Nov 05, 2020 Bond Oversight Committee on 2020-11-05 12:00 PM (SPECIAL CALLED MEETING)

Good afternoon. This is a special called meeting of the on oversight committee for the city of Denton. We have a quorum present this afternoon. It is 1204 PM on November 5th. And we'll begin with consideration of item A, which is approval of consideration of approval of the minutes from the July 23rd, 2020 meeting. Is there any comments or questions on the meeting minutes? Hearing none, can I get a motion and a second to approve? So moved. Tim Crouch is recognized as making a motion. Second. Second from Randy Robinson. Any additional discussion? All in favor of approving the minutes as presented, please signify by raising your right hand. All opposed? Same sign. Motion carries. Moving on to item B, receive a report and hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the general obligation funded capital projects. I will turn that over to David or to Casey. I'm not sure who took the lead on that. Cassie will take it from here. All right. Go ahead, Cassie. We have a presentation. Parks will be presenting capital projects. We'll be presenting and then facilities to give you an update of all of the GEO funded projects. So with that, I'll turn it over to Gary. Okay. Can everybody see that? My name is Gary Packen, director of parks and recreation. We also have Drew Huffman, assistant director of park maintenance and park planning is on the phone as well. So he may jump in as we move along. Update proposition for 2014 bond election program. The playground replacement plan and program is just about completed. The last playground that was part of the original plan is under construction as we speak over at McKenna. So you can see that activity going on. We did have a balance in that account. And last meeting, we requested that to be moved to Joe Skiles and update a playground at that location. That is going to be going to city council here fairly soon. So that'll be under construction this winter and that'll close out that project. Park improvements. These were completed already. This was at Lake Forest and Milam park. We had a pavilion and basketball court completed over there. That was done probably about a year, two years ago. South lakes tennis courts. We had designed these in house and we need to do some additional design work. So we are going through the process of hiring a firm to help complete that design work. We had a kickoff meeting about a week and a half ago with that firm. We are planning to put in two additional tennis courts where the star is with lights and then an alternate which was not part of the bond program. We put lights on the existing two tennis courts. So all four courts would have lights and then we'll resurface that court when the other courts are built as well. And completion on that is probably September of '21. Property acquisition. We presented to council back on August 25th a litany of properties that we're looking at. We've narrowed it down specifically for this funding to three or four properties. Primarily between 377, I guess I'd say east of 377 for a future library and a park. We're trying to cohabitate those two facilities. So real estate is working right now to identify and negotiate land in those areas. There's a lot of development going on there. So we're scrambling to make sure that we can find adequate land for the library's relocation. That would be the south library. Southwest Park master plan design. This started late summer. We do have a focus group of community members, about 25 people that are helping us with that process. We have another public meeting scheduled for next Thursday evening at 6 p.m. This is to gather feedback and input from all the users in the community for what that master plan will outline. It will be more of a bubble concept drawing. When it's completed it will not have construction drawings at this point in time. Obviously this is just for the planning purposes. We do not have funding for any construction as well. But this should be wrapped up probably late spring of next calendar year. Spray ground was completed. Unfortunately we did not open it this summer due to COVID-19 but it is ready to go for next spring. Trail system expansion. This is the trail basically starting at North Lakes where the dog park is. It goes up near the animal shelter. It goes across 377 all the way up to North Point Park and then over to Evers. This is completed. It's heavily used especially the section around the dog park and that's the images you see here is in that area in North Lakes Park. We've been working on our parks and recreation master plan that outlines trails throughout the entire community and this would be a major tie-in to that planning effort. Tennis construction phase one Pro Shop is done. This was actually slated to be completed in January of 2021 and it was actually completed a few months ahead of time. So thank you to our facilities group for managing that project. If you haven't had a chance to see it take a drive by. If you're interested in going through the building we can definitely get you in there. But here's some images of what it looks like now. We have a general open area. We'll eventually have some furniture in there and a check-in desk for staff, a few offices, a meeting room, and then some storage and then we've upgraded all the restrooms and showers in that facility as well. So when the courts are done and we open or we reopen we're ready to go. As for the courts we've been working on some permitting and design challenges and opportunities so we're hoping that we can get out the bid before the end of the year for the courts itself. We have been reaching out to potential contractors letting them know that's coming so we have good bids. So that's in the works and staff's working diligently to get that out on the street. We did get some USTA grants from the state of Texas as well as national. It wasn't as much as we had hoped but I think COVID caused some changes in regards to the grant funding that's available but we did get $40,000. Water work parks addition this is completed and this was obviously used this summer before last. This did not open again this summer as well because of COVID. Vela Athletic Complex was completed. We had a grand opening on August of 2019. We've been utilizing the facility. We did have some additional funding in the project account and we've been working with the Public Art Committee on a sculpture for that facility. We talked briefly about this I believe at our last meeting. We did put up an entry sign which you can see here G-Roll and Vela Athletic Complex welcoming people into that facility and then as you're walking through this archway you'll see the sculpture in the background just in front of the playground structure. The total project is $101,000. We moved $65,000 from the project from Vela over to that. We did take it to the Public Art Committee and they approved that and we're working to take that to City Council hopefully in early December and get this under production. Then working with the Vela family they wanted something that tied Dr. Vela's love for soccer and his UNT experience with biology and the artist took basically the outline of a soccer ball and put the molecules or the stainless steel spheres on the inside of it and I think they did a really good job. There's a star in the middle for the Texas star. They designed it so it couldn't be climbed and we're looking to maybe even put some decorative pots around the base of it for landscaping as well to soften it up a little bit. So that should be completed by July. This is what it looks like in theory with Photoshop where the existing foundation is already there and then as you walk into the facility this will be the first thing that greets you. And here's another angle. This was before we put the Archway sign in there which was installed last week. Lake Forest Park, we spent a lot of time on design and permitting. This is actually going out to bid I think next week and it should be completed probably early 2022. This is the first dredging project that Drew and I have worked on since being with Parks. So the neighbors next to the park are very interested in seeing this happen. Drew's been working hard to keep them up to speed on that project. This includes some rehabilitation to the dam and then dredging of the pond. The pond will be dredged or be drained and the fish will be relocated. Drew, do you have anything to add to that? Maybe not. Okay, just moving along. 