gas is as it's sometimes called it's not a fossil fuel it does not come from a a drilling site it does not come from a fracking operation it is due to the decomposition of organic material we talk about non-methane volatile organic chemicals again it's that variety of chemicals different organic chemicals other than methane which may be within the landfill gas the next two are related what we call rins and wrecks dealing with the with dme i think you're you're familiar with what a wreck is it's a renewable energy credit and basically it's a it's a it's it's a trading option that allows you some benefit as a result of the energy generated as a result of using a clean energy source rins are almost identical except it's related to fuel not energy within landfill gas you have the opportunity to also when you go out on the open market is to get rins and wrecks to help subsidize the operations that you have so when we talk about what landfill gas is it's again subject to the decomposition of the organic material in the landfill so we have a landfill that has a series of wells that's drilled into the waste mass that under vacuum actually pulls up the natural gas in the system at that point we go into processing which again you've got your vacuum unit you may burn it off as a flare or like we have been doing over the past few few years actually running it through a genset and then throwing that energy out onto the open market where it's used by city of dentin residents other options which may exist for use of our landfill gas is actually treating it to a very high quality or high btu develop option and actually putting it into a local pipeline where it's turned into pipeline grade quality gas that can be used in your home to heat to cook to do whatever you would use natural gas for to use it for vehicle fuel or we can use do what's called medium btu build a separate pipeline to a local industrial source and they can use the heat off burning it to help fund or fuel their industrial source we look at the composition of landfill gas approximately 50 is actually methane about 40 has is co or excuse me co2 carbon dioxide we have a little bit of oxygen and the remainder in the form of carbon monoxide nitrogen and other organic gases is what we call the balance gas so again that makes up the the remainder of the composition of the landfill gas as i stated earlier landfill gas is a very highly regulated entity and component of the landfill operation not only is it managed by state law but and and under our landfill permit but the epa was called the new source performance standard or the nsps actually requires us to sample and test methane and report these emissions every five years if we are successful in getting our expand landfill expansion permit then we'll be actually kicked up into a higher level of compliance as a result of the nsp standard so again should that happen there will be additional sampling and testing that that occurs our processing facility the landfill gas to energy facility currently operates under a registration through the tceq as well as our flare has a also has a permit by rule or operates under a permit by rule at the landfill so how is our landfill gas currently managed currently we have about 110 wells installed at the city of denton landfill about a month ago dme bought the assets of dte and currently owns and operates a landfill gas to energy facility at the site it consists of a 1.6 megawatt generator which again is ending the near of its it's it's it's it's approaching its end of life from the the engine and the generator standpoint we also have a candlestick flare on site to manage the excess gas and to back up the engine when it is down about this flare it is currently sized to manage to be large enough to manage all of the gas that would be generated at the facility at the time that the landfill closes down when it's completely full so again we have adequate capacity in the existing flare to continue to operate that without any upgrades currently solid waste recycling receives annual rent revenue share of about 145 000 dollars again the power that's generated at this facility is used by dentin residents in their homes currently the city of dentin landfill generates approximately 359 000 thousand cubic feet of landfill gas per year so 39 or 360 million cubic feet of landfill gas per year the thousand thousand is an engineering term we keep that in here because when you're doing emissions calculations as well as greenhouse gas that's the the units that they try to put things into so when we talk about thousand thousand we're actually talking about millions so 360 million cubic feet of landfill gas is generated per year in the 218 landfill gas excuse me 2018 landfill gas emission report we noted that the generation of landfill gas in the landfill in the waste mast itself actually increased approximately seven percent we anticipate this is due to increased waste acceptance prior to that 208 2018 year due to city and regional growth regional waste transport dynamics with the closure or the imminent closure of dfw landfill in louisville we're seeing a lot of deferring waste haulers and again these are the mom and pops the landscapers small business owners actually coming to city of dentin as opposed to using that the louisville landfill again this gas stays in place until it's extracted from the facility so again by putting those wells in we actually increase our capture rate and that's the next bullet here so because of the the additional wells that we've put in in early 2020 our emission rate has actually increased by 31 so again we're able to capture what we're being generated we're capturing more and as a result these emissions are being destroyed via the flare and the beneficial reuse i would like to note that again the city of dentin is compliant with its landfill permit uh landfill gas management requirements under its permit about four months ago we were looking at at a timeline recognizing that about three years with our contract with dte we knew that we would be up for an opportunity to either re-bid that contract or go a different way with our our landfill gas and as a result we actually hired scs engineers to evaluate options recognizing that it'll take approximately three years if we decide to go with a different option other than flaring our landfill gas to energy to go through construction and permitting so we wanted uh we hired scs to actually come in and do a beneficial landfill gas use assessment on our facility they were scoped with reviewing the project and estimating what the landfill generation would be gas generation will be for the next 20 years and actually look at the economic and technical screening of the alternatives you know could we use electric generation medium btu high btu what would be the best solution for the city of dentin based on their their review of the information that was available they concluded that there was significant or sufficient landfill gas to support a beneficial reuse option and right now really only flaring and high btu are financially viable so net positive as as part of the of the capital plan the we heard the return on investment for high btu really is driven by the sale of landfill gas at natural gas prices and the viability of the ability to uh uh sell rins and green energy rins and wrecks on the open market when we do talk about the different options again flaring uh is again the the where we collect the the landfill gas and destroy it via burning at our candlestick flare it is the lowest cost lowest risk option that we have and under this we will always have the need to maintain and operate a flare if other uh maintenance options are are down then we've got to manage the gas somehow so the flare manages that excess gas or the gas that uh uh that we are not using uh currently we have that landfill gas to energy facility that's up and running uh we talked about medium btu but again because there is no local industry that would use this gas and we would have to build a pipeline uh it really is an option at this point for us to consider any further again from a high btu standpoint we're scrubbing that gas to an 99.94 methane or better consistency in the gas injecting it into a local natural gas transportation and distribution where it's uh beneficially reused in homes and industry for cooking heating purposes vehicle fuel and again the the flare will be needed from from a bypass standpoint uh this is a really good graph which sort of puts cost and environmental or cost control and environmental impact on the on the same uh axes uh when we look at cost control uh so the net cost uh to residents and rate payers in the city of denton uh the y-axis uh towards the bottom is the lowest cost towards uh the the highest is would be the highest cost looking along the x-axis from an environmental impact the environment the the the opportunity with the highest potential environmental impact is closest to the is to the left those with the lowest environmental impacts are identified to the right we can see that right now even with energy generation it's costing rate payers the most and as a result of the emissions calculations has has is the highest emitter uh from an operation standpoint we look at our flare and our high btu it actually uh goes to a lower net cost of control and really better environmental impact as we're looking here and again the high btu facility while it has a high upfront cost about 23 24 million dollars over the life and and the payback selling the gas on the open market we recover all that plus gain additional revenues for the rate payers as we go as we move forward we talk about relative emissions of our uh benefit of the beneficial reuse options again our flare and and uh flare emissions and again this is based on the 360 million cubic feet of landfill gas that we actually generated in 2018 we were able to the emissions from the flare were 45 tons with nitrogen dioxide at eight and then the non-methane volatile organic chemicals at a tenth of a ton when you compare those with what the what was running the engine again it was 69 tons 14 tons and 0.85 tons so again the running the engine uh off of this uh during this time period was actually more polluting than running would have been running the flare alone if we were to convert this to high btu landfill gas and put that into a pipeline the emissions significantly are reduced within the city of denton now again this is just the processing emissions this does not account for the emissions of the of the end use so if you're going to be burning this in a vehicle it's fuel again using it to cook or heat water at your house those emissions are not calculated or understood in this this estimation again talking about flare operations again federal and state law requires to maintain a flare to manage that excess gas that's not utilized by the control technology in that as we move forward in the uh in the the cost calculations we did not put in the flare operation and maintenance cost because again it is a required cost regardless of which opportunity we decided to go forward with and as a reminder the current flare is sufficient to manage the landfill gas that we currently have under our current permit but should we be successful in obtaining our expansion a second or a larger flare will be required to be installed here at this facility when we look at the relative economics of beneficial reuse again we're only evaluating uh we're evaluating the high btu uh versus the electric generator we have two options related to high btu management of this the city could actually build and maintain and operate a facility we'd estimate that the the 10-year net present value return on this would be about 18 million dollars however us the landfill we're in the trash business we're not in the methane marketing or management business there are third parties out there that would be we would be able to partner with to do this under contract and we would potentially realize about a one and a half million dollar rate of return in that 10 year same 10-year net present value if you look at the city owned electric generator doing the same thing we're doing now we would anticipate actually having to subsidize the operation by about 4.3 million dollars over that 10-year period as a result of the the cost of operation and maintaining the the facility again from a from a average net annual income return with the city of denton operating the facility we would estimate about two and a half million dollars a year going back to a third party owned but uh uh partnership with the city we could we would lower that to about uh 194 000 but again we would uh pretend we would expect to eliminate most of the risk to the city through this contractual arrangement as we move forward and again a lot of the variables related to the high the the high btu uh first of all is the price of methane in in the system it ranges depending on which hedge or which market you're working in again the rent and rec cost that are available and again the capital cost up front to build this is about 26.1 million dollars so again there's a lot of capital that's tied up on the front end but your returns again are are significant on the back end as we as we move forward as we move forward staff would recommend uh based on the uh emissions that we're seeing as well as the econ economics of the the opera of the of the facility to develop a high btu landfill gas facility we would again since we are not in the the landfill gas processing business we would suggest that we develop prepare and develop an rfp for third-party ownership and operation again we would support we would focus on supporting the long-term operation of our solid waste management program but again minimize environmental impact and have a high probability of a rate of return on our on our investment as part of this because of the high operation cost and the end of life of the current electric generation facility we were proposed to immediately shut down this facility and uh flare the current gas until we can get the uh high btu facility up and running uh based on the technology that would be used whether it would be a package plant or a greenfield dirt uh flat dirt build uh we would estimate between one and a half to three years to have a high btu facility uh engineered and online and again we would go through the the engineering prepare the rfp go through permitting construction and then facility startup so with that i appreciate your uh attention this afternoon and would like to answer any questions you might have thank you if you could uh pull down thank you appreciate it uh council member melcher and then council member davis and then briggs wow first what a well-done analysis and presentation thank you so much for that i have to admit i was skeptical you know in earlier sessions we were talking about mothballing the current operation with you know maybe beneficial use and uh i think we should come back with this is super interesting um i'm particularly uh compelled by the two by two matrix you know where you showed it the high btu uh reclamation is kind of the green choice both dollars green and environmentally green um i have uh a couple questions one is uh do you think that you know with there's that that the opportunity is rich enough that with competing entities we might be able to cut a better deal than it looks like we're kind of giving it all you know giving it all to the other partner uh you know is that sort of a conservative case or or kind of not a lot of wiggle room that's what it's bound to be this this is an extremely conservative estimate on what the the return would be and again because it is a 26 million dollar upfront cost a lot of that risk you know relies with that third party i think the real benefit is that 10 to 20 year which we didn't represent here because again the the unknown of the rent in the rec market but again being conservative there the estimates could be anywhere from 20 to 25 million dollars back to the city in that in your period so again once we get past that debt service there's a high rate of return i wonder if there's just you know a different way to different ways to structure the deal so that we participate more on the upside uh but cart before the horse a little bit here but really compelling um there's a lot of interest i know you know your uh jury's still out as you develop the sustainability plan and the or rather the you know solid waste strategic plan on uh curbside comp coasting or anything like that and i've i've heard different reactions that uh both that that would generate less methane and that it would potentially generate more i don't know which one of those is right but uh but my question to you is if we were to ultimately decide that something like that made sense for the city could it be a complementary operation to this in other words just the fact that you're segregating all that organic material doesn't necessarily mean you're not generating and capturing methane off it true false i think there are opportunities and a lot of it depends on how we approach it you talked about our comprehensive solid waste management strategy and and to that end uh we are anticipating bringing that to council next week for consideration so again we're right there but you know we could either do traditional composting which i think we would lose any sort of potential uh uh access to methane which may or may not be available as a result of that organic loading uh but again we talk about anaerobic digestion so we could digest the material harvest the landfill gas off the top of it create a biosolid compost that and at the end of the day we we sort of have a win-win so i think part of what we're going to be asking our consultant to do as part of this strategy is evaluate the two or three different options and abilities that currently exist you know in the management of food waste and and such in our community and then identify just like we did here which would be the best from a cost and benefit standpoint emissions dollars and then from a