Good afternoon and welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council.

Today is Tuesday, April 7th, 2026.

It is 203 p.m.

We do have a quorum, so I'll call the meeting to order.

And first is in person.

Comments from the public, uh citizen comments from the public.

We assume we have none.

Okay, thank you.

Takes us to second portion, which is requests for clarification on agenda items listed on the agenda for public hearing and individual consideration.

Questions for public hearing or individual consideration.

Seeing none, uh, I'll note that there was nothing pulled from the consent.

Takes us to work session 3A.

ID 260057, receive report, whole discussion, give staff direction regarding the online processing fees and cost recovery options.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council, Matt Hamilton, Chief Financial Officer, here uh today to discuss credit card processing and cost recovery options.

As you may recall during the budget process last year, uh staff brought forward um a work session item to discuss uh credit card processing fees.

At the time, direction was provided for staff to reevaluate different options and what might be available.

And so today uh we are bringing back what options are currently available, and that will help to inform the budget process this year.

So, as some background, the city of Denton has processed credit card uh payments for over 25 years, budgeting annually for these costs.

Prior to 2011, convenience fees were previously applied to online transactions but removed across all payment portals in 2011.

In 2014, rising costs, primarily due to commercial cards with higher interchange rates, led to the implementation of a 2.7 percent convenience fee for commercial utility accounts that paid by phone or online.

Uh the convenience fee was in place for about five years until 2019 when card brand rules changed restricting convenience fees to flat amounts only.

In 2020, City Council directed convenience fees to be completely removed when the city adopted a new uh card processing contract with Wells Fargo merchant services, since the percentage was no longer allowed.

And since that time, card processing costs have been absorbed uh by departmental budgets and funded through city revenues.

In 2025, as I had mentioned, uh we had discussed uh the rising costs of uh card um uh processing uh during the budget process, and in October of 2025, just this last year, um card brand rules changed, presenting a new fee option that can be implemented on a percentage basis.

So just to review the three cost components associated with card processing.

Uh the first is an interchange rate.

This is a non-negotiable, about one and a half percent uh charge plus ten percent or ten cents per transaction.

The second is a card network assessment, which again is also non-negotiable and is about a tenth of a percent to 0.15% of monthly sales, so it's volume-based.

And both of these cost components are set by the payment networks, the card brands, such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover.

So the city does not have any leverage or negotiation in these uh uh two components of card processing costs.

The third is the payment processing or payment processor fee, which is fixed by contract.

Currently, our payment processor is Wells Fargo Merchant Services, and we go out for contract every five years.

Uh so as you can see by the pie chart there, 95% of the costs that we incur are network fees.

Those are uh the cost components one and two that are not negotiable, and only about five percent of our total processing costs are related to the payment processor fee.

So why revisit fees?

Uh the customer service utility billing department is 70 percent of the city's annual card uh annual card processing costs, primarily from online payments, and account for approximately 1.57 million annually in expense.

What we've seen is costs continually to increase uh up 20 percent from 1.31 million to 1.57 million from fiscal year 2024 to fiscal year 2025.

Utility payments are governed by what's called MCC 4900.

Merchant category codes, which is what MCC stands for, are assigned by the card networks, Visa, MasterCard, et cetera, to categorize merchants for transaction processing, the fee calculation and compliance.

MCC 4900 specifically identifies transactions as being utility-related payments.

And the benefit of the MCC 4900 are reduced interchange rates compared to retail merchants.

So previously, only the convenience fee was permissible with MCC 4900, but again, it provided limited flexibility in how the fee was applied because it had to be a flat fee rather than a percentage.

The card changes in October of 2025 now allow for what's called a service fee option with MCC 4900.

So comparing the two between the convenience fee and the service fee, both are allowed for MCC 4900.

As mentioned, the convenience fee would be a flat fee only, and the service fee would be a flat or percentage.

Both can be applied to online transactions.

The convenience fee would not include recurring payments, so that would be anyone who sets up an automatic payment with their card online.

The convenience fee would not apply to that.

However, the service fee would, it would apply to all card payments, whether they're recurring or non-recurring.

In either of the two fees, the rate cannot be tiered.

The rate has to be applied.

The same rate has to be applied to every customer.

And both can be set up and segregated by account type.

So that would be, but we can differentiate between residential accounts and commercial accounts.

The convenience fee must apply to e-checks, whereas the service fee would not apply to e-checks, and e-checks being automatic bank drafts.

So comparing these two fee options, the convenience fee under the current rules would be a flat fee only.

It would apply to all payment types, including e-checks, and would exclude recurring payments.

