Good afternoon and welcome to this meeting city council.

Today is September 30th, 2025.

It is 201 p.m.

We have a quorum call the meeting order.

First thing are citizen comments are in the consent agenda items.

Having none takes us to before we get to request, I do need to uh give the city manager direction on it's it's my understanding that council gave direction to staff that we are to have our questions in by Sunday.

And we now are afforded two extra days because the agenda comes out on Wednesday, so instead of Friday, you get it two days.

So council rules state that uh we get those in by Sunday.

So I'm gonna give the city manager direction uh that questions that come in after Sunday can be worked as allowed but aren't uh pressing.

So that's the council direction that was given.

Uh and so I'm giving that to the city manager's office if there's uh that's the direction we gave before.

But and so just wanting to put that back forward top of mind so that we can address those things accordingly and they can govern their time accordingly unless there's any dissenting uh issues with that.

I've been operating under by 8 a.m.

Monday.

Is that should I be doing it by end of Sunday?

Okay, just by 8 a.m.

Monday.

Okay.

You're good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Representative from District 2.

Are we posted for that, Mr.

Mayor?

Doesn't that require consensus of council to do things like that?

No, it we're not doing anything.

I'm making a reminder because council already gave direction, so I was just putting in a reminder.

We've already given direction.

So there's no direction sought.

Takes us to our next item.

Um that is requests for clarification on agenda items listed on this agenda for public hearing and individual consideration.

Any questions there?

Individual consideration or and we don't have any public hearings, but uh any individual consideration question.

Great.

Takes us to our first work session, which is 3A ID 25157 receive report whole discussion and give staff direction regarding the capital improvements advisory committee.

Okay, good afternoon, Mayor and members of council.

Angie Manglaris, Development Review Manager, here to talk to you today about the Capital Improvement Advisory Committee or the CIAC.

Uh, this is in follow-up to an ISR you all received a couple of weeks ago.

Um but SB 1883 was recently passed with this legislative session and amended several sections of the Texas Local Government Code as it relates to the CIAC.

Uh specifically, the City of Denton's been utilizing provisions in state law that allowed the Planning and Zoning Commission to also be the CIAC, but with those amendments, we will have to change um how we conduct business going forward.

So staff is seeking direction on the establishment of a new CIAC, including um membership requirements, term lengths, and number of members on the committee.

Just real quickly, Chapter 395 of the Texas Local Government Code authorizes impact fee collection for water, wastewater, and roadway capital improvements.

In order to assess impact fees, a city must first establish a CIAC.

Their role is to comment on land use assumptions, capital improvement plans, and those proposed impact fees.

Furthermore, um Texas Local Government Code outlines composition and meeting requirements for the CIAC, including that that body be not less than five members, that not less than 40 percent of those members be representatives of the real estate, development, or building industries, that those members may not be employees or officials of the government entity.

It did previously allow that the planning and zoning commission could be utilized as the CIAC, and also if cities um assessed impact fees in the ETJ, a representative from the ETJ is required to be on the CIAC.

So currently the City of Denton has um imposed impact fees for water and wastewater since 1998 and for roadway improvements since 2016 and has been utilizing the planning and zoning commission plus one ad hoc ETJ member to serve as the CIA seat.

Uh their primary roles are to advise and assist City Council in adopting land use assumptions to file semi-annual reports with respect to the progress of capital improvement plans and advise and assist in and um regular updates to land use assumptions, improvement plans, and impact fees.

With respect to changes that recently went into effect on September 1, uh there are several key amendments that were made that are um necessitating this conversation.

Uh first and foremost, the state statute has removed language that previously authorized the use of the planning and zoning commission to also be the CIAC.

In addition, now a minimum of 50% of the membership is required to be a representative of the real estate development or building industries.

Those members may not be employees or officials of the city.

In addition, a new section was added that requires an independent financial audit that does need to be presented to the CIAC prior to adopting any new impact fees or an increase in existing fees.

The CIAC meeting requirements and time commitment.

So given all of this, uh staff has several recommendations, and this is what we're seeking direction from you all on today as it relates to the creation of a new CIAC.

So first staff does recommend creating a new committee to serve as the CIAC, meeting the requirements that 50% of the members are from representatives of the real estate uh development and building industries, and that these representatives are not employees or officials of the city.

Staff recommends requiring a resume prior to an individual being appointed to the CIAC to help us in our monitoring our compliance with the membership requirements.

Staff suggests a body of seven members, allowing each member of council to have an at-large appointee.

Keeping in mind we do need to include one representative from the ETJ that is in addition to our seven standing members.

Staff suggests four-year term links with a maximum of three terms consecutively, and suggests staggering those terms so that odd numbered places end on August 31 of odd numbered years and even numbered places, plus the ad hoc term ends on uh August 31 of even ending years.

Having said all of that, I'm happy to answer any questions, and we're also seeking um some guidance in the creation of this new committee.

Okay.

Questions for staff mayor Protein.

Thank you, Angie.

Can you go back to that last slide?

Yes.

Um I support the creating a new committee.

It sounds like we have to, basically, right?

Um I I like the idea to require a resume.

I mean, I think that's helpful regardless of the reason that we're asking it.

It helps me to assess who we're looking at.

Um appointing seven members, I think that makes it more simple that each council member I would assume would be responsible for appointment, or you know, nominating one.

Um I do like the four-year term links, knowing that this group has sort of a long-term project they're working on, so we don't want somebody to participate in the process, you know, one time, and then they're off by the time it comes up again.

So I think that institutional knowledge is helpful.

Um, you know, max 12 years sounds like a lot, but for what this particular thing is, um, I think the four-year term links sounds good for this particular use.

Um, and of course, I do agree with the staggering term so that we don't have you know too much turnover all at the same time.

Thank you.

Representative from district one, then district six.

Um I agree with what she said, but also um my question is is the requirements that a minimum of 50 percent of the CIACB representatives of and you're giving each district uh at large one vote uh from their from their areas.

Are you all you all are gonna help us figure out what's the 50 percent?

Because I have somebody in mind, real estate, blah blah blah, but you know, four of them can be from somewhere else.

I mean, do you all want us to give you somebody that's in one of these areas, one of these industries, and maybe a random person?

Um, you know, how does that work out?

Sure.

Uh that's a great question.

So there is a minimum number of representatives, but not necessarily a maximum.

But in part of why uh staff is suggesting requiring that resume is to assist in monitoring the compliance for that minimum 50 percent.

Um so if you had somebody in mind and we were already at 50 percent, one more wouldn't necessarily hurt us.

But if you had somebody in mind and we maybe weren't at that 50 percent, staff would maybe suggest looking at somebody who does meet those requirements to make sure we're meeting our um board obligations.

And um understanding that um you say this this is an ad-large.

Does it say something where it says this is an at-large position, so they can come from anywhere around the city?

Uh okay.

All right, thank you.

Representative district six.

Uh councilperson Chester, uh, first wanna thank you.

I mean, this is something that has to be addressed, and I think you've laid out very helpful parameters and suggestions.

Uh I concur with uh both of my uh fellow council members and their statements.

I appreciate that.

Uh is there a suggestion as to how to uh first deal with if you get seven nominations, and hypothetically none of them are uh part of the required uh percentage, and secondly, is there any suggestion as to how uh the representative from the ETJ is selected that we nominate each council person nominates and we vote?

I'm I'm just asking.

Uh don't know if that's been contemplated or not.