socially environmentally sustainable standpoint wow uh i can't wait to hear uh you know the details on that thank you i'll let others take it from here okay council member davis and then briggs sir i have two questions uh the first one is can you give us a broad outline of how how this third party deal would be structured is it similar to our uh our previous arrangement with the energy energy generation where there's a there's a land lease there's a rough a i guess a raw product that is purchased or supplied by the city and then everything else is borne by the third party uh you know the the risk and the benefit kind of to paul's question a while ago um can you can you flesh that out just a little bit more for me and then as part of that can you give us a picture of the the buyer's market can you tell us who's out there what is that market like that's just not something i think most of us are familiar with who's purchasing this kind of this kind of gas in the open market okay uh you are correct and you know that the the contract would be set up similar to what our dte contract was we we would provide a land lease uh the contractor would be required for all the engineering the permitting the building the construction the operation all the upfront cost and really all the the the risk would be borne by the third party there would be a floor for the city's revenue standpoint so there would be a minimum take that we would always get however should the market improve should they get a better cost on rents and wrecks then again we get to appreciate the upside on that as i stated earlier in this first 10 years there's a lot of capital costs so a lot of those risks are paid back to the third party but should this go longer than 10 years into that 10 and 20 year market again the upside is significantly beneficial for the the both the operator as well as the city of denton up up to about 25 possibly even 30 million dollars depending on natural gas prices and again rents and wrecks but again the doing just some initial research out there there's about 10 or 12 companies that could potentially bid on this so again it's not it's not a very it's a it's a it's a somewhat large pool of of because again this is very technical type of of operation but again there are folks out there that are interested as i stated this would go into our local transportation pipeline which again is owned by atmas it goes on the north side of the facility it's there again that's extremely beneficial there would be little to no pipeline construction to get it to that point and then whomever currently sells gas out of that transportation pipeline whether i know there's four or five i can't recall them off the top of my head but different companies working in the city of denton that sell gas out of that pipeline so whether to industrial or to to residential sources while we are displacing molecules in the pipeline right now what that does though is it it creates opportunities further upstream for capacity for additional uses in areas outside of the city of denton so really we're displacing a fossil fuel in the city of denton with a renewable or a natural type of methane okay any other questions counselor davis i'll just say uh at the outset that's all very interesting i mean that sounds very beneficial to the city so far i think i'd like to see us go forward with that that rfp if you as you've laid out okay thank you okay counselor briggs and then council member ometer thank you for the presentation it was very interesting and you know as you know we had our coe committee on the environment meeting yesterday or and we learned or we were updated on our greenhouse gas inventory and in that process learned that the landfill gas has increased every year and in 2019 it was 97 000 metric tons and so whatever we can do as i'm looking at this and the emissions from this proposal they're significantly reduced and so that is a plus for me i will also just say that i hope that when this comes back the contract is structured in a way that it doesn't bite us again like dte did where we were our hands were tied and we couldn't make any changes and we were just stuck with the high prices and we couldn't add any additional generation if we needed it so that would just be my only input that there be you know we don't make the same mistake twice i understand and appreciate that statement so thank you just may approach him just one more thing so sure as we go and we eliminate the use of what we currently have and we start flaring does that mean that in 2020 when we look back at our inventory our our metric tons of co2 should be lower than 97 if layering causes less emissions going back to the the the picture i showed one of my first slides remember we have a collection and then we have capture and you know regardless of how much of which control measure we have we are going to continue we may even increase the collection so we may may produce more methane which would require us to process more methane but on equivalency standpoint if we burn that methane in a in a engine it would be more polluting than if we burned it in a flare so to long long story short we should see less emissions as a result of flaring versus the combination of engine running and flaring all right thank you i look forward to seeing those decrease thank you councilor Armitage yeah so i i strongly support you know flaring as opposed to the alternative so i'm pleased with that but i'm concerned with a couple of things i was wondering if you could elaborate on you know you mentioned she may have frozen councilor Armitage does anyone else have any other questions and we'll come back um okay we're working now working now yes it's it's in and out yes okay i'll try to not move sorry about my home internet um sorry i don't know how much you caught i i could hear everybody you just fine um so i was just saying that uh from the beginning i strongly support flaring as opposed to the alternative so i'm very pleased with that um but i would i am troubled by some things that i've heard and read so i just want to ask for for qualification on that it sounded like you were saying that uh you don't support uh or that the department isn't supporting traditional composting like the kind that they do in austin just collection of food waste food waste diversion in the traditional sense um because uh that would not produce as much methane is that am i understanding that correctly or can you qualify there's some there's some studies that are coming out of the state of california uh and they're really very young only because um the state neither the state nor the the federal government were actually looking for them uh nasa has run some satellites over the area and found that uh some of these large scale composting operations if they're not managed correctly they're not turned piles aren't turned appropriately that they have the potential of significant methane emissions so as part of the operation uh as we would move forward if we had a curbside collection program that would have to be in the in the consideration and you know as part of our you know one of the considerations in establishing a curbside would actually be the proper permitting which is you know the permit is included as part of the the proposal in our landfill expansion permit right now so we're looking forward you know operating you know not only expanding the landfill but the permit to help us uh expand what we're currently doing with the dino dirt operation to include this uh food waste would would be in there if we're not successful with that then we would move forward uh depending on how our solid waste management strategy uh direction we would get from that would lead us and thank you so just to so uh i'm i'm myself and i think you do too would make a distinction between um the this traditional kind of food waste composting that that i was referencing and that you were referencing earlier like what they do in austin you know versus uh conversion to biosolids the dino dirt which is another and i understand that that's that um y'all classify that as composting um but it's certainly at the very least a different kind of composting a different way of dealing with the the food waste and i've been i won't go into it here but i've been pretty clear about my my concerns about um biosolids and um and and dino dino dirt and the the safety of that um but i'm wondering uh you know is there you know any kind of built into this landfill perm permitting for composting uh these these changes that you're talking about will there are there any planned changes for the more traditional kind of composting or is that an entirely separate matter well you know if we're doing something at our facility the permit that we have proposed in our expansion permit would cover it uh if we're talking about uh promoting education doing outreach to uh establish you know backyard compost programs community neighborhood compost programs those are things that can currently be undertaken uh you know by the the homeowner by homeowners associations by small groups uh without the the obligation of a permit or registration and we would support them you know maybe working with natural uh master naturalist program or something else through the county extension service or or within our own organization to start something up okay so so sure so but i'm asking about um just for a curbside for a curbside composting collection program uh residential at including at apartments and for businesses especially you know restaurants the service industry uh is there any planned change for uh the permitting process for that coming along within the the landfill expansion which again full disclaimer you're not going to post to the landfill expansion but i want to know how moving forward you know we can do the best for for zero waste um and yeah from from from a you know commercial standpoint your collection is a separate entity from the processing you know currently we can go out there we can buy trucks we can hire people we can pick up stuff off the curb but in order to manage it into compost and make a marketable product uh that we're not having to landfill that's what we have to have the permit to do and to manage at the facility so you know it's it's it they're not mutually exclusive but they are separate considerations so uh really we have to have can't put the the cart before the horse we have to have the permit really in place to do it before we consider anything else and thank you and yeah that's my understanding too so you know i i support obviously uh curbside composting program um and you know i do not just for the record you know i i i don't think it's uh i don't consider it a good idea to consider methane production expanded methane production a benefit uh but um i was wondering just quickly uh currently and i know we're shutting down i'm thrilled that we're shutting down the current um you know generation facility uh can can you just kind of speak briefly are are they have those cells the generation cells been permanently covered and how is that going to be handled when it there this is um uh you know kind of taken fully out of commission and taken down well the the the landfill is still in operation and you know as part of the degradation of the waste uh the landfill actually sinks in height so while we have intermediate cover 18 inches or more over the entire facility that's that's not currently being used we do go back in and currently take advantage of that height that to our permitted level so we continue to fill throughout the landfill we still have approximately uh close to 20 acres excuse me not 20 acres uh close to to about uh 35 acres that we still have to develop into waste disposal area so over the next 15 years that's what we'll be using to to dispose of waste and then once that is full we'll go into potentially our next cell if our next uh permitted area if we're successful by shutting down the existing engine we'll continue to monitor or operate the monitor wells the header in the collection system and and ship all that gas to the flare where it's uh destructive and thank you one more quick question um can you just explain briefly just how we what is our process of separating organic materials from the waste stream going into the landfill uh currently it is separated by the customer curbside uh well there's actually uh two different things uh if if you are a yard waste customer you're putting things in a bag or in a cart you have the opportunity to put in pre-consumer vegetative food waste so again you're you're peeling your onion your dip you know taking the end off your celery stalk whatever you can throw that into either your bag your cart and that will be taken to the downo dirt area we currently have contracts with three uh grocers in the area and on a weekly basis we accept old spoiled and excess food green waste from them and that material is also included into our dino dirt process so and that and that all goes into dino dirt that is correct okay thank you uh thank you okay well uh if there are there any other questions okay so i i show that we have a consensus to move forward in um councilmember melter davis briggs and then uh yeah councilmember roberter oh i i i hadn't really realized that we all had given people had given consent uh direction yet um but maybe they have i certainly haven't given my direction so even if i'm in the minority i would still like to state it if that's okay certainly well i'm let me summarize because that gives them an opportunity to correct me if that's okay so uh my understanding is that councilmember melter davis and briggs were in in the support of staff's recommendation to move forward i would join that to make four uh so there's the direction and then uh and councilmember ryan is giving the same indication so now uh councilmember roberter briefly if you could state because we do have a caller back on the line so uh okay okay good i'm glad the caller's back on the line uh okay yeah no i'll just say so i strongly support you know that that this facility is going down i strongly support the flaring um however you know i'm i'm really wary about uh the kind of conversion of uh so much of the organic materials in of all the organic materials uh into biosolids um i would would love to see a curbside collection program explored as in conjunction with this i realize it's a separate permitting process but as part of a larger zero waste plan which we still don't have um and but as far as this plan goes what i would like is for us to get a volunteer as in not spending a dime um to try to get some you know volunteer input uh from respected environmental groups you know i know sierra club for instance they're a pretty mainstream neutral group that has you know pretty strong opinions uh about uh you know this kind of process so just okay to see justice just as far as getting kind of free input but specifically solicited from the city that could come back to us because i understand this is just the beginning stage of this process uh but anyway i just wanted to be clear about what i like and what i don't like moving forward and what i'm concerned about and hopeful for okay any other comments great thank you very much uh brian great presentation thank you uh so if staff can help me with and i'll just read this again we're going to go back to work session one citizens comments on consent agenda items we have one caller for item 4e 2014 uh 54 and uh yeah it so we'll let the staff get jacob uh on the line they'll have four minutes jacob are you there yes sir hello thank you for bearing with us my name is gerard hutz with mayor pro tem and you're on with the denton city council mayor watts is absent today just uh just so that you're aware but you will have four minutes after you state your name and address uh for your statement fantastic my name is jacob moses i am representing denton affordable housing corporation excuse me at 1104 davis drive suite number 229 denton texas 76205 thank you good to go from there yes sir thank you fantastic i am just calling to thank the council for considering this agenda item to provide deck home funds to rehab as they're in the agenda for rental accessible units in denton texas the units that include components such as appliances and fixtures designed specifically for people who use wheelchairs of the 91 units the deck has in denton we've had these four units since 1999 believe it or not two of those four tenants since day one and i know i speak on behalf of my colleagues the tenants over at these four units when i say we are just getting at the prospect of using these funds and not only continue to provide affordable units for these tenants but also making sure that from the appliances the code that the city has to make sure it's a functional unit for their needs as well excellent well thank you very much you're more than welcome and um is this mr city attorney help me out questions available here or statements of fact what what are we uh allowed to do so this is a posted item and there is a public speaker you're allowed to ask questions of the speaker thank you for that uh council member armature yes i was just going to say thank you for your work for um not just affordable housing but also for ada uh compliance i was just wondering since we got you on the phone if you could just speak to uh you know i know that you're that this is just for those four rental accessible units if you could just speak if you would feel comfortable speaking off the cuff on your sense of the need uh for you know more ada compliance uh in affordable housing and just you know rentals in general in denton or is that something you don't and i totally understand if you don't feel comfortable comfortable speaking to that but just kind of as somebody who's in the affordable housing you know working with an affordable housing non-profit i was would love to hear you know your input on that while we've got you talking on that topic yes ma'am overjoyed to speak to it you know top of mind for many folk especially in dense and you think about that citizen survey