2019 bond election program, we had five million dollars that was approved in November of 2019. Originally it was slated to be scheduled for 21-22 and 23-24. With the amount of activity of development going on at Denton, we have discussed with finance the opportunity if we could find the land sooner that that could be moved up. So David Gaines has given us the go-ahead to move forward with researching that. So we're actively looking to utilize that funding for land acquisition before it's purchased privately and redeveloped so we can assure that we have park space for the next generation of Dentonites. And with that, I'll open for any questions you have on any of those projects. I don't have a question on those projects, but I'm just wondering about the impact on the department of COVID and limitations that's placed on your ability to deliver services. I'm sorry, Mr. Crouch, could you say that one more time? Just what's the impact been on your department of COVID and the ability to provide services in parks and recreation? That's a great question. It's been very challenging. We really have kind of almost like a dual personality department at this point in time. Our park maintenance staff and our parks have been busier, more busier than ever. We have not slowed down from that perspective. Add in rain that we had in the spring when we obviously froze budgets so we stopped hiring staff. So with the demand, service level demand from the community and having those expectations with so many people in the parks, we had to work diligently to keep up with that. So it was a challenge this summer for sure. Recreation inside, all our buildings were closed, but they had to basically reinvent themselves and provide virtual programming. And then we also shifted to other areas of need. We helped support the local food bank in delivering food and packaging food for the community. And we also supported the operations of the civic center pool for people to go in and take showers. So we operated that as well as at the same time operating and developing virtual programs. So it was a very challenging year. Staff is looking forward to reopening their buildings as much as they can. We've slowly started reopening. MLK was opened up just after Labor Day. We are starting to do more and more programming as it permits. We are looking to potentially open up the senior center for extreme limited programming three days a week from roughly eight to noon, eight to one. And that would be limited participation and registration required as well. Because our seniors are asking for those social type activities to get out and see some of their friends too. So we're slowly opening our programs. And it's been a big challenge throughout the entire year for sure, as it has been for everybody. Thank you. Gary, is the American Legion Center part of your parks program or is that a separate program? It is part of the parks program. Facilities is helping manage the construction of that. We've had some delays and working through the contractor to get them off center. We're not happy with the current performance. I drove by there the other day and I could tell that that project wasn't going well. Yep. All right. Any other questions or comments for Gary? All right. Seeing none, there's no decisions being asked for. This is just a straight update, correct? Right. Okay. All right. Moving on to item C, receive a report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding allocation of project funds. We have we have two more presentations under item B. Oh, my apologies. All right. I'm sorry. Becky Devaney, our city engineer is going to present on the status of the capital projects. Good afternoon. Cassie and I are going to be presenting this presentation together. So I'm going to get it kicked off and then I'll switch over to her on a couple of different slides and then she'll switch back to me. So it'll be kind of a back and forth between the two of us. So let's get started. All right. Can you all see the presentation? No, we don't see it, Becky. Okay. Well, let's go back. You're going to have to help me because it's not. All right. Thank you, Nick. It's my honor to be here today to talk to you about the capital projects update. I'd like to start off with going over some different items we're going to cover today. First of all, I'm going to walk you through some organizational changes we've made some recent process improvements and communication enhancements in our department, along with providing you the 2012 2014 and 2019 bond program updates and work through some next steps. And then if you have any questions, we will be ready to answer those. So first of all, for those of you who I haven't had the opportunity to meet, my name is Becky Divini and I am the new director of capital projects and city engineer for the city. And the engineering department and capital projects department has been reorganized into three specific divisions. For those of you who may not be aware, over the course of the summer months, we had a consultant plant Moran come in and do an evaluation of the department and they made recommendations and some of those I will share with you briefly in a few minutes, but basically one of the major recommendations they made is to develop our department into three specific divisions. And you can see those here on the screen. And the first division is the engineering division. Currently the deputy city engineer position is vacant. And we have that posted on our website. The part of the engineering division and the deputy city engineer's role will also be to be responsible for all of the traffic engineering folks. That includes our traffic, city traffic engineer, along with several of his staff members, and then also an overall engineering design team that includes our CAD technician, engineering technician designers, along with our in-house engineers and also our stormwater engineers. So that function really is the day-to-day operations from an engineering perspective, whether it be traffic, stormwater, or water/wastewater engineering design, along with an emphasis of helping when is necessary for any of the development-related projects and questions that come up. The second division is the capital project delivery division. That is being headed up by Rachel Wood, who is our deputy director of capital projects. And she currently has six project managers on her team with two positions that we'll be looking to fill in the near future based on need. And so she is responsible for the capital project delivery. And then our third division is the public works inspection division, which is currently being led by Rob Plato, who is our public works inspection supervisor. And he has 11 public works inspectors. Those individuals do right-of-way permits. They also perform inspections on capital projects and development-related projects. So just so you can understand, those are really the three specific divisions of our overall department. And I look forward to taking any questions from you on that at the end of the presentation. Moving through the organizational changes, from Plant Moran's report, along with some of the evaluation that our team has done, there are specific process improvements that we are working for. And I'm happy to announce that some of these are already in the works. The first process improvement was to develop a consistent project methodology and management methodology, including all stages of a project, including schedules and terminology. Our goal is to provide different terminology, whether it's a projects and initiation phase, design phase, construction phase, bid and award phase, or even in closeout phase, so that we have consistent terminology and methodology that's used. And with doing this, we are working on the development and implementation of the new project manager manual. And we have a consultant that is on board that is working through that phase to update a manual that was put together back in 2017 and bring it up to the current standard of the different processes and procedures of our department. And the second item is the selection and implementation of the project management software. And we have selected a software of which we feel like is going to be beneficial to the department. It's going to allow us to house all of our information and have all the