Thank you.

Sure.

As far as um the ETJ member and and how that gets decided, I don't I don't know that we discussed necessarily that that detail.

Um I finding somebody would be first and foremost the most important part.

This is a difficult board to sort of assemble and compose, and related to that, I think if we were seeing consistently that we weren't meeting those requirements, or if we we weren't at that threshold that we had individuals looking to serve the city in some capacity, we could maybe assist in finding other boards or commissions they could serve on, but would really encourage finding those three key industry representatives to to help us meet our requirements.

Okay, so what I'm understanding is the ask is that we all have a mind towards what to meet the statutory requirements, uh, and then if we're lopsided one way, uh you'll come back to council, and at that time we can determine how we decide who falls off and who might step on in that place.

That's not accurate.

Yes, yeah, that sounds okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Representative from district four, then district two.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um the the requirement, let me find it here.

The requirement representatives of the real estate, development, or building industries.

Can it be retired people from that industry?

That is a great question that I don't know the answer to off the top of my head.

Um do you have any insight?

And I'll say that's a rare great question from go ahead.

We can look into it, but I think that would I think that would qualify if I have that expertise, yeah.

Did I I'm sorry, I didn't, I was being distracted by uh his majesty over there.

Pardon me.

As I will look into it further, but I I would think looking at this, yes, that they would still qualify if they were retired, as long as they had that expertise.

Okay, okay.

And I didn't see that there's a requirement that these members be residents of the city of Denton.

Did I overlook that?

Um to be on the the board, you do have to be a resident of the city of Denton.

Uh the only exception would be that one ad hoc ETJ member because we assess impact fees there.

But I didn't see that, and I think that should be included.

Okay.

Two questions.

Got you down.

Representative district two, then five.

Thank you.

I I appreciate that.

Uh I appreciate the the questions have come before because I had so similar questions.

Um I think it would be helpful.

We've we've been a little loose in some of our other boards and commissions on terms of how we're covering requirements, but as this is being thrown at us statutorily.

Um, I had the same question.

Does a retired person count?

Um, what is what uh general generally are we looking at work experience in those areas?

Is that how we're defining this?

And the reason I asked that is is not for someone that's bootstrapped and self-educated, but more we have a lot of faculty that are in these areas, but they don't necessarily practice in those areas.

Um does that I mean how how do we define the expertise for those three areas.

It's similar to the retired.

It is similar.

Um I may also look to the city attorney's office for assistance.

I know that the state statute is relatively open-ended and that it just does state these three industries um that they need to be represented, not necessarily what constitutes that area of expertise.

Um, but I would defer that.

No, I think that's fair.

I this is a statutory requirement we'll be implementing.

I think that there's gonna be a lot of interpretation, maybe attorney general opinions to provide some clarification on how this is actually done and what this really means.

So I I don't think we can give you every answer today on that.

I think that's something that will develop over time as the city start to begin to do this and implement it.

And and I'm just confirming the ETJ member is non-voting.

It's an eighth member, or it is part of the seven.

They are they are part of the seven.

We are required to to have them and and have them be a voting member, particularly because we charge the water and wastewater impact fees in the ETJ.

So in a hypothetical that six members that had already gotten in were regardless of whether they met the other characteristics, if you came into it as a council person and there was and your ET and an ETJ person stepped down, you would be forced to find an ETJ person in that hypothetical if six members were residents.

I think the way we have the draft ordinance is uh there'd be seven at-large members that members of council could represent, but there isn't this specification for that ETJ member is who can or can't appoint it.

Or the body then would be forced to take that seventh member as an ETJ member.

We would need to find an ETJ member to fulfill those requirements.

Okay, I'm I'm I'm just making sure I understand what where the lines are.

Um it sounds like we have some questions that are will have to come back to us for guidance.

Um I'm I'm okay with that.

I I hear my uh my other board members in the response to questions about uh you know why we think capital projects need the the longer terms, but I I think it I I personally just don't agree with that.

I think it should line up with all our other boards of commissions.

So I'm fine with one, two, three, and five.

Um I I think we should align our our our term sizes uh with our other boards and commissions.

Representative from district five.

I'll pick up right where Dr.

Beck left off.

Um I didn't see it, I don't know that it's in state law.

How did we get to a max of three terms?

That's consistent with how we have our other boards and committees structured as a maximum of three consecutive terms.

So it was suggested we incorporate it here as well.

It's not necessarily state law required it's not coming to mind right now.

What other what other yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

What other citizen board has four-year terms to serve a maximum of three terms?

The PUB, the public utility board has a has a four-year term.

And with a maximum of three.

Max of three.

Okay, so you're going along with PEB.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

Fair enough.

I appreciate that.

Um, my other question.

Has there was there any discussion uh given to the idea of maybe staff appointing the ETJ member?

That way we all get someone and then staff gets the ETJ member.

And the idea obviously being we all appoint people from within the city, the people we have representative.

That was not discussed, no, but we can go back and I'd love to hear uh if any of my colleagues support that.

I think it it makes it simpler and makes it cleaner.

So I'd love to hear if anyone wants to weigh in on that, but that would be my be my preference if the ETJ member possibly would just um come from come from staff.

Also the idea being given the members, given the other statutory members, staff will have a better idea of what they're lacking in terms of what industry they come from, you know what I mean?

Since you all are looking at the resumes and totality, it might make it easier in that respect.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions comments representative district one?

Yeah, speaking on that, um I was thinking about that too.

Um the um resumes and for each one of these is are these just the three, the real estate development in building?

Was that just the three that were gonna be those are the three required ones that we need to represent, yes.

Oh okay, so um we get a few people that put in uh their application, and they're all real estate people.

We only need one of them.

Um what have you all worked up the rubric or anything like that to determine which one is most or more qualified?

Uh what are you all kind of gonna be looking at?

Or have you all even gotten to that point yet?

I don't even think I don't know if we've gotten to that point.

The thing about, you know, the requirements for this person to be the one.

Uh have you done that yet?

Um I think I've I think if all um so there isn't necessarily there's the 50 percent requirement that representatives be of those three industries at at large, but it doesn't stipulate that you must have one real estate, one building, one development representative.

So if we were to find perhaps three real estate individuals who were qualified to serve on the board, they they could all be appointed provided we had three open spaces, and we wouldn't necessarily need to say we can only have one real estate, one development, one building.

Well we're two of this or two as well.

Yes, okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Mayor Toon.

Responding to Council Member McGee's idea, um knee jerk.

I like the idea.

I guess my question is does that put staff in a really strange position to have to put forward nominees for ETJ slot?

Yeah.

Um we previously brought forward an ETJ member.

Um, so we've done it before.

Okay.

It's it's not out of it's not unusual.

Okay, even though it would make the body eight.

And I would be okay with that, I think.

And I do want to clarify the ordinance that's in the backup does say seven plus one.

So the ETJ member is an addition to the seven nominated by council.

Um but it and it is a voting member.

Okay.

So it would be eight.

Okay.

I'm I'm good with with what council member McGee said then okay.

Any anyone else?

Representative from District 2.

Um I just for the stake of clarity, because we we bounced, I I'm just gonna state that uh it says eight members, one of which is only one of which is an ETJ member, or more than one of which is an ETJ member.

Is the proposal whoever wants to answer that it would be the seven at-large members, and that's that is the standing body, and then one ad hoc ETJ member for a total of eight members.

Right.