the city came out 2018 saying all right then that's like what is top of mind for you all when it comes to concerns in the city you see year after year affordable housing is number one so of course it's something that we all have top of mind as detonates but there's a subset of folk the people who maybe live with disabilities who just like folk who may not be making the aramid income just as much need an affordable place to call home and when you get in the weeds of it it gets tricky you know of course whenever you want to build an affordable unit often it does cost extra to make sure it is avia compliant but that does not mean that we should outright disregard that population so that's where i know i speak on behalf of my colleagues as well we're very happy to play just a small role in ensuring that we're not only providing an affordable unit for in this instance people who use wheelchairs but also just make it an enjoyable place for them as i said before two of the four tenants and this was 1999 really enjoying their time there you take that one of their family members out to coffee they'll speak to how much they enjoy and appreciate that their their brother their son their husband can live independently despite being in a position in which it may be more challenging to provide affordable housing so we are overjoyed to do our part and look forward using these funds to so a little bit okay thank you very much i appreciate that yep okay any other questions for mr moses okay great thank you jacob thanks yes sir okay then that i will call the next item which is 3b dca 20-0001 receive a report hold discussion and give staff give staff direction regarding amendments to the denton development code related to tattoo and piercing parlors planning and zoning commission optional procedures subdivision procedures and development contracts and just for the record we have no other callers so for that citizens comments on the consent agenda and ron before you start just mr city manager to confirm earlier we pulled items d i and m just for recusals no presentations correct okay thank you thank you ron thank you mayor pro temp members of council uh let me pull my presentation up and we'll get started great um as presented in the introduction this is a first series of work sessions that we will have regarding the denton development code amendments the ddc amendments today we'll be discussing four specific code amendments but before we get started on those four i just wanted to briefly discuss why we're considering the amendments now obviously when we adopted the 2019 development code as a result there were some non-conformities that were created so we continue to address those through these code amendments we also are trying to align our provisions with the state laws that were passed last summer not this summer but the summer prior and specifically as it relates to house bill 3167 we continue to provide process improvements so through the development code amendments we hope to codify some of those improvements into the development code and lastly we continue to consider input and feedback from the general public from the development community planning zoning commission and other boards and commission as well as city council so all of this is part of our efforts in order to again amend our ddc so the first code amendment development code amendment is related to tattoo and piercing parlors and just for way of presentation each code amendment will have a slide an introduction slide such as what you see here where it will lay out the requirement what the issues are what's existing in the code what options we have and what staff's recommendation moving forward so just for your information so again tattoo and piercing parlor currently tattoo and piercing parlors do not are not allowed in the mn the mixed use neighborhood zoning district as a result of that back in 2002 there were zoning districts that allowed them by right that were nrmu 12 and nrmu and again as part of the 2019 development code update those zoning districts that used to permit them now that transition to mn no longer allow for tattoo and piercing parlors through research we have found that there are seven existing businesses that meet that definition that are considered legal i'm sorry non-conforming because of the zoning change which went again to mn existing tattoo and piercing parlors again are not permitted in the mn what we have as options are we leave them non-conforming or we add a permitted p plus under mn which would allow them and which makes them legal per the zoning district so what staff has proposed and this is a slide quickly to illustrate what tattoo and piercing parlors we have currently in the city again there's a total of six and seven sorry 16 and seven of those are currently in the mn zoning district which again makes them non-conforming what we're trying to do is change that and make them conforming or make them legal by adding a p plus to the list of allowed uses and you can see where that p plus is added in to the table with the green p and the green plus the plus stands for use specific standard and what we're saying with the use specific standard is what you see here and that is 535 p that all tattoo and body piercing parlor parlors shall comply with licensing and certification requirements of the texas department of state health and services so as they get considered for a co this is one of the things that they will have to provide in order to get that co this particular code amendment is scheduled for city council on october 20th so coming up soon that's it for this particular code amendment i'll i would i would what i would like to do is see if you all have any questions for this particular code amendment and then we can move on to the next one so that we can get staff direction on this item okay thank you ron councilmember armature and then councilmember melzer and then councilmember briggs so first of all i will say um i'm hoping councilmember davis will show us his tattoo as part of this discussion uh also i wanted to say uh that i'm really thrilled uh that this has come before us i i didn't like um i i don't like that we currently have a special uh tattoo uh requirements that is treated differently than anyone else i um i was concerned at first to see uh when when we've been preparing for today to see the little plus attached to it but then i was pleased to see that all the plus means is that tattoo parlors have to comply with the with with uh safety standards which are very closely monitored important and serious um so that says that and you know to anyone who's concerned about safety issues have being near a tattoo parlor there are already regulations on that that are in place um that people who are responsible uh tattoo parlor owners are really uh proud of and vigilant about because you know they want to make sure um that that that their industry has a good reputation so anyway i just wanted to say i'm really pleased that we're doing this and thank you and that we're not doing it on a kind of pocket you know case by case basis but across the board i do think there are a number of other uh you know kinds of businesses that are in a okay uh she's sort of councillor melzer like this um but we will get later okay councillor melzer yeah to me this has nothing to do whatsoever with how we feel for or against any particular type of business the intention of council was not to create non-conformities this is a fix and uh my direction already is to go ahead and not uncreate these non-conformities that we never intended to create councilmember breaks thank you um ron so on this with this approves our passes the the businesses that are non-conforming do they have to do anything or will it just automatically um fix that and they don't have to worry about it anymore those existing businesses uh councilman breaks will not have to do anything um you know if if there were a reapplication of a co or a loan documentation that's when this would come up but other than that anything that's existing would just remain existing and as is okay thank you okay any other questions for this section any other input for staff okay very good so uh we'll go to the next section okay so the next two code amendments that we will be discussing has direct relationship to house bill 31 67 therefore i just wanted to share and provide you all a refresher on what house bill 31 67 is also referred to as the shock clock bill it was passed in 2019 what it does it affects the timeline in which plats subdivision applications specifically as well as civil civil engineering plans when they need to be approved the bill basically said that in no if no final action for for these types of applications taken within 30 days of the application being filed such applications will be automatically approved so basically this puts us on a approval consideration within 30 days now there are built in provisions where recommendations of denial can be introduced however in the end most and all of this will have to be considered within 30 days also if there is a conditional approval or a disapproval which is a denial the applicant must be provided with a written statement that again is included in the house bill and that statement specifically has to be directly related to the requirement that is being asked of the applicant it must be cited per our development code or any other municipal ordinances or or criteria manual and lastly it may not be arbitrary as far as the reason for denial or motion for denial so just a quick refresher on house bill 3167 so the next code amendment that we will be talking about is tie vote specifically as it relates to the planning and zoning commission currently in the code of ordinances there is a section 2.29 g5a where it states that with the exception of the planning and zoning commission matters voted which in an entire vote regardless of the cause shall be considered a denial what it doesn't say is what happens with the planning zoning commission it says everything else outside of the planning zoning commission it then further uh states under that same section that the dentin development code outlines the process for which council review and decision of any recommendation made by the planning zoning commission is is under is going to be considered under that section however the dentin development code does not have any of that language provided in the ddc or in the ddc currently so what it is it's saying that the development code will have that explanation but it currently does not so what we are proposing and the option here is to have no change or to add that provision into the ddc that addresses the planning and zoning tie vote situations and we are we are proposing that we split that discussion or that consideration for subdivision applications because as it relates to house bill 3167 these will require a 30-day consideration within 30 days and also non-subdivision application now these are ones that are specifically approved by by planning zoning commission or recommendations that are brought forward to city council obviously staff is recommending that we add that those provisions into the development code that explains what happens in a tie vote for again both a subdivision applications as well as non-subdivision applications and so with that staff is proposing to add this particular section now there's two section when it comes to tie votes this again is for the subdivision application tie vote that when the planning zoning commission reaches a tie vote the application is deemed approval approved as an approval with staff condition of that subdivision application so essentially a tie vote for subdivision application is an approval automatic approval however staff will have the opportunity to provide staff conditions related to that approval does anybody have any questions regarding this section of the code i do have the other section of the code where it talks about the non-subdivision application now this is for again the ones that are either approved by council that i'm sorry by planning zoning commission that are not a plat or a civil engineering plan as well as any tie vote related to any recommendations that are being forwarded to the city council so just way of describing it the planning and zoning commission if they reach a tie vote the city will be directed to place that same tie vote or that item on the next planning zoning commission agenda if there is a second tie vote from that same item that the that the sorry that it shall be deemed either a denial on those non-subdivision application and recommended for denial on those non-subdivision application that will be that will be forwarded to city council now if the denial recommendation of denial to city council is forwarded the requirement that a three-fourth vote on these types of examples where there's a tie vote will not require a super majority from city council and i apologize that that may have been a lot there let me go back to the first one this is again for the subdivision applications if there is a tie vote it would be deemed approved with approved with staff conditions so the planning zoning commission again reaches a tie vote those plats and those other subdivision variances i'm sorry subdivision applications will be considered an approved application if it is a recommendation to city council they too this particular ones will be a recommendation of denial and again if council were to consider that item it will not require a three-fourth or super majority vote at council okay if you can pull down the slide we'll see if we have any feedback for you okay council member briggs yeah so if you could just help me understand i am really confused while we're seeing this again i thought this has already come through a work session and it's already been voted on um i understand that the subdivision part of it is different um is that why it's coming back to us for the whole process no it's well it's partly that councilman briggs but also what was brought to you um earlier regarding the same tie vote item um it was actually included into the zoning process what we're trying to do is bring it out um to where it would be considered for all recommendations that are being brought to city council so not just zoning but also specific use permits alternative esas any other recommendations the particular item that you all considered in the past was only for zoning related rezoning related applications right for for planning and zoning or yeah for plans if remind me if i'm part of it had to do with um if somebody had a long absence or there wasn't someone there and it just continued to be so what that process would be right um and so this is we're we're going to add this um to the ddc correct but the new part of it is the sub subdivision section so we're adding a the the the the result of a tie vote for a subdivision application um is that's described it would be a approval um but for the other applications that are ones that are rezoning the sups the alt esas those that are forwarded to y'all from the planning zoning commission um those would be a denial again similar to what was approved prior that you all considered but because it was just specifically to rezoning what we're trying to do is expand that to include all the other applications as well may approach him may i follow up yes um can this makes me a little bit uncomfortable because it's um one's approval and one's deny but under the same circumstance um i understand that the subdivision has to do with the the shot clock but um other other parts of application are are also um under a certain time limit i think as well so um i just wanted to check in with our city attorney i mean i'm sure this has all been run by the office but um is that is that an issue the issue is not what you suggested the issue is that the city has actually the pnz has actually 30 days in which to approve these applications from whence they're filed and these applications never come to council the danger in not meeting that requirement because there's a lot of staff review that has to be done in advance before it gets to the pnz agenda and the danger is that if we do get to a meeting of pnz where there's only six and it's a three to three vote you know they don't have a process right now to determine what is the result is this the denial and if so they have one process to go or is it an approval with conditions that's the dilemma that pnz is facing right now that staff wishes to correct okay and so then that would just stay within the planning and zoning and would not have to follow us uh to council for those items that is correct under the ddc and state law pnz has the authorization to approve these these types of applications and it stops there all right thank you okay any other council member malter is there anything else the city does where uh with a voting body where a tie would be considered approval is that question for the for myself or for ron uh i i assume ron but but uh if you got the answer i'll take it from you and no there's not but again no other city border commission faces this the particular law and a very short time frame in which to review and approve yeah i think it's you know but the law doesn't say you have to approve things lunch it says if you're gonna prove you have to do it within this time frame uh i i'm very uncomfortable with the idea of uh you know very special carve outs on something as fundamental as what counts as a approval counts as an aisle uh i'll i'll i'll listen but i haven't heard anything that i've found convincing yet and and and and not confusing never mind to us but how about to applicants okay um well ron do you want to speak to that so the statement is uh you have 30 day can you just reframe what what's what the law says hb3 31 67 please right um so when applicants submit an application and filed with the city the city has or the proving body which in this case is the planning zoning commission has has to consider and approve approve with condition or deny the application within 30 days and if there is a tight vote it's