Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Arlington City Council met in special session on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, at 12:48 p.m. in the Council Briefing Room. The meeting began with an executive session (12:48 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.) to discuss attorney consultation, real property at 1707 and 1708 New York, and economic development negotiations. The open session reconvened at 2:39 p.m. and adjourned at 5:29 p.m. Mayor J. Ross presided, and all council members were present except Councilmember B. Hogg. The agenda included work session presentations on the FIFA World Cup wrap-up, erosion policy, opportunity zones, and council priorities, followed by informal staff reports and committee updates.
Deputy City Manager Jennifer Wichmann and Brent DeRaad, President of the Arlington Convention and Visitors Bureau, presented a comprehensive recap of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Arlington’s ATT Stadium hosted nine matches, the most of any host city. Key operational statistics included 98% of fans seated by start time, 150,000 Uber pickups/drop-offs, 90,000 fans moved via the Michael Morris bus bridge, and only 52 nonviolent arrests. The city invested $8.5 million in infrastructure improvements that will remain in the entertainment district. Hotel room revenue set new records: June 2026 was the highest month at $31.1 million, with 45% growth over the previous year; July and August also ranked among the top three months. Sales tax and mixed beverage tax collections in June and July rose 30% (sales) and 71%–92% (mixed beverages) year-over-year. Arlington’s unique Ambassador Row hosted 14 of 17 participating countries and was visited by the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State; it may serve as a template for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The city received over 9,000 English-language media mentions from January through July, with an advertising equivalency of $819 billion, a 4,000% increase over 2025. Costs for the event are being reimbursed through separate revenue sources; approximately $2 million in overtime was identified. Councilmembers expressed deep appreciation for staff, with Councilmember Ware offering a standing ovation. Councilmember Galante asked about lessons learned (flexibility and uneven business participation), and Councilmember Shelton inquired about the feasibility of hosting the Olympics. Staff and council agreed the event significantly elevated Arlington’s international profile.
Amy Cannon, Assistant Director of Public Works, presented findings from a peer-city survey on erosion policies. The city’s current policy (dating to 1961) assigns creek maintenance to private property owners; the city maintains only public infrastructure. Of 12 cities surveyed, most also prioritize public infrastructure, and cost-share programs are rare and often unsustainable (e.g., Plano recently repealed its program). Arlington faces 140 stream miles of erosion issues with an estimated $1.2 billion in need. The existing stormwater fee ($10/ERU/month) generates $20 million annually, dedicated to flood mitigation. Policy options discussed included maintaining the status quo, a limited city role (e.g., voluntary buyouts), or a new dedicated erosion fee. City Manager Trey Yelverton noted that any such program would require a new funding source and careful trade-offs. Council debate focused on the high cost, private responsibility, and potential for federal or state assistance. Councilmember Pham and Mayor Ross emphasized that the $1.2 billion need far exceeds feasible local fee revenue. No consensus was reached; Mayor Ross directed staff to continue exploring state and federal solutions.
Marty Wieder, Executive Director of the Arlington Economic Development Corporation (AEDC), reported that five of the eight census tracts the city submitted had been selected for federal opportunity zone designation under the Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025. The designation begins January 1, 2027, and runs for 10 years. The selected tracts cover key redevelopment areas: Collins/I-30, Lincoln Square/Anthem, Collins/Division, Downtown (including UTA), and the International Corridor. Opportunity zones allow private capital gains to be invested tax-free in qualified funds located in these economically distressed areas. Councilmembers noted the importance of early action to maximize benefits and suggested aligning the designations with other city plans, such as Innovate Arlington and the erosion management strategy. Questions clarified that opportunity zones are available only to taxable entities and are similar to 1031 exchanges but with broader investment options.
Jennifer Wichmann presented the third-quarter update for the council’s “Strengthening Our Communities” priority. The accompanying FY26 business plan highlighted progress in volunteer hours, community health programs, library Culture Pass expansions, recycling education, police and fire mental health initiatives, and infrastructure projects. Upcoming efforts include legislative session engagement, neurodiverse adult programming by the library, a new fire station alerting system, and continued expansion of the police behavioral health unit (responding to approximately 800 calls per quarter). Councilmember Gonzalez praised the inclusion of additional school districts in fire safety education, and Councilmember Garcia-Dumas commended library programming. Councilmembers had no immediate changes to the priority but noted that priorities can be adjusted at any time, not solely at the fall retreat.
Human Trafficking: Chief Al Jones and Sergeant Tarik Muslimovic provided an update on the Arlington Police Department’s efforts. APD’s HEAT team, formed in 2022, is one of the few dedicated human trafficking units in the nation. The department has zero unprocessed rape kits, all processed within 30 days. APD partners with Rescue Hill, an Arlington-based nonprofit, to provide victim services. Councilmember Garcia-Dumas expressed strong support and highlighted the department’s proactive approach.
Data Centers: Gincy Thoppil, Director of Planning and Development Services, explained that Arlington’s Unified Development Code (UDC) does not explicitly list data centers as a use, creating a gap. Mayor Ross requested that a future agenda item address data center regulations.
Economic Development Committee (C-PACE): Councilmember Galante reported that the committee endorsed the Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) program, which would allow developers to finance clean energy upgrades through property assessments. The committee will bring a resolution to the full council.
