All right, folks.

We will now go into an executive close session.

Good afternoon, everybody.

We're going to go ahead and call the afternoon session of the City Council back to order.

We're going to move on down to three point one, Chief Al Jones.

How are you, sir?

Great, good afternoon, Mayor Council.

Al Jones, Chief of Police.

Today I will be presenting the two thousand twenty-five annual report.

It's a collection of great work that we were able to accomplish last year.

Numbers for Arlington, traffic safety, UTA code case partnership.

Please note these numbers are accurate as of April 10th, two thousand twenty-six.

Compared 2024 to last year, crime against property was down 16%.

Compared 2024 to last year, crimes against society was up 12%.

These crimes in this category includes narcotics, prostitution, disorderly conduct, public intoxication types of offenses.

A rise in the number of arrests and cases filed in this category aligns with our proactive policing strategy.

Simply put, our officers are actively seeking to disrupt these types of crimes in our city while reducing the impact that these crimes may have on innocent residents and visitors.

In 2025, we conducted over 103,000 traffic stops.

Of note, seven were pedestrians and eight were motorcyclists.

We made over 1,300 DWI arrests.

The map on the right represents where the fatality crashes have occurred.

As you can see, while they're primarily concentrated along the highways, every section of Arlington was impacted.

In 2023, we implemented a multi-pronged safe road initiative program.

The initiative was aimed at improving traffic safety throughout the city.

In 2024, we expanded that Safe Roads Initiative program and added safety traffic safety component to it.

In 2025, we continued to be more transparent with our community.

We wanted to share where our trafficking officers and the traffic enforcement details would be located each week.

We provide the information on different social media platforms so drivers will be able to be aware that the officers were in the area and correcting driving behavior if necessary.

That is showed on the screen.

We had 15 homicides in 2025 compared to 17 in 2024.

Our clearance rate on murders was 100%.

That's great, 100% for 2025.

The national average in 2024 is around 61%.

27 were disturbance related.

31 of the murders were robbery related.

Unfortunately, minorities accounted for 81% of our homicide victims.

UTA code case partnership.

Unsolved murders are assigned to homicide detectives to work between active cases.

UTA Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice launched a new advanced course in partnership with us, giving students the opportunity to review real code cases in an effort to develop new leads and to provide our detectives with feedback on potential paths.

The department provided the students with access to all reports, materials from the case files, except for physical evidence.

Shortly after the inception of the program, the students assisted detectives with a notable investigation, which led to the arrest of a suspect in the Asynthia Gonzalez case.

We conducted a joint press conference with UTA professors and students following the arrest.

The case and interest in this unique course gained the national attention.

Reducing violent crime in Arlington continues to be our top priority as an agency.

As we strategize on how we're going to combat it, one key thing we look at is what is driving it.

Arlington Police Department strategically assigned investigators to regional and federal task force to serve as a force multiplier.

The task force collaborate, enables rapid information sharing, identification of emergency emerging trends, recognition of offenders, and hence in coordination of enforcement strategies.

Since January 2022, Arlington Police Department has documented 180 criminal incidents involving kickdoor members, involving aggravated assaults, robberies, burglaries, shootings, drug offenses, all that occurred within the city of Arlington.

We made multiple arrests.

We filed numerous state charges against these members in the past, but we wanted to explore additional avenues to disrupt this their activity in Arlington.

In 2024, we approached the FBI field office about pursuing federal charges against the members of the Kickdoor gang.

In 2025, Arlington police, along with the FBI executed Operation Kickdoor, where 21 suspects were arrested and fairly charged in a RICO investigation.

None of this would be possible without the partnership that we have with the FBI.

One of the agency's main goal is to utilize and enhance technology to provide real-time information and safer outcomes for our officer and community.

This led to the real-time crime center and our aviation units being combined and activation of our drone as a first responder program.

One of its first in the uh DFW area.

This integration strengthens real-time situation awareness and allows aviation assets to support officers during fire and police calls for service.

In 2025, we recorded over 3,000 flights.

Currently, we have uh two active docks within our city.

Differing from the traditional aviation flights, there were no visual observers and pilots are flying these aircrafts from computers in the real-time crime center.

We also partner up with Brink Incorporated to install additional uh dock stations within our city.

This expansion will roll out uh in three phases.

The first phase will begin in May, and we'll bring a disll bring different additional coverage to several critical areas within the city.

Uh the two other phases are planned for July and August.

By the end of the year, we anticipate having 10 total docks or DFDFR docking stations in place, giving us coverage across the majority of Arlington.

Operation Connect, it was launched in 2001.

I'm sorry, 2021.

The goal uh is to reduce violent crime, reduce serious injuries and fatalities, and build positive relationships in our neighborhoods.

Through our initial analysis and data-driven approach, we identified seven target zones in our city.

We started with officers going door to door and meeting with our residents.

They provided residents with brochures that explain why we were in the neighborhood and who their beat officers was, and along with the district supervision.

The data is reviewed weekly to ensure that our officers are in the right place to have a great impact.

Since the inception, we identified two additional zones, which uh brings the total to nine.

Fantastic results, and we continue to conduct Operation Connect, regularly reviewing and making minor adjustments as necessary.

Let me walk you through some of the results that we've had since the inception of uh since the inception of April 2021 through December 2025.

We've made over 62,562 traffic stops in those zones.

We gave over 32,000 749 warnings.

We issued 22,714 citations and a total of 14,360 arrests.

We seized over 992 pounds of marijuana, and we also seized 3543 guns.

While I'm uh on the topic of seizing firearm, I do want to clarify something that I said recently at the NAACP meeting.

I was asked about situations when officers will seize a firearm.

In that time or in that moment, I misspoke, and I wanted and I was referring to about registration.

Texas is a constitutional carry state.

Have a carry a license to carry.

So that would not be something that officers would consider when determining whether a gun should be seized.

What is considered?

What factors we do look at?

Has the firearm been reported stolen?

Does the person in possession of the gun have a prior felony conviction?

Is the person a documented gang member?

Is there probable cause to believe the gun was used in the commission of a crime?

These are amongst the most common reasons our officer sees firearms.

The top four calls for service category that have the most operation connect firearms seized.

Weapons violation, 722 guns seized, traffic DWI arrests, 370 guns, and aggravated assaults, 356.

In 2023, the Arlington Police Department formally adopted a seven-year strategic plan that outlined a clear map of organizational goals and objectives through the year of 2030.

The plan was built on four key pillars: relational policing, operational development, partnerships and technology.

In 2025, department made meaningful progress across each of the focus areas while conducting while continuing to strengthen service delivery and transparency for the Arlington community.

One example includes the launch of the redesigned city of Arlington and APD public website, which were built with community input to make it easier for residents and businesses to access online services and important information.

Under the organizational development pillar, we expanded employee wellness initiatives supporting both physical and mental health.

Since the start up of the BlueFit, over 300 employees have benefited from that class.

Progress towards each strategic plan objectives continue to be tracked and documented by department leadership.

During one of my earlier presentations this year, council expressed interest in training of our officers, what time to trade type of training our officers go through.

Texas police officers must complete a 40-hour continuous education, including 16 hours of alert, active active shooter training during every two-year training cycles.

TICO two-year training cycle requires officers to complete 40 years, 40 hours of continual education, and some of the topics include crisis intervention training, cultural diversity training, de-escalation techniques, legislative updates, and investigative, especial investigative topics.

Some of our achievements for 2025, National Night Out.

We placed second, we had a second place finish with over 200 events in our city with over 22,000 neighbors participating in those events.

Faith and Blue Weekend, we had more than 180 registered events in our city.

We also went through a recreditation in 2025 through Calia, which is the Commission for Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.

We also debuted the new motorcycle and helmets for our motors unit.

We also continue to successfully manage large scale events within the entertainment district.

We held for the first time ever 2026 Indy Grand Prix in Arlington.

And lastly, I'm excited about the future opportunities.

This year we're celebrating the 150 year anniversary for the city.

And we also will be hosting nine matches in 2026 FIFA World Cup.

These are going to be some extremely exciting times for our city, and I just can't wait to uh how to until once they get here.

With that, I'll open it up to anybody and questions.

Thank you, Chief.

Any questions from council?

Yes, Dr.

Odom Wesley.

Thank you, Chief, for this very comprehensive report and for the outstanding work that our APD is doing, resulting in a 11% overall reduction in the crime rate.

I also noted that 15% of our murders were related to domestic violence, and we hear a lot in the news lately about domestic violence.

So could you share with us uh what efforts APD has in place to try to reduce our incidence of domestic violence?

So we have a very robust uh victim service program.

Uh any time that we have a victim within our city, our uh victim services are making contact with them, uh trying to get them the help that they need, trying to get them out of the situation or the situation that they may be in.

Um the other thing that we have doing, you know, we see a lot of domestic uh violence within the apartment complexes.

Our officers that are out uh out in patrol um try to make sure that they're engaging those uh community complex and sharing the resources with them.

Um, you know, and it's all about education, trying to educate them to teach them where they can go to get the services that they need.

We also have a robust uh advocacy group partners with we have that consistently uh work with us to try to get the victims that the help that they need.

So it's just a combination of not just the police department, but you know, the partnership that we you know that we have out there.

I always say that we can't do this great work by ourselves.

We need these partners to help us have an impact on domestic violence here in our city.

And could you talk a little bit more about our heart unit and recognizing mental health as one of the I guess causes of violence, especially domestic domestic violence, and how the heart unit has is making a difference?

So let me I think you probably have two different things.

We're probably talking about behavioral health unit, and then the heart is dealing with the um homeless.

So let's go with the behavioral health unit.

Um, you know, I you know, we started the um the behavioral health blue unit uh several years ago, and thank you for counselors who make you know having us um having uh eight officers and eight clinicians.

Uh, these men and women do respond to mental health calls for service within our city.

Uh, and you know, and they're trying to make sure that we get the people who help that they need.

Uh, as far as our heart unit, they are dealing with the homelessness in our city.

Um, there's those men and women, they do a fantastic job of going out into you know, to different places looking for the homeless people to provide them the resources that they need so that we can you know get them out of uh off the street into a place that you know they can call home.

Thank you, sir.

Sure.

Any other questions or comments from council?

Yes, Councilmember Gonzalez.

Thank you, Chief.

Uh you know what we all think about the officers.

Please let everybody know that you know, we're very proud of them and we appreciate them keeping us safe.

Uh as you probably know, the last time we had uh deathless uh day on the roads in Texas was November 7, 2000 uh, which is a long time ago.

So I did notice of the 30 fatalities that we had.

I think 12 of those were on the highways.

So are we getting a little more uh help from Texot or I guess Department of Public Safety?

I mean, I don't see them around much.

I know they were pushed down to the border, but I mean, are we getting more?

They were pushed down to the border, but they're back, they're back in the area.

Um, but normally, and this is just for Arlington, we normally handle all of the highways and byways that come through our city.

Um we do have through that safe roads initiative.

Uh, our men and women, especially from the traffic units, are out there and really making a true impact on the roads.

Uh, just this year alone, we've seen a 17% increase from over what we saw last year.

And last year we had a fantastic year.

I think we're starting to rebound from the pre-COVID days.

Um, but we, you know, we saw a 17% increase uh for the first four months of this year, and I think that's uh we at least we're that's it's fantastic and we're moving in the right direction.

And then with regards to fatalities, and thank you for that report.

Um there's been 12 in South Arlington, which is out of 30, that's a lot.

And so do we have numbers on how many of those uh were caused by uh young adults?

I mean, speeding is a big concern, and I and I I I love seeing the officers on the road more.

Uh, there's I think there's less people running the red lights.

They're still doing it, as you know, they're always gonna do it.

I quit doing it after I reported that I was doing it.

So we appreciate you.

Um, but it it's it it's awesome to see the officers on Cooper three, four in a row, you know, all lit up, and it's like it's great to see that.

But with regards to the young people speeding, I know we're doing patrol, special patrols in certain areas where we have a lot of that.

I mean, do we have information on that?

Can you I mean, is it mostly young people still speeding?

Yeah, uh yeah, of course.

Um, you know, when you're first getting your license, you want to test how fast your car can go to.

But um we and I and I talked about the three-pronged approach that we have, you know, it's about educating uh the young people and trying to get into the schools, and our men and women do uh to talk about slowing down, uh arriving to the location safe.

Matter of fact, um, you know, within the next, I think it's we already started.

Um we're starting to go into the school before the prom season to talk about uh making those great decisions, not to drink and drive, not to speed, uh, because you can lose your life during those situations.