not clear is it an approval or is it a denial so what we're proposing recommendation is that if there is a tie vote that that is a denial i'm sorry an approval for the uh subdivision application uh with staff condition got it okay thank you thanks for uh councilmemorometer yeah so you know i appreciate um councilmember briggs and uh councilmember melter's questions and objections um i am just unambiguously against the idea that a tie would result in an automatic approval uh to me and i'm not saying this is the case because i have no idea honestly how this came forward but i think it'll give the impression to the public that this was requested by uh by developers it certainly feels like it's written by developers again i'm not saying that it was uh but it certainly sounds like you know a kind of developer pipe dream um and i think it's highly unusual and wrong uh so i think that would just tie a tie in all circumstances should be an automatic denial across the board and you know sorry about the the shot clock we definitely need to improve our procedures in a number of ways we need to do away with paperwork uh but we do not need to do away with the democratic process this is extremely important part of the net part of the democratic process and we can cut down on all kinds of bureaucracy and paperwork i'm all for that um but not so thanks all right and ron could you reframe that for me uh just to make sure i understand correctly so the one that the non-subdivision denial is not subject to the shot clock am i am i tracking with you correct so then that doesn't apply it would come to council am i understanding that those come to council maybe i'm wrong correct the non-subdivision applications the plats uh do not come to council those need to be considered by the planning zoning commission within 30 days and and just uh just to add uh or hopefully clarify within 30 days if the planning zoning commission reaches a tie vote without any reason um they they they can't be denied unless there's a reason for their um their denial a denial therefore that's why it's approval because we need to provide the applicant with a reason um if it were to be denied got it so and so that's a key point so the state law requires if it's an automatic denial as requested then that has to come with a reason and obviously if it's a tie tie if it's a three three tie there's no reason and so we're so we're we're um uh we're out of uh well yeah we're not in line with the state law state requirements okay got it any other questions councilmember melzer i think the reason would be because it failed to achieve a majority vote that would be the reason and you could ask members to you know state their reason for their vote but i mean otherwise why not just skip the vote just say any application is approved that would be much quicker right but there is it isn't that way it's put to a vote for a reason so so the reason for denial would be it didn't achieve a majority well i'll take that let me see councilman no pardon me mr city manager do you know or ron do you know i think we've had one tie vote uh in recent memory the only one i could think of um what had to do with uh one subdivision that couldn't get out of uh the planning commission because we had one of our members conflicted so that's why the tie vote came to council in the recommendation on this particular instance the way the state laws read that the argument proper by councilmember melzer does not hold water i mean that would that is not a reason that we can vote no or vote something down so in in this particular shot clock all the really all the authority has been given development community we have very specific reasons to deny according to standards something like that or it's approved and within that 30-day process so essentially what he's telling you is it's part of a reason to to ensure that politics aren't being entered into this particular rationale it's got to be hard facts could be planning conditions engineering conditions that sort of thing if that's achieved it must be approved and so you're in a really weird spot because i can't really think of another law where you're you've had your authority scaled back like this um is it subject to a vote or not i mean is it either subject to standards or to a vote it's subject to subject to a vote based upon standards as long as the standards are addressed in the staff recommendation it must be approved within that shot clock timeline so it's sort of it's an odd situation here and i think the question i have for for ron just to just to make sure that we can explain it is if the plant commission denies this however they the applicants um go addresses all the staff comments immediately is it automatically approved or do we have to re-notice it i know you've got that 15-day provision in there for them to address it so i think that's important in this conversation as well this is a very strange law that was passed so yes so ron do you want to speak to that the 15-day provision right so as todd mentioned that if there is a vote for denial again not a tie vote but for vote for denial with reasons the applicant has the opportunity to address those reasons and some resubmit it back to the planning zoning commission and planning to process within 15 days and bring it back to the planning zoning commission so that that's not a that's not a um a tie vote per se it's it's it's a denial with reasons so okay um if i can just you know press a little just for to get an understanding uh yes we're you know really being presented if there are specific uh areas that are uh the only ones that can be legitimately cited it is reasons for denial i assume those are presented to to the commission when the case is brought forward uh would it be you know possible that that any no votes would have to cite which of those conditions are the reasons let me i don't know that i don't know that i'm i don't know that you can weigh one pnz commissioner's objections above another even if they cite those i don't know i don't know i don't know if i understand because if you're looking for a majority vote as a body and you don't have that i don't know that the individual objections can be carried can carry weight let me explain where i'm going uh remember tim that uh if you have a tie vote situation or any or or a four three vote situation but against any decision against what i'm hearing is it's got to be for these specific reasons you know something on that list any any outcome that results in a no is uh it can't just be because i feel like voting no it's got to be because it violates a b or c so you know in any no situation you've got to communicate to the applicant which of those reasons a b or c or or you know two or three of those are the reasons so i'm i'm simply saying that uh in a situation where no carries whether it's due to a tie or a majority no that council members have uh excuse me commission members would have to register which of those conditions they're citing mayor pro temp could we get a five minute recess real quick yes we can convert the city attorney on something yes sir okay so it is now 4 25 we will take a five minute break come back at 4 30 pm okay and welcome back to this city council meeting today is tuesday october uh sixth it is 4 35 we're returning from a quick break and uh mr city manager you have the floor if you would please thank you mayor pro tem i i just wanted to call everybody together real quickly given the the box the council's in on this and i think that if the council is uncomfortable from what we're hearing that on the tie vote being an approval i think we can draft language for the ddc because this is the this is the main issue when a developer is in front of the planning and zoning they ask show me in the manual where it says that okay so if we're going to consider a tie vote being in denial that's okay uh we can put additional language in there stating that it's got to refer to a technical requirement it can't be that a council member or a pnz member doesn't like it that's not acceptable under the state statute any longer so as long as we will go ahead and devise the process that it's got it must meet a technical requirement the deal is this and we'll further vet out the the process that once the even if it's denial once the pro project or the resubmittal happens the city has 15 days to act on it not 30 the second time around 15 or it's automatically approved so as long as we put that small process and and rationale in the ddc i think we've addressed the development community's concern we've also dealt with your concern about the perceived three three tie not being something that a majority of you can get behind but where staff has been put in the box is show me in the ddc where it says that so i think we can address the process and kind of deal with this got it okay uh and so councilman melts you have the floor then councilman briggs and then armature yeah i can appreciate you know the need for an explicit rule it's uh it is just kind of a loose end that we didn't say what it was but i i uh support the direction just articulated uh because if you think about it if you get it not saying this could ever happen but if you had a very heavily conflicted uh member just because they're knowledgeable in the industry because they participate in the industry so they've got a lot of reasons to recuse you could effectively turn every recusal into a yes vote i think that's really dangerous so uh i support the path forward that the city manager just described customer breaks thank you yeah before break the concern that i had and i was going to bring it up because um if staff did come to the commission and conditions weren't met but it ended up being a tie and passed just because some um commissioners thought sure you know it's good enough with me i don't agree with staff's conditions anyway then that item would have passed going forward without those conditions being in place and so that that was part of my concern on this anyway um so i appreciate you bringing that up and i wanted to make sure that you know if that were to happen and if this were to go forward there were some there was some way to to call that back to make sure that those conditions um were put in place okay customer order okay so several things so number one um i like the solution much better obviously than um what was being talked about earlier but i i have some remaining concerns on you know number one i would want to see and of course when this came before us for a vote we would have something in writing i definitely hope it's not on the consent agenda you know because i would need to see how exactly how it's written but right now p and z can cite the 2030 plan uh and i believe and correct me if i'm wrong i might be wrong on this the mobility plan too is that correct or is it just the 2030 plan as as a reason for uh denial uh councilor approval the subdivision applications are very technical they are plat specifically so the reasons or the requirements that need to be written in in part of their uh their vote or their motion has to come from the gen development code as it relates to any subdivision requirements specifically okay so the so okay so for that so for that so the 2030 plan does not apply to such decisions the 2030 plan is very um it's a guiding document there's there's no standards per se technical standards as relates to subdivision and that's what needs to be stated when there is a motion of either denial or um opposition and do you know off the cuff and sorry this is just occurring to me now but do any other cities um you know include their uh you know 10 year 10 year 20 year 15 year whatever plans in the the code or or is that a separate or in in plat decisions i should say in plotting decisions um or is that is it pretty standard to have a comprehensive plan that's right from across the development code okay okay and that and that it's not and that can oh sorry i have a couple more things and that cannot be cited on in uh decisions on flats right correct but it can be decided say for zoning changes and things of that nature especially right again just because the the zoning changes or sps often refer back to the comprehensive plan as an approval criteria so that's where you can add that uh discussion okay thank you um i wanted to ask you for the public just give me one second please can i but city attorney has a statement i just i know there's some confusion as to what's actually in a subdivision uh plan and i just all it is is it shows a what the development is going to look like so it's going to include the lots the streets where the easements are the size of the roads um you know some other technical information drainage and that's all it's showing it's not showing whether or not you know they comply with zoning provisions or whether they comply with other plans it's just basically the layout of what this development is going to look like and and it's it's very technical and and and so those types of regulations are different than your zoning type of regulations they're very precise okay thank you okay councillor armater and so yeah thanks and so yeah i'll be as long as you know since it's coming for us as an individual item um you know there will be time for us to you know read over all of that and you know do additional homework um on this new uh solution which again i definitely like better than um the tie vote solution a question just for the matter of public record so when that that five minute break was tape was taken um can someone can someone from staff let me know who all was in the room uh we can take the you can follow up with the city manager on that if you would please no no no no no that was i'm strictly asking for the for the public record was there was there all staff was there anyone from council or was it just staff okay thanks good good good so just check any other questions um and then third and yes and then finally i just wanted to point out you know ironically right now there are we want uh six of us right now uh so if we were split on direction you know that would be a debacle um and i don't think any of us would i would hope not want it to be automatically approved um so that is all councilmember davis thank you mayor pro tem um so i like this new direction i think it's in line with uh parliamentary procedure the way we do just about everything else in the city that you've got to have affirmative affirmative approval to call it approval um my question is on the uh the new plan are we going to uh have the requirement that a tie vote that first tie vote if it's because of an absence instead of a recusal that first tie vote kicks you to a second vote at some future meeting a week later or uh just that a tie vote is a is a denial for purposes of the shot clock um and and that's codified in the ddc right councilman davis um it is a a right again denial as we're changing that recommendation um at that meeting because it is part of the 30-day shot clock time period okay thanks got it okay ron so you have another section and so for that there's there's there's a i kind of consensus uh so uh just i want to repeat what um todd mentioned but that is what we will be bringing forward in a future uh consideration item where you all can discuss it further and you'll see the new drafted language as it relates to that subdivision application tie vote um result and it will be a recommend it would be a denial with again reasons or recommendations or requirements um for um the plat um technical requirements okay all right so do you have more slides that yeah okay let me pull this up thank you so this is um i'm going to skip through and get to this particular code amendment because it's important that we discuss this as we just finished that discussion with regard to tie vote this particular requirement here again house bill 3167 specifically states that all of the requirements i apologize let me let me go back up once um that any any submittal uh or recommendation or a motion to deny or vote of denial must be provided in a written statement again that's per house bill 3167 as it is today we do not have that in our development code it is again in the texas local government code but not in the ddc what we are recommending is to add a reference in the ddc that speaks to that requirement that any approval with conditions or denial with reasons or lack of requirements meeting the then development code must be provided to the applicant in a written format what we are proposing is this section of the development code section 261 which is under the subdivision procedures and what it in what it includes is the timing again we already discussed this it includes the timing of the final action must be within 30 days that any decision of approval or approval with condition or deny must be accompanied with a written statement or written explanation for that recommendation or for that motion for denial it also explains that if a application is denied with reasons or lack of technical requirements meeting the development code that that application or that applicant can resubmit to the planning zoning commission and must be considered in within 15 days so this is again inconsistent with house bill 3167 or the new texas local government code that speaks to this 30-day shot clock and again there is an option for them to extend a application above the 30 days for an additional 30 days but it's only for one time only so this section of the code that we're talking about is being introduced into the ddc to help applicants understand what the house bill 3167 I guess passed in relationship to plats and civil engineering plans so I just wanted to make sure that what we're introducing here is making is just references as it is currently in the texas local government code and this is what this is what we were talking about earlier council members where any any reasons or any denial with with recommendations must be accompanied with a written explanation and cited per this for this texas local government code requirement okay thank you council member davis and then council