information from our financial resources all the way through anything that would be a part of a construction related project request for information, really kind of that one stop shop where all the information can be housed from any type of phase of a project. The next item that we have gone through the process of is implementing the 5% contingency on construction contracts for change orders. So that's recently something that we brought forward to council. And basically what that does is allows the contract to have an additional 5% contingency and put on that so that we can authorize changes that need to be made that come up throughout the project. And finally, the implementation of the change board. The change board idea came up from several of the project managers and was executed through the deputy director Rachel Wood. And really what happens with that is we meet once monthly with individuals from our finance team and from our purchasing team and several other departments throughout our city. And we go through any changes that are related to projects, whether it be a change for a design amendment on a contract or a change specific to something that comes from a construction contract. It gives us an opportunity to evaluate the three important items of any project, which are the scope, schedule, and budget. And it gives the project managers an opportunity for once a month or as needed. The meeting obviously can happen more often, but right now they're currently scheduled once a month to go through and have them an opportunity to bring those items forward. And from there, if needed, then those items are brought to council if they're over the 5% contingency and the $50,000 allowable. The next process improvement is working through this detailed work plan. And this is really based on categories of improvement. The specific categories I'll mention just to kind of give you an idea. We're working through work plans for sidewalks, street lighting, bike lanes. And those are just a few of the ideas that will include our capital improvement plan, any bond-funded project, really kind of that standard operating, and then also the maintenance projects. A lot of those are roadways specific. And we're working with all the partners and stakeholders, including our streets and drainage department, too, on those, along with our traffic engineering department or division. So we're really excited about this because it gives us an idea how to move forward. It gives us specific projects that we can work through and execute, similar to how you see the spawn program being executed. And the other thing that we have done is implemented an internal coordination meeting to discuss project health on all projects. And then we're working on linking the project manager performance reviews to project delivery through the individual development plans for each one of the project managers. And this helps them with evaluating each project from a scope, schedule, or budget standpoint. When there's a change in any of those three particular items, they obviously have an impact on each other. So we're working through that with our human resources department. And I guess the third big bullet item that we work through on our process improvements is refining the project budgets, what we call estimates at completion. We have worked through with our finance friends an internal review, and we're working through each phase of those projects. I mentioned terminology, and that's kind of where we're working through that initiation phase, design phase, and then seeing all the different phases of a project, along with the funding that's associated with each one of those. And they've built this massive spreadsheet that's really a helpful tool that helps look through all of the funding resources also, whether they be external or funding from one of the stakeholders, i.e. water, wastewater, or even for that matter, the VOD program. I also will mention to you that we currently have an RFQ on the street that is we're looking forward to having an outside resource come in and associate the factoring and factoring in the market costs in comparison to our EAC. So we're going to do a deep dive and review those estimate and completions that have been put forward to date and review those in comparison to really what the market is seeing, to see if we have any inconsistencies. They'll also be providing kind of a standard form of how to put together those estimate and completions, and also be working through training our staff. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Cassie so that she can walk through her portion of the presentation. Thanks, Becky. So just like capital projects went through an organizational change, finance has also done the same thing with the emphasis on capital project delivery. We've created a separate team for our CIP and utilities within our budget office that's really going to help focus our efforts with capital projects and utilities to get their projects completed and make sure we're providing financial reporting and things like that for our capital projects and utilities division. Next slide. So some of the process improvements that we are, finance is currently undergoing. We're working closely with capital projects from the beginning of the project all the way to close out. We've had several roles change and we're defining those roles and who does what between finance and capital projects. Like I mentioned, the dedicated team within budget to focus on capital and utilities, as well as trying to improve the transparency and accessibility of our financial data. We're also, Becky mentioned our spreadsheet, we're trying to clarify our project funding and make sure that everyone understands where the funding is coming from, the current funding as well as the future funding. All righty. Thank you, Cassie. The next thing that I wanted to mention to all of you is some of the communication enhancements that the department has gone through. We really are working on a renewed focus for the responsiveness to the city council and the citizens. We have staff that's specifically assigned to monitor and ensure timely responses to requests, and we've also developed a dashboard where we can review those requests and those are monitored through any request that comes in from city council, a citizen, or even an engaged in request. The next item that we're working on currently is an interactive map of all the capital projects. This will depict not only the projects that are currently under construction, but the projects that are funded currently and that are in design, and it will serve as a live update and really a companion to that construction guide that's mailed out twice a year. The other item for communication enhancements is the quarterly capital project updates. Those of you may be aware, we made an update on October 27th to the city council, and then really these are regular updates that we'll be doing quarterly and really walking through all of the different projects that capital projects is delivering, and this will allow us to have regular meetings. We also will have regular status updates on any key project at any time that those are necessary. I'm going to turn it back over to Cassie to be able to go through the street improvement bond program. So for the bond funding of the street improvement specifically, we've divided the charts between the 2012 and '14 bond program and then the 2019 bond program that you see on the right. The pie charts at the bottom of the screen show the funding completion percentages, only that's not the project completion, it's just funding completion. So of the 101 million that was issued between CEOs and GOs for the 2012 and 2014, we're currently at 58% of that funding that's been expensed or yes, I'm sorry, that's been expensed. The 2019 bond program, obviously we've just started that. There was 154 million for streets that was approved and we have issued 9.1 to date, and we will be issuing the 8.9 million of CEOs that was previously approved this fiscal year. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Becky. Thank you, Cassie. I'm now going to walk through the street reconstruction. I wanted to provide this to you in a little bit different graphic than maybe you've seen before. This really is in coordination with those different terminology and phases of a project. You can see the design initiation phase, the bid award phase, construction phase. And so just really wanting everybody to start thinking in those terms. So for a brief overview for the 2012 street bond program, there's currently 20 segments that are in the design and initiation phase. There are 17 that are in the bid award phase, 21 that are in construction, 158 that have been completed total, and a total of 216 streets. You will notice down here on the bottom that you see two segments that have been moved to the 2019 bond program. That's similar for also the 2014 bond program, as you can see the number three over here. Really the idea with that was to take those segments and put them in the 2019 bond program to provide this more holistic neighborhood approach. Our goal is really to work toward this neighborhood approach where we would go into a neighborhood, make the improvements that are necessary from a street perspective, also a water waste water perspective, and then are able to leave that neighborhood and not have to go back for a time. And I will tell you on the 2014, similarly, you can see where there's 31 segments that are in the design initiation phase, 29 that are in the bid award phase, 22 currently in construction, and there's been 145 completed to date, and then we have a total of 227 that you can see in this overall package. So now I'm going to walk through each one of the different bond propositions and also the year of the bond and kind of give you a brief overview. What I will show you is there's three really important parts of any project. You probably heard me mention this a little bit earlier. Scope, schedule, and budget are critical to every project that the capital projects department are going to execute. If the scope has any kind of change, that can obviously impact the schedule, which also if the scope changes or the schedule changes, it can impact the budget. So those three items are really independent or dependent on each other. And so I wanted to make sure you all understood that this is really the way that we'd like to work to approach these with you. First of all, anything that you see in green we're comfortable with and it's really moving in the right direction. If there's something that's listed in yellow, that's simply from the standpoint that we want you to be kind of aware of something that's going on with that overall project. For the McKinney Quiet Zone, which is the first one that I will cover, that project we have the schedule yellow and the budget yellow. That project we're currently working on. We've been working with the UPRR and we're currently moving through and getting that project executed. And so it also coordinates with the downtown storm sewer project. So that took a little bit longer to execute than was originally anticipated, but we're looking forward with moving through on that project. The street bundle in-house design that you see, you see a yellow on the schedule for that project. That project has a yellow shown simply from the standpoint that I wanted to let you know that with that project being moved to in-house design, that does slow it down a little bit and it will take a little bit longer to get executed. The Bonnie Bray Phase 4B, I'm going to hold off because I have a couple of slides later that'll go through the overall Bonnie Bray project. Similarly with the Hickory Creek Road Phase 2, I also have a slide to walk through that. So I'll walk through all the phases of Hickory Creek. On the Moore Street project, that project currently I have shown as schedule yellow and budget yellow. And really just that was put on hold and while staff kind of identifies the funding sources and the partners for the project. The funding was being utilized for the West Hickory Street project and we're evaluating this project overall and trying to make the best decision as to how to move forward. Currently it's not determined that this is really something that needs to be moved forward with and we're looking through if there's some minor maintenance that can be done to this roadway. So understand that we're evaluating that overall scope, which then directly impacts that schedule and budget. The Street Rehabilitation Project, I have shown as yellow for schedule and budget. That's simply because that project is currently bidding. And due to that fact, we have an estimate at completion and an anticipated construction cost. But until we receive bids on that project, it's difficult to tell exactly how that project will come in on budget. And then we're also, it has taken a few months longer than what was originally anticipated to move that project to the phase that it's currently in, but we're happy to say that it is moving through the bid phase at this time. The Roodale Extension at Mingo, you see that all three, the scope, schedule and budget is yellow. The reason why that is, we are evaluating that project along with Mingo itself, Bell Avenue, and a lot of other projects that are happening kind of in that TWU area. So much like I mentioned the neighborhood approach for the bond program, this is similar in the Roodale project that we're looking at it from an overall TWU perspective. There's several projects that are happening in this area from a water/wastewater perspective, also a drainage perspective. We've done a recent study of some temporary roundabouts that could be installed on Bell Avenue. And so we're stepping back and looking at how we can break this project into several phases and executing it from a more, more holistic approach while also working with our partners at TWU. And you can see here at the bottom, the recently completed project is the Bonnie Bray Phase 4A, which many of you may not know the Phase 4A, but that is the roundabout. So on the 2014 Proposition 3, you'll see that the downtown storm sewer trunk line Phase 1, and we show scope, schedule and budget all green for that project. I simply just bring it up to let you know that that project was recently bid and will be going under construction very soon. And on the downtown storm sewer, that is a mouthful, Phase 2 project, I have the schedule and budget red. That's simply from the standpoint that that project is short, about $2 million, and we're currently working and evaluating different ways to fund that project with our finance department. And you will see that the recently completed projects are the Magnolia Phase 2, Hinkle and Windsor, and then the Eagle Drive Drainage Phase 2 project. So now to the 2019 Bond Proposition 1 projects. So the street reconstruction program, you can see that the schedule is yellow. I am happy to let you know that we have hired a consultant to begin working on this project. And we are working on an accelerated schedule to get some small packages designed, and then they're also working on the overall program for the entire Bond, 2019 Bond program for the entire reconstruction program. So we're very excited that we were able to get this kicked off and moving in the right direction. And so we'll be coming back to you at our next meeting with more detailed information on some of those schedules and then also how we're working on executing that actual program. On the 2019 sidewalk improvements, you see this schedule is yellow. We're currently working through some temporary construction easements and right of entries for several of those sidewalks. And then we're moving forward with getting that project executed. Bonnie Bray, like I mentioned earlier, Phase 5 and 6, I'll walk through that along with Hickory Creek Road Phase 3 on a separate slide. And then I just wanted to let you know on the Ryan Road widening, we are currently looking at the schedule and the overall design on that project. So the schedule could be determined based on kind of what we do with the final design in that area. So that project was put on hold during COVID, but we have brought it back to life and we're reevaluating that overall scope and moving forward with executing that project. So now to kind of walk you through Bonnie Bray, I thought it would be a good idea to bring forward a map that shows you the individual phases so you can kind of understand the overall approach. So Phase 1 that you see right here, kind of in this yellowish color, it is from north of Vintage to Roselon. It's a four-lane divided roadway that includes storm drain, street lighting, and sidewalks along with two 1200-foot bridges. It's estimated to be substantially completed and have traffic on the bridge sometime this month. So we've got our fingers crossed hoping that we're moving forward with that. And that project is fully funded. On the Phase 2 you can see here in the red, that's Vintage Boulevard and the connection north to Phase 1. That project is taking that roadway from a two to four-lane roadway. It includes storm drain, traffic signals at US 377 and Vintage and also at Vintage and South Bonnie Bray, and also includes sidewalks and a mixed-use trail. And the schedule for that project is hoping to have that completed in April of 2021. And that project is also fully funded. The line that you see in green is the Phase 3 and that project is from Roselon to I-35E. It is taking that project from a two to four-lane roadway. It also includes street lighting, traffic signals. It has about 5000-foot of waterline construction and about 7000-foot of sanitary sewer line construction. The design is at about 95% and we're working through agreements currently with Inlink Gas and also the Kansas City Southern Railroad. And construction is anticipated to start in Q3 of 2021. And that project is fully funded. 