So our men and women are trying to get in those schools to have those conversations and they're starting up um that's important in the schools.

I mean, when I first got on the school board in Mansfield, we had, I think it was every 45 seconds.

That's I think that's what the program was called.

And they would have a uh a day where they would every 45 or whatever, every two minutes, whatever it was, they'd ring a bell at the school and say somebody just died, and then they would put a f they put a little thing in front of the school and it made these kids go through and understand, and they had a the wreck in front of the school, and then they actually you know had some other students participate in that.

So I mean that's something that they were doing a long time ago, and I I think got taken away from um Mansville I ISD because of the budget, but that's something you might look at and see.

I'm not I shouldn't even be telling you what to look at.

No, let me it was really good.

So that's not my job, so I apologize saying that.

No, the the program that we have now is very realistic.

Cool.

Um the men and women, they take a car that has been wrecked in another car and they set it up aside and they put somebody out on the laying them out like they died or injured, so that you know they can see the reality of making a bad decision.

So I think they're doing a fantastic job of getting the message out.

Um, but you know, we can't stop every kid from student that we try.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Councilmember Guante.

Chief.

Thank you for the report.

I want to congratulate, congratulate the entire team, the APD publicly.

Uh outstanding numbers.

So 100% homicide is resolution against 61% uh nationwide um average.

So we grew 72% of the traffic stops compared to 2021 in four years.

You guys doing an amazing job.

And I believe I strongly strongly believe that those um traffic stops relate to less fatalities out there because there's more enforcement.

Of course, education plays a big role in that, but enforcement also is very important.

Um, and also congratulate you guys for uh putting out this the first uh drone as a first responder program in DFW.

Uh you guys are really ahead of the game.

And the numbers speak for themselves.

Seventh safest city in the nation, second safest city in Texas.

I congratulate you, you and your team, okay?

I have a question here.

Against uh we have the uh reduction in crimes against persons, crimes against property, but an uptick on the crimes against society, which is the narcotics that use, prostitution, disorder, disorderly conduct, and public intoxication.

So what do you well give me some remarks about it?

Why do you think is it a national trend?

It's a Texas trend uh in what the police is doing to curb those behaviors.

So let me explain.

Um I think that probably needs a little bit further detail.

Um when we see the numbers going up in those areas, I'm excited because that means the men and women are working.

They're out there taking guns off the street.

They're out there doing a lot of proactive things by looking, taking drugs off the street.

All of those things are uh has an impact on quality of life.

So that means that our men and women are actively patrolling those areas that um that you know that are affecting quality of life in our areas.

So having those numbers up to me, I think that's great.

Thank you.

Just gonna follow up one more question.

Um talking about the APD strategic plan, the seven-year strategic plan.

So you highlight out there.

Um up a grade on the radius bodyborne cameras and video systems are necessary.

And it's being progress, right?

It's a work in progress in expended drone as first respond uh responder program.

Uh uh, and I see here there's um on the works another uh 10 more locations to be totaled 12 locations for as uh as a pod for the the drone.

What would be ideal for a CD uh uh our size uh in the future?

We see those as a normal day-to-day operations integrating drone with the police.

So um we we looked at it, we brought the brink company in the have those 10 docks across our city.

That's gonna cover most of and I can't say the 100, the 99 square miles.

Uh, and that's because we have an airport and we have flight restrictions down on the side of the north.

So those that's the only reason why we don't have the full coverage.

But if we didn't have it, it would actually we would have full coverage in our city.

So I I'm I'm really proud of the drone as a frost responder and where we are headed.

Um, it's going to cut down on our response time.

I think it should help out uh with um for our men and women so they don't have to drive to certain calls.

We can actually start canceling them.

Um so it's gonna have a major impact.

Um and I I don't want to leave out the fire department because they're going to be partner up with us in in you know in the public safety uh for drone as a first responder.

So they're gonna you know be a partner with us, and I just didn't want to leave them out because they're with us lock in step.

It's a team work.

Thank you so much.

Sure, congratulations, all of you again.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councilmember Hog.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

And chief, I think a lot of people said it, and you deserve it.

Um there's been a lot of good numbers, and so thank you to you and your entire um staff of all the officers and all your administration team that that works through this.

It's been uh truly great.

And also let me thank you.

I still say the best thing I have is when people have started telling me they see our officers on traffic patrol more, they see more people getting pulled over.

Um, it's weird to say we're glad to see people getting pulled over, um, but it brings me joy um because I know that was something we were having to address, and you put your team in place um to address that.

Um I also want to say just one comment because it was something I asked for last time, and I really appreciate you showing the training.

Um, because you see what we're doing on crime reduction, we see what we're doing on less uh we haven't any major controversies with police on pull on stops or anything of the nature, and I truly believe um sometimes training is something that can get cut, and I know it's a decision that has to be made, and I think you and your staff have really worked on making sure officers are trained, and I think sometimes officers are not always wanting to go to training all the time, but when they're finished, a lot of times they do know it has helped them in scenarios where they're going.

So I appreciate you.

I know last time we talked about it, and you showed us to us this time.

So I really appreciate you showing us the training um for what we're doing because I think it is impactful for our residents to know how much our officers do train to be the best police officers um in the state, if not the country.

So I appreciate that and just want to say thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions or counsel from questions from council?

Chief, I'm biased.

I'm the mayor, I'm a former cop.

But uh the numbers are incredible, and it's a credit to you and your whole team of administration at the police department and the fine men and women of APD.

I literally get more calls and emails complimenting our officers than I do complaining about people, and I don't know any other mayor that can say that.

So I'm I'm proud of what y'all are doing.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mayor.

Appreciate you.

Thanks.

All right, we're gonna move on down to 3.2 Dallas Cowboys Lease Extension, Mr.

Elverton, City Manager.

Thanks, Mayor.

Council, uh I want to give you a uh a briefing this afternoon on the activities that we've been working on and trying to work out a uh new lease extension with the uh team.

What I hope to provide over the next little bit is a clear and simple explanation to a really complex transaction, one that demonstrates tangible community benefit and one that validates that it helps us with meeting the everyday needs of our residents and the things that we do and safety and parks and roads uh and the like.

Uh and bottom line of what we're talking about today really is the same venues, the same venue taxes for the same term that we're talking about.

It's about how we then work within those parameters.

So, not to bury the lead, but a few key things.

I want to make it clear because sometimes I get this question talk talk a lot of people about various things.

Uh I want to make it clear because not everybody understands that the city is who owns both our stadiums.

Mr.

Davis doesn't own Globe Life, Mr.

Jones doesn't own ATT.

These are city assets that were voter approved venues that we're talking about extending a lease term on to ensure the certainty of the future for another 15 years in the entertainment district.

We're doing so by utilizing some savings that have been created through uh very conservative plan of finance uh that we've undertaken over uh decades, quite literally, um, and that we then reinvest that savings back to extend the life of the very facilities that we're trying to preserve the values on.

As part of the uh uh arrangement, the team is going to advance the cost of the improvements.

Uh, they're gonna commit to to do 750 million dollars worth of stadium improvements in the complex, and that there are again no new or increased taxes, and the original strategy of 2048 still exists.

Nothing changes.

So, from an overview, we want to make sure that uh we're clear that this is about a 15 year extension.

The current transaction that we have is a 70-year transaction for the team that started in 2009 with the effective date that goes for generations, quite literally.

Um it's not necessarily uh the the most optimal when you get to the outer years, which is part of what we're trying to do here is secure certainty into the future, but also improve, improve some of those terms.

So we'd go from 2040 to 2055.

Currently, the city brings in three million dollars a year in direct revenue off the transaction, two million dollars in rent, five hundred thousand dollars in naming rights rent, and five hundred thousand dollar charitable contribution pledge.

Um if the normal extension was in place, all of that would drop to one million.

So three million a year becomes one million a year in the future, not tomorrow, but when the lease term originally uh would term.

So, as part of this renewal for the 15 years, we've also made sure that those revenues uh consistent with the current transaction stay in place.

It's $32 million worth of new revenue to the city uh in this transaction, unrestricted new revenue to the city in the transaction, with except for the uh charitable contribution, which clearly goes to the Arlington, Arlington youth.

Um the team will advance the uh cost of improvements, uh at least for the parts that we're that we are uh committing to pay for 273 million that we will then reimburse over time that reimbursement comes from voter-approved venue taxes that already exist that must be used only on the venue or not be used at all.

We cannot use those dollars to fill potholes to pay for police officers, like you just heard from the chief to do libraries or the like.

It's you you invest in the venue and or you don't invest at all uh as it relates to that.

So the no newer increased taxes with the extension uh to 20.

Uh they commit to stay till 2055, but our bond maturity stays the same at 2048.

So lots of history here.

65 years of sports tourism entertainment history in Arlington underpinned by numerous public documents that we've planned for and uh approved and gotten better at over the years as we've added in assets to the district, things that clearly would not be here, but for ATT Stadium, things like the National Medal of Honor Museum, things like the Lowe's hotels, the the two that are there, the third that's on the way, uh arguably uh the Texas Rangers.

If they if Cowboys weren't here, might not might not have renewed to stay in Arlington.

That's something that we have to always think about how we keep and protect the center of gravity that we've uh we've built over time to continue to then take those dollars and invest them back in the public good of our community.

And I'll show you a little bit about that here in a moment.

How these transactions work is really pretty simple, and again, it's something that most people don't really get.

This isn't uh a just a team situation, it's not just a situation where the city sends money to the team.

This is a three-legged stool type transaction.

Um, you have the city that invests uh through, in our case, voter-approved sales taxes, hotel taxes, and rental car taxes.

A little bit of a flash forward, uh I'm gonna show you we've gotten some updated information from visa that would indicate clearly uh hotel taxes and rental car taxes are non mostly non-Arlington type uh dollars that come to the to keep to the community.

But of the sales taxes that occur in Arlington based on 2025 data from Visa, 53% of that comes from non-Arlington residents, 47% Arlington, 53% non-Arlington.

So it is a lot of as we talk about other people's money helping facilitate uh this from outside our community.

You also though have the fans that invest in these assets because they're the user through ticket taxes and parking taxes, those are all also authorized as part of the venue projects that the voters approved and the council subsequently issued bonds for.

Um and through that economic impact of the purchases of parking and taxes or the uh tickets, you have those revenues coming into that.

So the fans are invested.

And then finally, you have the team that's invested through their own debt and equity that they bring to finish out the project.

And in ATT's example, a 1.2 billion dollar project, $925 million came from the team.

$325 million came from the city.

A lot of times I get asked, how come the city gave Mr.

Jones nine, you know, $325 million dollars?

And I said, well, you're thinking about it just the opposite.

It's how come Mr.

Jones gave the city $925 million?

It's our facility.

He invested in a public-private partnership with us, uh, three to three to one, four to one, right?

On what we've what we've got going.

They also bring in the operation and maintenance.

So police officers that are out there, they pay for insurance, electric, gas, all the operational risk of putting on events are all part of the team's contribution to this three-legged stool.

So city, fans, and team put together, build these venues, and uh and make things uh make things work for us.

So what were the questions that the voters asked or were asked?

This is uh something we've had heard a lot of conversation about.

Um so we've pulled this, and basically it breaks down to kind of three key points.

It's uh do you have a project that that qualifies per the statute?

It's a project within the statute, chapter 334, and that you agree to impose certain taxes.

This is the question that was asked on ATT Stadium in 20 uh 2004, generally, 55, 45 in favor to levy uh five different taxes, uh half cent sales tax, two percent occupancy tax, five percent rental car tax, three dollar parking tax, ten percent ticket tax.

Same question, a little more off, you know, wordsmith a little bit.

We follow the statute.

The statute prescribes how we have to word this language, but the same general question: do you have a project, Globe Field?

Are you gonna use it?

Is it eligible under chapter 334?

Yes.

What taxes are you gonna levy to facilitate the project?

That's the question that was asked on Global Field.

To be a little more specific, in 2004, the Cowboys venue, voter approved.

We had method of finance there of bonds that were sold in 2005, of sales tax, hotel tax, and motor vehicle tax to support those bonds.

We also issued separate bonds in 2006 that were backed by ticket and parking taxes through conduit fancing that has our name on it.

We pay the we pay the bills, but it's backstop by the team.

Um and then uh in 2008, nine, and 17, those original 2,000 bonds were or 2004, five bonds were refinanced.

2008-9, it was really as an extension of the uh housing crisis, and we took variable debt and converted it to fixed.