member armatuer and then braves thank you mayor pro tem so this one to me is a is a natural it's in the state code it needs to be in our local code as well so our commissioners are well aware of it also so that they are aware that their reasons for denial have to be specific I think that may have been an issue that city manager alluded to when we were talking about tie votes you don't get to vote against a subdivision because you don't think that land should develop you get to vote against it because there's a technical defect in the application or in in that plat so I think that's a good thing my concern would be what will the procedure be for drafting that statement will staff kind of get a consensus of those who voted in the negative or in favor of denial or however it shakes out or however it shakes out will will the commissioners be responsible for making some kind of statement how's that going to work so councilman davis staff in in our presentation of each item to the planning zoning commission includes a reason our technical requirement section reference now the planning zoning commission commissioners ultimately will have to make that part of their motion they can certainly use staff's reasons or lack of requirements met or they can come up with their own citing again the dental development code yes sir council member davis so if that needs to be in their motion that we need to have a requirement in our code that a motion to deny has to include the reasons why it was denied or that because the other option there is a motion to approve that fails so um I understand what you're saying that the technical in the presentation they're going to be made aware by staff of what's wrong with the application and that's normally how it ought to be denied a motion to deny based on this problem we point out but there could also be a motion to approve that's a little premature maybe in the meeting and uh it doesn't get the votes and the reason it doesn't get the votes is not one of the reasons you've outlined succinctly in the presentation i'm trying to head off headaches for staff later on down the road with trying to comply with a difficult code okay um any response ron or no understand you got it understood the comment yes okay thank you i think we can probably put some language in the assessment there of this that this plat must be approved or this this particular case must be approved um you know as it has met these items and be a little bit more prescriptive i think it's something that we're not being given much of a choice by the state the state on this so we may just need to have stronger wording in there when we know that they've met all the the technical requirements okay thank you and then so councilmember armature and then breaks yeah um so a couple questions um when it says the denial has to be in writing does an email count no um it has to be put in some sort of um response letter or a letter um that we will have to draft in in and then send to the applicant okay so we get paper letter with letterhead does have to be notarized or anything like that or no man just just make sure it's as cited in reference per the development code okay and then two more questions um and what is the timeline on getting that letter or i guess what time i would have when would have to be postmarked by then how many days or business days after the decision how does that work or is that open because i'm sure there are a number of open areas in that lot the law yeah there there's no specific requirement as far as when um that needs to be sent to the applicant however practice has been uh either the next day or the day after you mean for to send it out not to see the applicant correct okay yeah as long as i would just encourage us not to put that in writing so as not to box ourselves in any further than you know the law estate law is already boxing us in i'm not saying drag it out intentionally but you know just in case it happens there's a holiday you know during the christmas season or whatever um and then finally my final question is do you know and this is another thing that you know that should have occurred to me before but i was just thinking about now and i'll definitely research it myself but do you know if texas municipal league um or i was about to say or anybody like that but really i'm primarily thinking of them um since they're kind of a pretty non-partisan group do you know if they've kind of come up with you know a kind of a like a white sheet on this or their take on this law i'm just curious and i can find out for myself if you don't know i know there has has been in the very early stages when the bill was passed um but we can certainly see if there has been in recent recently but i i don't know of any um that i can contribute at this moment okay thank you okay thank you okay uh councilmember briggs and councilmember mouncer i'm just curious ron if you know are any other texas cities um integrating this into their actual code um the house bill i know that it was thought that maybe it wouldn't uh stay and could be reversed and if that's the case um do we go back in and just get rid of it or do you know how other cities are handling this issue i know i haven't researched it completely but i knew i do know from speaking to some of my colleagues they're all doing it differently uh but obviously the overarching requirement is under the text of local government code 212 which again um binds them as it does us uh now how they they present it to the applicants are just different uh we we just want to make sure it's clear and it's uh insights and and the applicants are understand what the process is okay thanks councilmember melzer yeah just a suggestion to facilitate you know the process when you're actually up there i think y'all do a great job on presentations for like sups where you lay out on a slide here here the criteria you can consider so you know rather than saying if you're going to vote no you've got to dig through the the big old ddc and you know find it and cite it i mean it's going to take hours but if you you know if you can kind of give them the menu of here are the relevant it's probably pretty boilerplate because it's probably the same on every similar uh issue but these are the categories uh so that that's you know part of the presentation and there for commissioners to uh reference that would be my suggestion okay okay and thank you councilmember davis just real quickly on those lines you know the real estate department's very helpful when we have to make our very specific motions that have to conform with a certain caption under the law you know we get a piece of paper in a folder it's at everybody's spot if anybody feels so moved to make the motion they've got the piece of paper in front of them with how to make that motion and and fit the legal requirements so that may be a way to go as well or the slide like councilmember melzer's talking about understood okay ron yeah no those are great um suggestions and comments we'll certainly make sure that those are uh are incorporated in the practice and we'll share that with the planning zoning commission as we continue to hold trainings and other such um activities with with them okay anything else on this item okay you all you have everything ron you need i i need yes for for this one yes and okay got two more so got it go through with that hopefully quickly yep so i'm going to go back up to another situation so another situation that we have again because of what we have currently in our code as as well as um the state bill requirement of um 30 days there was one instance where there was a three two vote um for denial in the code of ordinances specifically states that an affirmative vote of four is necessary to take action so what happens when there's a three two vote and we need to act on this within 30 days and um there's nothing in the development code that speaks to this particular situation so what staff is proposing or recommend recommending is that if there is a um a three two vote that option two is what we would recommend and that is a majority vote of either three one or three two is a vote for denial and that is what we are recommend recommending for this particular situation and it will be part of the code therefore it'll be clear to not just the planning zoning commissioners staff and also the applicants as we move forward again if this is something that becomes codified so just to illustrate this is the section again it applies to only the subdivision applications these are plats specifically the subdivision plots that we just we've been discussing again it's a three one or three two vote um again it doesn't meet the four affirmative that's per our code of ordinances therefore uh we are trying to make sure that those that are in this situation understand that if there's a three one or three two vote it is um uh going to be whatever that motion is if it's a motion for denial then it gets denied again hopefully there is and there should be a reason or requirements uh cited under that section where it is again a recommendation of denial if it's a if it's an affirmative vote of three one or three two for approved then it's approved in that situation but again we want to make this clear and put this in the development code so that again they're planning zoning commissioners our applicants and others are clear that a majority vote either three one and three two in these situations is an approval if that's the the motion or denial if that's the motion you know answer any question you all may have thank you uh council member melts within council member amateur ron any idea what the history on that is because ordinarily anytime you've got a voting body and you have a quorum that quorum is empowered to act and a majority of the members present carries uh so was this uh an omission that somebody just made an assumption that it would always be seven or uh was there a conscious you know action on the part of council to to make it as it is today this this was a situation there was a three three two vote uh on a subdivision plat and one of the um applicants or the applicant of that situation um asked the question well that's not an affirmative vote so it puts us in a situation of having to act within 30 days and answer that question um it is something that we we don't deal a lot with often but when this particular vote came in um there was some uncertainty and so we wanted to make sure that we provided a clear understanding of how a less than four vote happens yeah i i appreciate that but uh my question really went to what is the history behind the four affirmative votes requirement was that just you know an oversight not you know or was that a conscious action on the part of council say before you i can answer that ron i know the history of uh the the charter requires any action any official action by council to be to have four affirmative votes when the council years ago drafted the rules procedure when it came to the votes it incorporate that rules procedure for yourselves but also applied it to all the boards and commissions as well under the thinking that if that's what we're requiring under the charter for ourselves as council you boards and commissions will also follow that rule the again the dilemma with hb 31 67 is that a 32 which is they're trying to go back to the general roberts rules of order which is what you describe that's the general rule to be able to um to the public when they see a three two vote they're like what do you mean it's not approved you it was three to two so they're trying to go to that rule to the roberts rules of order general rule which would be an exception to the general rule that you've imposed on all the boards and commissions but but that was the rationale what the council did years ago in mandating boards and commissions to follow the same standard they're actually i actually didn't know that we were under that requirement for affirmative votes it's 2.06 at the city charter okay thank you councilmember armature yeah so a couple questions so number one um like i guess first of all i'll kind of reverse them um can you explain kind of how the quorum rule factors into this because on a committee of seven which p and z is just like council you know four is a quorum um and then i'm also curious to know and and this is relevant because you know because you yourself just cited cited council as an example you know hasn't had council had some examples where we've had uh or i i should just ask the question has council had instances where we have had uh things get passed or denied based on a three two vote or a three one vote when we when there was just a quorum of four present but the the first question is more important the second one is just about i'm trying to compare this to council history and see how that that fact is and there has years ago where that scenario came up a three one ended up in a denial on a council action i think what has happened more often in which you we experience as it was the council has experienced is the super majority requirement requiring six votes where you've had only five and of course it the item would fail but it has happened in the past so and so why not have just p and z just follow council that would be the question that that is the issue that p and c means the planning department is bringing forward to you to try to uh relax that requirement for them in in relation to the requirement from 3167 it if i understood the way ron explained this if you had five and three voted in favor then the item is denied they would have to come up with the conditions for the denial even though they were recommending approval with no conditions or approval with one condition and it would automatically become a denial even though under robert's rules of orders it would have passed and i think that's the outcome they were trying to avoid um for p and z and the development community who then have to guess exactly what were the conditions for denial it relates back to the previous discussion that they've had and so i i think that's that's the the reasoning that the development services department has brought forward to you to try to relax a requirement to address that situation okay and so oh wait can i ask just one follow-up question and if i don't understand the answer to this next one then i'll i'll leave it for other others to kind of pick up on it um so would how how could it be that can you explain to me how it could be that a three to two vote um which is a simple majority so you you've got a quorum present because you've got four i'm sorry you've got five you've got more than four um how would a three to two vote or a three to one vote say say you know three voting against it's three voting against and two in favor how could that come out as an approval or did i misunderstand that i heard i thought i heard you say that if that came out as an approval no no what i think what they're saying is that if if there's five pnc commissioners present and if the planning department comes forward with the with the subdivision plan and they're recommending approval they would require four under the current rules four of those five commissioners have to vote in favor right if the staff is recommending approval okay great thanks i'll let others pick up because i've got some other questions but i bet others have those same questions too so thanks any any other questions great so just a time stamp it's five o'clock we have a 6 30 start we have uh only one more thing but i know ron has a section or two then we have one more item but councilman marmiter if you can go ahead and exhaust your questions we will um go from there yeah so you're um you're frozen you may have to reset your uh your computer um okay ron what's the name so the law the 30 count councilman marmiter you were frozen there for a bit so we didn't hear anything you said okay sorry yeah but you can hear me see me now yes yep okay so apologies for my wi-fi so the the law of 3167 or whatever it is um it doesn't require three to two does it does it specify three two or does it just say a plurality or a simple majority it just says uh must be take it must take action within 30 days it doesn't go into the voting discussion so yeah and so why are we getting into that i guess is what i'm wondering because of the situation again fellow council members can jump in if you all have wondering the same thing yeah sure is it just again to clarify the situation that occurred back um where there was a three uh three two vote and um because of the affirmative requirement that it before we are just trying to make sure that it's clear to again all members of planning zoning commission the applicants and and others that in those situations a affirmative vote either three one three two vote would pass any motion that's been presented it's just to be to to provide clarification okay okay um i'm i'm okay waiting to um you know kind of do more research on this and when this comes back to us for a vote great i'm not quite happy with that but but i but thank you for your explanation this will give me time okay council member orion yeah this question mainly i guess for the city attorney is if we have it in our rules and procedures for the other boards that they have to have for affirmative votes uh is there already an exception in there that says unless otherwise spelled out in the code or do we actually need to go back and amend our rules and procedures for for the boards to add that language in there i i think what ron said earlier in his presentation is that there is a provision right now that talks about tie votes into the um would refer to what's in the ddc and so i think there's the link already created so it's just a ddc amendment but but we'll double check on the language in the rules procedure if something needs to be tweaked then that has to come back forward separately as well thank you okay thank you uh ron you may can continue okay this is the it's the last one so um we'll get to it real quickly excuse me ma'am pretend i i wanted to weigh in on the last one i'm happy