Section three on page two of the draft ordinance attachment has the makeup.

So it's seven members residing in the city of Denton and one representative from the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the city of Denton.

So all eight members make up the Capital Improvement Advisory Committee.

Okay, so so thank you.

Um that that's what I read before.

Um I'm assuming then quorum is four or and um I I don't have a problem with the suggestion.

I I can go either either way, either us nominating um or or staff making a recommendation.

Um I just wanted to be clear that we were talking about eight, not seven.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Okay.

Uh anyone else?

Representative Discord 4.

I'm happy with the staff recommendation.

Um as it sits.

Um I'm opposed to uh the staff making the the uh ETJ recommendation as far as making it making that person's name known to a council member, I'd be great with that, but it but I think this is this should be a council appointment.

Okay.

Uh anyone else.

Um forgive me if I missed it, but my question is is simply uh is the is a residency requirement stipulated in here?

Yes.

And it's is it one year like all the others gonna let Christy Fogel answer that?

Christy Fogle, Chief of Staff.

So our residency requirement is just at the time of application.

There's not a previous residency requirement for a term.

It's just a resident at the time of application appointment, and then they have to be 18 years of age or older.

Oh no.

Uh yeah, that's right.

Yeah, I I would say at least two years in Denton before you start making decisions on you you you should at least get here, have lunch.

Visit a coffee shop, you know, some some something.

So yeah, I I'll just put forward that that in my mind it's two years uh that that needs to be stipulated.

Uh and then uh I would think for this initial phase, just to kind of get the ball rolling.

If we currently have a ETJ person serving with the I I would just think they just carry over, right?

I I don't think we have to recreate the will.

I think we would just that person carries over with the new group, and then when it rolls around that their term would expire, then you can uh reappoint or do something there.

But is that because they're not on PNZ if they're in the ETJ?

We can do that.

Yes, absolutely.

I think that fixes it, but I that's just my thought.

Um other than that, I I think you'll just have to come back with kind of a condensed version and we'll whittle it and finalize it.

But yeah.

Is there you have something new?

I have a question based on your question.

I it doesn't have to always be a back and forth.

I don't going back and forth with you.

Representative from district two.

Uh my question is in light of the mayor's question, is this a new body?

Because it's an it's completely new.

So I uh procedurally, must we not appoint everyone new.

I believe council will have to appoint all of the new members, however, we can bring the existing ETJ member that currently serves on RCIAC as the new ETJ member on the new CIAC board.

Thank you.

Representative from District 5.

What's the what's the count for support?

Were we was there enough to move forward with staff bringing the ETJ member or not?

I'm sorry, I wouldn't do an account, that's why.

I I wasn't either.

Oh uh because uh it's gonna have to all come back, and there's a lot of different machinations.

Uh so I just thought it all come back and then we'd whittle it down from there, but your thoughts.

Um, I don't think I have clear direction if there was a preference or a not on the the ETJ member.

Um, I think I had a few who were in support of staff, but at least one who was not, and then the existing ETJ member was also an option.

Um we have a couple options there.

If there's any further clarity, or we can bring it back and and continue to refine the ordinance.

Got it.

So you still have the floor.

I I'd love to have clarity now, but I don't see any reason in letting staff have to figure it out.

Can we just decide now and make their job a little simpler?

Floor is open.

Representative from district two.

Uh that if if it sounds like the issue is staff not staff, is is the question I heard.

And and I will uh to get off the fence, I will side with uh counselor Holland uh and make it a council decision.

Representative district one.

Uh let's make this a council decision that particular item.

We hadn't talked about it, I just I just put it out there.

So it'll again it's gonna come back is is my feel.

So if there's someone else that has something else they want to add, then by all means.

Representative district four.

Um a council decision, and I'm and I like the uh two-year residency requirement.

Anyone else?

Representative district one.

Um I appreciate the two-year residency requirement.

Um I would also suggest that we um bring on someone that's at least 21 years old.

I'm not real sure what an 18-year-old can you know bring to the table unless they've gone through the trenches in high school with some of these things.

Um, with the way that schooling is being modernized now, that could happen, but I would prefer that um someone that's of a more mature age and experience be in this position.

Thank you.

Good point.

Uh I would I would uh agree the to bump it up.

That's a fair point.

Uh representative from district six.

Um I concur with uh council member bird's uh statements regarding the two-year requirement in 21.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Mayor Platinum.

I'll concur as well on the on the two years and 21.

Um, and I'm pretty indifferent on who selects the ETJ, so I'm happy to go with what I feel like is the majority right now on that regarding who would nominate.

Representative of District Five.

Yeah, I'm okay with the two years uh as in terms of 18 years old, I I appreciate that.

I'd be okay with that, except um in this country we send 18-year-olds to give their life for the rest of us.

Who am I to tell an 18-year-old they can't participate in the city process if they want to?

In this country, in this state, we regularly in this state and this country as well, we regularly execute children younger than 18, right?

You can you can do that.

Right.

I'm uncomfortable with the 18, so I'm gonna be uh I'm gonna be a no on that one.

If there's an 18 year old who wants to participate, we ought to let them participate.

We know that the 18 to 24 demographic in terms of civil participant participation is among the lowest.

We should do everything we can to encourage people that age to participate, not set up rules and roadblocks to lock them out of process.

Representative district two.

Thank you.

Um I I'm not okay with the 21 uh or the two-year uh I'm no to those.

All right, I'd prefer 18 and and normal residency requirements.

Okay.

Anyone else?

Uh representative from district.

I think I've weighed in on everything except the 21, and I like 21.

Okay.

Got it.

So does that give you some building blocks?

Yes, sir.

Awesome.

Anything else you that we need to true up?

No, I think we're set.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

Thank you very much.

Great job.

Okay, thank you, everyone.

That takes us to item three B.

251363 receive report whole discussion, give staff direction regarding the city of Denton utility billing programs.

Mayor, council members, Krista Foster, customer service manager.

And this afternoon, I'm here to talk to you guys about a study that we did and the recommendations that are coming out of that study.

So council approved funding for us to do an updated review of our billing and collections processes so that we can ensure that we are consistent with the industry and consider or continue our history of excellent performance.

So, what we're gonna look at today is a high level overview on the benchmarking trends and comparison of uh Denton's performance to the industry and the historical performance in a couple of those areas.

Then we're going to specifically look at benchmark findings for commercial deposits as well as staff and consultant recommendations, and we will be doing the same for both pay agreements and leak adjustments.

We'll go over a quick summary and then we'll open for questions.

So, first, when you look at the benchmarking, we were compared to 22 different Texas utilities as well as over a hundred total utilities across the U.S., our performance is significantly better than the industry.

And you can see in the bottom section graphs, our performance over time is very consistent at those levels with the irregularities during the pandemic.

So when looking at commercial deposits, what we found during the benchmarking results is we are consistent in the way that we calculate deposits.

We are consistent in application of deposit interest when those deposits are refunded.

However, they found that our retention period is not aligned with other cities.

Most of the cities return within one to two years of good payment history.

I believe they're 58% of those that were looked at refunded at an average of 21 months.

Currently, so what we are recommending is that we keep residential refunds as they are today, which is refunded at 12 months of good payment history, that we refund commercial deposits at 24 months, and that the qualifications would now be if that customer has an A credit rating internally, no disconnections, no meter tampering, and their account is current at the time of review, then we would refund those deposits.

Then pay arrangements.