And in 2017, uh it was part of the refinancing to then enable the future Globe Life Park.

So if we go through with what we're talking about today, this would be the fourth essential refinance of those of those same bonds.

2016, uh the Rangers Ballpark was approved, voter approved, same um same situation of taxes.

We still have bonds there that were approved in 2018 that have a majority out in 2024.

And we have ticket and parking taxes that were levied and there were sold back in 2020.

So when you take those dollars and then you use the law, state law, venue chapter 3 through 4, what does it mean that you can do?

So if you kind of dovetail that off into the well, what are the eligible expenses per the statute?

It's really three key things.

One is you pay the reimbursement, the cost of planning, acquiring, establishing, developing, construct, and renovating one or more approved venue projects, or you pay the principal and interest and other costs related to bonds or other obligations for the city on the notes for the venue, or you pay the cost of operating, maintaining one or more venue projects.

That's what the law says.

You can do those three things.

In Arlington, our history has been we focused on the first two things.

And what we're talking about today is making a lease modification to do the third thing.

But with a trade-off that the team comes back and helps us invest in some of the other things, right?

We're not going to do additional debt.

The team's going to commit to provide the additional enhancements, but we're going to use the operating cost that they're receiving relief from to facilitate that.

So I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how that works.

But currently, we're receiving about 20 million dollars more than what's required for debt service.

That creates the opportunity that we're discussing.

And per the law, anything that's not required for debt service has to be used for venue projects.

You cannot use it for anything else.

No other public service except for the venue project.

And chapter 334 also does not provide a requirement for what I'd call a secondary vocal approval to determine that you're switching funding categories.

This project's both the previous projects have already been funded.

We certainly are making a change of going from capital to operating, but there's not really a secondary process in the law in order to facilitate that.

I'll talk a little bit about more about that in a second.

The actual mechanism, just to kind of put a picture around it.

The venue bonds can only go to the project, as I've said.

The green is good.

That's the opportunity.

And this is how it how it plays out.

And so if we were to refund the obligations as we've talked about and convert to some operating cost, the blue becomes our new, our new debt service.

So you can see that we still have plenty of excess revenues to cover what we're talking about.

So that's a I know it's complex, but that's uh how the at least the mechanics are created.

So what's going on out there?

Why uh what have the venues done for our community?

What's the payoff to the city?

What's the benefit to our community?

Um couple things.

Um our CVB friends did a study last year with Compass Longwoods that would indicate we're a very strong tourist organization, very commit, very consistent with all those documents we talked about earlier, right?

The impact there.

16.3 million visitors coming to Arlington and over $3 billion in domestic travel market spend uh in our in our community.

I also referred earlier about the visa study that we recently got updated as a proxy for the spend in Arlington for sales tax.

And when we talk about sales tax and investments in our community, just as our general budget goes for every sales tax dollar you you bring in, 53% is coming from somewhere else.

And so sales tax is a good tool for Arlington.

We import wealth pretty well from a sales tax perspective with a strong retail corridor and a strong tourism corridor, and that is part of why this interests us to continue that.

So that's good.

Um, and you know, in many minds could be uh enough to satisfy what we need to look at, but we kept looking deeper.

And so we looked at uh uh talking to the folks that helped us do economic analyses on both stadiums in the past, HRA advisors and their their predecessor, took a look at all of this for us uh and analyzed this with input from the team, they were able to go in and look at team records and understand the um the mechanics of how it was working at the stadium.

They've quantified for us that the economic output on an annual basis in Arlington is $324 million to ATT.

Now, to try to simplify that, when we say economic output, what does that mean?

In my my layman's kind of way, that means everybody's cash register in this in the city.

Restaurants, bars, hotels, businesses that transact, economic development is or the economic impact is those dollars that show up in the cash registers of our small businesses and other businesses in our community.

On the other hand, fiscal impact is that is the city's cash register.

How does the money show up in our community?

Fiscal impact.

Now let me go back just for a second.

I want to make sure it's clear.

HRNA has said they we asked them to do a couple things.

Quantify the economic impact from now through the end of the new proposed term.

In 2050, 30 years, it's 9.7 billion dollars of value that they estimate to Arlington.

Just the incremental amount from 2041 to 2055, 4.9 billion dollars.

Why are we interested in pursuing this extension and this certainty for this period of time?

Because it gives businesses in and around our community that certainty that that business, that that continuity will be there for them to continue to ring their casual cash register.

Why are we interested in as a city?

Because the same question fiscally from today through 2055, 1.278 billion fiscal impact to the city, our cash register, rent, ad velorum, sales tax, occupancy tax, liquor tax, water bills, you name it, the money that comes into the city through various sources, 1.2 billion over the life of that transaction, 458 million during the extended window.

More certainty for our community fiscally relative to those numbers.

So that was helpful, and that's good, but we kind of keep digging.

Let's keep looking at what's the true impact, right?

So this is a chart that we've updated that is one of my favorites because I get often asked, how do we know this works?

How much money are the Dallas Cowboys worth to the community?

Well, I just did that a little bit on the economic story that HRNA tells us, but it's it's it's an it's an economic report, right?

It's not really kind of facts per se, it's a study.

Here's some facts.

Take a look at our sales tax trend, different colored lines, one year, three year, five year sales tax growth, and kind of how it performs.

And you can see very well, this goes back to 2000.

We were not uh pretty sleepy, kind of in the 2000s to 2009, very very stable, not a lot of growth.

The first uh vertical bar there is 2009 when Cowboys Stadium opened.

I think you can see here by most uh reviews, there's an inflection point that starts to occur in our community, all right.

And it creates where I might have otherwise been on a trend like this, it creates this opportunity that is benefiting our community with enhanced sales tax that but for the venue being here was not being created.

And we look at it again one year, three year, five year.

The second vertical line is when the ballpark, Texas Live and the associated improvements there with lows came into play, so you see another boost.

So is the investment in tourism and venue assets paying off for Arlington?

Would say it is.

I'm gonna talk to you a little bit more about it, because this is again more good information, but but let's keep let's keep looking.

What else can we see?

Hotel tax.

Same kind of situation.

We were running pretty sleepy right across here.

If we just stay in on the current trend, steady but no real growth.

So this becomes the opportunity for the city that these venues are driving business-wise, economic impact for the hotels, fiscal impact for the city, right?

So that's helpful.

But what else?

Mixed beverage taxes.

These are all really interesting to me as a geeky city manager.

It's all pretty similar.

The trend is pretty similar.

There's an inflection point, 2009 that starts.

These dollars are flowing to the city and they're being reinvested in our community, right?

For community benefit, community good.

Let's keep digging.

What else?

Advalorum.

So we took a look at the property tax base, just in a general little narrow area around the stadium.

I'm gonna call it a quarter mile.

But we looked at the tax base around the stadium before it was announced to today.

Before it was announced, the back that tax base was around 178 million dollars.

Today that same tax base sits at around 747 million dollars.

That's interesting, but what makes it more interesting is how it's grown much faster than the rest of the city over that period of time.

320% growth in that hot spot versus 192% growth across the city over that generation of our residents.

That's about three and a half million dollars a year in ad velorum taxes that are coming into our budget, right?

So you can start to see the economic studies, long woods, hRNA, fiscal impact, uh layers of different kinds of revenue evidence trend that's that's there.

So then it's like, well, how do you know this benefits our community?

Okay, well, I show you the revenues.

Let me show you then what we did with it.

How does that work?

What do we what kinds of things have we added to our budget since 2009?

Not insignificant.

91 new police officers, 172 new firefighters.

We've opened a new fire station.

We didn't have to build for it because the pay for the bill because the developer did and bought us our new first fire truck, but the fire station at that time was about a million five a year to run.

That's in our budget.

Opened a new downtown library, opened two new rec centers like the like the active and the beacon down southeast, which are brand new facilities, new to our our need to tear to take care of and to care for, and continued to make systematic investment in roads with 66 new lane miles of of investment during that time.

There's more, but those are kind of the highlighted elements.

What else did we do?

An interesting chart that's pretty uh comparable to the ones I just showed you.

Let's just go right here, 2009.

And there's clearly a trajectory change in our ability for our CIP to grow.

It was kind of kind of bumpy around here, but generally flat, hit a bit of a trajectory there.

What does that mean?

It means I'm investing in streets, I'm investing in fire stations, I'm investing in parks, I'm investing in police stations at a faster scale than what I would otherwise be able to do, right?

So all at the same time while improving our debt ratios.

Our ratios improved during this time because our tax base was growing.

So this looks like you're investing more.

Yes, we are, but proportionally we're investing less because our base is growing, right?

So I think those represent some of the benefits to our community.

Why do we care?

Why are we interested?

How does the money that we import from tourism get exported into our neighborhoods, right?

So the complex improvements themselves are here and focused on elongating the useful life of the complex.

At the end of 30 years, there's a couple options that might happen.

The team could uh find another uh location.

They could exercise the option that already exists, which I talked about earlier, is really not as advantageous of what is what we're talking about today because two million dollars worth of revenue would go away at that time.

So we're working to extend certainty for them and for us at the at the expense of new improvements, but at the revenue that's partially offset by new money coming into the deal, right?

We're trying to sustain that economic community, those cash registers ringing all throughout our community.

We're trying to sustain that, and we're trying to sustain the fiscal impact for our city, that upper trajectory that I was showing you.

Importantly, and I'm gonna show you some stuff here in a second.

We also want to make sure that these facility enhancements really uh meet a good strong public purpose.

We're not talking about new chandeliers and those kinds of things.

We're talking about enhancing the facility safety, bringing it into clearly the 21st century with new technologies that need to be deployed in a place that brings and attracts so many people that we need to protect the public value.

We need to protect the public value in the facility itself, the people itself, and the revenue that's generated to our community to provide what we need to do.

So enhancing the facility security, public safety, and also importantly, if I hear one worry over there, it's always about vehicular pedestrian conflicts, um, how cars and pedestrians uh don't mix and knock on wood, we've been very fortunate that we haven't had a significant uh incident over there, but it's one that the team uh has uh shared concern about in this way.

It helps traffic get in out, and it's a safer particular situation.

So to be a little more detailed, what kinds of complex improvements are considered?

It breaks down into a few categories.

Asset hardening is is one of them, uh deploying future leaning technologies that would uh help us with cameras and certain protections of uh ingress and egress, things like screening facilities, uh camera detection that bring it into us just being a place that needs to be more contemporary.

Um it's now not really a something you just hope to do, it's really a modern necessity of the things that we're uh involved in.

Uh it also generates some revenue opportunities uh with signage and kitchen areas, which are intended to help provide more revenue to help the overall complex continue to be viable, right?

Um, and so um these are all part of what we would call exhibit A in the transaction.

Importantly, I've showed over to the right some of that pedestrian traffic safety uh concern that I was talking about.

We started to do some studies, and uh both teams have been very active and helping us with this.

The top, the top area is uh kind of a where we see the most pedestrian car interactions, and at least around ATT, we see a lot of interaction there at Randall Mill and Collins and Randall Mill ATT as well as Collins and Slaughter.

Those would all be areas of focus.

I'm not sure we're gonna be able to get all of that done candidly for uh what we're talking about, but definitely the two intersections to the north are high on our on our screen.

And the bottom image is a conceptual rendering of simply what I'd call a halo.

Um it's it's really an elevated sidewalk over the intersection.

They'll let you come from any direction, get up on the halo, walk the ring and go in a different direction without cutting through the intersection.

You'll have to do some things like you see out in Las Vegas where you actually have to prevent cars and people from mixing.

So you can't just simply put that there and hope people go to it.

So there'll have to be some retaining walls and things like that that will come into place to generate people to go there.

Similar, like UTA, even when they they put the three bridges over Cooper, they're like, we can't just build three bridges, you have to build the forced uh move to the three bridges.

So that's kind of what we're talking about in this area.

We also did some additional things in the agreement, which have been things that have been talked about over the years, such as including the the Arlington emphasis by the team as it relates to their mentions and identification on TV radio guides.

Our folks, we hey, look, we're not trying to build downtown Dallas or downtown Fort Worth, but there is geographic pride in our community and appreciation from our community investing in these facilities.

And it's just simply a uh a matter of respect to our taxpayers to say where you're at, you know, live from Arlington, Texas, and to do everything that they can to help us advance that.

Um, and that's what we want to do.

We've also for uh since the beginning had uh uh suite out there for use with community and economic development.

It's not been in any of our prior documents, it is included in the ranger documents, so we cleaned that up to make that a commitment.