to do it at the end if you want to do that uh no let's go ahead um yeah i think the the core issue is presented was being able to give a clear explanation to the applicant and i think the clear explanation is our rules require for affirmative votes i mean i'm willing to listen to i'm not sure where i stand on that but i i mean it's not obvious to me that we need less support for things uh but if it's clear explanation you'd say well our rules require for affirmative votes and then also i think what we said about the earlier item if there's got to be very specific categories uh for denial then i think that's got to be framed for the commissioners that way just as we discussed before and i think that would you know that would address that issue so i'm ready for the next issue okay okay ron thank you okay so the the last item for for discussion is related to development contracts required also known as uh three-way contracts or three-way agreements per our development code section eight four six and again here on the left this is all that's what's covered in the ddc just two general statements it doesn't really give any specifics or details so the issue here is that it's too general and staff often has meetings with applicants and we want to be as clear and we want to make sure that they understand the process and therefore what we are trying to do is add more of a descriptive list of requirements and or lay out the process a little bit more clearly so that those folks that are obtaining those these types of agreements are in understanding of what was required of them and also to address some legal matters in the sense that what we're asking for is codified in the development code so again staff is recommending option two and that is to add more than what is currently in the ddc under 846 846 as it is today as shown earlier or shown here is just again these two paragraphs or these two sentences what staff is proposing is to elaborate on that and provide a little bit more explanation and amend that particular section calling it a three-way agreement required section and under that particular section have all of these subsections provided i don't have the full language it is it was included in your backup but again as you can see that the the existing requirement is again very general what we're trying to do is provide again our applicants and others a little bit more of a descriptive list of requirements as well as the process so again this is something that we would like to include and amend as part of these code amendments is to provide additional information for for those that are looking at applying or required to get a three-way agreement this here just illustrates where that is in the process under our application process as you can tell it's further towards the end of the development review process as it gets through a series of development reviews civil engineering plans specifically once they complete that civil engineering plan review and get recommendation for approval the next step is to start the the final plat and as well as the three-way agreements in their particular development so that's that concludes my presentation on this item again is just again add more language add more descriptive list of things that is required under a three-way agreement okay questions council member davis council member briggs and no questions just to say i'm generally in favor of anything it gives more specificity and if this is something that staff's going to tell them at some date is required i think it's fair to put it in the code so that before they you'll get ready to bring something to uh to the application process they know what's going to be asked of them so i think this is a fair notice kind of provision i like it okay customer breaks my comments may be a little bit opposite uh i'm just i'm curious if the agreements listed are all the possible agreements i mean is there is there something um a reason that it was general is because there could be some kind of creative agreement that may not be listed um i just and if somebody comes up with something and it's not individually listed in the code does that create an issue or problem councilman breaks i think when we started the development code update in 2019 the idea there was to have more of this in a like a criteria manual or a development handbook that being said again with house bill 3167 a lot of things that we often again need to refer to is the development code and it's a little bit more stronger language and again so it's part of the development the development idea of having it available since we need to provide reasons or technical requirements i think this was one of the that results uh to put in the code more in the code than than in that handbook okay okay so i'm just clarifying we're not we're not leaving anything out i mean earlier we were generalizing we're not now being too specific correct it's this this is it's outlining the process um and it's not necessarily um going to add more to uh what's required it's just this is what we need in order to um process that three-way agreement okay thanks okay any other any other questions comments okay thank you ron so just just to real quickly to sum up them we have uh scheduled these items that we just talked about they are going to be presented to the planning zoning commission similar to what was presented to you all and we'll obviously have to make some um adjustment or explain to them how council um what was discussed at council and after that we plan on taking this forward as a public hearing item uh and considered as an ordinance which will be brought to you as well uh later in november uh as as again an item for consideration uh as part of the code amendments that we'll bring forward okay and and ron i'll it's not to be uh i'm not going to take it up now but i do want to circle back with you uh i'll work through the city manager to get some time uh i've heard i've had some conversations around this three-way agreement and it kind of being unique to denton etc etc so i just want to explore that further and kind of talk to you about what i've heard and get a better understanding so when it comes back around better prepared and save time so i'll work that out but thank you very much great presentation good feedback uh okay if that's everything great so that will take us to uh item three c and that is id 2014 90 receive report hold discussion give staff direction on pending city council requests uh there we go good afternoon allowing to jeremiah screen which is okay stop sharing how's that okay thank you great okay good afternoon mayor pro tem and council this is rachel ball through mendoza i'll present to you today's city council pending requests for information um just as a little bit of background get that over there um up to seven requests will be reviewed per meeting and we have one for this afternoon i'll introduce the one for today and the elected official that made the request will have up to one minute to describe and justify it and then the remaining officials will then have up to one minute each to provide feedback and indicate their support for the use of staff time to respond to the request and then we'll respond to all the requests where a consensus of council is established so today like i mentioned we have the one from council member briggs where she's requesting the drafting and passing of a resolution asking the governor to open bars and allow them to operate as other businesses and um just uh there's the wording itself and then we also have uh the background information i did also want to add um that yesterday we learned that uh the governor he did come out and say that there will be um another announcement as of what what may be opening up soon he did not uh say exactly when that announcement will happen but he did hint at further openings in that announcement so i'm going to bring this down and then mayor protem i have a timer okay very good let me get uh got it okay and then so council member briggs whenever you're ready a recent article in the denton record chronicle shows the importance of our bars as live music venues we consider ourselves a music friendly uh community but almost all live live music venues are closed our bars and venues cannot survive the rest of 2020 without opening or funding relief i am asking this council to be an advocate for our local establishments and asking the governor to allow them to open under cdc guidelines with special rules or sending a request for funding relief for these establishments because our artists and our funding for our artists and establishments is needed desperately we cannot stand to lose any more of our music venues okay and council member davis and say i support um sending something to the governor asking him to reopen the bars for the reasons that councilman briggs just said and also because they're big employers in this college town there are a lot of people um out of work or having to get creative about where to find work and i'm glad that rachel mentioned the governor's tweet it's got a a gift of a couple beer glasses clinking together so i think it's pretty clear what he intends to announce at some point but he's very cryptic about when that's going to be okay thank you councilman melzer councilmember armature yeah fundamentally i i think he didn't ask my opinion but the governor shouldn't have been picking types of businesses that the virus doesn't care whether you're praying or drinking i mean it should be just based on public health guidelines indoors outdoors so many people distance mask etc so i think i'm so i'm supportive of this uh especially if it includes language like you have to operate in other businesses with appropriate uh measures against coronavirus transmission councilmember armature subtract my arms and i'm sure it was on time uh yeah so i obviously support it too i've been outspoken on this issue i thought i think um councilmember briggs and melzer put it really well i was not aware of the tweet with the little clinking glasses so i would just ask you know if governor abbott if you're watching this if you could please just be more direct um and not be such a tease as much as i love emojis and things like that it is now it's the time we should really be direct but i look forward to hearing what that message is and i hope it's not in the form of a riddle okay all right so that's that's four but councilman ryan yeah i'll just chime in real quick and say that i'm in support of it as well and uh i know our chamber of commerce as well as the frisco chamber of commerce have already sent letters in that same regard so i think it's a good gesture on our part to continue that that type of conversation to the governor great and i'm going to echo what councilman ryan just said for to to keep it brief and so we we have consensus to move that forward so thank you very much rachel sure thank you um and you said that was the only one correct correct yes sir perfect thank you so then that would take us to that concludes our work session items the question becomes is there does any of the does anyone on council need to go in a closed session that's just a placeholder so if there's any closed session discussion needed we'll go in we'll do that now otherwise we will break until uh our regularly scheduled meeting at uh 6 30 councilman bricks yes i i have one question that i probably need to ask in the closed session regarding the item okay so let me call it and then we'll take a five minute break so we're going to convene in closed session at uh 5 26 we will consider the following items consult consultation with attorneys under texas government code 551.071 and with that we will take a uh let's call it a eight minute break to clear the room get ready so that'll put us back at uh let's see three is 30 so 5 35 thank you good evening uh welcome to this regular session of the denton city council meeting it is now 6 35 and we do have a quorum so we will start with the section 1a the pledge to the united states and then b to the texas flags you stand 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 now pleasure texas flag i pledge allegiance to the texas flag honor the texas one state under god one and indivisible and then that takes us to uh we do have one proclamation so i'll get ready for that all right and it is power week and so we have uh terry nolte here and i'm gonna so i'm going to read the proclamation and then you have some some comments so that's great so i'll read this to you now uh to all who come to all who come to these proceedings uh greetings we the citizens whereas we the citizens of the city of denton texas place high value and local control over community services therefore we have we have chosen to operate a community-owned not-for-profit electric utility and customers and own owners of electric utility have a direct say in utility operations and policies and whereas denton municipal electric provides our homes businesses and local government agencies with reliable efficient and cost effective electric electricity employing sound business practices designed to ensure the best possible service at for not-for-profit rates and whereas denton municipal electric is a valuable community asset that contributes to well-being of local citizens through energy efficiency customer service environmental protections economic development and safety and awareness and whereas denton municipal electric is is dependable and trustworthy institution whose local operation provides many consumer protections and continues to make our community a better place to live work and contribute and contributes to protecting the global environment and whereas denton municipal electric will continue to work to bring low-cost safe reliable electricity to community homes and businesses just as it has since 1905 the year when the utility was created to serve all the citizens of the city of denton and now therefore i gerard hutzpah the mayor pro tem of the city of denton texas do hereby declare and proclaim the week of october 4 2020 through october 10 2020 as public power week and recognize denton municipal electric for its contributions to the community and to educating customer owners policymakers and employees of the benefit of public power so i'll move that to you there thank you thank you yes sir uh just want to say on behalf of the 150 plus employees at that municipal electric and more importantly on behalf of the citizens of denton who are our owners and our sole stockholders we thank you very much for all the support you give to us as staff and enable us to do the job and keep the lights on and then yes thank you very much thank you thank you and so we will take a short break i'll transition uh to the other room and we'll pick up uh uh with our consent agenda thank you okay we are back and that takes us to item 3a review procedures don't need that and do we have any so no callers that'll take us to four the consent agenda and so i we uh just to recap items d and m and i were pulled i will take a um a motion council member ryan we've approved of the consent agenda with the exceptions of items d i and m council member briggs i will second okay got a motion and a second any comments okay uh council member ryan hasayu aye council member briggs yes okay uh council member davis aye and council member armator yes okay council member melter aye and mayor for tim hudspeth is a i that passes six zero and just as a uh procedural thing before we take item d up individually please those watching note that item of on the uh individual consideration item a through k have been postponed to the october 20th meeting i do believe so uh individual considerations a through items k have been postponed so uh mayor pro tem yes sir on those items um they were put on this agenda tonight because of the motion to postpone that was made previously so they're coming back on this item and so a new motion to postpone would be required for each one yes sir or you can do them in a single group um motion to postpone i don't mean i see items a through whatever the letter is to a date certain okay and the only reason is because they were postponed at a previous meeting to tonight's meeting so we'd have to redo the a motion to postpone got it and just a word to the wise what is the postponed to what date what where is it when is it reset so that we can i'm looking at the city manager october 20th okay there we go okay great so that way whoever makes the motion will know thank you erin uh so let's we'll take up consent agenda item d which is uh so that's 4d id 2014 53 let the record show that council member briggs has recused um and i don't think there there was a presentation does anyone need a presentation on this okay great council member ryan i move approval of item d and i also recommend that we go ahead and take up m after this since those were the two that council member briggs was refusing herself from and i'll be recusing on i thank you i appreciate that recommendation um do i have a second council member davis i'll second thank you um any discussion okay council member ryan hasayu aye council member davis aye council member armatuer yes council member melzer aye and mayor pro tem hudspeth is a i as well so that passes five to zero we will fast forward to item m which is 4m id 20 1600 and let the record again show council member briggs is recused i'll take a motion council member melzer move approval council member ryan a second any discussion okay council member melzer hasayu aye council member ryan aye council member davis one more time you're doing it backwards okay you got to unmute aye there we go thank you and then councilor armatuer yes okay and mayor pro tem is an i as well that passes five to zero uh and then so we that will take us to uh what is it item i so that's four i id 20 1564 and let the record show that uh council member uh ryan has recused himself uh anyone need presentation on this okay uh then i'll take a motion okay council member briggs i move to approve okay council member davis i'll second thank you um any discussion okay council member