What we found is the way that we calculate dates is arbitrary-ish, meaning that we have to manually calculate them.

So it opens up opportunity for human errors, and it's time consuming.

So the other thing is that our eligibility and the administration of it is very restrictive.

We look at it to say ordinance states that customer can have one arrangement every six months.

So what we're looking at in those recommendations is to move the due date to the current bill due date so that any installment would be due at the date of your normal bill.

And then we would remove the restriction on the number of arrangements, and instead of limiting the number of arrangements, make it accountability for completion of your arrangements successfully.

So instead of saying you can have two arrangements a year, we're saying you can have an arrangement every month if that's necessary for you to meet your pay date, but you have to keep them, and if you fail to keep two arrangements during a 12 month time period, then we would put restrictions on you having an arrangement for a year.

Then we would need to update our ordinance.

We were looking to update the ordinance to authorize program authority to the city manager, discretion to the head of customer service, and still ensure council has review opportunities prior to any formalized program changes so that we can be a little more flexible and mobile in being able to adjust to the needs of the community.

Leak adjustments.

We found that the policy wasn't aligned with the benchmarks from some of the other cities, in that first our process is hard coded and ordinance, so any deviations would require council intervention, that we had a shorter than normal filing time, and the policy overall was a little more restrictive.

We did not have current consideration for AMI metering, and we know that AMI metering is coming.

We will increase our submission deadline to 60 days, and then update the ordinance to correct the provision for renters, to authorize program authority to the city manager, allow discretion to head of customer service, again ensure that there is council review prior to any formalized program changes, add provisioning for AMI metering, and include a grace period for sprinkler and pool leaks that have occurred in the last 24 months as long as they file within the 60 day deadline and meet all other program requirements.

However, these things may change or look a little different as we continue to review them with uh legal.

All right, so again, in summary, we compare very favorably to other municipals in the way that we conduct our business processes.

Um bad debt management are also highly competitive with the industry.

And again, summary of recommendations is to implement recommended policy changes to be more responsive to customer needs as it relates to the commercial deposits, pay agreements, and leak adjustments.

Okay, thank you.

Questions for staff representative from district six.

Hi, uh representative Jester, nice to see you and uh great job.

I really appreciate, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Um, all of the work that goes into the comparables, it's so helpful to see what we like or don't like or what seems to work or not work for other municipalities, and so I found that chart incredibly interesting as well as helpful.

Uh but I think that that was worth doing.

I mean, I think that this is a very important topic to our citizens, and so I I think it was worth the investment to receive that information.

Um, I am uh my direction is I am in favor of all of the recommendations.

My only question had to do with the 100,000 cap on commercial and residential.

Um I just tell me what that means.

So right now we have that is already in place, so that if you have a leak, a hundred thousand gallons of excess water over what you would normally use is about a quarter of a water tower.

So the likelihood that you're gonna be going in excess of that without evidence of leak is exceptionally uncommon.

Great.

That answers my question, and thank you very much.

Great job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Representative from district four, then five.

Thank you.

Um I I think I'm surprised that um that commercial refunds happen at 24 months and residential at 12.

It seems like it would be exactly the inverse.

So if you look at statistics from the US Bureau of like labor, it indicates that financial stability and viability for commercial accounts is or commercial businesses is about two years.

Um, if you look at statistics within the city of Denton, a new commercial account, the average length of those accounts is about two years.

That doesn't mean that it's not a there's a brand new business and they're failing in two years, but that is the averages.

So it would help to protect ratepayers to make sure that we have that level of security.

That just surprised me.

Okay, thank you.

Um the the arrangement you mentioned when people have a have an odd pay schedule or something.

Does that does the that date do actually appear on their bill?

Yes, the due date of their bill is on the bill.

Um currently, with the way that the pay adjustment or pay agreements are set up, the customer would have to remember that date.

But going forward, if we take these recommendations, it would be the printed date that is on their bill.

So it will say that they have an installment and they would know what date that's I see.

Okay, very good.

Um as far as the leak, the the 60 days, is that within 60 days within the repair of the leak, the noticing the leak, the note caught notifying the city what 60 days within a leak?

So the way ordinance is currently written, they have 30 days to repair the leak from identification and 30 days to file their paperwork to submit for a leak adjustment.

In the proposal, it would be the same 30 days to repair the leak because we don't want the leak ongoing, but they would have 60 days after that repair to submit their paperwork.

60 days after the request.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh is there any um is there any way that that an alarm and I I don't know what that alarm means, but a phone call.

No, no, no, no.

I don't mean a bell, just a phone call or something.

Hey, Bob, you you seem to be using a ton of water.

Uh you you might have a leak in the pool or the sprinkler or elsewhere.

So as we move toward AMI metering, then customers will have the ability to set up their own alerts to say if I go over X amount in a day, I want to know.

Um, under the current process with a standard meter, those meters are read once a month because you have to physically go out and look at the meter and capture the read.

I see.

So we don't know until that bill is already ready to be produced.

Is AMI another term for smart meter?

Yes, I am sorry, yes.

I like it.

I like it very much.

Thank you.

Good good report.

Good.

Anyway, Mayor Pro Tim, and then district uh representative from district one.

While we're on the AMI metering, can you remind us sort of when we expect all that to be implemented or completed, perhaps?

I know I've heard it, I forgot.

What is AMI meaning uh Stephen Gay, uh general manager what are utilities and street operations?

Uh Mayor Pro Tem, we are in the process of running that contract through uh PUB and City Council as we speak.

So before the end of the year, we'll have a contract in place with the vendor, and we should start rolling out that solution uh in the first quarter of 2026.

Okay, and do we anticipate it would be completed by end of 2026 or it's uh three year we're we're phasing in in three years, we have uh 48,000 service connections roughly that we need to uh retrofit.

Okay, so by 2030, the whole city should be done.

All right, thank you.

Um and on you're good.

Thank you.

Um yeah, yeah, I support all of the recommendations.

Thank you.

Thank you for all your work on this.

Just one second, I've got to come back.

Representative district five didn't want.

Shall I yield one question to my friends in district four real quick?

Absolutely not.

What does AMI stand for?

Advanced metering system, automated metering system.

Oh, infrastructure.

Automated metering infrastructure.

There you go.

And you can see I'm also very, very familiar with the term.

Thank you very much.

Um problem, sir.

So just a quick question.

Um the the graph and comparison, the backup, that was very helpful.

Thank you very much.

So my question is currently, if a person has um if they violate a third agreement in one year, what happens?

So it would be on the violation of the second agreement.

We would place an alert yes, an alert on that account and inform the customer that they would not be eligible until a year from that date.

Okay.

Um city manager, no question for you.

Um the city of Denton has disability, short-term, long-term disability, right?

Yes.

How long does it take for short-term disability to kick in?

I can't answer that.

I I don't know.

Does Christina Cassie know?

12 months?

12 weeks.

12 weeks.

I didn't think it was months.

12 weeks.

12 weeks.

Before it kicks in, right?

Kicks in at 12 weeks.

And that's three months.

Wait.

Come up here.

Come up here, Cassie.

Long term kicks in at 12 weeks.

You're eligible for short term if you elect it after two weeks.

Two weeks.

Okay.

All right.

The reason why I asked that question is because there are many employers, including my own, where short term doesn't kick in for six weeks or eight weeks.

And then of course, long-term kicks in anything after six months.