Arlington Housing Finance Corporation: Councilmember Hunter reported that the board unanimously voted to support an amendment to a regulatory agreement for a development partner, increasing the number of units affordable at 60% AMI. Formal council consideration is scheduled for October 13.
Appointments: City Secretary Martha Garcia noted 22 appointments to boards and commissions on the evening agenda.
Evening Agenda Items (7.19, 7.22, 7.23): Council discussed the procurement process for property tax and court fee collection contracts. The evaluation showed Line Barger scoring higher than P²RD (87 vs. 83). City Manager Yelverton noted that in past comparisons Line Barger had performed better. No local business preference was applied (not permitted in RFP process). Council appeared satisfied with the process.
TxDOT Projects: Mayor Ross reported on a meeting with the Fort Worth District Engineer. Key items: $125 million in funding for I-30 widening (total project ~$450 million), exploration of a decorative pedestrian crossing over I-30 to connect Anthem with developments north of the highway, and aggregation of remnant I-30 parcels for development. Progress on the Southeast Connector (I-20/US 287/I-820) is ahead of schedule.
External Committees: Councilmember Gonzalez reported on the Regional Transportation Council meeting, which approved federal performance metrics, grant applications, and funding for electric aircraft charging infrastructure (Arlington was ineligible because it had already installed such infrastructure at its airport). Mayor Ross reported on the North Texas Commission board and executive committee meetings, including ratification of new major investors and discussion of 2027 legislative priorities.
No formal votes were taken during the open session; all actions were discussion-based. Council provided guidance on several items: (1) Staff will prepare a future agenda item on data center regulations. (2) Staff will bring back information on illegal parking enforcement and police survey results. (3) A future discussion on food truck regulations is planned, with comparisons to other cities. (4) Mayor Ross requested three future agenda items: a resolution opposing single-member trustee districts for MISD, data center regulations in the UDC, and discussion of the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance. Committee recommendations to advance C-PACE and the housing finance amendment will come to the full council at later dates. The next formal meeting will include the evening consent agenda and voting items.
Okay, good afternoon, everybody. It is september 29th, 2026. And the time is 1248 pm. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and call the afternoon session of the city council meeting back to order. We're gonna start with 3.1 with Deputy City Manager Jennifer Wickman. Thanks very much, Mayor. Jennifer Wickman, Deputy City Manager. I'm here to present the final report on the 2026 World Uh World Cup. This is the wrap-up. And before I get started, I want to acknowledge uh Ku Kong Maudlin who's with our office of communications. Cook, could you please stand up? She's the genius behind this beautiful presentation and the report that's at your place. Um all errors are mine, but all the beauty that it that she's created are is hers. So we really appreciate her work on this. Why aren't you working on my state of the city then? Because you know, I I get stuck with that young lady sitting right behind you over there, and she gives me a hard time every week. Well, it was good uh uh Kristen uh Wagoner and also Teresa uh Burnett helped with that as well. So we appreciate their work, but um I'm sure they're gonna get you fixed up just fine, Mayor. So today this report is a record of all the work that was done by city employees and many of our other partners in the area um on the in and in the region on the 2026 World Cup here in Arlington. We're gonna have this report also available online once it's completed. So just a reminder that by the numbers, this um FIFA World Cup was the largest um that has ever happened. Um so it has the largest footprint, the most the most host cities, it was through over three continents, so it was very significant. Um really the location of Arlington, Dallas, North Texas really made us an ideal selection to for participation in this. We're central within the United States, central within North America, and we're very close to DFW airport because there was a lot of travel around. ATT Stadium in Arlington was chosen to host nine matches. This was the most out of any of the 16 cities. Uh it's likely that our proven track record, our well-designed infrastructure, and our history of excellent regional cooperation played a big role in this decision. Almost 632 people attended the actual matches. Many more worked and participated in other ways here in Arlington and came here. Um we we had challenges around anticipated around like there were there were a lot of people coming, it was during the week, it was during on during sort of normal business times. Also, there was a lot of expected disruption for team movements and referee movements and V VIP movements. The data that we've gotten really shows that our consistent and tested processes as well as some innovative strategies that were put into place did work. So this this um page, which is also from your report contains a couple groups of information. The top of the talk is about match ingress and egress. So ingress is just how our fans getting in getting to the to the match. FIFA requested that our ingress start much earlier than a typical um event here in the entertainment district. We do think that they did that because they know their fans well. Uh across all the host cities, 98% of fans were e at least in the stadium, if not in their seats by the start. So that's different than a lot of other events you may have attended in our entertainment district. So those folks wanted to get there early. With the exception of rideshare lots. Ride share and kind of untangling that after the match dragged things out quite a bit, but the traffic and everything else went very w went very smoothly. So the chart on the bottom that has different shades of red or orange. Um that talks about how the match days created um conflict and congestion in other areas. So you can see the darker red or the darker orange colors are more congestion over a typical day. And so the numbers in those boxes are minutes, and that's how long it would take to travel that area. So you can see those were really focused on that area, but generally there wasn't a ton of impact in other areas of Arlington, which we can really attribute to the work of public works and our police department for managing all of that that traffic. And those numbers varied by the match.