briggs yes okay uh council member davis aye okay and then council member armatuer yes council member melzer aye and mayor pro tem hudspeth is an i that passes five to zero and that will take us to individual considerations pardon me yes sorry five to zero do we miss in two oh yeah mayors linear got it okay thank you i appreciate it i need all the help i can get uh okay and then so that takes us to item five for individual consideration i'll take a motion council member davis i move that items a through k for individual consideration be postponed to the date certain of october 20th 2020 thank you council member melzer second thank you um okay we have a motion and a second any discussion okay uh council member davis how say you i okay and council member melzer aye thank you and council member armatuer yes council member briggs yes council member ryan aye and mayor pro tem is i that passes six to zero that will take us to item l5l which is id 20-2052 consider adoption of an ordinance approving a compromise settlement agreement and release of claims between the city of denton and everett newland and jennifer newland regarding issues disputes related to alleged impacts denton energy center or the on the newlands property uh councilman briggs i i wasn't sure if we were going to have a presentation i was going to move to approve okay um mr city manager we have a presentation we do not but we uh can certainly go through the deal points if necessary no i think we have a motion we'll we'll take that up so council member briggs moves do we have a second council member ryan sorry i'll second thank you sir appreciate you uh any discussion we have motion and second okay council member briggs yes okay council member ryan aye council member davis council member davis aye council member armatuer yes council member melzer aye and uh mayor pro tem is an i that passes six to zero takes us to five m id 20-1940 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas home rule municipal corporation authorizing the approval of a second amendment to the professional services agreement between the city of denton and sgs engineering llc there we go i guess y'all need to see me and hear me don't you that might be a little bit better presentation it enhances it tremendously jerry fielder didn't mean this electric um engineering manager i've come before you today to talk about the second amendment for a professional service agreement with sgs engineers llc kind of give you an idea of what um this firm does for us uh the first professional services or they provide us engineered drawings for our substation and transmission line constructions projects including the structural steel foundation design electrical design and relay and system protection designs they also provide us construction inspection services these are needed to ensure that construction meets the design and regulatory requirements and maintains the records of the daily of daily weather and construction activities to make sure that we're having these guys work efficiently they're building our equipment assisting coordinating and monitoring the materials provided to the contractor and report on safety damage and construction issues which are appropriate to dme and other contractor points of contact this next slide kind of gives you an idea of everything that we've got included in this um this amendment there's several substation projects the underwood substation which is two three years out is is in this um is in this packet we also have upgrades to several substations some relay project and rtu upgrades and transmission line projects include a new transmission line from the pockets to brinker transmission line upgrades give you a list there in a reconstructed transmission lines staff recommends approval of an amendment to the existing agreement with sts llc for professional services in an amount not to exceed 3.5 million dollars with the total contract amount not to exceed of 11 million 435 thousand dollars and all these contracts are structured hourly so the charges for services or for services rendered will be billed and we have no minimum amount guaranteed for this contractor any questions all right thank you yeah there we go okay questions for staff councilmember briggs i think my question was answered under that last bullet point about funding um uh the the t-coast and the the puc is that what you said so that'll be refunded do we how does that can you just tell us how that process works um i'm going to do my best on that i may ask mr tolti to tell me because it's not the but basically what it is is all this um the money that's associated with these substation and transmission projects are collected and they're submitted to the puc um on a regular basis and the puc based upon criteria that they've set um agree that they are reimbursable or not reimbursable okay so out of the i'm sorry mayor pro tem by all means so out of the 11.4 million or do we think that most of that would be reimbursable to the city or is there some of that that will not be um terry's kind of making a headline over here he might have a better answer good evening council uh councilmember riggs uh 11.4 million i'm sorry terry nalty assistant general manager dme the 11.4 million is the total contract value much of that as you can tell has already been expended capitalized there are specific rules that we operate under pursuant to the public utility commission of texas guidelines and rules dealing with what is eligible for transmission cost of service so each each project that we do we have to look at whether or not the engineering services that we are are applying to that project are eligible for t-cost reimbursement so anything that is eligible we do submit and that money is then recovered over a specified period of time on an annual basis from all the other market participants in texas does that answer your question it does and what about the where does the money come from that we do not submit if all of it's not recoverable that is recovered in our base rates those would be distribution level charges not transmission level charges so we build a substation approximately 60 percent of the capital expense is t-cost eligible 40 is in the distribution side and goes into our base rates okay thank you very much okay any other questions okay i'll take a motion council member ryan i'll move approval okay council member briggs i'll second thank you okay council member ryan high say you aye council member briggs yes council member davis aye council member melter aye council member armature yes and mayor pro tem is is an i that passes six to zero and so that'll take us to five n which is id 20 1941 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas homeroom municipality corporation authorizing the approval of a third amendment to the professional services agreement between the city of denton and black and veach corporation again jerry filter division engineering manager dme and then i again come for you today to ask approval for a third amendment to a black and veach contract for professional services some of the information that we are some of the services that black and veach provide for us or they provide us a lot of nerd er cot and tre these are our regulatory agency compliance support they do relay design and setting consultation for us for the transmission system and they also are involved in new and future substation conceptual designs and analysis and they also do some additional engineering and technical support that we may identify throughout the year kind of a different thing with this contract is for the new hickory gis substation black and veach will be the hickory substations owner's engineer for dme section 2269.305 of the texas governmental code requires the city didn't have an owner engineers to serve as dme's representative uh the hickory gis substation will be a design build project um it's so it's going to be engineered and constructed under one contract this is something that's a little bit different for dme and so this is one of the reason they have experience in this type of contract so this is one of the reasons why we believe black and veach will be a good contact for this one and then black and veach will during this process prepare and design the criteria package assist with the evaluation of all the bids assist with design reviews and provide engineering oversight of the project as it's being built again this is a list of the projects that we have proposed under this amendment as you can tell the largest bulk of this one third of this is the owner engineer services for the hickory gis substation and again we've listed out the compliance support relay design conceptual designs as well as a future substation project design that's the underwood substation that we mentioned previously staff recommends approval of an amendment to the existing agreement with black and veach corporation for professional services in an amount not to exceed 2.99 to 2 million 990 thousand nine hundred dollars for a total contract amount of and not to exceed of 6 million 556 300 and as the other contract this contract structured hourly so the charges is charges for services only will be billed for the services that provide us will be billed and we have no minimum amount guaranteed for this consultant do you have any questions thank you perfect uh questions for staff councilmember melzer yes thank you um you mentioned that uh hickory street would be different uh i i know what i think you're referring to but can you say what what you meant in what way it'll be different certainly um the majority of the substation well all the substations that didn't have in them now are what we call air insulated substations gis is a gas insulated substation and so it has certain advantages as it can have a smaller footprint associated with it and take up less land for the substation this was a directive that we were given by the council a couple years ago that they wanted hickory substation built as a gis substation versus the normal air insulated substation and am i thinking about the right one you're talking about hickory at bonnie bray yes sir so it's hickory and oak yeah it's right across from the old substation in the vicinity of bonnie bray yes and uh does the plan still contain as was directed by the the uh you know committee that was put together a couple of years ago an architectural facade because it's adjacent to a historic neighborhood it does in fact we're working with architect firm um continually just trying to get that worked out and the pricing worked out for the the wall terrific thank you very much thank you councilor armater and you're saying the wall to me the wall is what's usually done the architectural facade is what's different are you saying the same thing it's an architectural facade yes sir okay so it'll look like kind of like a building yeah i believe this yeah i believe yeah it's close okay yeah uh okay thank you very much councilor armater so questions so um i'm um have always been uh opposed to the hickory uh substation because of how close it is to a residential neighborhood but i know that we're not voting on that we're voting on these engineering services that are essential um for any substation to make sure if it's going to get built it needs to get be built correctly and i do understand that even i regret it that it's being built but uh my question is it's it's a little bit like paul's but a little different um will there be you know any opportunity for a community the community to provide in the community who's there right now um to to provide input to the engineering firm on the areas where there is wiggle room because i know you know and the design specs there on any design um there's some sort of uh wiggle room and room for variation um obviously you know the public doesn't know as far as engineering goes or the privacy doesn't know but you know they're not uh the public i'm not saying leave it up to the public to decide on the engineering details but where there are issues where the public could weigh in will there be that there be an opportunity or is that not what this kind of engineering firm does would that be something for for staff miss penalty said he wants to answer that question well and i have a question well aaron can you help terry give terry give me just one second aaron go ahead i think the question is starting to get me on the posting i think the answer for this if terry knows that could keep us in posting is whether or not at some point in the process in the future where the design comes for council for approval will the public have an opportunity to weigh in if the answer is yes then we can proceed going forward i don't try the answer that was a little different than my question but well i don't know that he's trying to make it fit the contract for black and beach yeah but but my question is about what kind of work does it involve does it involve them uh consulting with the community at all or no or is that something that staff would do because i know that when anything comes up to council for a vote obviously public gets input on it if it's coming to council so i already know the answer to that question i was just wondering about you know what the engineering firm would be whether they'd be consulting the public or does that something that only staff would do that's all so i can answer the question a couple different ways but uh this is on point with council member melcher's question as well the there was a extensive public input process around the siting of this project there was an architectural committee that was put together i believe council member melzer was on the committee the edifice the the the wall was specified by that that committee and that is what will be built on the site the engineering contract itself will come before you uh not this one but black and beach will be preparing a specification for the design build of the substation uh that particular contract will come before this council for approval as we anticipate it will be a 20 plus million dollar contract okay thank you and thank you and just to follow up i just want to say that um that i do understand uh that that there was this committee two years ago i'm really really pleased about that i was asking just about the people who are there now because there are also tenants uh what's called referred to as cement city it's right there you know and and there are renters and that's a pretty that's a group that shifts so the people who were there two years ago are not necessarily there now that was the reason for my question but thank you okay councilman breaks it's going to be a beautiful facility thank you councilman breaks yeah my comment is similar and then i have another comment just about the contract i wonder if anyone has an image prepared i know that this was discussed a few years back and it's been a while so it's um it's not fresh on anyone's mind and we're just trying to kind of go by memory um that that would have would have been helpful here just to see what that design looked like my other question or comment is this is up to 6.5 million is this just for like the professional services because when he said design build in my mind i thought that that included the build part of it but from what i just heard that is going to be a whole separate contract coming back to us probably for um quite a bit of money so just if you can clarify sure sure the um the they're going to be our owner's engineer which means that they're going to manage basically the project from its conception all the way to its closeout they'll help us prepare an rfp to actually build the substation and um yes once that rfp is there we've you know we're ready to bring it to council to be brought to council so there will be another contract that will come to you guys to actually build the substation so the potential of 6.5 million is for them to kind of act as like contractors on the job site kind of there are owners engineers and it's i think it's 990 000 almost a million dollars of it's just to perform those services for us okay all right any other questions okay i'll take a motion to approve councilor melzer i'm of approval councilor ryan i'll second any other discussion okay uh councilor melzer hasayu aye councilor ryan aye councilor davis aye councilor briggs yes and council member armature yes and mayor protem is yes that is that passes six zero that takes us to item o so that's uh five oh and i'll call it but i'll also note for the record that council member briggs has recused its item o50 id 20 1951 consider adoption of ordinance of city of denton texas a home rule municipality corporation authorizing the city manager execute a professional services agreement with james r kerpatrick architect inc dba kerpatrick architecture studio is there a presentation for this or does anyone need a presentation better say it scott gray is getting prepared real quick okay give him just a minute all right good evening mayor protem members of the council scott gray director of facilities a brief presentation for you this evening on the architectural design services for the loop 288 building as council recalls the city just acquired the property back in october excuse me back in august 28th this building will be used by the community services department to assist those with experiencing homelessness it will have a number of facilities in it to do that but we need to have the building remodeled in order to accommodate the various services that will be located in the building this procurement actually is a two-phase scope the first phase is conceptual design and cost estimation and then the second phase will move into construction documents bidding and actual construction and that is if the city requests that service when we finish phase one we'll determine if a different construction methodology may be warranted rather than just a bid in for construction so that process will likely take about 12 three months for the first phase and then another nine months for the second phase to get those complete this rfq was provided to 177 firms