So my concern is in the height of the summertime, summers in Texas are be not only getting hotter, but they're also lasting longer in terms of duration of time.

I wonder if we could provide perhaps a little more relief and offer another month.

So that's one of the reasons that we are asking for uh department head discretion is if we see an exceptional circumstance like that, we can require some type of documentation and be able to work with a customer where as long as those things are hard-coded into the city ordinance, we don't have that discretion to do.

So that would not that would fall under department discretion.

That wouldn't be correct council review, right?

Correct.

Yeah, and and Krista's right.

I mean, I I don't know how often you get, I mean, I'll get calls and we'll try to work with some of the people.

I have called you about people before.

And we work with them, and we do it outside of what's in the current information.

And so what we're doing is saying we really need to change this so it meets those so when you make those judgment calls, we're following the policy.

Yes, and and we're doing everything we can to help people who may be going through a tough time and those other things, giving them the time they need.

And each each situation is different, absolutely completely different.

So giving that discretion, I assure you, department heads of staff will make good decisions and more forward thinking towards the customer and not just saying, show me the money.

Meaning council members will get less calls.

Hopefully so.

And then have to call the city manager less time.

Hopefully so.

Um, and last question is so um if we move forward with with these these changes, how much time will we cut down in terms of your staff time to handle these on the case-by-case basis?

Is this in terms of pay agreements?

No, I mean just overall, how much how much easier is this gonna make for your staff?

So, in terms of staff time, um updating the ordinance for commercial deposits and residential would fall under the same guidelines.

That's gonna save 15 to 18 hours a month in staff time just from screening residential deposits today.

That wouldn't even include the time that it would take to screen commercial.

Uh for leak adjustments, that one will be kind of a hit or miss just because higher volume there is work associated with those, but it's to benefit the community and keep the community strong.

Um and then in terms of the pay agreements, it will actually simplify things for us quite a lot.

They won't have to look at multiple resources to determine dates.

Uh the customer will know the dates, and it will enable us to create a self-service form because it we can look at those triggers within the building system and allow that customer when they get home off their shift at 2 a.m.

to go in there, pull it up, and file for a pay a pay agreement because we can look and tell them if they've they're on suspension right now, right?

So it will allow them the ability to set those things on their own and request them as as needed.

Okay.

Thank you, Chris.

Representative district one.

I certainly do uh appreciate you on bringing this opportunity before us.

Um, but I'm gonna go on Kennedy Garden level here and ask this garden level question.

Okay.

Um the automated metering infrastructure, will that allow us to set our own uh due dates?

No.

Because we still have to when you're talking about building, if we had hypothetically, we opened that up.

If two-thirds of the city chooses the 15th of the month that we could not staff to be able to create all those bills at that time, okay.

So it I don't believe that that will be the case, but it may be something that we can discuss as we move along in the process.

But initially, I would say it's not something that I would expect.

Okay.

Now I knew that that we were not doing that at this time because I wanted to try to move my due date closer to you know when I get paid, rather than it being down the line somewhere.

Um I was really hoping that that automated uh infrastructure system would allow us to do that.

It is something that I can definitely take back, and as we're looking at the processes and goes in, see if there's an opportunity.

I am always looking for ways that we can innovate what we do to make things better for our community.

Well, thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

You're very welcome.

Representative from District 2.

Thank you.

Um do we have the ability to note in our system?

Because you know, as as the director, you you we've got 48,000 customers water and 60,000 customers electric, and I think they handle their own.

But but uh there's a lot of people that that will potential clients.

Do we have the ability to flag so that it say in a a year or two or in the case of an audit or something, you could go back and go, oh well, I I did this many director discretions and I didn't even realize it kind of thing.

Do we have that capability?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

I am very, very firm on identifying those types of things and documenting them for audit purposes and accountability.

Perfect.

Uh I I'm fine with staff's recommendation, Mr.

Mayor.

Okay.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Anything else?

Um then.

I was just curious.

Uh staff.

Okay.

Thank you.

I I was just curious, and this may be out of scope, and and if so, tell me, but the the deposit component, uh, those if what what if it's an existing business that opens a second location or that sort of thing?

It's I'm just trying to I I've heard issues with that where let's say they move into a business where someone was a high user, they leverage that previous user to assess their deposit for their second location.

They may already have a location that's in good standing.

Uh how does that work?

Another location in an existing building with history.

So I don't want to misrepresent that.

If it's acceptable, I would rather confirm everything with my staff and get back with you guys in a Friday report, if that's okay.

Yes.

Uh that would be my concern.

I'm fine with the deposit.

I just want to understand what it looks like because I know I've heard uh we leverage previous users' history to decide what the deposit is for a new user, even though there's no connection there.

No, no, no.

Um it's it's a total new use, but we're we're leveraging some the old.

I just want to understand so so I so as it sits, I'm okay with the deposit thing.

I I just want to understand that.

Uh and then I I'm sorry I missed it.

Um, the what is the adjustment for renters again?

No, the adjustment for renters is in our ordinance, we have a provision that to qualify for a leak adjustment, you have to obtain and pass inspection through building inspection.

So you have to obtain that plumbing permit if the leak requires it, so that it can be inspected and protect one the homeowner, but two, the potable water supply.

So the way that that was written is that you have to obtain the permit.

What was missed is that renters cannot pull a permit.

That permit must come from either the property owner or a plumber.

So um we want to be sure that we have provisions and guidelines of what they need to do to meet that so that they can receive those adjustments.

Okay.

Um sorry, uh I just want to make sure I understand.

So the adjustment is so but in that scenario, the renter can pull a permit?

No, in that scenario, we will put guidelines that the renter must follow in notification to their landlord of the leak, and then being able to provide back to us notification that they've let their landlord know if there was no leak, no permit pulled and that a permit must be pulled.

And then at that point, we would take that internally to work for compliance.

Got it.

Wow.

There's a lot there though, right?

Because especially with AI now, I can make an email look like anything.

And I can say I gave somebody notice I didn't.

And I I just don't know that we want to be in the business of calling balls and strikes there.

I I take the the the point, but I just want to know did we do we kind of parse through what if there's a fraud issue there, and if we get in the middle of a tenant and property owner debate.

I was gonna say we also deal with that on a day-to-day basis now.

Sure.

On whether that repair receipt is valid or not.

Sure.

If there is ever a question, we actually make contact, either with the customer or in this case, maybe with the owner, or with the plumber to get clarification on exactly what occurred and what the status is.

So we will do validation and verification if something seems out of line or amiss.

Got it.

Yeah, then I I'm fine with the recommendation.

I I would just say to an extra layer to what we're already doing.

Maybe we have someone sign uh under the whatever legal language it says you're you're gonna perjure yourself, you're gonna get a fine something to make sure people are you know uh we want to help those that need help, but then at the same time not be vulnerable because it is uh uh lack of a better term, it's a co-op, right?

And so every dollar we lose costs the rest of the system, and so it's just really critical that we're we're we're careful with those dollars, as you know.

Uh so uh that would be my only concern.

It's just maybe we beef up that those that change to the render provision comes with a stipulation or testify our statement under oath, not under oath, but you know something along those lines where it adds a little more teeth to it.

Okay, uh, but yeah, no, thank you for the changes and information.

Anyone else?

Anything else to add?

Okay, all right.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Uh okay.

That concludes our work sessions, and um we'll we'll go into close and then we'll we'll take a break and come back.