Um, economic development commitment.

It's a little bit hit or miss.

The team is always answered our phone call when we when we call to ask them to help us with various things.

Medal of Honor Museum is a perfect example of how they've uh helped us in that way, but we need to get more uh pragmatic about that and continue to get the momentum and the traction in that area to explore additional land assembly and activation of that land for economic development purposes, using the sports as the anchor, but building more tax base like what I was describing earlier.

We also need to work collectively on enhanced mobility, whether that's more autonomy or EVTALs or gondolas or whatever the technology may be that they're committed to assisting us.

Uh parking rides right now, for example, the the Uber Uber Lyft is something that's very hard to influence and control.

There's really some technology that needs to be applied there to make that a good user experience for the riders as well as the traffic.

So those are elements that are there.

So uh in summary, um, the team is uh committing to over the time in the agreement to do 750 million dollars over the lease term.

I want to be clear because there was some confusion over this.

There has been already investment the last two years of 300 million dollars that the team's not asking for reimbursement, but they do want credit for what they've done.

So that is embedded in the 750 numbers.

273 is the city's net present value of our additional contribution to do what's in schedule A.

Um, there would it would come from the savings that I identified earlier.

There would be one uh payment in the beginning that's kind of larger at 50 million dollars, and then for a period of time through 2048 or less than if we do like we normally do and pay early, it might be earlier than 2048, but it would uh it would be 20 million until the um the the uh uh debt is paid relative to that, and we have built in offsets as it relates to the ability for the city to early pay, like I was just talking about, which could lower the cost.

If we were able to secure grants from some eligible source to do some of the work that we're talking about, there are lots of public safety grants out there.

million dollars and then for a period of time through 2048 or less than if we do like we normally do and pay early it might be earlier than 2048 but it would uh it would be 20 million until the um the the uh uh debt is paid relative to that and we have built in offsets as it relates to the ability for the city to early pay like I was just talking about which could lower the cost if we were able to secure grants from some eligible source to do some of the work that we're talking about there are lots of public safety grants out there there are lots of public infrastructure and sidewalk grants out there so we're gonna pursue those aggressively and anything we bring to the table is a direct offset to our commitment and then interest savings that would also be present our current uh discount rate in the transaction is 6.375 the economic impact is based on that and the modeling on this is all based on that if it's less than that our cost comes down our economic impact actually goes up so those are all parts of uh what's built in there for us to work efficiently um to together with the team now I also know there's been discussion about well uh does this need to go for a second second vote to to voters uh or could you have a new venue project and so we did uh a little uh talking about that and wanted to uh talk about that we would we would need to essentially create a new venue project kind of a third project even though we're still working in the same footprint it would be a third project and if you do that the wording would be similar to the language before do you have a project yes what is it what taxes are you willing to levy and if you're gonna levy taxes you also then have to issue debt to finance it good news under something like that I think we could do the debt financing probably cheaper than the private market can but we're also going to put a 30 year note out there which is going to take us out to 2058 could be a low amount but it's an it's a long-term obligation and much like the conversation we're having now about when does something end for this transaction right now it ends in 2048 that's what our um our our uh transaction has us work at we're working within the existing guardrails that end in 2048 if we levied a new project I think um there's a there's an argument to be that we would extend out to 2058 for a 30 year financing we could look at something structured less but we'll always do the most conservative thing we're just gonna overcover the debt to make sure that we get the best rates and pay off as quickly as we can so we've had the thought that essentially since this is the same voter approved project we're using utilizing the same initial uh guardrails of 2048 and the same uh revenues that there is really not a process or legal requirement for a secondary election on the project so what we're talking about today really is uh tonight you'll have on your items your your agenda to consider a master agreement for regarding this extension it would include things like a lease amendment like a franchise amendment and uh that's an important document because it commits the team to play their games here through the end of that extended time the community and us can can can count on till 2055 and this very very important document we also then extend all the other documents that were connected to this the purchase option agreement the lease guarantee agreement and the charitable contribution agreement as things move we would we would work to position ourselves to refinance our existing debt for 2028 is our earliest opportunity we would start that process late in 2027 and then hopefully complete that in early 28 and once that process was complete in early 28 all the documents that are on your agenda tonight will then become will be uh executed and extend all the commitments so kind of in summary teams advancing the funds they've already advanced some of those funds not for reimbursement the city will reimburse 273 net present value of the taxes that are already approved for collection we have funding from the existing venue tax fund no new authorization on tax same 30 year term which ends in 2048 we would refinance to the same end of 2048 and funds that are not required for debt service then are used on that third bullet of other eligible purposes of operations and maintenance of the facility why the benefit again going back and summarizing the fiscal and economic impacts are there but then we also are wanting to make sure that we're enhancing our public safety and protecting the public value of ourselves our community and our visitors and protect that infrastructure our asset our building that we're gonna have long term and have to have a plan to continue to secure it long term sustain our economic return our economic return and protect the future risks.

So I know that took me a minute to get through I've tried as best I can to make something that's really complex relatively simple and kind of breadcrumb together together in a logical order clearly state the public benefit as well as how we are using that benefit to improve our community because that's why that's why we're doing all of this in the first place.

So I'll go from take questions from there.

Thank you, Trey, for going through that and explaining all that.

I think we probably need it explained about 12 or 13 more times, but thank you very much.

One of the things I'm excited about in this is the opportunity to relieve some of the traffic congestion that comes from mixing pedestrians and vehicular traffic.

And so I'm very excited about that part of the process where we would separate vehicular and pedestrians, and I think our residents would be would be directly benefiting from that because it will reduce the congestion that we are seeing, especially on Randall Mill.

Um, so I think we can add that to the column of benefits to the benefits to the public.

Thank you.

Um if I might uh Ms.

Boxhall, uh something I neglected to say is while the this project works consistently with the way the others have, the team will take care of all the improvements they will coordinate, contract, manage construction, which is also a huge burden relief to us.

It's our building, but we don't have to take care of it because they will.

But to your point on public works and transportation in the proposed uh modifications, our public works uh professionals will be consulted and included in those decisions, as well as in the security enhancements that we're talking about, it requires us to consult with police and fire chiefs and their professionals so that we're working on things that achieve a mutual purpose, right?

A mutual purpose to benefit the city and the venue on traffic and pedestrian and vehicular safety and safety inside and around the facility, and our professionals will have a say so at the table relative to some of those items.

Any other questions or comments, Councilmember Hunter?

Thank you.

Troy, I know we've talked about this, but I wanted to publicly ask the questions.

So thank you for going over one of the most asked questions, which is why would we not take this to the voters for a vote?

But I do have a couple of other questions I wanted to ask you.

So if we pay down the renter's debt, how much interest would we save?

So that's the savings that I was referring to earlier that identifies 350 million dollars worth of savings between the venues because we've taken a uh a very aggressive and assertive approach on how we pay that down.

The savings that's created from the original plan of finance is 350 million dollars.

We're proposing that we reinvest 273 of it back into the venues.

Okay.

And the other question is um, can the council that comes after us um and farther down, can they unbind this agreement?

I may uh I may let uh our city attorney address that question a little more technical.

Yeah.

Um so what you have before you tonight is a master agreement, it's a contract, right?

So once this council's approved it and the city's entered into it, our ability to get out of that right is really what the contract provides, what mechanisms are in there.

Um however, as Trey mentioned in the sort of next steps, there is another action that needs to come before this body in late 2017 to approve the refunding of those 2017 bonds to create the ability to use that excess revenue for maintenance and operation.

So that's another action of this body that's needed in order to fully um execute all the steps that are contemplated.

So a future council wouldn't be able to undo the contractual commitment, but the step that um we've got one more step in front of you that's needed in order to fully transact um what's contemplated.

Any other questions from council, Councilmember Gonzalez?

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Trey, for that uh excellent um presentation.

I know it's difficult for everybody to understand that.

So I think the two things that I've I've heard the most from is um you know, with regards to the complex improvements, and it's just exhibit A, that's got certain list of items, and so it looks kind of just vague.

Can you can you go into some of those things, especially the safety parameter?

Because I I think people think that it's not safe now, and that's not the issue, it's just things have changed so much in this country that you know what are we talking about?

Yeah, for sure, the facility is safe, but as a as a former uh police chief taught me once ago, I hadn't heard it from Al, but Chief Conkl, who many of you all know, where people are, things happen, right?

And so uh we have to be prepared as uh as things happen and as technology enhances the capability to limit the kinds of things that can happen, right?

And so building was certainly built with good standards relative to that, uh, is in uh great shape from a safety and security perspective today.

But what does tomorrow bring?

What does next year bring?

What was the following year bring?

And so the team had expressed uh a desire to become Safety Act certified, which is a federal program.

It's not our program, it's not their program, it's a standard under which uh FEMA and I think the federal government has decided has decided if you do these things, these are best practices.

I think it's an emphasis by the team and the league to become Safety Act certified.

And so that's really what's gonna guide the kinds of things that they're doing, is relying on what that what that program would dictate.

Some simple examples like that are um, you know, today you want to you want to separate uh certain day-to-day activities from the main activity.

So as an example, separating a guard, a guard or package screening facility outside and away from the venue as opposed to being in the venue.

Simple thing, just kind of create some distance in case we need to.

Um a better and more improved separate um uh employee screening area.

Uh lots of employees that show up, you know, thousands for every event.

Uh, we need to make sure we've got good screening mechanisms in place to ensure that uh they're safe and that those that are around and they're serving are safe.

Um, some areas where you would do some asset hardening with improved uh cameras, locks, film that would uh prevent glass breakage from being uh more of a problem.

You know, those kinds of issues, I think that you would see that are consistent with Safety Act standards.

Well, I mean, that only not only protects our our you know the visitors, but also protects the city and the cowboys.

And those are basically things that have done that have been done throughout buildings throughout the country, uh especially the courthouses and all that that had to change things up.

So that that's great.

And then with regards to the net present value, can you go over that?

Uh, you know, what does that mean?

How much, you know, what's the the discount rate that we're using?

I think it's listed on the thing that you sent out, but um I I don't know if we're I'll take a stab at it.

Maybe Ethan might have to back me up on this.

I don't I don't know.

Um, and I want to come back on one other item on the safety act, just to be clear too, because it's an obvious question.

The ballpark is safety act certified.

So we've got one that is and one that isn't.

We want to we want to make sure we to get there, and we did that with newer investments, you know, just a few years ago than 20 years ago, right?

Uh on the uh the discount rate here.

Um, since since we have already done all of our bonding, um, we are not issuing extra debt here.

This is not a public bond that we're putting out that's uh being being backed here.

Instead, the team is advancing the dollars, which is why they're putting the dollars up front.

Um they've done some conversations with their their lenders and and taken a very conservative approach at six and three, uh 6.375 as it relates to that.

They are, and we're we are hopeful that that's gonna be less, you know, maybe more in the five and a half range.

Of course, it's it's market specific based on what's going on.

Might even be lower, could be, it won't be higher because there's a cap.

So if um if it goes beyond that above that, it's on them.

If it goes below it, we accrue the savings to our project cost.

Um we also uh did our economic impact with that same discount rate.

So to a degree, our our economic impact is understated.

If the if the interest rate goes down, the the economic impact goes up because there's there's more value to retain, right?

So that's kind of how that how that would work.

There's certainly increased cost over what a public bond would be.

Uh they um today, four and a half-ish or so might be a good bond.

So there's probably a one and a half to two percent difference as it relates to what if we were in the public market versus this, what that would would be, but it would also then mean we need to levy a tax to secure that bond, uh, et cetera.

Whereas in this case, we're using the existing tax is shifting to maintenance and operation.

Thank you.

Any other questions from council?

Trey, oh, go ahead.

Council member hogg.

Thank you, Terry.

And appreciate the presentation.

And uh, I think you all have heard me say, you know, I think this is a a good project for Arlington.

I think it's a good project for the cowboys, and I think it's you know, people have asked me why do it now.

I think now is better than later.

Um you all know I still have concerns over not going to the voters, is my biggest concern over that.

Let me let me ask Trey and Mr.

Gonzalez, thank you for asking us.

I think that's an important thing to ready.

Trey, another question we get all the time is police and fire costs.

Could you just talk through how that allocates on there for the stadium?

Perfect.

I love answering that question because it's um it's it's a little bit of a misnomer.

Um when you go to an event and you see police officers out there, you'll see a lot of Arlington police and firefighters, and you start thinking to yourself, are they not in my neighborhood working?

Uh the answer to that's no.

All of our same uh cadre of experience is out there.