4B, which you can see right here in the blue, that is from I-35E to Scripture. That is a four-lane divided roadway that has street lighting, traffic signals, about 2500 feet of sanitary sewer, 1000 feet of waterline. It also includes drainage and sidewalks. It's about 90% designed and we are currently looking and working with our friends at COG on funding for right-of-way acquisition and construction funding that's needed. Basically, there's about an anticipated amount of about 1.5 million needed for right-of-way and about 7 million needed for construction. So we are working with COG on that. 4A, that you can see this white circle, that's the roundabout. I know if you drive into that area and I've been asked before, you say the project's completed. It doesn't necessarily look like it's completed. I just wanted to clarify that the roundabout itself is completed. There's work that's going on in that area due to some improvements that were made on Scripture and also the major waterline that's being installed currently right there in that location, which is the north-south Phase 3 project. So just for clarification, the roundabout itself is completed. On Phase 5, that project is from Scripture to 380. It's four lanes divided roadway with drainage, 4500 feet of waterline, about 2200 feet of sanitary sewer. It also includes street lighting and sidewalks. This project is currently on hold for design as we make decisions as to whether we bring this project internal or use an external consultant to do the design. It was put on hold during COVID and we're currently working through and evaluating what's the best way to execute that project. It also is in need of funding for right-of-way and construction, but we're working with COG on those funding sources also. Then you'll see kind of in the purple color is 6A. So we took Phase 6 and broke it into two phases and hopefully that is an easier way kind of to understand. 6A is from US 380 to Windsor and then 6B you can see is from Windsor to US 77. This is a four-lane divided roadway with drainage, street lighting, traffic signals, about 6300 feet of waterline and sidewalks. It's about 90% designed and we currently have right-of-way acquisition underway. We're working with trying our best to have 6B completed in coordination with the high school, but basically working through right-of-way acquisition that always is a challenge and can at times slow down our schedule. So we're currently working through that, but the project does need some funding for right-of-way and construction funding and really that's just from a reimbursement standpoint. So just wanted to let you know that we worked on separating this project into two phases, really focusing on that 6B in coordination with the Denton High School opening. So that's Bonnie Bray. I'll now move on to Hickory Creek Road. So Hickory Creek Road and really I'm going to talk through kind of the three phases. The first phase is the scope of that project. It consists of an extension of eastbound lanes from 2499 to Nautical Lane and an acceleration lane along southbound FM 2499. The road was currently two lanes undivided, one in each direction and the project involved constructing two new lanes which will both be eastbound. That project is scheduled to be completed in 2021 and is fully funded and that's the project you see kind of in that bluish purple color. Phase two is the green, that is a widening from west of Teasley to River Pass and that consists of about 1.3 miles of a four-lane roadway with a median and turn lanes. It also has like the previous project, storm drain, sidewalk, water line, sewer line. It was currently estimated to be completed in July of 2021 and that project is fully funded. The last phase you see kind of in that turquoise color is the phase three. That's also a four-lane section from River Pass to 1830 and it also includes a bridge. It's in design and we're hoping to take that to construction in May of 2021 so that would be Q2 of 2021. It currently is short about 9 million dollars and we are working with COG to secure that funding for the overall project. The estimate at completion currently is about 46 million for that project. So that's Hickory Creek Road and with that I'll just kind of walk through some of the next steps. So I know we talked through the work plans. I know that our department in particular is excited about working on developing these into specific work plans, whether it be for street lights, sidewalks, bike lanes, and really working on that based on a category of improvement. The estimates at completion, like I mentioned, we currently have an RFQ out for that and we're excited to have the SOQs for that come back in so we can review those and hopefully select a firm to do that overall deep dive and review of the estimates and completion, set up that methodology and training to help us move forward, and then also just provide to you a budget update on that quarterly basis of the 2012, 2014, and 2019 bond programs along with those major roadways that I just mentioned. And with that I will take any questions I'm going to take down the screen and I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you for listening. I know that was a very long presentation. Becky, thank you for that and I've got several questions, particularly surrounding 2012 and 2014 projects and maybe 2012 more than anything else. We're now moving pretty far outside of the window that that was supposed to be completed in and we're getting close to the window because we saw these as six-year packages and you've got some projects that are being put on hold. I think that when the next bond package comes around and we don't have projects that were promised completed, we've got a problem. And so I'd like to have a little bit of clarity about when particularly the '12 projects and the '14 projects are targeted to be finished because I think we've got an issue here. Sure. Thank you for the question. What we have done is evaluated the overall projects that are currently left that you saw in those different phases, whether they're in design or whether they're in construction. The packages that are currently moving forward, we have one that is major roadways, which is currently under construction. We have that package that I was mentioning, the decision was made to bring that in-house to do design. The original intention was to take that entire project and execute it as one project. And after I had an opportunity to evaluate that, talk with our project management staff and also our designing staff, we've decided to take that project and break it into three different sectors in order to try to execute that in a more expeditious manner. And then really just kind of overall looking at the projects and the overall schedule and trying to make sure that we're meeting the expectations that have been set. Several of the projects that are on hold is allowing us an opportunity to look at that overall scope and make sure that we're approaching these from a more holistic manner. I know that may not answer necessarily all of your questions, but I will tell you that it's my responsibility and really my goal to evaluate each one of the projects and give you very clear expectations. I understand that some of the decisions that were made or different conversations that