And for those tracking along, we'll start with item f in closed uh because we have someone here that we need to take up first.

So we're not we'll start with item F in the closed session.

And the city council will now at uh 258 uh PM convene in closed meeting to deliberate the closed meeting items set forth on the agenda, which include the following item A, ID 251661, deliberations regarding certain public power utility competitive matters under Texas Government Code Section 551.086 consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.071, and then item B, ID 251746 deliberation regarding economic development under Texas Government Code Section 551.087.

Item C ID 251528 deliberations regarding economic development under Texas Government Code Section 551.87.

Item D, ID 251598 delet deliberations regarding real property under Texas Government Code Section 551.072, and then item F ID 251804 consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.071.

And I'll note that item E was skipped because that was just a placeholder, so we will not take up item E.

It will just we'll start with F and then A B C and D, again, excluding item E.

It is 259.

Let's get started at uh 305, the quick five-minute break.

Thanks.

And welcome back to this meeting.

Uh let's see.

The city council is now at 5 30 p.m.

reconvene from closed session, and no official action was taken.

And that takes us to our proclamation presentation portion of the meeting.

And uh so we'll do these two, and then we have to go back in the close because we didn't finish, and then we'll be back out here to vote again after we finish close.

So it's uh all good.

All right, item.

So first is one A ID 251385 presentation resolution, uh Halloween Capital of Texas.

And so if you're associated with that, I'll meet you at the podium.

We're twins.

Here we can slide down.

We can slide down this way so we can all fit.

You didn't buy my going, Gerard.

Yeah, that's good.

That's great.

And y'all can slide down this way.

Slides your name.

There you go.

Awesome.

Thank y'all.

Good to see y'all.

Okay.

So we'll um we'll recognize Representative Richard Hayes and uh whoever else you want to recognize, and then afterwards we will go around and have everyone introduce themselves.

You can add whatever you want to it, and then I have another proclamation or just on our end as well.

But first things first, uh Representative Hayes.

Thank you.

And um thank you for having me here this evening at our Denton City Council meeting.

And um we're here tonight to officially, I guess, present to the city the resolution that was passed by the Texas House of Representatives, and this is House Concurrent Resolution 86 that just recognizes that in each October the city of Denton transforms into a playground of Halloween fun.

It's a month long extravaganza seasonal uh activities.

This has been um you know last year was the first year the city did it for all 31 days of October.

I know that uh my law firm uh Hayesbury White Man's Aunt, we always have a coffin in the coffin race.

We consistently come in number like 55.

We we have no skill set apparently.

We need engineers and not lawyers working on that um on that uh race.

But anyway, this has turned into a great uh event, and I'll just read you the uh resolved portion of the resolution.

It says resolve that the 89th legislator legislature of the state of Texas hereby designates Denton as the official Halloween capital of Texas, and further resolved that this will be for 10 years.

So for the next decade, the city has that uh recognition.

So congratulations to the city of Denton.

Congratulations to the parks department.

Y'all have done an amazing job around our city, and I know it'll be a lot of fun.

It was when I was a kid, it was my most fun event.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Thank thank you very much.

We appreciate all your hard work there in Austin carrying that and working with your your colleagues to get that done.

So thank you very much.

Uh and then do you want to is any of your staff member here?

Yeah, my district director Dion Starnes is here.

So that's who Dion is.

If you ever need to try to communicate with me, Leon is the person to see.

If you if you don't have my cell phone, most of you do.

And then I want to congratulate Gary in the parks department.

And so Gary, why don't you introduce your staff?

Thank you, Representative Hayes, for everything you've done.

My son's middle name is Hayes.

Named after Ruth Rudy B.

Hayes.

Um, but uh that's side story.

But uh thank you for recognizing all the hard work that the city has has put into this uh over the past I guess 18 months or so.

And it's not just Parks and Rec, it's a lot of the departments, marketing communications, mayor, city council, city manager's office have all supported us through this journey.

Uh and it's been a lot of fun.

It's challenging, but it's a lot of fun, and we look forward to it.

Uh but again, my name is Gary Pack, I'm director of parks and recreation.

Hi, I'm Meredith Jones.

I'm the special events coordinator in Parks and Recreation.

Hi, I am Alexa Wright, and I'm actually representing the Kawa Bar on Industrial Street, and we're super excited for all the spooky stuff.

Jackie Bowdy, I'm a volunteer.

I've been painting since the 17th of July.

I'm Lisa Buchanan, and I'm her partner in crime.

So we've both been painting.

I'm Devin Daniels, and I'm a member of Teen Council.

Awesome.

I'm Theodore Voorhees, and I'm also a member of Teen Council.

I'm a uh Monty Harris, I'm another member of Team Council.

I'm Dominic Walker, I'm also a part of Teen Council.

My name's Mia Olgan.

I'm also part of Teen Council.

And she's also our president.

I'm Jody McLaren.

I'm the rec coordinator over at the DNA Rec Center with the Parks and Rec department, and I also oversee Teen Council.

Thank you.

Uh James Thurman, president of the Denton Maker Center, and just can't say thanks enough to be in a city that is supportive of so much spookiness.

This is wonderful.

I'm Candace Rempey.

I'm with Texas Women's University.

I can do community relations, and we are so excited to be a part of this this year.

I'm Autumn Natalie.

I'm program and events manager with Parks and Recreation.

Ramir Martin, Assistant Pumpkin Carrie, I mean assistant director.

Well, and then while you have the mic, uh Boo with the U.S.

Boo with the U.

Yeah, what is that?

It's on October 16th.

Okay.

And then afterwards, we're going to try to break the Texas record for the number of people doing thriller at the same time.

So we need 885 people to come do thriller with us.

Yeah, and so yeah, that I mean, if you've not been the boo at you, be with the UI, I encourage you to please try it out.

The folks want to land down here, we didn't get everybody.

Right here?

Yeah.

Hello, I'm Christy Franz with Discover Denton.

Christine Taylor, Assistant City Manager.

Kristen Polito, Main Street Program Manager with Economic Development.

I'm Molly Carter, the director of operations for Denton Main Street.

I'm Kristen Kendrick Bigley, the president of Denton Main Street Association.

I'm Chrissy Odin.

I'm the executive director of the Greater Denton Arts Council, and we are also super excited about this initiative.

Hi, I'm Brittany Geisler.

I'm the rentals and events coordinator at the Greater Denton Arts Council.

I'm just screen.

I'm the education curator at the Greater Denton Arts Council.

I'm Ben Easley, uh owner of the bearded monk.

Also super psyched about this.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And so let's all y'all slide in.

We'll get a picture.

Representative Mays here with your approximation here.

I'm gonna sit down.

Yeah, I'm gonna figure out how to make it.

Wait, where are we looking?

One, two, three.

Awesome.

Thank you.

So I have one more here that I have to read, but uh you you can hang or you can uh sneak out.

Either way, it's good.

You good?

Okay, great.

Thank you, Dion.

Okay, so we have one more, Mr.

Gary.

Yep.

All right.

And so um last I heard there was so early, you know, it was about three weeks ago.

There was 250 events.

Give us an overview of what's going on.

Uh and we have a miniature city in in downtown, and so all the things.

What are the highlights?

So right now we're floating around 300 events.

Last year we ended up with 200.

So the community has really leaned into this initiative.

Um and Scary Cheer Orchard is back.

You've seen we have about 140 chairs.

Uh, that is a community build art project.