The police officers are patrolling, the firefighters are in the firehouse doing their thing.

The people that are over there that are our people, uh, as well as other uh kind of interlocal aid, mutual aid partners that you'll see other cities, Grand Prairie, Fort Worth, Texas Rangers, those kinds of folks, are all paid by the team off duty.

It's an operational cost of the stadium.

So it's like an extra job.

If you were to see a uh police officer at a at a party or a uh uh a restaurant or some place that needed enhanced security, this is the same thing, but on steroids.

So all of those costs are are there with the team.

They pay those individuals overtime costs to be there.

So it's on the expenditure of the team, and then the economic impact is where we then flow money back in to take care of all the operations in our own neighborhoods.

We are not moving people over there to run the basic operations.

Now that said, I also want to say if something bad happened, we would we respond from across the city?

Absolutely we would.

But the day-to-day basis, uh, the the basic protection on the the street safety and inside is is provided by off-duty officers and firemen.

Thank you, Cherry.

And I know we have some officers allocated for some basic pieces and you know, like our our bomb dogs we utilize for the city, and those are important things for safety.

Um let me ask, Trey, we talked a little bit earlier.

Um, how will how's reporting coming back?

How how will we know what's been and how how we allocate that and what's been used for this?

Yeah, so there's a um a process that's described in the documents that creates uh different funds that one that we control and and one that the team controls.

So um one where the venue dollars flow in to a maintenance and operations account, the dollars will sit there until there's a payment application and certification of expenditures pursuant to exhibit A.

So they'll submit uh on whatever interval they might want to and say we need reimbursement for four million dollars for this enhancement that we put in if it's pursuant to the agreement, the money is in the uh operation maintenance count, then it gets dispersed to them.

They control the spend on that, we control the reimbursement side, so the accounts are separate, but then connect through that process.

Thank you.

I think it's important to show we know how what's being spent and that uh we're getting the allocation.

One last question that popped up.

Um, going through 2055, what what's the requirements?

And you may not officially know this, just in all the details.

What's their timeline if they eventually?

None of us will be around in 2055, hopefully doing that.

What's their timeline of notifying if they are not going to utilize the stadium in let's just say it goes out to 2055?

Yeah, after Molly's gonna tell me on what the notification provision is.

But I want to say it's between six months to a year out from the end of the lease term, they have to notify us if they're gonna exercise that option or if they're gonna walk away.

And no hurry, you can send it to me later.

Just had a question from someone about that.

Thank you.

And and if I could clarify, just expand on that just a little bit.

I went back to what I was saying earlier.

Our current transaction is a 70-year transaction.

It had the 30-year term, uh, uh a 10-year term, and then a bunch of five-year terms.

During COVID, we took the 10-year term and made it a one-year plus nine because they needed to, you know, we the stadium was shut down that year, and they had to take care of fans and sponsors and all that.

So we kind of got a a one 31-year lease essentially.

Um, and so what we've done with this is go 15 to kind of reconcile.

We actually got the that one year plus the 10 and the basically the 10 and the five being executed.

There are still multiple five-year options that are on the back end of this.

55 is not the end, there's still more term, but they would need to notify us if they're want to get out on the window that Molly was describing.

So 55 is not necessarily the end.

It's still, I think, got 20 more years at the end of that.

Go ahead.

Councilmember Glante.

Thank you, Tri for the presentation, clarification, several items.

I'm gonna go peek back uh again on the um comment uh Consulwoman Rebecca made about um the traffic situation out there.

So, like everything else, there's always a positive end of it and uh a little not so positive end of it.

So, what the residents really concerns about, they concern about the traffic.

Traffic is being an issue on North Arlington, especially when we have uh big events going on, event, you know.

They they got used to it after a while.

So, as is as I see those um those crossovers on the intersections, uh, and and obviously uh I attend the games like everybody else, you have to stop the traffic so people can cross.

And that stopping for 30 seconds, a minute, it creates a backlog all the way to highway 30 sometimes, past the highway 30.

So, do you expect uh uh a betterment of the traffic issues after we address those crossings?

And uh, and I'll ask you if you can have a uh keen eyes on every single opportunity we can on those crossings when we do this project.

Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

Sure.

Um easy example on that, I'm sure you all have heard it, but when uh IndyCar was here for the Grand Prix, they put several pedestrian crossings over the roads.

I can't tell you how many people told me.

Can those just stay?

Can they just stay for the events?

Um of course the answer was they can't because they're all temporary.

But can we build something that's permanent that acts and functions in the same way on an ongoing basis?

Absolutely.

Um so uh I do think you'll see improvement, especially on traffic egress, because what happens on most events, there's like a generally a slow arriving crowd, you know, usually an hour or two or three tailgating, they come early.

So the the traffic in is usually much thinner, except for like immediately prior to the event.

It's the when you leave that there's the crush, right?

There's the crush everybody leaving at the same time because the game ended and now we're all going home.

And that's where these intersections in particular, I think are going to get benefit because of the mass uh volume of pedestrians that are all exiting at the same time, and just a handful of traffic officers at you know, four officer intersection are going to control 500 or thousands of people that are walking.

What will is infrastructure and design, which will then block and lift up people up and over, path of least resistance, but unfortunately there is cost to it.

But there's a mutual cost here, and that's what I appreciate the most about this is the team approached us with items where there's mutual interest.

Um pedestrian and vehicular safety, stadium safety and security, not chandelier type examples, right?

So that's what I think is important to protect the public value, our people, our place, and our economic benefit.

That's what this is all about.

Yes.

Thank you.

Just following up on uh also uh the enhancement of um the hardware around the stadium for not only parking security and screening coming in and out.

Now we know they use the handhelds to check if you have the parking pass in and going.

Uh of course, with the pedestrian uh crossovers, I gonna uh I'm gonna enhance or diminish the time of people wasted out being checked up and going in.

So when we create those barriers around the stadium, uh segregating traffic with pedestrians, um, can we have a good look on what systems are being used to check in and get on the parkings?

That way we also address the backlog on checking in for parking.

Yeah, I'll uh we can certainly convey that um to the team, and I know they share they also share that interest as it relates to having good customer experiences.

How do we get people in the building less?

I know they've tried they've gone to like those evolved machines in the last year or two, which which are very good high-tech, but a lot quicker to get in and out.

The uh the parking is a little something um uh I don't know exactly their technology, but how we get in and out.

When we first started on the stadium back in 2005, there was actually discussion about can we kind of get people in a like a toll tag situation?

Just roll through, it does your toll tag, it zaps it, and and off you go.

I don't know if we'll be able to do that.

It's an operational issue for the team.

We can raise it and we'll see what kinds of things we identify to minimize operating costs, but let infrastructure do the work for us, right?

Thank you for the answers.

And all my both questions are specifically to address the traffic um congestion when the traffic impact in uh in the entire area area of the term district.

Thank you.

That's consistently the the biggest feedback we get worries on, and um that's what I'm hopeful this is gonna make some good improvement on the Trey.

I want to hit just on three public impressions that I've heard since this have broken.

And please correct me if my understanding is wrong with this.

One of the first things I've heard is if we pay off ATT, if we've paid it down so quickly, why isn't that money freed up to fix our streets and build our police department and fire department?

And correct me if I'm wrong, but that money has to be used, the tax revenue has to be used for the athletic facilities that are in the entertainment district.

So the money would either be used for ATT or Globe Life Field because of what the state requires of us.

Or it would go away.

Or it would go away.

The second thing is why are we giving 273 million dollars to the cowboys?

And I think you've addressed that already that we're not giving 273 million dollars to the cowboys.

We're investing the 273 million into our assets and expanding on what we're doing.

And the third thing is why don't the voters get a say in this now.

And my understanding is this isn't anything that hasn't already been approved overwhelmingly by the voters originally, and again, when it was refinanced on three separate occasions.

This is a refinancing for the fourth time.

We're not extending the life of this bond deal.

Everything is still scheduled to be paid off in 2048, I believe is the timeline on this thing.

So there's no restructuring of the deal, no extension of when we would pay it off.

It's the fourth time that it's being refinanced, and the three previous times were done without taking it back to the voters because all of that was a part of the original bond package.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay.

All that being said, there are two big things in my mind that sits home on this.

The first one is public safety.

The biggest issue with everything we do from the World Cup to Bruno Mars to the Grand Prix of Arlington is the safety of our residents and our visitors.

This money, this investment being made into this stadium in this area is going directly into protecting people in our community.

And that's critical.

And the second thing is when we talk about the economic impact, and I loved how you uh express this of $324 million a year, that that's everybody's cash registers ringing.

So when people say we're given $273 million to the cowboys, we're A, not doing that.

We're investing into our asset, but we're also investing into our small business.

Our small businesses, the mom and pop stores, the restaurants, the hotels, everything around this area from downtown to the entertainment district and the surrounding communities benefit substantially from this ongoing economic impact.

I, for one, am going to be very supportive of this deal this evening.

Uh for me, this is a no-brainer.

We're enhancing the public safety of the best venue in the country, if not the world, and we're ensuring that we're continuing to invest in taking care of our visitors and our residents.

We are doing it in a way that is acceptable and has been refinanced over the years, and it we're doing it in a way that not only benefits people from a public safety perspective, but it is a massive economic engine for all our small businesses.

So kudos to you and your team and to the cowboys organization for working together on this thing like this.

So Mr.

Gonzalez, sorry.

You're not supposed to talk when the mayor gets done.

Do you understand?

You brought a very good point.

One of the things that we hear a lot is our citizens have never benefited from the stadium.

You know, can you just I mean, when they say what do we get out of it?

You know, we don't get free day, so I mean, I know you've said it, but that's exactly the the biggest email that I get is that um uh you know it's just everything you presented, right?

I think this is it.

I mean it's it's studies by multiple vendors that show significant economic impact.

And oh, by the way, mostly from visitors and mostly from outside our community.

Then a study that has validated separately recently, as of like a couple of weeks ago, the economic impact to our community, the economic cash registers of our community and our caste register as a city.

$65 million a year projected.

And then you just have to continue to peel the onion back and look.

Sales tax trend is clear.

Mixed beverage tax trend is clear.

Stadium AV around before the stadium and after stadium to today is clear.

And then what did we do with it?

The benefit.

More police officers, more firefighters, another library, another fire station, two new rec centers in areas that were underserved before.

These are investments that we've made incrementally.

It doesn't, it doesn't go all into a fund that says cowboy fund, and then let's go build a street with that.

It gets built into our budget every year as those charts go up.

Our investments incrementally grow each year with your annual budget process.

We decide to open a senior center, a rec center, or do this street.

So it's it's it's frustrating in that way because they're like, okay, well, I see it going in, but I want to see it coming out.

And how do I paint that picture?

And I'm open to any suggestions.

This is the clearest way I know how to paint it.

And then I would just go with one other sub side of that is on the CIP saying if we've heard anything else, fix the streets, more streets, do more streets.

This chart clearly shows us doing more streets and a growing tax base that has an inflection point back to some of the investments that we've made to cause this kind of adrenaline injection to occur.

In the early 2000s, all of these trends were really pretty sleepy.

Something happened in 2009, and the trend after that's pretty clear.

Don't know, I don't know another way to say it, but if y'all have got ideas, I'm happy to figure it out.

I just want to summarize it at the very end again because that's the question you get, and that's perfect.

Thank you, Mayor, for letting me have one more question.

Yes, sir.

Yes.

Mayor, if I will just I I want to answer Bui's question so everyone's got the information.

So I was overestimating.

So it's actually three months that they have to required to provide us notice um within three months of the expiration of that um term to if they want to exercise the extension.

Okay, thank you, Trey.

I appreciate it.

We're gonna move on down to 3.3 deputy city manager Wickman talking about the homelessness update.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

Um, today's update is based on a discussion that was held in the C and D committee on March 24th.

Um, included in Ms.

Boxall's report out was some of the questions that they had had that they wanted the council to be able to think a little bit more about.

Some of those were how much is Arlington spending on homelessness from the general fund?

What are other cities doing in this area?

And what are some strategies with the cost that other cities are using with some details about the cost and performance of those programs?

So I just wanted to begin with the description of the continuum of housing services that we have or strategies that we use in Arlington.

It's everything from people who are on the street and don't have any shelter who were homeless all the way up to um the housing needs analysis that the city does um periodically, which is um really look at housing in at all levels of um of need.

So these are this slide in the next slide are two slides that the C and D committee had a chance to look at.

We talked to the partnership home team and asked them for the 2026 point in time count report out.

