The Arlington City Council met in regular session on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, at 6:31 p.m. in the City Hall Council Chamber. The meeting included the approval of a consent agenda with 24 items (one continued), three public hearings for zoning and tax increment financing, two first-reading ordinances, and citizen participation. The meeting adjourned at 7:48 p.m.
Well, good evening, everybody. Welcome to the evening session of the Arlington City Council meeting. I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. It is August 4th at 6.31 p.m. I'm going to invite the Reverend Eve Kikendall, and I'm sure I per mispronounce that name to come on up from UTA Wesley Foundation to lead us with an invocation. Please stand if you can. If prayer is your way, please join me in a posture of prayer. God of grace. You loved us before we could earn it, and you love us still, not because we deserve it, but because love is who you are. You made us in your image, every person, every nation, every stranger at the border, each one carrying your likeness, your breath, each one worthy of dignity that no law can grant, and no law can take away. Teach us to see your image in one another. Teach us mercy that does not calculate first. Remind us we are called to first love our neighbor, our unhoused neighbor, our immigrant neighbor, our transgender neighbor, as ourselves. Remind us that you have given us grace enough to extend to others. But Lord grace is not softness and mercy is not silence. Give us also the courage of your justice, the kind that troubled the prophets, the kind that overturned tables, the kind that asked not, is this permitted, but instead asked, does this protect the least of these? When what is legal and what is right come apart, give us the clarity to see the difference and the courage not to look away. Let us not hide behind order when order does harm. Let us not call it peace when it is only silence. Make us people who love mercy, who act justly, and who walk hum humbly with you, not as a burden, but as a way of being made whole in your name, who is grace and truth and righteousness all together. Together, we say Amen. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Honor the Texas flag. Thank you. You may be seated. Ms. Garcia, speaker guidelines and general decorum, please. Thank you, Mayor. We ask that the citizens and other visitors in attendance insist in preserving the order and decorum of this meeting and to provide for attendance at and participation in the meeting without fear of intimidation, threats, or hostility. Any person making personal, profane, hostile, slanderous or threatening remarks who uses vulgar or seen language, who engages in any other actions that disturb or are calculated to disturb the meeting, or who becomes disruptive while addressing the mayor and the city council, or while attending the city council meeting may be removed from the council chambers. All speakers shall address the city council and not the audience or city staff and shall not call out individually named members of the city staff or the public. For speakers tonight, when your name is called, please come to the podium. State your name and city of residence for the record. Speakers may not use music, videos, other forms of media signs, or props. During the public hearings for zoning cases, the applicant will be asked to speak first and will be given five minutes to make a presentation. Speakers in support or opposition of the item will be given three minutes each to make their statements. The applicant will then be given three minutes for any rebuttal. For all other items on the agenda, speakers will be given three minutes to speak. If multiple speakers plan to provide the same or similar comments, those speakers may, if they so desire, designate one or more individuals to provide public comment on behalf of the group. A bell will signal the end of each speaker's time in consideration of other speakers. Please conclude your comments promptly when you hear the bell. We ask if you address the comments to the mayor and city council. Thank you, Ms. Garcia. Do we have any appointments this evening to boards and commissions? Mayor, we have 12 appointments to boards and commissions to the Arlington Housing Finance Corporation, Jason Shelton, place four, to the Animal Services Center Advisory Board, Justin Leathers, place six. To the Building Code Board of Appeals, David Peterson, place seven, to the library board, consider termination of the appointment of current member April Williams Moore, and the appointment of Zoe Wilkerson, place three. To the Parks and Recreation Board, Melissa Brown, place nine. To the Planning and Zoning Commission, consider termination of the appointment of current member Derrick S.