The uh haunted downtown Halloween diorama is another community build art project, and it's phenomenal.

It's at UNT Collab.

Um there she is.

Um, and it is detailed to the point where they took the O off Morrison.

Yes.

I mean, it's the the murals are perfect.

I mean, it is phenomenal.

Yeah, you gotta see it.

Um, and it's really fun to see everyone really leaning in and being a part of this kind of swell of of excitement every October.

Got it, got it.

And so I see the maze that's new.

Yep.

Have you gone through it?

Uh yeah, a few times.

Okay.

Um so we we have about last year we had about 15 kind of experiences, placemaking locations.

This year we have 30.

Um, and that's that's a good number.

Um it's a great number.

Um, but we've we've improved what we had last year.

We made some enhancements to it and learned a little bit, and then we've added some new things, you know, kind of like an amusement park.

Every year they do something different to keep keep the interest.

We want to keep people coming back.

We want people to come back more than once.

Come back in the day, come back in the evening, come back, you know, for special events.

Uh the uh every day of the the month or something going on.

Um it's it actually started a couple days ago and it'll run through the first week of November.

So we actually have five weeks or six weekends of activities in Denton this year, as opposed to we had four last year.

So we're hoping that's gonna help traffic as well.

And then we have more Ghostbusters.

Uh last year the Ghostbusters put in about 1,500 hours of work.

I'm not sure what Jackie and Lisa put in so far, but it's probably pretty close to 1,500 hours.

Um but yeah, I mean we we couldn't do it without volunteers and the business community doing it.

And then lastly, so we have uh October 1st, what all is going on?

So that's just that's what is that?

So the tomorrow.

Okay, got it.

So we have a block Blocktober party.

Um we have the official kind of grand opening of Halloween, Denton Halloween.

Uh that'll take place at five o'clock at the maze.

So we'll open that up.

And then we have set festivities starting at the Civic Center in Quakertown Park.

Uh all evening long, we have the pumpkin drop at seven.

Seven, correct?

Yep, seven.

Um, so a little bit for everybody.

Got it.

Excellent.

Well, thank you very much.

We can give them a hand.

That's great.

Oh my uh I'm gonna make the words bigger so I don't uh mess up the words.

Hold on, bear with me.

I should have had these ready.

Now I can see.

All right, here we go.

Okay, this is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton, Texas, to all whom these presents shall come greetings.

Whereas each October, the city of Denton's downtown area transforms into a premier Halloween destination with an array of fun, frightful activities and for for residents and visitors of all ages, featuring a variety of exciting and immersive experiences.

And whereas the 31st day of Denton Halloween builds on the success of last year's inaugural event that attracted more than 660,000 visitors to Denton's historic square.

And whereas 31 days of Denton Halloween evokes a sense of a nostalgia, playing paying homage to the cherished traditions of this holiday and celebrating the art artist community, including movie nights, a block party, a pumpkin drop, and themed scavenger hunt, interactive storytelling sessions, seasonal treats, and one of a kind attractions.

And now, therefore, be it resolved that the city of Denton proudly acknowledges and celebrates the 31 days of Denton Halloween, honoring its commitment to Denton's special events, arts, culture, tourism, and economic development.

Give them a hand.

I got you.

Awesome.

Thank you all very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yes, I heard your name.

Last time we did that.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

That one.

I forgot to forgot to bring up trends last hours.

I'm not even one of the in the picture.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

Awesome.

All right.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Literally years ago.

Thank you so much, sir.

On the Halloween comments.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

So I will read us back in the close.

We will go back.

So we'll transition.

Do you have to close it?

I'm going to close back in there.

The city council will now at 5.49 p.m.

convene and close meeting to deliberate the closed meeting items set forth on the agenda, which include the following item C, ID 251528 deliberation regarding economic development under Texas Government Code, Section 351.087, and item D, ID 251598 deliberations regarding real property under Texas Government Code, Section 551.

All right.

Next on our agenda is the consent agenda.

Nothing was pulled.

I'll take a motion.

Representative from District 2.

Move approval.

Mayor Pro Tim.

I'll second.

I have a motion and a second.

Any discussion?

Seeing none, uh let's vote on the screen.

I'm sorry.

Uh councilmember back.

Mayor Pro Tem.

Joe did not recuse, he's just not here.

No.

Let's we have a it'll be just uh it's just a consent agenda.

So just mark him as six zero.

Absent forward.

That's fine.

Yep.

Understand.

And that passes.

Wait.

Wait, who's missing?

It's not enough.

That was only five.

Who do we miss?

Jill didn't vote.

Oh, there you go.

We got to do it again.

So, yeah.

That passes 7-0.

Takes us to items for individual consideration.

Of which we have two.

Is it three?

Okay.

3A is ID 251520.

Consider or approval of a resolution of the City of Denton nominating members of to the board of directors of Denton Central Appraisal District and providing an effective date.

Good evening, Mayor, members of council, Matt Hamilton, AD of Finance.

Here tonight to present the DCAD resolution for nominations and seek nominations to the Denton Central Appraisal District.

The appraisal uh district, board of directors hires the chief appraiser and sets the budget.

However, the directors have no authority to set values or appraisal methods.

Seen here in the table is the current board of directors, places four and seven, and pomical and mike hennefer are uh have their terms ending at the end of December.

The board members will serve staggered four-year terms, and the board of directors currently has a nine-member board with five members appointed by the taxing jurisdictions.

One uh being served as the tax assessor, and three publicly elected members.

Two board member terms expire on December 31st, places four and seven, and the council tonight may nominate up to two nominees.

The eligibility for the nominees, they must reside in the appraisal district for at least the last two years.

Uh city, county, or school district elected officials are eligible, so any council members interested are eligible to serve.

Employees of the city are not eligible unless they're an elected official as well.

And a person is not eligible if they are closely related to anyone in the appraisal district or related to anyone who represents owners in the district or person who has an interest in a business that contracts with the district.

We did reach out to the DCAD and the two incumbents are interested and would seek uh renomination.

So the nomination process um prior to October 1st, uh the DCAD notifies the taxing entity of the number of votes they're entitled to cast by October 15th.

Uh the city would need to submit uh our nominations to the DCAD.

Prior to the 30th, the DCAD will compile a comprehensive list of all the nominees from all taxing jurisdictions.

Prior to the 15th, the taxing jurisdiction or city will vote.

So on December 2nd, I believe.

Maybe the third, second or third, a ballot will come back to the city council to cast the vote.

And then on December 31st, or just before the 31st, the DCAD will tabulate the votes, and the individuals with the most votes will start their uh new terms.

Uh December 2nd is when it will come back for vote.

Uh total votes for 2024 of all taxing units was 5,000 with our share of the votes last year at 3.78% or 189 total votes.

Uh we did receive here in the last couple days the 2025 numbers.

So of the 2,000 total votes, Denton has 80, which represents 4.05% of the total vote.

So tonight uh we will uh entertain any nominations that the council may have for the DCAD uh board.

Thank you.

Questions for staff representative from district five ready for nominations registrant questions.

Yes.

Nominations are fine.

Um in keeping with every other time we've had this discussion.

I nominate council member Vicky Bird.

If she's open to it.

Because we do this every year to you.

Uh okay, well, then I will nominate the incumbent statement.

Anyone else?

Okay.

Uh do you need that's that's good.

You we don't need a consensus, right?

Uh okay.

Uh then I'll second.

So motion and a second for the incumbents discussion.