Under the service fee, which is now allowable as of October of 2025, percentage or flat fee, it would include recurring payments, exclude e-checks, and the estimated rate to recover 100% of costs would be 1.55% if it was applied to all card payments, or 2.6% if it was only applied to commercial accounts.

And those estimates were provided by our card processor, uh Wells Fargo merchant services.

At the top here, you'll see fiscal year 2024, and then in the lower half, you'll see fiscal year 2025.

Year over year, we saw an increase of 83,125 more transactions in 2025.

We saw an increase of 24,558,881 in the amount processed, and this equates to 264,175 in additional fees that the city uh paid in 2025 versus 2024.

So if direction is provided to proceed with implementing either fee, staff will initiate a marketing campaign to educate customers on the fee and payment methods which do not incur fees.

So that would include the e-check option, the bank draft option.

Staff will work with our vendors to implement the fee modules.

Estimated time to implement is approximately six months.

So tentatively, this would begin with the new fiscal year starting October 1st.

So today we're seeking council direction on the recovery of credit card processing costs.

We've laid out three options.

Option one is maintaining the status quo, which would maintain cost recovery through the uh utility department budgets, and that essentially the cost is recovered in base rates.

Option two is to implement a convenience fee, which would be a flat fee assessed for non-recurring online payments, including e-checks, or option three to implement a service fee, which would be a flat fee or percentage on all online payments, excluding e-checks.

Additionally, within options two and three, determining if the fee is to be applied to residential, commercial, or both.

We do want to note that the PUB recommended option three when this information was presented to them, a service fee of approximately 1.55% on all residential and commercial card transactions at the PUB meeting on March 9th.

And with that, I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you.

Questions for staff and and direction, please.

Mayor Pro Tim and then representative from District 4.

Thank you, Mayor.

Matt, how does the city currently fund this about $1.6 million?

Like where does that revenue come from to fund paying for people's credit card transaction fees?

Yeah, so the expenses paid out of the customer service fund and the customer service fund being an internal service of the city.

Uh transfer is made from each of the utility funds proportionally into customer service to recover that cost.

So within the each utility budget is an amount that is budgeted to transfer to customer service to pay for these expenses.

So effectively utility customers are paying their utility bill, or you know, whatever rate we're paying to the utilities, and then a portion of that is going to customer service to fund this.

That's so people are basically funding it currently.

That's correct.

Okay.

Um and if the city were to stop funding the 1.6 million in credit card transaction fees, you know, what would we do with that savings potentially?

Yeah, so that's something that would be evaluated in the budget process.

It would certainly relieve some pressure on the utility financials.

Um would it be a one-to-one relationship?

I I don't know that.

I think that there's probably a lot of um, you know, give and take in the budget process, expenses increasing in other areas and such, but um, but yes, that would be evaluated during that process, and we would determine what to allocate that funding too.

Um, and just to confirm very simply, um there would if we were to stop funding these um credit card transaction fees, customers would have a way to pay their utility bill without paying a transaction fee, correct?

That's correct.

So these fees would only apply to online payments.

Um and so there would be options to pay in-person, um, they could mail a check, they could do the e-check, which is a bank setting up a bank draft.

So there are multiple avenues that they would have to avoid paying a fee.

Uh it would only apply to the online car transactions.

Thank you.

And can you speak to PUB's discussion around the three options?

Did they just go straight for three option three or was there whifflewaffing between options?

Were you are you privy to that?

Um Yeah, I I mean I think the majority of the discussion focused on option three.

I think there was a little bit of a conversation, you know, regarding uh within the service fee option, does it apply to uh all cardholders or does it only apply to um you know commercial customers?

Uh ultimately the discussion landed on applying the fee, you know, uniformly uh across all customers.

What we've seen in the past is that um commercial cards incur much higher fees than consumer cards, and so back in 2014, that was the reason that uh those types of accounts uh were assessed that 2.7 percent fee is because largely they were uh you know incurring the the higher costs.

What we've seen uh from fiscal year 24 to 25 is it's not driven by an increase in those cards specifically, it's really driven by an overall increase in the number of transactions and amount processed.

So I think that that played into the into the conversation as well in terms of you know um applying this across all customers who choose to use a card online versus one uh customer type versus another.

Okay.

Can you go back to um option three or yeah, this slide?

Um I'm supportive of option three.

Um I prefer uh percentage-based uh flat fee.

I feel like you've got smaller customers subsidizing larger customers, so I'd rather see it be a percentage.

Um I guess yeah, that's my direction.

Thank you.

Okay.