not sure what that is on the screen hopefully that's not in your way the rfq was sent to 177 firms we did have 12 responses to that solicitation there was a committee that reviewed all of those 12 submittals and did recommend kurt patrick architectural studios that's the schedule you see there on the right hand side in the in the phases that i mentioned earlier approximately three months in that first three months phase there will be numerous outreaches to the various occupants of that building and that will be headed up by community services and danny shaw and she's on the line if you need to ask questions about the specifics of the future use but staff's recommendation is to enter into the professional service agreement with with kurt patrick to do the design services in the amount not to exceed one hundred and sixteen thousand nine hundred and fifty five dollars and i'd be happy to answer any questions you may have all right thank you questions for staff council member armature yeah so thank you i'm really excited about this facility i think my questions are probably more for danny but i don't know so i'll just ask and whoever is feels most qualified to answer can answer um so i i uh get been getting a number of messages i've been counting how many uh from a number of them from the same few people over and over again people who are uh experiencing homelessness or who are being temporarily housed inside the hotels and they're really excited about on this facility coming um they these are also people who have to some degree made use of them and senior king who are all you know using our daily bread or part of the our daily bread community so anyway they're uh they're all wondering you know what is what would be a good estimate for when we think this thing might get on the ground uh i know cobit has put a real dent dent in things um is there any change on the timeline and also related to that i i know we're not talking about the hotels today you know but they're all hearing that the people who are staying in hotels now are trying to plan uh no well no this is this is related because they're trying to plan where to go next and so they're wondering this is my point they're wondering about how does the timeline appears matched up with the timeline of the uh the hotel stay so if you which was i think was was uh the last i heard due to end at the end of october but with some possible extensions so could you talk about how those two timelines sync up before you do danny erin can you that is on posting well let me ask my question please erin could you uh help me or help danny on kind of give her some framework we're talking about a architecture contract and obviously she's going to need to stay on that to some degree so if you can give some guidance there i'd appreciate it personally may i pretend i believe that the question goes beyond the posting it's wanting to know as the question has been asked people out there who who are staying at the hotel want to make their plans for a facility that's going to open it up i think at that point we're crossing that threshold where we're not talking about the contract anymore got it so councilmember armater please contact danny uh and she'll be able to answer your question directly that way yes sir thank you um any other questions nope okay um any other questions for staff got it um so i'll take a motion councilman ryan move approval do i have a second councilmember melzer a second okay we have a motion a second any other discussion okay councilmember ryan how say you all right councilmember melzer hi councilmember davis hi councilmember armater yes and mayor pro tem is yes that's uh passes five zero uh that will take us to item 5p id 20 1967 consider approval of a resolution city of denton uh city council of city of denton texas to uh reestablish the ad hoc development code review committee to consider and advise the council whether whether and in what manner to revise the denton development code providing a sunset date and providing an effective date thank you mayor pro temp uh give me a second to pull up my presentation there should be a short presentation um again this item is to reestablish the ddc uh dcrc sorry development code review committee the purpose again is to assist in the code amendment process by providing guidance specifically prioritizing and reviewing draft amendments with the objective of making a recommendation recommendations to the full city council currently the development code review committee um prior to today or prior is consistent of three city council members the members at the time are john ryan keely briggs and chris watts john ryan served as chair keely briggs served as vice chair and then there were also three planning zoning commissioners andrew roselle margie alice and we have a vacant planning zoning commissioner who was larry beck who no longer serves on the commission the plan is to meet with the planning zoning commission tomorrow wednesday to select and have one a member serve on this committee this here is just to illustrate you've seen this schedule before when scott mcdonnell presented it we are hoping to get the dcrc established sorry sorry i i would just hold that i wasn't sharing my screen i apologize let me just back up one slide here you were doing great you were painting a picture with your words it was outstanding well i really this is the this is the slide i really wanted to share again there's three members of council and three members of planning zoning commission there are again the three that we've already spoke of on council and then the the two on the planning zoning commissioner commission and we hope to add a third member tomorrow wednesday when we meet with the planning zoning commission this is the schedule that was shared with you all at our last work session we're hoping to establish the reestablish that is the dcrc today so that we can start the process of hopefully scheduling our first meetings maybe in mid august or mid october that is uh and and start sharing with that committee some of the recommendations that we are proposing and hopefully get guidance in clear direction as we move forward with these code amendments and that concludes my presentation i'll stand for questions okay thank you council member davis only one question for me maybe a little bit uncomfortable but the the resolution the draft resolution says that anything not addressed by the ordinance of the resolution will be governed by our typical procedures for committees and boards does that mean if the vacancy were to occur on the committee that that would come back to council to fill the vacancy because we'll have at least one of those at the beginning next month in mayor watts so would that come back to the council then for nominations and appointments in a the typical fashion yes sir okay any other questions okay i'll take a motion council member davis i'll move approval is there a second council member ryan i'll second thank you i have a motion to second any discussion okay council member davis i'll say you aye council member ryan aye council member melzer aye okay council member briggs yes council member armature yes and mayor pro tem hudspeth is a yes that's six that passes six to zero thank you ron thank you uh that will take us to item 6a id 2017 48th it's a public hearing so i will open the public hearing uh just so i don't forget share you know okay good evening mayor pro temp and council members my name is eddie valdez management analyst for the parks and recreation department i have a short presentation uh regarding the amendments to the naming policy which includes the use of temporary names after this presentation we will follow up with questions and public comments got it and eddie real quick uh i don't see you on the feed here all right is that just me i can't tell there you are hey okay sorry go right ahead all right so staff has revised the naming policy on january 7 of this year however the new naming policy did not address when city staff used temporary names uh during the acquisition or development phase of a land or building also historically there wasn't a procedure on how staff utilized temporary names subsequently the chair of the parks recreation and beautification board requested a future park board discussion on creating an internal policy on how staff will use temporary names on july 13 of this year uh staff drafted the amendments to the naming policy which addressed temporary naming which you can see in in exhibit two and park board approved these amendments to the naming policy with a five zero vote also you can see in your packet exhibit three is the red line version which you can review all the edits of the naming policy so there are two major updates in the naming policy one of them is the definition that defines temporary name staff believes adding a definition will help define what temporary name is and the temporary name is defined only for a limited time until a permanent name has been approved through the proper channels for approval and then the second part to this is staff added a section for temporary name procedures this section will clarify how staff are to use temporary names and there are two steps to this the first step is when staff receives instructions through a developed or new land facility and staff will use a geographic location such as street names furniture roads or major intersection that is associated with that parcel or building facility and then the second step is staff will use an identifier such as property or building at the end of the temporary name so for example the associated location is in main street and it is a property it would be called main street property and in contrast if it is a building or a facility it will be named street building one last thing to add is staff is encouraging citizens groups or organizations to submit nominations for naming as soon as the temporary name has been initiated so that the temporary name will cease immediately upon a permanent name that went through the naming application and approved by city council the naming policy application is on the city website for the public's nomination on a permanent name and we've also sent out these updates to one citizen that gave us valuable information in the past to update the naming policy so next steps based on today's feedback from the public and council staff will update the naming policy and we'll proceed with the future city council agenda item for approval of a resolution of the amendments to this naming policy thank you again mayor pro temp city council and citizens of the city of denton questions or comments are now open for discussion okay thank you and and eddie i'm new chair in the meetings how many how many presentations you've done thus far is this is this your first my first one yeah very good well done thank you very informed okay council member uh armature so question um can you talk about you know what is the or is there a you know a statute of limitations or a a a window defining what exactly counts as temporary it sounds to me like it's just you know until a permanent name is decided on um but i'm always thinking in terms of the what ifs and i could imagine um you know a scenario well i could imagine all kinds of scenarios but i but i just want i first i want to get your answer to see if i'm reading it correctly and then i'll have follow-up questions or not depending on what the answer is oops let me share my screen you can do this yeah how do i ensure i'm sure yeah you're not sharing oh i'm not sharing okay my apologies just want to make sure i'm doing this correctly i know i've been there it's you can't tell what other people are seeing so there's not a statute of limitation right now uh what we are doing right now is just having an internal policy so um uh so that the idea is that we're not steering uh the public uh to use one name or the other and um using uh you we're hoping that citizens will utilize the naming application so that you know immediately you know it will be seized hopefully that answers your question so that so that immediately it will be what it will be it will be replaced for the permanent name okay okay and so so to ask as a hypothetical um you know say so the name of a city building um say the name of the new development center right the uh the Subaru or the Diet Coke whatever development center company could buy that temporarily and it could be um a week later a month later a year later until that that would wouldn't be known to the because i'm imagining that the the person who's buying that naming right would want it to be uh worth their investment would want to know well i'll be buying it for at least this long what will they get told uh Gary uh packing we'll jump in for a second Gary packing director of parks and recreation uh council member Armentur that's actually a different policy that's our sponsorship and and uh policy this is for just general naming so the the the concern with the park board chair was if we start calling it um Gary's Park um just as a holding name that it automatically will just kind of stay that way after so many years and people will start calling it Gary's Park and they will want to change it so that's why we're going to the geographical location so if there's a piece of property on Main Street that we're going to buy we would call it Main Street property and then start encouraging the community to submit applications for official naming i'm sure we have existing parks that have just been given a place holder name uh for staff and they've maintained that for years so the one thing we'd like to do is go back and research all of our properties to make sure that they went through a naming process and if they haven't make those available for the community if they would like to nominate that property for a future name of a community member or an organization thank you so much and i understand and now everything's coming together and yeah it hinged on this this this uh confusion which was a question before about the difference between the naming and the sponsorship which and i think okay you're putting that up quite a bit um so you're is this better now is this okay now yes okay good so this would not be a court would not be a commercial no name no correct this is okay during during construction a good example is mills property it's on mills it's a park property so we call it the mills property uh at some point in time maybe city council and a subcommittee decides it wants to be mills park and that's that's fine as well but it's not official until we've gone through the process okay excellent so that that part i understood but i just wasn't clear on whether kind of it could also be a corporate or commercial name so that's not a possibility also that's wonderful because i'm not in favor of the corporate naming but thank you and by the way i think of all our parks is gary's park so but that's just me so anyway thank you councilman bricks that's too much responsibility well yeah you just um this is a temporary naming policy but in your comments just then you said you we would go back to parks that have been in the city and named for a while and um look at renaming those is that was that just something that use that's not what we're talking about right now no so my comment was i'm pretty sure that we have some properties that never went through the naming process that staff may have just given them given them a name uh you know sherman property uh just based on general geographic location and it just kind of stuck uh so the goal there is to go back and see what we have officially gone through the naming process and see what we could actually have available for the community to nominate somebody for a park property in the future that would be a list of of available properties that could be nominated by by any community member so in a sense has had a temporary name for a really long time right and yeah in that we're trying to get to a place where we don't start naming something and calling it that and it just sticks forever okay all right thank you you're welcome any other questions or i'll take a motion councillor melzer i said just to make sure i'm clear their name for the nearest fast food restaurant right no right okay thank you uh is it councilmember davis i'll second but i want to distance myself from that last remark okay and uh so i'll come to you john uh mr city attorney tonight is just a public hearing there's no action item associated with this okay well forgive me uh i thought we were uh so all right well then no need for that thank you for the clarification councilman ryan did you have any comments who yeah that was my comment i appreciate you uh okay and still no callers so i will close the uh public uh hearing and then so staff has direction and uh if there's is there anything else mr city manager i missed on that one okay thank you we're good okay so that concludes item 6a that takes us to our last item concluding items uh councilmember davis just want to throw out there that uh denton has been recognized as one of the top 100 most livable cities uh there's a it's kind of a complicated metric to get us there but drc has a great article on their website right now um so we expect about another hundred thousand more people to move here next year well thank you um anyone else okay i'll rattle off a couple uh so there's the denton county friends of the family their 40th anniversary is virtual that gala is on thursday the eighth and thursday there's an action pack pack day so we have twilight tunes as well on the eighth i do believe that's in the parking lot of wells fargo you have to pre-register and be in your car uh and then also on the eighth is my brother's birthday so happy birthday to anthony hudspeth and then two days later on the 10th it's my pops so happy birthday pops on the 10th and i think that is everything i have but it's a busy day a busy weekend other than that we will see you next week if there's nothing else okay then i'll conclude this meeting on the sixth at uh 7 34 p.m thank you everyone have a good evening