were made or dates that were given, I'm really taking a deep dive with our entire department along with our finance team to review those projects and make sure that we're setting clear expectations for you. Well, and I guess the expectation that I would want to set as a member of this committee and in the original bond committee sort of representing the voters is that these projects are going to get done and, and shifting, continually shifting how we're going to do them and pushing them further out, I think is a disservice to the voters in 2012 who voted on those things. And we, and I think we've got to, we've got to think very seriously about what we're doing because we also increase the cost on a project when we push it eight, 10 years or more out because we've delayed it so much that suddenly, suddenly we haven't, we haven't been able to fund a project because we were too slow to get it done. And that's a, that's more of a speech than anything else. Yeah. We'll go back to him and look at the 2012 projects. I mean, we have the same conversations internally and remember I've gone back and asked the council for about $40 million the last two or three years because these projects in 2017, 18 hadn't even been started. So we're cleaning them out. COVID's cost us some time and I think we may just have to wait on this, you know, getting in and out of the neighborhoods holistically until we get to the 2019 projects, but we will have an answer for you the next time we're back here. Thank you, Todd. I, and I have just one other, this is, this is just a question of curiosity. The roundabout, cause I go through the roundabout on a very regular basis, if not daily, is there, are there plans for public art sculpture in that grassy area at some point? This is just a personal desire. So that's why I didn't know what, I didn't know what that space might be used for. I don't know. Is Gary on? We'll get, we'll get you an answer on that. The shorter answer is yes. We're going to be doing some landscaping enhancements. We do have planned for a future sculpture. We haven't worked on that specific concept yet. We're trying to get a couple other sculptures under construction first, but that's in the plans. Great. Great. Thank you. Alrighty. Does anyone else have any other questions for me? Yeah. Uh, I've got a few, I'll try to make them quick. Uh, the, so knock the quick one out first, just out of curiosity. If, if you know, uh, you showed the org chart that had developed and the changes there. Do you know where the, uh, transportation planner, uh, rec is going to fit into that? Is that within this organization or how does, how is that going to work? Yes, sir. I absolutely do know that answer. That individual will be a part of our engineering division and that position posted on our website this week. Okay. So that'll be under the left column in there. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. Uh, and then the other two, one is, uh, thank you for the, the kind of trying to break up the large product projects like Bonnie Bray and Hickory Creek. I think that helps a lot. Uh, I was trying to go through and figure out from the, uh, I guess you would say that the narrative explanations of funding for some combination of pieces of that project, uh, and status, uh, and cost estimates of different pieces. And it was very difficult to understand what the current status of the cost estimate and where it was going to be funded from on a per segment basis. So it's more of a suggestion for the future. As you develop that, I think that would help people understand which ones are, are at risk more just because we don't have all the funding identified. Uh, it's kind of hard to tease that out from a high level so far. Um, and, and on that one, um, the Windsor and Bonnie Bray intersection, is that going to be included in 6A or 6B? One second. I have to look at the map so I can clearly answer your question. Yeah, it's, it's that, that area where 6A and 6B meet. Right now it's a four way stop. Sure. And you know what? I don't know that we've made a determination as to which phase of the project it's in, but I absolutely can look into that and get back with you. It was just recent that we've decided to break that project into the 6A versus the 6B. We had typically been presenting it as a phase six from my understanding. And so, um, breaking that in was really were to try to work on focusing to get 6B completed in coordination with that high school. That's our goal and our hope, but I absolutely can get that answer to that question and, and look at that. I'm not sure that we've made that final determination yet. It may make more sense to go ahead and try to do that with 6B specifically because of the high school, but you bring up a very valid point. So we'll definitely look into that. Yeah, that's exactly why I mentioned that. Just, I've seen even some, some comments from the public and questions recently about that intersection because when that high school happens to open, it's going to see some peak demand there. Sure. And then last but not least on the sidewalk projects, I believe, somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe I read that our latest package of SRTS grants was not granted, that we didn't meet the COGS. They didn't give us any SRTS grants in the last package. Is that correct? That is correct. And that's a part of the AIS. Dallas County received all of the grant money for this SRTS and, but we'll continue to work to go after that funding as those opportunities become available. Yeah. I mean, obviously we don't control any of that. But I just wonder what your impression is from sort of a statewide perspective. My, my impression is that more cities are passing more bond measures like Austin's Prop B just passed that are dumping a lot of bond money into these types of projects that they'll be eligible to apply for SRTS grants for. And so it seems like there's more dollars competing for the same number of grant monies. And I wonder whether that changes or should change our strategy going forward to figure out how to most effectively spend those dollars, right? What I don't want to see is we have X number of millions of dollars in a bond package, like the 2019 bond that we keep submitting projects for and keep getting denied. And the money just sits there and we don't see any movement on that. Right. But if, if construction of those projects can't get an SRTS grant, right, then it may make sense to look at some reprioritization of that money where it can have a bigger impact if we're having to fund more of the full cost of those. So, and I think that's absolutely why we've wanted to approach this kind of from a work plan perspective and then evaluate all the different sidewalk projects that we have, the ones that are in the 2018, 2019, what is a part of a safe routes to school, what has CMAC funding and evaluate those so we can kind of find out the best way to move forward with those and execute them and really keep them on that list and, and, and know when the schedule is going to happen and then which projects actually need the funding. So that's really the goal of the overall work plan with that category of improvement. Sounds great. Thank you. No problem. Could you, could you share some more of the rationale for breaking up 6A and 6B for Bonnie Bray because when we were working through that, the logic was is most of the traffic would be coming from university and then turning north on Bonnie Bray. And now it sounds like we're going to focus right in front of the high school, which, but not that segment between Windsor and university is, can you? It's purely a function of how the Council of Governments, we're going after funding for them and our main contact there, Michael Morris, is, is gotten involved at the request of DISD to try to have that roadway as complete as possible for the school open. So we, we are working with them to design it in order to access the purse strings path. So that's sort of what's happening. We're about, we're trying to close about a 10 or 12 million dollar gap on Bonnie Bray and he's working us through it, but he is also driving the prioritization of a vent from the high school up north to 77. Okay. And that last phase that was shown on the map that I didn't go over, which is phase seven, is the project that TxDOT has actually taken over, which is from 77 to the loop. So. Right. And one of the other things