Representative from District 4, thank you.

versus one uh customer type versus another okay can you go back to um option three or yeah this slide um i'm supportive of option three um i prefer uh percentage based uh flat fee i feel like you've got smaller customers subsidizing larger customers so i'd rather see it be a percentage um uh and i guess yeah that's my direction thank you okay representative from district four thank you uh i'm i'm I'm confused about the flat fee how does how does that work a guy with a 200 utility bill a guy with a 2000 dollar utility bill how does that work yeah by the card rules we would only be able to assess a flat fee per transaction so the individual with a 200 bill would pay the same flat fee as an individual with a 2000 bill 2000 bill and and that will that will still recover costs for the city yeah the analysis looked at all costs in aggregate along with all the transactions in aggregate and that dollar amount would uh be sufficient to cover all the costs I think for the same reason back in 2020 the we moved away from the convenience fee for exactly that reason that it would be applied you know to to all bills regardless of size even those less than 200 and it really you know that I think at the time there was a feeling that the percentage would be more equitable uh as a way to assess the fee.

Which of those two do you think would be easier to explain to somebody over the telephone for your for your service customer service reps I flat fee or percentage.

Yeah I you know to me whether it's a percentage uh you know a set percentage based on uh based on the uh transaction or the flat fee based on the transaction it's going to be a a singular number it's either going to be in this case what we presented two dollars and ninety cents per transaction or it's 1.55 percent now it may be a little easier to explain the flat fee yeah um but I think we could provide an example if there's a hundred dollar utility bill that 1.55 percent is gonna be a dollar fifty five added to the bill okay I I certainly am in favor of of the city recovering costs that were uh that we're spending option three mayor um um and I I guess the percentage I guess thank you anyone else representative from district six um I'm uh in favor of option three um and I I tend to think a flat fee is the easiest to explain um and for people to um uh budget for and so that would be my preference but underneath that uh it would be option three B which would be the percentage thank you okay anyone else two thank you um so um what do we we know um do you have a feel for whether folks of high middle or uh uh low income tend to you use credit card services the most I I don't think we've broken it down like that sort of thing um because I I guess where I the reason of the for the con the context of the question is um the this the citizens own the you all the utilities in this town except for gas and and I'm trying to make sure that those most affected by fee changes which low income folks don't necessarily bear the the brunt of that um as we change fee structures um and so it's not something you can address is is what I'm hearing um let me bring maybe Krista Foster oh well yeah if you if you have it let's not I it there's it's very important information I feel that will lend to the question that was asked uh Krista Foster customer service manager uh while I can't give you direct numbers on the payment breakdown by clo you know like economic class I can tell you that these payment structures will apply per payment and some of our more vulnerable customers are on the prepaid program and may make five eight ten payments in a month so those customers would be far more impacted with a flat fee that they pay every single time than with a percentage that is equivalent to the same thing that their peers who are not on prepaid would pay.

And that was thank you.

Um then um yeah, no, I I have direction, but I I guess uh just just to m to move the conversation along.

Uh you know, I I have a lot of questions about the the impacts of these fee structures, and and I'm concerned, but uh I guess for to get to give direction, um I I would be for uh option three percentage, but but I'm really more focused on on the commercial rates, uh so that would be my direction.

Give that to me again.

Option three percentage but commercial only that no, I don't.

I just want to make sure that's doable.

It it is okay.

Um make sure I have this right.

You said percent percentage-based commercial only, is that right?

Correct.

Uh anyone else?

Representative district one.

Um option three.

Um, do you prefer flat rate or percentage?

Percentage.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Yeah, go representative district five.

Mayor, if you don't mind, can I ask how would it work with commercial only?

Are we are we giving direction for that too?

If that's your preference, yes.

There's only one person that said that thus far.

How much more work would it be on staff to achieve commercial only?

So there is a there would be an implementation process where we would have to establish um what's called a separate mid.

Uh so we would have one assigned to residential customers and one assigned to commercial customers.

So when those individuals went to pay their accounts, the accounts are linked to one of those two mids, and that's how the system knows when to apply the fee and when not to apply the fee.

So there is some uh time and effort uh on behalf of staff that would be involved in implementing that.

Um, but it may only be a little bit more than any of the other options.

I mean, any of these options will take staff time to implement, and that's why we had uh indicated about six months to work through the process of getting everything set up.

Okay.

Um I appreciate that.

I'm conscious of that, and thank you, Krista, because I having formally been in a situation like that myself, I actually assumed that.

So thank you for confirming that.

Uh Mayor, I'm absolutely option three and percentage.

For me, this speaks to fairness and keep it in mind regularly working people who are who are most affected by by fee changes, increases that are seeing all over the place.

I think the percentage is gonna be the easiest and most fair they can think about those folks in mind primarily okay.