Uh seeing none, uh, so the motion by uh representative from district five, second by myself.

Uh let's vote on the screen whenever it's set.

That passes 7-0.

Takes us to thanks, Matt.

Takes us to uh item 3B, ID 25163.

Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation providing for authorizing and approving the execution by the city of city manager of a power purchase agreement between Denton and Tidewell Prairie 2A LLC authorizing the acceptance of approval by the city manager and letter of credit or other credit support issued.

Good evening, Mayor, uh council members.

My name is Jose Gaitan, executive manager of power supply for DME.

Today we're here to uh cover a proposal that was received as as far as uh RFP that was issued 8678.

And in this proposal, we received uh Tidwell Prairie 2, a utility scale battery storage.

As a summary of some of the challenges that both ERCOT and DME are facing is the duct curve exposure, and that is the hours between 6 uh p.m.

and 9 p.m.

where the sun goes over the horizon and solar production goes to zero, and wind uh production is ramping up, and during that reduction in renewable output, uh we still see heavy load still uh in during those hours.

And so our load our portfolio is predominantly renewables, and so we see this same uh phenomenon occurring, and so that exposes our customers to five thousand dollar per megawatt hour pricing.

So it's high volatility during those hours.

Normally we see prices in the 20 to 50 dollar range, and so that is an extreme uh price fluctuation that we see during those hours.

We believe that the battery solution can help uh combat those uh high prices and protect our customers.

So, as part of this uh deal, the term is for 10 years, it's for 100 megawatts of capacity for a duration of two hours.

And uh the good thing is that's available uh starting as early as June of 2026.

The prices that we've received are inclusive of federal tax credits that are currently available to all batteries uh according to the IRA that was passed under the Biden administration.

And so the location of this facility is located in Central Texas, about 70 or 80 miles south uh east of Waco, Texas.

Um it's owned and operated by Jupiter Power, one of the leaders in battery storage in ERCOT, and a developer in uh North America.

They have over 11,000 megawatts of battery storage nationwide and have a base in Austin and Houston and Chicago.

So it's a major player in the ERCOT space for sure.

Because of the issues that we're seeing with the duck curve and the high price volatility, we believe a battery will meet and be a good uh addition to the portfolio mix.

And so with that and its availability as early as June of 2026, uh staff recommends approval as a Tidwell Power 2 PPA.

And with that, that concludes my presentation.

Any questions?

Thank you.

Uh questions for staff.

CNN representative from District 5.

Thank you.

I move approval.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Representative from District 2.

It's a good first step on this kind of journey.

I appreciate your your work on this.

Thank you.

A second.

We have a motion and a second.

Any other discussion.

Seeing none, let's vote on the screen.

That passes 70.

Takes us to item.

3C, which is ID 25165.

Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, a home rule municipal corporation providing for authorized authorizing and approving the execution by the city manager of the power purchase agreement between Denton and Blue Summit One Wind LLC, authorized and acceptance of approval by the city manager of the letter of credit on other credit or other credit support issued on behalf of Blue Summit.

Good evening, Mayor, uh Council members.

My name is Jose Gaitan, Executive Manager Power Supply for DME.

Again, we're here to provide you uh some discussion regarding a proposal that was received as part of RFP 8678.

In this case, it's Blue Summit 1 utility scale wind generation.

This deal, the terms for this deal are a term for 15 years for approximately 140 megawatts of capacity.

The good thing is that it's available now, which would grandfather it in to receive federal production tax credits should there be any changes in the government as far as which new facilities can receive PTCs in the future.

More than likely that this facility would would be grandfathered, and so there wouldn't be any changes to the pricing that we've received so far, which is uh good for us, and there would be no construction delays as it is currently already in production, just waiting to find a new home.

Uh Blue Summit One Wind is owned and operated by Nexttera.

We currently have another project with Nexter, and they have been a great partner to DME.

And uh Nextera again is one of the world's largest uh generators of clean renewable energy.

Uh they have over 119 projects in uh the US and Canada, and again, they've been a very great partner.

Uh Blue Summit One Wind is located in Vernon, Texas, again in the near the panhandle where there's plenty of wind to fuel this farm, and so it's a great location, relatively close to the Metroplex in Denton.

And uh with this new facility, it would bring our total renewable capacity to just over, just under, excuse me, 600 megawatts of capacity.

The 15-year term will take us all the way to 2040.

Blue Summit 1 wind again diversifies our production of renewable power.

It's not another solar addition.

Uh and so we will have production not only during the day but at night to help diversify the our wind production, our renewable production, and uh help reduce exposure to the increasing prices of nighttime power as we've been seeing demand growing from data centers at run 24-7.

So again, this facility is available now.

Uh it does not provide 100% price mitigation, but it does help continue our renewable goals that's set uh by the DRRP, and we believe it would be a great addition to the portfolio.

And with that, that concludes my presentation.

Any questions?

Mayor Pro Tim.

I just want to say thank you so much for for the diversification of the portfolio and specifically for putting this this wind um together with the battery storage and and what you guys have done there.

So I really appreciate y'all's work on that.

Um with that I'd like to move approval.

Thank you.

Representative from district two.

I'm happy to approve.

Or motion a second.

We have a motion and second, any other discussion.

Seeing none, let's vote on the screen.

Pass the 70 concluding items.

Any uh concluding items.

Representative from district six.

Um, I just want to send my condolences to the family of uh Bill Orr.

Uh he and his family have been here for uh many many many many decades.

Uh one of the kind of founding fathers uh was uh over uh president of first state bank back back in the day before it was Wills Fargo and um his um uh wife and uh former wife and children, grandchildren are all very important parts of our community and volunteer in many capacities.

So um he passed away uh early this morning, and I just wanted to extend my condolences on behalf of the city.

Thank you.

Uh representative from District 4.

Thank you, Mayor.

I want to make everybody aware that Saturday is the celebration of St.

Francis Day.

Uh my church, St.

David of Wales Episcopal Church for many, many years, decades, has had a blessing of the animals this day.

And if if anyone would like to have their their pet blessed, there's a wonderful ceremony uh beginning at 10 o'clock at St.

David's.

It's outdoors, just you know, it's animals are animals, so we're gonna we do this outdoors, but uh this is a terrific, terrific service, and uh uh I will have I will have Charlie there.

He usually gets an exorcism as well just just in case.

And I'd like what about that mean green football?

What about that?

Five and oh uh as as I'm sure all of you know, they received seven votes in the Associated Press Top 25, which was one more vote than TCU got this week.

Uh we're idle this week, but we play again against South Florida uh a week from Saturday, a week from Friday, I beg your pardon, uh October 10th at 6.30.

And we need to show it's gonna be nationally televised, so we need to show off Denton, Texas big time.

Uh 6:30, Friday, October 10th.

Be there, be square.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Mayor Protein.

I just want to wish my fellow council members and everybody in the audience happy 31 days of Halloween.

It's gonna be an exciting month.

Thank you.

Uh representative from District 2.

Thank you.

Uh I yeah, I got house lights just so I could light my house green, even though only my son goes to UNT.

No, that's a lie.

I got it for Halloween.

But it's this, it's all still Denton, right?

Uh I also want to encourage everyone to uh Arts and Jazz and all the other 31 days of events are coming up, so I encourage everyone to go out to those events.

Okay.

Uh anyone else?

Okay, it's 6 39.

That concludes tonight's meeting.

Thank you.