So you can see that all the way on the right.

Um there were 125 people in emergency shelters.

Um there was another 95 people who were found to be unsheltered.

Now, this is just a snapshot on one night in every year that this has been done.

There was no count in 2022 because there was a COVID spike that year.

So the decision was made not to go out and count folks.

You will notice between like the 2023, 2024, and then moving into 2025, there's a big decrease in just the what what's being um uh the folks who are being counted and who are sheltered.

The difference between um that area is um you know, we had total possible to sh um uh potential capacity in 2023 and 2024 of about 211.

And the change there is that when the Arlington Life Shelter um they had had 155 beds in HMIS.

That was like what they were tracking, what they were open for, they're now at 85.

Um, and we've talked about that, um, the concerns they have about shelter um funding and and other things, but that's really a big difference.

That delta of about 70 beds is kind of what's gotten um us from that period to this period.

As we've talked about before, um Arlington is about, you know, this is just math.

It's the partnership home has done these estimates for us.

Um there were about 82 additional beds as they projected needed on on this night.

But as we've talked over the months that we've been going over this topic, it's about 70 to 75 beds that Arlington is potentially short on on any given night for our homeless population that needs shelter.

Ms.

Boxall had requested that I have a conversation with UTA professor Dr.

Hannah Liebowitz, Alibavitz, excuse me.

We have just finally had a chance.

She was out for maternity leave, but we just had a chance to do that pretty recently.

She's got some interesting ideas that really focus on case management and putting people into motels or hotels with vouchers.

So we're working on that with staff.

We're going to take a look at that and the funding we have and kind of bring some additional analysis forward.

So I don't have any information on that in this presentation.

This is a collection.

I have two slides on what Arlington is spending on to assist the homeless and near homeless populations in Arlington.

And you can see the columns here.

The first column is community development block grant funding, then home funding, then emergency shelter grant funding, and then finally at the end, it's a general fund funding.

So you can see the first two lines are our outreach that we have with our police heart team and also the DRC caseworker.

And these are both one of them, the outreach from the police department is funded through the general funds.

That's approximately 200,000 when you count the people who are working that plus the vehicles and other support that they have.

So that's about 200,000.

And then DRC case worker through ESG funding is about 80,000.

So that's going out and connecting with people who are out on the street.

And the next two lines are related to sheltering.

So both the Salvation Army and the Archway, formerly known as Safe Haven, receive funding.

There's also additional general fund funding dedicated to inclement weather sheltering.

That's about $23,000.

We certainly used that this last year when we activated the overflow in partnership with Presbyterian Night Shelter, and then also our friends over at First United Methodist helping us out.

The next three lines would say rapid rehousing.

These are these are vouchers for kind of 12 months of rent support.

So that goes to Center for Transforming Lives, Salvation Army, and also the Archway Safe Haven.

So they all get some funding out of the emergency shelter grant money that the city gets from HUD.

Finally, we have case management through the Arlington Housing Authority.

That's through the CDBG funding, as well as a homeless diversion program that goes there.

Temporary benefits for I think perhaps residential assistance, but that's additionally short-term rent assistance for about 12 to 24 months.

So that's the $615,000 that comes through the home dollars that the city receives from HUD.

So at the total, you can see the totals at the bottom.

This is about 1.1.2 million dollars that the city is putting towards support for the homeless and near homeless.

This next slide focuses in on what our Arlington Housing Authority is bringing for this population.

And I apologize, the fourth line in there that home funds through TIBR, that's double counted.

I had that on the last slide, so that's not on this slide.

So that's in $615,000 that we'll take out of the total there.

So it's really about $1.4 million that's spent here.

But they again have some rapid rehousing.

The first three lines are all dollars that they get from the Continuum of Care.

The COC, our area group that some funding from home from HUD flows through to different providers.

We also have state HHSP funding, and this is you see general and youth.

It's about, you know, a little over 200,000, but it's for hotel nights.

If someone needs one or two months' rent, if they could get, if they had a deposit they could get into a place that's sort of that like real surgical assistance that they can go in there and help.

There's also dedicated some admin funds for critical documents.

You all think are aware that one is homeless, it's easy to lose track of things like birth certificates or driver's licenses, they're critical in order for a person to get housed again.

So the Arlington Housing Authority has put funding towards that.

And then there's a grant we have from state veterans assistance to help with some sheltering of homeless veterans.

So I will say the next when I compare to Dallas and Fort Worth in the future, we won't have these numbers for those two entities for those two cities.

But I did want to share it for Arlington because it's really part of all that we do for folks who are homeless or near homeless.

So just looking at our services for the unshelters, this is our outreach work.

So I talked earlier about the heart issue.

This is a dedicated team of three, an officer, a clinician, and that DRC funded, you know, ESG funded staffer.

They do quite a bit of work.

They're very busy.

You can see the information there, have about 885 contacts.

Um this is all from FY25, uh, 400, almost 450 of those are new, and then other remaining are follow-ups, and they also go out to our homeless encampments when they uh we encounter those to work with those folks to get them into the system.

Our friends at Downtown Arlington Management Corporation also have a homeless outreach team that you've probably seen in the downtown area, and they count um they count their numbers differently, but they had a total of 2,500 contacts during 2025.

So it's quite a bit of work those folks are doing out there.

So now I'm gonna share a little bit about our two neighbors to the east and west, Fort Worth and Dallas.

The reason why I've just included those cities is that a city has to reach a certain size before they have any sort of meaningful activity around the homeless issue.

Um so within our North Texas region, Dallas and Fort Worth are really the main most comparable cities to Arlington.

So that's why I have those here.

We can certainly go out and look at others in the future, but that's what we have now.

So Fort Worth City actually they shared this with us.

So this chart.

So this is was very helpful, and we we have good contacts over there.

So you can see, I'll just briefly describe some of what they do.

They have what's called a hope team.

This is a police-led effort that goes out, reaches, has contact with the homeless, they have police, they have paramedics, it's kind of a cross-departmental team that goes out and helps case manage.

So they have elements in the police department.

You can see about two million dollars, and then also about the fourth line down.

Um also the fire department helps with that at about probably about 250,000.

So that's one something that they invest in.

They also have some ESG and CDBG funding that they put towards that.

Um towards the you can see probably five or six lines down the environmental protection fund.

Um I'll talk a little bit more about that later, but that's funding that they get from a fee, which helps with some cleanups of encampments.

Um, some um some staff there, um, really really focused around cleaning up encampments that they find uh in in Fort Worth, and that's 2.5 million dollars.

That's a significant amount of money.

Um they also their housing finance corporation, which Arlington also has contributes some assistance to to do some permanent supportive housing services, that's that PSH, and then they have the same type of homeless strategies, HHSP funding that the city uh of Arlington also gets.

This does not include the Fort Worth Housing Authority, with I which I which also um works in this area, but you can see all told that's about $13 million that the city of Fort Worth is spending in this area.

Onto the city of Dallas.

We have made contact with our with the city of Dallas, and they're sending us some of this more detail about this information, but I didn't have that at the time of creating the presentation, so this is really um combing through their FY26 budget and then also doing some online searches.

But um, you can see it's it's got some some interesting areas.

They look at um homeless services support, shelter support, and also the sort of cleanup that Arlington and Fort Worth also do.

So just to begin, uh at the top, they have an Office of Emergency Management and Crisis Response.

This is really their street outreach, inclement weather sheltering, it's about four million dollars that goes to that, or 3.8.

Then they have an office of housing and community empowerment.

So they've got several programs.

The biggest one is at home after shelter, that's 10 million dollars.

And you can see they're using general fund, but also some ARPA funding that they have.

So this isn't coming from general fund, this is still back to some of that money they got during the COVID crisis, which still has, you know, they they still have time to spend.

So that 10 million dollars, it's uh it's a wide variety of things.

It's financial assistance for folks who are getting housed again, and also some case management.

Those are probably two of the main functions that that that that pot of money in that program goes to.

They've also done a couple of bond programs, the most recent in 2024, um, to help with you know uh assistance for uh for for homeless and homeless services, about 15 million dollars that they still have left to spend there.

And then they also have an environmental cleanup revenue source that comes from a fee that I'll talk a little bit about later.

They get a total of 10.5 million.

It doesn't all go to encampment cleanups and things like that, but it is some of it does certainly help there.

Um and then on the right-hand side, the shelter support.

This is one of the key differences between Fort Worth and Dallas.

Dallas puts a great deal of funding, 5.9 million dollars into the bridge, which is a very large homeless shelter over in Dallas.

So they um the city's the major funder there.

They actually put 7.8 million dollars into contracts with multiple shelters, but 5.9 of that goes to the bridge.

And I would note that um Dallas has a total of about 18 million dollars in CDBG and home.

Part of that's dedicated to the homeless, but just like Arlington, part of that is is not dedicated to the homeless.

Part of that is other other um other programs.

Um, they face the same 15% programs cap that you all face.

So it doesn't all go.

That's not where all this money to the bridge is going.

Um, and then they also have a pass-through grant from the county, 1.3 million dollars that also goes to the bridge, and that they have um they have that available as well.

And again, I will say this does not include the Dallas Housing Authority funding.

Um they that that's sort of separate and apart from what what um what the city is described as doing here.

So I have a few example programs I wanted to highlight as I was looking closely at both Dallas and Fort Worth and what they were doing.

These struck me as that might be interesting for you all to hear about sort of an in the C and D committee's request to sort of like what what's happening out there, what are other folks doing.

So Fort Worth has a contract with a group called UpSpire.

This is a nonprofit that's run by the Presbyterian Night Shelter.

The PNS or President Night Shelter, they are the group that runs the largest sort of collection of shelters over in Fort Worth.

And they have a 4.5 million dollar contract with them to do litter cleanup.

So it's some of it's in encampments, some of it's just litter cleaning up, things like to sort of spiff up Fort Worth and make it look better.

Upspire more broadly provides they just provide jobs for homeless people and others who have difficulty getting jobs.

So it's not strictly people who are homeless, but but that is certainly a large portion of who works there.

They do litter cleanup, janitorial landscaping, and also warehouse work.

It's full the the these folks are full-time employees, they have benefits.

Um it really um is focused on for um for Fort Worth.

That contract is focused on highway cleanups, illegal camping and debris cleanup, and then a hot spot coverage.

You know, you know, some something got lost over here, we really need to get over here and clean it up, or um that sort of thing.

Um Fort Worth also has a um program called High Impact, and this is different from that HOPE program, which goes out and has that targeted sort of almost medical and casework response.

But um, high impact focuses on long-term homeless people with severe mental illness or perhaps repeated system interactions.

They do intensive mental health care, housing first placement into low barrier housing.

Um it's a program that they spend the the 17 month initial pilot was about 3.27 million.

Um their ongoing funding is about 2.18 per year.

Um they provided in one year, I just got some other performance measures.

They provided services to 78 clients.

Um, they had housing assistance to 41 of those.

89% of people who were offered housing accepted it, and 98 of those were still housed after 12 months.

Um the cost per individual to house them was about 44,000.

So it's a it's a significant program, it's deep help.

It's it it's a it's a significant investment.

The two programs on the right, I mentioned them in earlier slides.

These are special revenue funds or fees that both the city of Dallas and the City of Fort Worth have chosen to um to um levy uh onto their um both residents and commercial um utility customers.

So in Dallas it's three dollars per month on all residential and non-residential utility accounts that got them 10.3 million in in 2026.

This is something that the council can certainly look at if they want to take a look to get into this deeper related to the FY27 budget, but not something that we'd have to have to look at closely now.

Um so that is all that I have for you all um today, and happy to take a look um answering any questions that you may have.

Councilmember Boxel uh thank you, uh Deputy Sandy Manager Wickman for this report.

This is very detailed and it is exactly what we were asking for.

So thank you very much.

Um as you know, uh we've gotten some uh criticism or I not criticism but suggestions that we use more of our general funds to address the homeless population.

And this gives us a clear overview of what it would take to do that.

Uh you know, mixing in all these the federal assistance, uh nonprofit assistance, all of these factors.

Uh but I found it interesting that these two cities do spend quite a bit more, although they're larger cities, uh, from their general fund for homeless services.

And so I think that's something that uh we should at least look at.

I think that but the general public needs to understand that this costs money.

And if we're going to do this deeper type of uh uh help for people, it's gonna cost us in the terms of additional fees or or taxes to to spend more money on homeless um uh intervention and help for people.

But I think this gives us a good base with with a lot of good information that we can start that discussion and then we can go from there to decide is this the direction we want to go in.