Thank you.

Um representative district six.

I just want to amend my um direction, please, sir.

Okay, to um option three uh percentage.

Thank you very much.

Got it.

Okay.

Um else would I miss anyone?

I think I missed anyone.

Okay.

Yeah, and and much the same, just so I'm on the record.

Uh I'm I'm fine with option three and percentage, but for uh a different reason.

Uh I I do have concerns about parsing out commercial, right?

Because what what do we use as a as a definition of commercial?

In this case, it would be any um any individual who uses a business card with a um a commercial account that's assigned a commercial designation with the bank, right?

The the car with or with the with the utility.

Well, it would be with the it would be with the utility.

Okay, yeah.

Got it.

Got it.

Okay.

Um, yeah, you have direction there.

Um and so, and then you'll you'll you will get started with messaging and all those things once okay, got it.

Yes, sir.

Thanks, Mayor.

Just a quick question.

With that definition of commercial, would that also include someone who has a home-based business?

Okay.

Thank you.

Oh, okay.

Well, Susan.

She she shook her head, but thank you for coming up, by the way.

Thank you, Mayor.

You're welcome.

Krista Foster, Customer Service Manager.

So the way that we would classify that is based on the rate.

And if that account includes a commercial rate, it would be considered a commercial class customer.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Got it.

All right.

Thank you, Matt.

That's every you got everything you need.

You good?

Yes.

Thank you, Clay Annie.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

That takes us to item 3B, ID 260269 receiver port hole discussion.

Give staff direction on the update to the Simply Sustainable Framework.

Presentation.

Sorry, let me get this pulled out.

All right.

Sorry.

Catherine Barnett, sustainability manager, and I'm here today to talk about the update to the Simply Sustainable Framework.

So today we're going to talk a little bit about the background, why we have the framework, some progress highlights, review the draft that's been submitted in your backup, and then receive any feedback and go into next steps.

So way back in 2011, promote environmental sustainability was a key focus area in the strategic plan.

In 2012, we adopted our first sustainability plan.

We updated that in 2020.

It's a living document, so it's reviewed continuously and then updated every five to seven years.

In 2022, council reaffirmed that sustainability and environment is a key focus area.

And in 2025, we drafted an update to the framework.

We went through that with the Sustainability Framework Advisory Committee back in July, October, and in December, the committee recommended this document to council.

We also went through the document with the Committee on the Environment in September.

So why do we have a sustainability plan?

It's that coordinated forward-looking document.

It helps show how we're gonna make sustainability accessible to our community, how everything relates to the actions and impacts, and how we can connect that across the city, and then ensure that we're staying in focus for our priorities.

So just some progress through 2025.

Um we have seen our greenhouse gas emissions drop per capita significantly from 17.71 all the way down to 6.3.

I believe that's a six, yes.

Um we've provided over 5,800 energy efficiency incentives to DME customers through the GreenSense program in that time.

Um we've seen our municipal resource consumption drop, um, both energy and water.

Um we're using less resources.

Um we've seen our community engagement grow to almost 14,000 participants in events last year.

Um and then the cities adopted several plans that help influence sustainability for the community.

So the bold plans in this list are the ones that are new since 2020.

Um the others are updates, but they all impact sustainability in the community.

They look at how we grow or how we move around town, um, our trails and master trails and system master plan, how we move through the green spaces, um, and then the solid waste management strategy has really brought a lot of growth increases and diversion, decreases um in waste and contamination in our recycling.

So the differences in the 2026 version to the 2020, we took a little bit of a different tack with this and went with two primary goals instead of the 33 goals in the 2020.

We we went back to a municipal goal and a community goal.

So, what can we do as a municipality and what can the community do to become more sustainable?

Um the 2020 had eight focus areas.

We broke that back down to six focus areas in the 26 because we incorporated education, community, communication, and community involvement and resiliency and public health throughout those other six focus areas.

Um there were there are 63 actionable items in the 2026 version, and there were 69 in the 2020, so similar number of actionable items.

So I said um the two goals.

So, what can we do to review reduce the environmental footprint of our municipal operations?

And what can we do to ensure that our facilities are resilient to hazards and vulnerabilities?

Um goal two is the community side of that.

So how do we provide outreach incentives, policies that encourage the sustainability behavior change and support that for the community?

Again, um the goal one and two each have the six focus areas and with actions broken down in each of those.

So this is an example from the energy focus area.

So under goal one for municipal, it would be track and reduce our municipal government energy consumption in both new construction and with retrofits.

And then we could also enact policies that enhance energy efficiency standards for new construction.

So that impacts anybody building in Denton.