I want to mention with Eric's questions, you know, one of the things that we've been working on behind the scenes, Eric, is in just all the committee is with DCTA, the mayor and I have been pressuring them very, very hard the last year or so along with our colleagues in Lewisville, you know, to justify the use of our half cent sales tax we send down there when they are clearly not spending it, they just got bailed out with another $23 million in CARES Act funding, that sort of thing. So we have been successful in establishing what's called a TRIP program. It's small transportation improvement projects and we're taking a look. I've asked the staff to go back. We think that our initial take out of that for the next at least two or three years is going to be $2 to $3 million a year, which we can immediately use to leverage our sidewalk money. So that's kind of how we're trying to fill in the gaps until we are more successful to save route to school. And DCTA has budgeted that pot of money. I think there's an initial $5.5 million in there this next year and Lewisville and Denton will receive roughly half of that money each. Thank you, Todd. Any other questions? Alrighty. Well, I appreciate all of your time. I'm going to turn it over now to Mr. Gray. Good afternoon, Scott Gray, Director of Facilities. Give me just a moment to pull up the presentation. Okay. I have a couple of projects to update you from the July meeting regarding the fire station three, which was part of the 2014 bond funding efforts. A couple of things, and I won't go into the discussion on the scope schedule budget because Becky did such a great job with that. I'll just talk about the colors here of what's changed since July. With fire station three, the only thing that really changed here was the red budget was yellow last time. And actually, we're fairly on target. I think we're going to be slightly over. We're looking at additional funding opportunities to take care of the overage. It's a small amount and facilities has already contributed some of our unallocated to cover a few of the unexpected costs. Really, this project has been going on fairly well. But the summer, we did have 45 days of weather delays, which has pushed this project to a completion for the station itself, the new station, to December. And then we will be doing the demolition and landscaping around for the other location, which should be completely completed in February of 2021. We are we did run into a little bit of a challenge here recently. The millwork subcontractor, which is all the cabinetry and so forth in station three, unfortunately was let go by the by the contractor because they were significantly behind. It was going to push the project probably another four to six weeks in delay. So they found another subcontractor, which happens to be the one working on station eight. And those folks have actually already started delivering product and expected remain on schedule, even though they got a late start. So that was that was great news. So this project is is scheduled to be complete for the new station, which I know Chief Hedges decided about in the December timeframe. So moving on to the 2019 project, it's actually multiple buildings for the public safety facilities, which is the police headquarters renovation, the new police substation and fire and range out on vintage. You can see they're all green, which they were the last time I presented to you really the only thing that's changed here. We had a little bit of a delay in in kicking off this project. We were actually going to kick off a month or two early. But there were some bidding issues. So the project was rebid, which actually turned out to be an excellent situation. We have a significant amount of subcontractor bids on these projects, which has brought the cost down. So we believe we will be actually going into this under budget. So far to date, we've we've issued about seven point three of the sixty one point nine million dollars of bond funds to basically get through all the design efforts and the bidding efforts. We just received the subcontractors bids just last week. So they're finalizing those tallies. I know our sub our vendors going through a number of reviews of those to select the different subcontractors so we can come back to the council with the guaranteed maximum price where we're currently scheduled to do that in the first meeting of December. I'm hoping that we can stay on track with that. So it was a very short presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. OK, hearing none, thank you for the opportunity. OK. That was all of our presentations for item B. OK, moving on to item C, receive a report, hold a discussion and get staff direction regarding the reallocation of project funds and the estimated completion costs for associated projects. We do have a reallocation request that you saw on your backup for parks. And so Gary is going to do a brief presentation on that. OK, Gary Pack and Director of Parks and Recreation have a very short presentation in regards to requests for reallocation of two specific park projects. We do have some funding left over from the bond program that's in the Vela account. We're asking for a transfer of $65,000 of that to the North Lakes Tennis Center project. In fact, both of these are being asked to go to the North Lakes Tennis Center project for court construction. One component that we did not anticipate when we're going through the design process was needing to pave a portion of the airfield driveway that goes into the airfield parking lot and now the dog park parking lot that currently is gravel. It does get potholes, especially in the spring after the winter. We are we've planned on our parking lot to put traffic onto that road from the tennis center. So going through the the planning review process, they've asked us to pave that. So we do have it as in our bid specs for the bidding of that court, those courts, and we're also seeking some internal costs to see if we couldn't do that ourselves. So waiting on final costs from the internal staff time to build that road, as well as what it would cost from from the bidding process. So we're not 100% sure if we're going to need it. But we wanted to request that to be moved over. So we had it ready to go. And then we're working to try to close the Vela project itself, the project account out. So we'd like to get that money reallocated. In addition to that, Carl Young Park, we did have some money that was left over from the spray ground that we were going to use for the restroom project. We actually came under budget, our Parks and Recreation maintenance staff built that restroom on our own, we did that in house, and we're currently building the one in Quaker town as well. So we came under budget, so we did not need that reallocation that. So we're asking that to be moved to North Lakes as well so we could close the Carl Young project. And that is approximately $13,628. So in total, we're asking for a total of $78,000 to be reallocated from the Vela athletic complex, as well as well as a Carl Young Park spray ground project that we did ask for reallocation to the to the restroom project. So we're asking for permission from the Bond Oversight Committee to reallocate just just shy of $80,000 over the North Lakes Park Tennis Center. That concludes the presentation. Good, Eric. Yeah, Gary, just a question. The slide said see map, I wanted to make sure I was referring to the correct location. Is that that that first picture in the the next following slide here that shows where the tennis courts are? So is it it's kind of a connection on the southwest edge of the tennis court property? Is that accurate? Yep. Hang on. Okay, so here's here's the map of the facility. This is the master plan. Our main tennis courts. Here's the existing building in the future parking lot. We're going to pave just shy of where the recycling kind of turnaround is. So just where this apron is that goes into the parking lot will be paved approximately in there all the way out to Windsor. And then we had to widen the apron on Windsor because it was not to current road standards. So we had to work through that. There's an electric pole there in a manhole that we were trying to work around so we didn't have to move that pole. But that that section will be paved. Okay. I guess just just one comment. I'm sure you'll have engineering and streets review it. I know there's several places in town where you have a three way intersection where across the intersection from the dead end roadway there's a parking lot and a stop sign control at that intersection and sometimes it's confusing to drivers who has a stop sign and who doesn't when they're not thinking of looking at upcoming cars from a parking lot. So I think this will be less tricky than many places by that because it'll look like a street to for all intents and purposes. But but yeah, looks good. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? So we have a request for basically a reallocation of $78,000 and to get a motion. Motion from Brandon. Second from Tim Crouch. All right. Any other comments or discussion? All in favor approving the reallocation of $78,000. Probably signify by raising your right hand. Okay. Motion carries. Congratulations, Gary. Thank you. So items D receive a report, hold a discussion, provide information on 2020 adopted tax rate and certified values. Casey Ogden, Director of Finance. I'm playing musical chairs. I had to switch seats. Let me share my screen real quick and I will start the presentation. So last time the committee met, we were asked to bring back kind of just an update of where we landed with the budget and the tax rate for this year. So these are the things that will go over the assessed values, the tax rate, the debt service, and then the bond issuance schedule. Assess values. The line represents the actual dollar amount of this, the certified values. The bars represent the percent change from year to year. So you can see we landed at about 4.5% increase from the previous year at 13.1. We were projecting 7% pre-COVID. Obviously we were happy that we saw an increase. But as you remember, it was, we didn't receive our certified values until very late in September. So we were very unsure of how the budget was going to land. So just a little update on the tax rates. We did adopt the same tax rate as 2019. And you can see there the final certified values as well as the tax rate. You may remember the no new revenue rate was previously the effective rate. And then the voter approval rate was the rollback rate. And we landed much less than both of those rates. So for the tax rate projections and some of our assumptions from the 2019 bond, kind of when we were putting the bond package together, we came in more favorably with our interest rate on our bonds. You can see 1.41 is what we actually landed at on our bond sale this year. But obviously we did less on the AV growth. And then we changed our assumptions going forward for FY 22 AV growth. And then on the left side of the screen, you can see the projected debt service rates for the out years. And we did have a half a cent. We shifted from the O and M rate over to the debt rate this year, but kept the overall the same overall tax rate. And so with the debt service tax rate, you may remember we had from the 2014 bond election, we anticipated a four cent tax rate increase that we never actually saw. And then from the 2019 bond election, we are anticipating a three and a half cent increase over the 2019 debt service rate. And so you can see we're projecting in 2024 and 2025 to hit right at that maximum amount that we were projecting on the debt service tax rate. As far as debt service, our current debt service payment is right at $27.21 million. And then you can see the existing debt service in blue with the planned future debt service in orange. So that that total is increasing over the next couple of years for the bond program. And just a reminder, the 2019 bond program issuance schedule, we have some significant bond issuances coming up this year and next year, before we start tapering down. And with that, I will bring the slide down if you have any questions. Any questions for the group? I guess I have a question. Do we feel like we're being conservative enough given all the unknowns? Or are we? We there's a obviously a huge debate as we're going through the 2019 bond program about the assessed percentage we use. A lot of discussion back and forth. I'm feeling like we were a lot wiser to go lower than higher as some people wanted. But are we too high based on those assumptions today? You know, I'll jump in. You know, I think the biggest guess right now is as we look to next fiscal year, and you saw that we were shown a 3% AV growth next year. And I think we talked about this in detail as we went through the process. But especially when you hit a recession, it's always a lag time on assessed value. So we're anticipating that to hit us next year. So as we get closer, we may drop that 3% lower if we think it's going to be more of a flat AV growth. 3% felt like a comfortable assumption at this time. But that'll be one that we're just continuing to monitor. As we look in the out years, I think I think the 5% is still fine. And we're talking two, three years down the road, assuming that the economy gets gets back on track, but it is definitely going to be a moving target, especially just given the turbulent environment we're in. I think I think we're gonna have a hard time answering that question, Pat. I mean, we were up to like the last day or two before we had to adopt the budget before we even got our tax rules. And we honestly have no idea how they came up with that number at the end of the we were just it changed our assumptions. But we haven't been able to get an explanation of how they arrived at that four and a half percent. And, you know, what I can tell you is on the the building permit side of the house, we're not slowing down at all. I know that. So that's that's great news. So that's the other factor in all this. We're not seeing property values decline, and we're in development services is just as busy as they have been the last couple of years. So it's just an odd thing right now. And we're hoping that the appraisal district can provide us a little bit better information and obviously a much more much better lead time this next year. But we are we came out of this last budget with really no answers as to how they work through this process. Okay, you know, another thing we've done on our projections is lower our collection percentage typically it's right at 100 percent each year we've lowered that to 95 96 percent just going out and be out here just anticipating that given where we are right now, payments might not be up to that hundred percent level. So we're we're tweaking where we can to be more conservative on those projections. That's a great call. We we do that for our pledges. We discount them just to factor in bad pledge payments or unpaid taxes. And, you know, I think that's a huge question, Mark, as you guys already said. So gentlemen, ladies, any other questions for? Yeah, I guess I'll just say on the tax rates and everything, the thing that scares me is that, you know, the no new tax rate actually went up compared to last year, which suggests an overall decline in the value of existing properties, you know, requiring new growth. And when I pulled data from from the county, it it looks like in general the residential housing properties had continued to go up. But there have been a lot of commercial properties that have been reappraised significantly lower. So I'll be interested to see if that trend continues next year. And the concern is just that that even though the rate may not change, the valuations of of the ratio of residential to commercial may start to put more pressure on homeowners as we go forward. So, you know, Eric, I think that's a good point. I would just even more when we calculate the no new revenue rate, which actually is calculated by the county, we were good. They have to do that early in the process. And we're going by inconsistent information we got from the appraisal district. So really, it is, as Todd said, it's just tough to look back and try to see a clear picture of what happened. So we're really hoping as we go in the next year, it'll be a little more straightforward. Yeah. All right. So any other further discussion or questions? Can I get a motion to adjourn? Thank you, Tim. Thank you very much. And Cassie, Casey, when do you think we'll probably do this again? Ballpark? I'm looking at February right now. We'd like to start meeting quarterly. So with our next meeting in February, if that works for everyone's calendars. Works good. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Thank you.