So I I really appreciate this information.

I think it's gonna be helpful going forward in the community and neighborhood development committee conversations that we're going to have, hopefully in the future.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hogg.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Jennifer, thank you so much.

Um, I know we've talked about this a lot, and all of us talk to other colleagues in Fort Worth Dallas, but in other cities, and this is not a unique Arlington problem.

I think this every city, when we go to um, you know, Texas Municipal League and we go to NLC, we're hearing about this from everyone.

So this is this is something we'll look at, but I really appreciate what our neighbors are doing to the east and west of us.

And and Councilman Boxwell, I think I think we've got to find a way, because what I'll see is happen when budget gets tight.

I think this is the first thing that gets cut.

And so finding an alternative funding source that provides that, I think is something we should look at, you know, see what those expectations are, see what that funding could be, how it can be done.

I I do think that is something that residents would say, yes, if it helps clean it up and it assures some funding to be able to get us to that stage.

I think it's something that's worthwhile um to get us to that because we've all talked.

We all, you know, as we hear from residents, as we all talk to each other, we all know this is an issue.

Um, so now we we've got to say how do we say perpetually find a way to make sure we nip it in the bud, and I think spending money over long time helps prevent a big spike in uh in issues that we then have to come in.

So I appreciate especially what our neighbors are doing and how they funded it.

Um listen, they're on a little different scale than what we do, but it doesn't mean um, and I I would say they have a bigger issue than what we have also um from that side.

So I think the more we address this and look at this and explore this, I think it's good for a council, and especially this may be signed as we get into council retreat, we start looking at some of those things.

Appreciate it.

Councilmember Odom Wisely.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Jennifer and Rebecca and the C and D for looking into this.

Um I sit on the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition, and we see these issues uh, I guess from all the cities in the North Texas area.

And I'm wondering, can we get some more information for the education of our public?

Who are the homeless people?

How do we describe them?

What's the demographic?

And then the other questions that we answer at the Tarrant County Coalition, we try to answer, is uh how can we prevent homelessness?

And those dollars spent preventing maybe can offset some of the money that we would need to spend to house the homeless.

I know one thing that we've talked about is um youth that are aging out of foster care.

They have a high incidence of homelessness when they come out of foster care.

So that's the opportunity for us to intervene early and try to prevent homelessness.

So can we get a description of who the homeless are, what causes home homelessness?

And then the other big issue that um I think we need some more education on is the recent decrease in funding that's available.

Decrease in CDBG money, decrease in ESG and home dollars, and Fort Worth, Dallas, all of us, the entire Tarrant County homeless coalition are experiencing that, and that is impacting our ability to provide any services for the homeless.

So I don't know if we go forward to get that additional uh education for our citizens and uh then move forward to try to keep this from becoming a major issue as Arlington becomes more and more urban.

Go ahead.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor.

Sorry, one real quick add on.

And Jennifer, I wanted to add, um, and I give I won't give credit to Trey, I'll give it to you and your team.

But as we've seen immediately, Fort Worth has modeled our panhandler signs to a T.

Um, any of those that drive on each chase, you see it exactly every single day.

We had that's why I give Jennifer credit for the sign.

You may have done it, Trey, but I'll give Jennifer.

Oh, Mr.

Gonzalez's credit sign, even better, Mr.

Gonzalez.

It is let me tell you, it is it lets citizens know we're looking at solutions, we're looking at things.

It doesn't all, you know, it drives us all crazy when we still see them standing there sometimes, but they are protected by Supreme Court and all these things.

But to see Fort Worth model the sign exactly almost to the word, just their own logo and their own link of where it's going.

I think it just shows um working with our partner cities is critical, but also you think we can be on the form of royalty payments from something like that.

I think should have trademarked it, Mr.

Gonzalez.

That could have worked out well for you.

But uh I just appreciate and just thought that was important to bring up.

Thank you, Mr.

Hogg, Mr.

Galante.

Jennifer, thank you so much for uh for the report, and I know how much um commitment you have for this issue of the homeless, and we discuss uh in private several times.

I try to be uh a good team player and bring you some ideas and action and uh uh and learn with you because you you really understand the issue, and uh there's nobody else.

I mean, in my to my view, more qualified than you in the staff to bring this and try to find a solution.

Let's get to the thing.

Uh what I see here, I like the public to understand the size of the issue.

So homeless is not a Arlington issue.

And uh and I I I commend uh uh Consulwama uh Barbara Don Wet Wesley for trying to find who are they, where they come from, and what it makes them homeless.

I think, and you know, I'm I'm a stats guy, and I like to read the stats first to understand how we can move forward, and this is a thing is is crucial.

Second is I see here Arlington spends give it and take 20 uh 50,000 in homeless, you know, initiatives all uh you know all around.

And I see cities like four Wharf, two and a half times bigger than us, but they invest 13 million dollars.

You're talking about 25 times more than proportionally than we invest on the issue, right?

And then you have uh dollars, 15 million dollars commitment on trying to solve the issue.

But I like to be efficient.

More money that doesn't mean they solving the issue.

You drive downtown dollars, you drive places in Dallas, you drive downtown Fort Wharf and other places in Fort Wharf, you see homeless everywhere.

You see, they have the the same issue we have, maybe a little bit more exacerbated.

Heck, they have they're copying uh our our our size to solve their problem, right?

So my question for you is this is it more money is gonna solve our problem, or they those initiatives that you listed on the last slide.

Uh which ones you think that that we should get a uh a consideration, a hard consideration on say, okay, you understand the city and you know the problem.

Uh instead of dumping money and say more money is gonna solve the problem, I don't buy that right on right away because I go dollars and four orphan, I see the problem is not solved.

So what do you think uh we should have a hard look and discuss on the uh on the neighborhood development committee uh moving forward that you think is gonna be more suitable for Arlington?

Thank you.

Sure.

So um thank you, Councilmember Galante.

I think what we would like to do from a staff perspective, because while I'm um sort of working with a lot of different um teams, I'm certainly not the expert in all the areas.

So we are um working on we've already put together a group to kind of look at the um Dr.

Lib uh Levavitz's suggestions.

We can add these to them.

So before making a recommendation just from the podium as terms of what would be the best fit for Arlington, because they're not they're not basically best practices, they're case studies.

Like what would fit here is I think what we need to find out.

Because not all programs would fit here.

We have to look at what problem we have and what solutions would address that problem.

So if you could give us a little time on that, and then we can certainly bring them back some recommendations to the CND committee.

That would be um uh a great opportunity to sort of study them further and then bring them to you all for review.

Any other questions?

Dr.

Odam wanted to say I know that we have on the schedule a state of home of the homelessness in Arlington.

Uh can we announce that date to the public?

I forgot when it's yes, ma'am, I mean I have I have forgotten that as well.

Um, but I'm going to bring that to you, and perhaps you can make that announcement this evening at the council meeting.

Happy.

Thank you.

Good.

Thank you.

Okay, anything else?

All right.

Thank you, Jennifer.

I appreciate it.

We're gonna move on down and talk about the one staff report we have, the overview of the city of Arlington's boards and commissions.

Everybody's had a chance to review it.

Does anybody have any questions for Jay?

Mauricio, I think this was one of your deals.

Yeah, it was.

Yeah, it was.

Oh, yes.

Um I would like to discuss.

I would like to discuss the you know the options of of looking at changing the policy, and it should be going to the municipal policy uh committee.

I'll recommend to go to the municipal policy commission to change the policy on this.

My my uh let me open here.

Change what's that?

Change it how would you want uh I close the document here.

Hang on a second uh find uh afternoon.

Sure.

Go ahead, yeah, and I'll look I'll look here.

Okay.

Um thank you, Jay, for the report.

And I know ever since I've been on council, I've I've asked questions about our boards and commissions, and I think we also had uh audit review at uh the effectiveness of our boards and commissions, and that's that's still a question.

And so I'm wondering do we get annual objectives for each one?

What is it they're trying to accomplish?

Do we get annual reports from each one?

What did they accomplish or what they need to postpone?

Or just something to improve the effectiveness.

And even when you're asking people to volunteer their time to sit on these boards and commissions, they should feel like they're making a difference.

And I think we should be able to enumerate how they're making a difference.

And um that would improve, I think, our boards and commission.

I'm I don't remember what Mr.

Galante had in mind, but I still have those questions.

And now I know I found the document here.

So my question is uh, you know, uh what I'm suggesting in asking if it uh uh municipal policy can look at a when uh someone is serving on a board uh in commission and they're running for office, uh to my knowledge, they have uh privilege information.

I mean, you are in the CVB, you are in uh parks, you are in uh name it commissions.

Uh they're running for office at the same time to level the playing field with all the candidates.

Uh I'm suggesting for them to uh go and step out from the from the from the boards, and then they can run for office and then reinstate it later.

Depends who appointed them, but I think it's uh uh it's lack of a playing field of having somebody uh in a in a commit in the commission and running for office at the same time.

I I'll leave it up to you.

Yeah.

I I I'd struggle with that to be candid, because if you have someone that challenges an incumbent on something, it's automatically not a level playing field.

The incumbent is gonna have uh more intimate understanding of the issues at hand that doesn't disqualify the incumbent from doing what they're doing, it qualifies the incumbent to do that.

And the same thing would hold true for a member of P and Z or a member of the library board or the member of Parks and Rec.

I think you don't want to, in my opinion, you don't want to discourage people from being willing to serve in other capacities because they've already engaged in a city board, they gain a greater understanding, they gain a greater appreciation, and they have a desire to take that next step and to move into something else.

I'm just throwing it out there.

I would I would be hesitant to want to require people to resign in their capacity of any boards simply because they chose to run for mayor or city council or school board or anything such as that.

I I I'd entertain counsel to talk about that.

Yeah, Mayor, uh I would agree with you.

Like I think we've got to be very careful discouraging anyone from doing that.

And I think if someone is serving on that and coming into council, I think it helps them.

I think it's an enhancement to what they're doing.

Um I'm also always careful about taking, you know, that's a voter's choice.

The voter can determine if that's good or not.

Some people may choose to resign, and that's what they choose because they want to focus on a campaign, but I don't think we should put some of those requirements on on someone stepping off one of these boards, um, unless there's a major conflict or anything like that, but then I think that's their determination.

So I I don't think that's I don't think it's solving a long-term solution for I don't I don't really know what the problem is, but uh I don't think it's I don't think it's the right solution.

Yeah, what would you think?

Well, we have made on the on the the boards of commission uh policy statement is that um someone that is running that is running for office uh may not be appointed, may not be appointed to boards of commission, somebody that is running for office.

So basically somebody that is not in the board of commission, now they announced they are running for office, they may not be eligible to serve in the board until the election is over.

Right?

So if they may not be appointed, I'll finish right away.

If they may not be appointed, why they would not step out when they announce the the to be running for office?

Uh I I look at that as two totally different things.

If if I know of someone that's running for council, and I like that council candidate, and to help that council get elected, I turn around and appoint that council to a board for this council to approve.

I think that's sort of using a government entity to weigh into campaigns.

That's different than volunteers who have signed up to serve and who are actually serving and then decide to move into another role.

I think there's a significant difference there because they have already volunteered, they're already serving, they're already, it's not about a conflict.

It's about eliminating the perception of favoritism and the municipal governance is where way I look at it.

So I don't and y'all, we're all just one vote, so y'all can all disagree with me.

It'd be okay if you need to, Mr.

Pham.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Maybe uh council uh member Galante, because in uh in a city, if you're on certain school board and you run for city council, you don't have to resign.

But for us, if I decide running again the mayor, I have to resign and go put my name in and runs again to mayor.

You see what I'm saying?

So if you if you want to like that, you need to go around and look at the school charter and see you can go petition for how many signatures put on the ballot and let the people vote for it, and then they're gonna look merely similar like the Arlington, and you might put in the term limit that line up exactly like Arlington, you know.

Yeah, I don't think that's accurate.

I don't think you have you can run against me anytime you want to, you don't have to resign.

It's a little late this year, but you can I could say that freely now.

None of y'all can run against me right now.

You can't file.

But um, I I don't think there's a requirement that you have to resign council, a council member can run against the mayor without resignation.

Yeah, and I'd say the answer in tree lawyer fashion is it's depends, right?

Depends on which cycle you are as council members, whether you're in the same cycle, right, as the mayor or not, how much is left on your term.

So if you've got a specific question about a specific um position um that you might consider, let us know.

Happy to answer those questions.