On the community side of that, so we could increase community awareness of the best practices and tools available to reduce energy consumption.

And that's what we do whenever we do our community engagement.

We're trying to make folks aware of what they can do.

We can support energy efficiency and building improvement through rebates, audits, workshops.

And then we we track the distribution of these tools to make sure that they're reaching all areas of the community.

And if we have an area where maybe we're lacking a little bit of engagement, then we go out and we try to get more folks interested in the programs.

So that was just a quick highlight of where we were, where we are with the 26 framework and some of those changes.

And um we're seeking direction on updating the framework as proposed, or with other changes, or do we just keep rolling under the 2020?

With that, I'll stand for any questions.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh direction or questions for for staff.

Thank you.

Hello, how are you doing?

Could you speak to sort of the the conversations from sustainable since sustainability framework committee and kind of what their discussions were about this?

Because I think they all supported.

Can you go back to the options?

I think it was option one.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think they're not going to be able to do that.

They recommended this document to council.

Um we had quite a few interactions.

Um, it was more about the structure of the document than the content, um, then the actions that were proposed.

Um just um wanted to flesh out some of the the definitions that were in there just to make sure that everybody had a good understanding of what what we were talking about with those.

Awesome.

Um well, I think I you know also support number one um update as proposed.

Um, only thing I'll add uh looking at you know future updates, if there was some way to incorporate fiscal sustainability, um, because all of these are geared towards using fewer resources, using less energy, using less water, you and all of that saves the city money, it saves residents money using less gasoline, which is spiking right now, right?

Using less uh materials, using less land, right?

That saves everybody money, so finding a way to tie fiscal sustainability into this as well in future updates is something I'd be really interested in.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, anyone else?

Representative from district six.

All right, uh well, thank you for this presentation.

Um, I've just got a couple of I've got a few questions.

Uh so you know, there's a lot of different tasks and goals, obviously, set forth here.

First of all, where were those sourced from?

Where did the ideas come from?

We worked with all of the departments that are represented in the plan.

So water, electric, um, solid waste, fleet.

We we met with all of those departments to make sure that we were all on the same track moving forward.

Okay, and so you asked them for recommendations of what they could be doing in their department.

Conversations, conversations about what that could look like, yes.

Okay, so uh and and the reason I ask is my my fear is that we put some items in here that are maybe uh not able to be accomplished for uh fiscal reasons or other reasons.

I don't want it to seem as if we failed.

Um so you know, you mentioned it being kind of a living document.

Talk to me about how these are uh given out and uh you know, as far as who's determining which ones of these are actually feasible once we come up with our kind of big goals.

And that's one of the things with with sustainability planning, you know, you're looking at that future, and in a perfect world, that's where we want to get to, and that doesn't always happen that way.

So that's why it's a living document.

Sometimes we push some goals out a little bit further, um, just looking at the the circumstances that we're in at that time.

Um we do want it to be a little bit of a push document, um, just so that we're we're constantly trying to achieve um higher efficiencies or fleet um acquisitions, you know, maybe we're not gonna purchase an electric vehicle right now because it's too expensive, um, and it doesn't make sense to do it, and that's not sustainable to do something that doesn't make sense financially.

And that's not sustainable to do something that doesn't make sense financially.

Um I think that we will continue to work with the departments.

I know we'll continue to work with the departments, and if something isn't quite there, then we won't be pushing for that.

And we can note that in our progress tracking.

Okay.

And then in the guiding principles, it does mention conduct all of the activities above with a focus on inclusiveness, equity, and social responsibility.

Is that when you're talking about equity here?

Is that an equity in um uh the ability to participate, or is that in the is it in the opportunity or the outcome that it's going to be measured?

The opportunity, we want to make sure that everyone's aware of them.

Okay, and then we want to make programs that everyone can participate in.

Okay, I just didn't know because we've had some instances where then that kind of goes off into a different um set of criteria that maybe council didn't know about when the program got put in place, and that's just a topic of things we have to look at these days.

So uh thank you very much.

Um and uh I my um uh my direction would be to update the framework as proposed, and I'm very grateful for all of the people in the departments in these committees that spent time uh coming up with all of these uh different ways that we can make a difference, not only in the organization of the city, but also the community.

So uh thank you very much.

Thank you.

Representative district four, then to option number one.

All right, representative district two.

Thank you.

Uh when when you came and presented before uh environment, you you had um a few more rationale for why the restructuring, like most most of the goals were carried forward, but they were restructured.

Can you provide a little color for why the the restructuring and to go to the two primary?

I thought you did the I'm I'm giving you an opportunity to do what you I think you did before, which is provide a good reason why you broke it down to those two categories.

Whenever we start talking about sustainability and what can folks do, it it became kind of clear to us that we needed to talk more about what the municipality could do and then what residents could do, what what the community could do.

Um I don't remember exactly what was said then.

Okay.

Um maybe let me see if this helps prod it a little bit.

The one can you can you discuss uh not only that issue of of where we have um more decisive control versus less, which is where you started to go to, but also where the impacts lie in accomplishing our overall climate goals?

Can can you talk about which of those categories and uh and how how this change helps get there and it's fine if not.

I mean uh do you have a question or a statement that you'd like to make or um yeah, um well, how about that one question?

Which which which of the which of the the two categories does the uh has the biggest impact uh on achieving our goals?

You know, one the municipal and two the community so the community will have the bigger impact on achieving our sustainability goals.

The municipality is a small portion, our municipal operations are a small portion of that.

Um yeah, I'll I'm uh just just to accelerate this then a little bit.

I'm I'm gonna say uh update is proposed.

Anyone else?

Representative district five.

Thank you.

Um yes, obviously I'm I'm option one as well.

But if you don't mind, I want to take this opportunity to ask about uh something we discussed in our committee meeting, um air quality testing and monitoring.

Where are we in general with our air quality test or testing and monitoring?

And I asked this conversation because I just had this conversation at someone's door who inquired about what some of the new monitors were.

So I'd love to just know where we uh know where we are with that, if you don't mind.

Because I know it's one of our strategic focus areas and something that we've updated.

So and it is one of the the progress um highlights that we have.

We have the 12 monitors installed throughout the community.

We have the dashboard live on our website.

Um yeah, they saw the dashboard, that's why we can be in the conversation.

Yeah, so that's all up and running.

Um we're we're working with UNT hoping to get um some partnerships to do some analysis of that data.

Are we going the right direction yet in terms of having better air quality or we is it perhaps too early to come?

As a region, we're going the right direction.

Um I I don't have that for the Denton monitor specific right now.

Okay.

Fair enough.

Thank you, Kath.

Okay.

And thank you, Michael.

Anyone else?

Um I just I want to note, I want to make sure.

So on this is on goal one.

So this is in the I guess in the framework final draft page 11 there, uh, top bullet continue to provide sufficient 100% renewable energy to DME customers.

That that's not that's up that's able to be discussed, and because I I'm just not for that, right?

Like I get it where we are today, but I think there's a there's a healthy conversation that needs to be had about how much that cost.

And so I just want to make sure if I'm saying I agree with goal one, it's generally goal one, not every bullet point in goal one.

Absolutely.

Yeah, okay.

Just want to just want it to be clear because I that could discussion needs to be had.

Uh so uh okay, then comfortable with that last thing.

Can you tell me how you evaluate footprint environmental footprint?

So we are growing, right?

And so do you set a baseline?

Is that and pardon me if I missed it, but do you just kind of set a baseline and then growth is proportionate?

We have baseline and then we look at per capita a lot.

Um, so that we are including that growth and and population.

Right, and then just kind of okay.

Okay, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, then I think that it's a good goal.

Uh just wanted to make sure I understood those things.

So thank you very much.

I appreciate the work done.

Um, go right ahead.

We'll have a resolution um for adoption to come for you.

Mayor, you remember you you you touched on needing to have a conversation about the specifics of it that we've already discussed in our environment committee meeting.

So are there next steps on that?

Do we need to envision having specific conversations about our goals?

No, no, no.

I just DME is coming back with that discussion that the with the money, like how much we're paying for 100% renewable.

That's a DME discussion, not this group.

You're not talking about all of them.

You're just talking about that one.

Yes.

Oh, okay.

I thought you okay.

No, no, yeah, just we need to have a discussion about that.

That component.

Yeah, no worries.

Uh okay.

Thank you again.

That takes us to item C.

I think that's right.

Yes, okay.

ID 260386 receive report hold discussion regarding updates to the Linda McNat Animal Care and Adoption Center.

And so no direction, right?

Just if if there's feedback, questions, etc.

We're just purely update today.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Seth Garcia, Director of Capital Projects.

Today I'm gonna be tag teaming this uh presentation with Nikki.

So just a brief agenda.

Again, today's update is just for council on project deliverables.

So we're gonna briefly touch on the 2023 scope.

We're gonna look at our current budget and current construction schedule.

I'll show you briefly our phasing plan for how we're gonna construct it.

You'll get a sneak peek at our new floor plan, and then I'm gonna pass it off to Nikki to look at our operations impacts.

Okay, so in 2023 in the summer, we took forward three main objectives or goals to the citizens bond committee.