But we haven't created uh Molly, and my question is there a legal conflict if a board member of any of our appointed boards here in Arlington decides to run for elected office.

Is there a legal conflict that would necessitate their resignation?

No, no legal conflict.

And I think if you look historically, you have a lot of history of people serving on boards and commissions then running for office after they've gained knowledge and um understanding of how the city operates.

Okay.

Well, thank you, Mayor, for the discussion clarification.

It was great.

And uh thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you, Jay.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Jay.

You didn't really do much, but write the report.

Um I do I do want to thank and thank you over the years.

You have helped us refine the process.

The audit that you mentioned that our city auditor did also help us refine the process.

We've been listening to to what you all do.

As a result, you now get uh annual or regular rather attendance reports on how the uh appointees are doing with each boards and commission.

Two years ago we were able to refine the process.

We eliminated boards and commissions where there really wasn't any work that was being done that was being useful.

In some cases, we put them kind of on standby, if you will, so that if there is any, we can enact them.

But the but the the result of that was there were clear um indications to the people who were appointed to those that there you may not be needed in those instances, uh, but we'll call you when we do need you as an example.

Um so I think all those refinements have helped us throughout the throughout the uh last few years to make it a more meaningful process.

But we're happy to and we also do a survey at the end of every every year to get the the boards and commission members uh feedback on the process and what how they feel about it.

Happy to look at further refinements in terms of what you suggested there, but I feel like we've made some strides and appreciate your support helping us get there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jay.

Appreciate it.

Okay, let's go on down to oh what go ahead.

I found out about the homelessness update.

Oh, we've already moved, no, go ahead.

I'm joking.

On uh May 20th at 9:30 a.m.

in the downtown library.

Um Lauren King, who is the executive director for a partnership home, will be giving an update on the state of homelessness in Arlington.

So it'd be a good thing for council members or even citizens to attend to see where we are with that as we plan to move forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Uh 4.2 community and neighborhood development, council member Boxel.

Thank you, Mayor.

The community neighborhood development committee met this morning with a quorum present.

April Housing to City Council requesting for a resolution of no objection to their application to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs for an allocation of 4% housing tax credits to support the financing for the acquisition and rehab of a 240-unit existing housing development known as Mayfield Park Apartments.

We discussed the rehab with the with the developer in the meeting.

The rehab includes the addition of accessibility requirements that were not required when the development was initially built.

This development was uh built, I believe, in 1999.

Um approved, the transaction under consideration will be between the developer and the Arlington Housing Finance Corporation and/or its affiliates.

The committee members recommended city council support for the resolution of no objection to the developer's application for tax credits.

This resolution is item 8.24 on the evening agenda.

I I will add that uh there has been some discussion about uh the uh tax exempt stash status.

The developer is required to make what's called a pilot payment, which is payment in lieu of taxes that goes back to our housing finance corporation.

So um I wanted to clear that up because people uh oftentimes uh think that we're we're not collecting those taxes, but we are in this pilot program.

Thank you.

Any questions for council member boxel?

Mayor, I just think that's a big point.

Like I I don't think a lot of us knew that.

They are they are pulling off the tax roll, but they are still paying that back to us, and then council member boxal, correct me if wrong, I think they have a three percent increase every single year that they are paying.

So it is coming back to us from that side, and it is we've all talked about y'all know I'm probably as tough on apartments as anyone, they are coming in in almost a major, major renovation to a very old complex.

Um, and this is what so many of us have asked for is how do you renovate this?

And I think this is a uh project that um when you look into it, it's actually a good project.

So thank you, Councilman Boxhall, and thank you to the I would like to add that too that this is something we talk about a lot is rehabbing old apartment buildings.

Uh and this one's obviously not the oldest in our city, but it's getting on up there.

It was built in 1999.

So it's due for a rehab, and this is one way we can do that.

We can rehab some of our older uh apartment buildings.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor, yes.

The only other thing that I would add that we got out of uh C and D as well as the housing finance corporation is that there will be no significant displacement of residents when they um remodel this this complex.

So that's important to note.

That is a good point.

Thank you for that.

Let's move on down to 4.3, Councilmember Hunter.

Thank you.

Um, Councilwoman Boxel basically went over um what we're what we went over in Arlington Housing Finance.

Um, we did have our meeting this morning, all members were present.

Um, what we did kind of skipping down.

I'm really loud for some reason.

Um did go ahead and in today's meeting.

We approved the MOU, which outlines the terms of the partnership.

Um, and this would be um an affordable housing unit.

Um you will see on today's evening agenda 8.24 is a resolution of no objection to the application for tax credits.

11.2 is a resolution for authorizing submission of the general and no litigation certificate and 12.1 is a public hearing, which is required um before the box can be issued on here.

And does anybody have anything to add or any questions?

Okay, thank you.

Uh Mr.

Buskin, any uh appointments to boards or commissions this evening?

Yes, sir.

Excuse me, yes, sir.

We have one appointment this evening.

Thank you, sir.

Evening agenda items.

Anybody have anything they'd like to talk about this evening?

Councilmember Hunter.

I actually do um I talked to Molly about pulling out um one of the requests for the um sorry, I should have that out for the guest walls.

Actually do um I talked to Molly about pulling out um one of the requests for the um sorry I should have that out for the gas walls with eight point eight point one seven consent gonna pull that separately second okay I got it anything else uh issues relative to city or tech stop projects external committee and training reports will start with the Arlington Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors, Ms.

Troug or Miss Boxel.

Yeah, I think it's uh it's me today.

Okay.

Not seeing Miss Boxhall jump and I left my iPad at home, but I I took I pulled all my notes that I need to.

Um great C V B board meeting.

One one thing to just start off, and I think it's an interesting, and we knew this was happening.

Uh Joel, our longtime CFO um has retired.

Um in the board a while ago made a decision not to replace him, but to use a uh external organization that does this for many CVBs and many organizations the same.

Um and we had our first uh finance report, and and I can tell you they're they're impressing so far.

Um it's early on in the process, but detailed data, expertise.

Um, this is one of those elements where I think outsourcing is showing really well.

Um, but just a change, and it was a big change in mindset for our entire board um to get to that.

Um now some of the fun fun stuff on that.

Um, well, first off the fun.

Um coming before this council, probably in we'd like to say summer, probably in the fall, the Arntral Arlington Cultural Tourism Um Count Commission.

We are meeting, we are going through, we're modifying some changes.

As y'all know, we have about 750, 800,000 a year to allocate.

It's mainly gone to brick and mortars.

It's still gonna go to brick and mortar organizations and the cultural tourism, um, but we're probably gonna have some programming pieces built into there.

Um, so we're working with them this spring.

Um, I actually got volunteered or voluntoled um to assist with this, and so with that will come before council um for final decision of allocating those dollars of setting that out.

Um let me just give you a couple of really good stats.

Uh the Java House Grand Prix um show impact from something like that.

Hotel revenue was up 36% that week of the Java House Grand Prix, and I know we were all real concerned because it was shutting off roads.

Um they had 1.3 million viewers on that Sunday.

Um that is 54% higher than a normal race on Fox for them to not more than the Indy 500, but all their others.

Um yeah.

Uh Indy gets pretty high, Mayor.

I don't I hope we get there.

I hope we get there, but I don't my words.

I don't I don't know.

Um they also had we had 68,000 unique visitors um via placer that came through.

So just outstanding, outstanding numbers, and then for the year where our hotels are up six percent over five months.

Um a lot of that we put a uh as the board we started working, Mr.

Gonzalez and I are on the entire board and tray of how do we find things in January, February, and March.

Um, those were months they really struggled to fill in baseball, Java House Grand Prix.

Um, if y'all haven't gone out to these college baseball things, they are just killing it um from there, but they're wholesome thing.

Now, just a couple quick update.

I know we've all heard enough about World Cup, um, but it's getting closer.

Um they've had great success with Ambassador Roe that'll be held at Spark.

They actually have 10 countries that will be in there Japan, Argentina, Jordan, Austria, Netherlands, Mexico, Canada, France, Croatia, and England.

We'll all have a location um during the games that they're playing to help any residents.

And then uh, you know, as we've all been disappointed and fought the Dallas Stadium sign.

Uh luckily we're putting up um our PR and marketing department for the C V B is putting up Arlington billboards.

Um they're going up for FIFA.

They're also have sidewalk stickers um all in the location to make sure they know you're at Dallas Stadium in Arlington is welcoming you to the world.

So it's uh I think it's a good counter for what they're doing, and uh you'll they'll also have a rotating 20-foot soccer ball um to have a lot of picture sites what will be very prevalent.

How many?

Three of them.

Goodness gracious, Jay.

That's uh three 20-foot soccer balls that will be very prevalent of showing Arlington um of what they're tackling and where they're going.

And then uh the last piece, the uh we've uh started reviews and modifications to the strategic plan.

It's really focused on four things identity growth, value, and performance.

Um that will eventually be reported out to council so everyone can see the long-term strategic plan.

Um that's the CVB report.

Thanks, sir.

Any questions for Councilmember Hogg?

Ms.

Boxell, how do you do?

Did he get anything wrong?

Okay, good.

Uh RTC, Councilmember Gonzalez.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

The Regional Transportation Council met on Thursday, April the 9th.

The mayor and I were both in attendance in attendance during the meeting.

The RTC approved several items, including adjustments to funding allocations for the World Cup, which included additional 10 million dollars from the federal transit administration.

And then uh we also approved funding for the regional energy management assistance program, and then we also approve funding for the North Texas Zero Emissions Vehicle Program.

Additionally, the RTC received a briefing on a memorandum of understanding MOU with Rockwell County regarding the regional outer loop roadway.

Uh the bike and roll to school day scheduled for May 6th and matters related to regional air quality.

And that's one thing I mean, we talk about air quality all the time, and it's just you know, I want people to know that uh it's Tarrant County and Dallas, and I mean it's the whole RTC that's a major concern.

So the RTC also discussed the need to hire temporary outside legal council to assist the RTC and the COG executive board uh due to a conflict of interest involving the COG staff legal team.

The RTC approved this item uh with an amendment requesting the executive board to pause the search for a transportation director until there is a greater clarity regarding the roles and responsibilities of each party.

Um there are the next meeting is scheduled for April the 30th, which is uh uh coming up here, and then after that there's another meeting coming up on May the 14th.

Um Mayor, did I miss anything or no?

I don't think so.

Any questions or concerns ask the mayor?

Emergency preparedness planning council.

Yes, uh the mayor was unable to attend uh this meeting, so I I intended on is I attended on his behalf.

Uh it was mostly just administrative stuff.

Um they talked about the regional service awards that are coming up, nominations are due.

Uh they gave informational reports on the state homeland security program updates, uh grants uh for 2025.

Uh the state received a letter confirming the award, uh, but FEMA had not released the funds.

I told us 1.7 million.

Um then we also had another report on the uh SER grant update.

Uh it's a statewide emergency radio infrastructure grant.

Um approved the Palo Pinto project.

The project uh the interloop committee reckon recommended to fund and then recommended recommendations from the Office of Open Governance, uh contract review, uh reported on that uh meeting that was coming up and talk about the conflict of interest language that they were going to discuss.

And then there was a threat and hazardous identification and risk assessment slash state preparedness uh teleport um report update, which um they had documents in December and uploaded to the reportal.

That's a cybersecurity scenario added to the THR and their next they'll be looking at that for the next three years.

Uh the next meeting is scheduled for May this.

I think no, wait a second.

I don't know when the next meeting is, but it's gonna be um it's mandatory and it's gonna be uh in person.

So the mayor will be attending that one.

Thank you.

Oh, the next meeting is scheduled for June 6th, June 10th.

Sorry.

Thank you, Mayor.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Any other any questions for Mr.

Gonzalez?

Future agenda items.

Mr.

Hogg, I had one and and it doesn't have to officially be uh uh discussion, it could just be a report.

Um, Trey, we've had a lot of discussions, and I know there's been a lot of foam around about workers' comp issues.

I think some type of write-up and discussion just to have for some clarity, um see if there's eventually ever something we need to do.

Um I know I understand workers comp about 60 percent, probably more than most, but it's still a very complicated issue, and I know it's popped up with our PD and some state reps or summit to jump on it.

So I think if we address and look at that, I I'd appreciate that.

It'd be good just to educate council on that in case we start.

I needed one more meeting.

You were working on it.

Okay.

From my side, no hurry on that.

Take take your time.

All right, with that, we're gonna go ahead and adjourn the afternoon session, and we will see everybody downstairs at 6:30.