That was one expand the facility, two reconfigure and enhance functionality for the staff, and three, replace the failing HVAC system that was installed with the original building.

So this is our final scope, kind of where we landed on some of those major things.

So, number one, we've expanded the facility by roughly 10,000 square feet.

So it's currently 18,000 square feet.

We're going to over 28,000 square feet.

We've added 18 additional parking spots out front and five additional play yards.

We've been able to relocate the adoptable dogs from the isolation and quarantine animals.

So when I show you the floor plan, you're gonna see how they have moved to a completely different side of the building.

Our veterinary clinic was relocated and expanded by almost 2,000 square feet.

So we're going from 1,000 square feet to almost 3,000 square feet for that space.

And in the original facility, we were able to replace the HVAC system and add an aeropee system.

So ARP uses UV light to kill almost 99.9% of uh diseases and bacteria, so it will improve infection control kind of in those ISO and quarantine areas.

So some of our minor wins for efficiency purposes, so we were able to uh relocate exercise yards and create them specifically for the ISO and quarantine animals.

So before those yard spaces were shared by adoptable animals and ISO quarantine animals.

So now instead of walking those animals through the facility, they actually have their each their own independent yards.

Um we've added indoor outdoor runs to the adoptable areas.

So you'll see on the floor plan, um, they're separated.

So each adoptable dog actually has an indoor and outdoor space they can go between.

We've added guillotine doors to isolation and quarantine areas.

Uh, this will help uh with cleaning purposes to be able to move the animals back and forth without having to relocate them.

We've added a dedicated specific area for exotic animals, and then for staff, we've added a dedicated break room, uh, a volunteer room that is separate from the staff areas, and a locker room that is now going to be equipped with a staff shower that they were lacking at this facility.

So, quickly on our project budget, the 2023 bond program approved 15.85 million.

We came back to council in December of 24 and asked for roughly an additional 4.5 million to get through with what we needed to on the project.

So that brought our total budget to 20.35 million.

Um our goals for Capital Projects was to get our construction costs roughly around 17 million dollars, and our soft costs, which is our staff time, design, permitting, um, inspections, all those great things, we're roughly around 3.3 million.

Um, I can say that we are currently actively negotiating the GMP, and I feel pretty confident that we're gonna come in uh at our budget number.

So our project schedule, um, I'll follow up on the next slide.

So we've broken this project into three phases.

We are anticipating bringing a GMP forward to city council for approval in May, likely at the May 5th meeting.

Um with that, we will start construction in May.

So our phase one is gonna be roughly 12 months.

Again, that'll make a lot more sense here in a second when I show you the phasing plan.

And then phases two and three will start simultaneously, and we're expecting about six months for those.

So overall, an 18-month duration for construction.

So that phasing plan.

Um, so everything that you can see in the yellow area is going to be in phase one.

The reason we laid it out this way is up here on the north section, which this would be closest to US 77, is where our 10,000 square foot addition is going to be built.

Um, this will allow us to not impact the animal services group during their normal operations for the majority of the construction project.

Uh we'll coordinate utility shutdowns and everything as we tie in.

Uh but again, this will give us a space to build and when we're ready to move into the renovation stage, relocate staff and animals.

So we're actually going to build out phase one in that 12-month period.

Then we will move into phase two and three, which is the existing facility.

So once we start the existing facility, phase two, which is this light blue area that has a lot of isolation and quarantine spaces, as well as just general spaces that the animal services folks use for their day-to-day operations.

We're going to expedite that phase as fast as possible.

We're expecting three to four months timeline, get that renovated, and then get that turned back over to animal services staff.

So as soon as we do that, that will also allow us time to complete the veterinary spaces, the office spaces, and a few more isolated items that won't impact services as much.

So again, phase one, roughly 12 months, phases two and three will start simultaneously with the goal of turning phase two over within three to four months, and then finish the total project within 18 months.

So a brief look at the floor plan.

Again, I'm gonna point some things out with the mouse here.

So this north area here, if I kind of draw a line through here, is our new uh add-on.

So this is roughly 10,000 square feet.

It's gonna have 32 adoptable spaces here that share those indoor outdoor runs.

Uh one other added benefit is now when you come to the facility, we're also gonna have three entrances for you, depending upon what you're there for.

So the main lobby entrance that you will see here will be added on.

That will be the main lobby and adoptable spaces.

Over here to the side, we're gonna have a room for reclaim and surrender that will have an exam room uh adjoining to it right there.

So if you're coming in to pick up a stray or drop off uh an animal, you have a separate space and you're not walking through the main lobby.

And then down here where the existing entrances will be converted to a vestibule and entrance directly into the vet suite.

So again, three different entrances depending upon what you're there for.

Uh again, the the quarantine isolation space is is down here.

Um, that is part of the existing facility, so all of those dogs will be located down here, and then again, our adoptable dogs will be completely separated in a way.

And now I'm gonna pass it to Nikki to talk operations impacts.

Afternoon, Mayor Council, Nikki Sassanis, Director of Animal Services.

So before I start, I just want to take a second and say thank you to the Capital Projects team.

Seth, Christine, and Aaron have done a phenomenal job in listening to us, making sure that they've incorporated everything that we need functionality-wise to make this a really great project so we can provide the best care for the animals and have a best experience for the community and our staff.

So thank you guys for that.

We are very excited for the project.

So we are working with the Calvary projects team to mitigate a lot of those, but we did want to walk through these impacts and kind of highlight for council what the major challenges are going to be and the changes to the level of service as we go through the different phases of the project.

So I did also want to note that we are going to be working with the Marcom team, uh, the marketing communications team to make sure that we are making the public aware of our level of services changes as it affects them as we go through the phasing.

So phase one uh starts kicks off in May of this year, uh, May 2026.

This is our lowest impact operations.

Uh Seth mentioned we're starting with the new addition, which will be the portion of the building that's closest to 77.

So we will have very little impact there.

Uh, the major thing will be that we will lose access to the large yards that are out there.

So we use those daily for cleaning, but we have some relocation of the kennels uh to temporary spaces, so that will help mitigate that.

So phase two and three begins next May 2027.

This is the biggest challenging time to our impact and our level of service.

Um, it will specifically be in animal housing and our capacity, our ability to house animals.

So once we can't move all the current operations into the new um into the new buildings, but we will be moving into all of our current operations into the new build.

So, what that's gonna do is really reduce the housing of the animal spaces that we have.

We're having to consolidate everything.

Um that will move us down specifically in adoptable and stray dog from 16 runs or from 59 runs to 16 runs.

So, what we're really having to focus on during that time is uh return to owners, either in the field or through microchipping, which we're actively um promoting microchipping right now.

You'll see that again in June, where we're offering free microchipping to the public, um, really trying to mitigate our intake levels and focus on intake diversion during this time.

The second impact uh will be in owner surrender.

So those are people who are wanting to relinquish ownership of their pet back to the shelter for a variety of different reasons.

Due to our lowered capacity, the wait time for that will increase.

Now we do currently prioritize emergency situations or aggressive animals, that sort of thing.

So we'll still maintain space for that, but we may not be able to accommodate, you may see people complaining about long wait times for owner surrenders.

The way we're able to mitigate that is to offer them alternatives and different resources to rehome the animals on their own or point them in the direction of resources if they need food assistance, etc.

to be able to maintain uh ownership of their pet.

So phase two and three continued.

Uh also during this time, as Seth mentioned, we're going to lose access to our clinic.

That is another major operational impact because we do spay and neuter all of our animals when they come in before we adopt them out.

We also provide a variety of treatments to any to animals that may come in with all sorts of different conditions or health concerns.

Uh, we are mitigating this by currently working and focusing on securing partnerships and different contracts with other service providers so that we can make sure that we have those strong partnerships and relationships prior to losing our ability to provide those services in-house.

Any questions so far, Hamas?

So looking at phase three, which will be estimated for September of 2027.

We will get phase two back.

So that's the part of the renovated portion.

So we will return to full capacity or what our new capacity will be for all housing areas.

Um the biggest operational issue that will continue during phase three will just be the clinic that will still be offline, so we'll need to maintain those partnerships and those contracts.

And then looking finally at November of 2027, we throw a big party because we have substantial completion of our uh facility, and we regain access to our full facility and resume full operations.

And we'll take any questions.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh questions for staff.

Representative from District 2.

Thank you.

For first, let me start off with uh between you and Seth.

I I really appreciate this the structure of the phasing and the plans.

Uh it's clear you're putting a lot of thought into the issues.

Um, and I you know that's that's great.

It's the only way you're gonna make it through because you've got so much to juggle with the number of animals that you have out there.

So let me get to that.

Um, you know, you you you talked about you recognize that you have both housing capacity, not so much in cats, but but in in dogs especially, uh, and and vet capacity, and that you're arranging for partners.

Do we already have those partnerships lined up or that's still in process?

A combination of both.

Um we actually just brought to council on the 24th the pre-qualified veterinary services, and so we are actively working to secure contracts with a lot of our providers, um, just contracts between us and the city without a third party involved, so that we can provide those services.

So, in addition to those, we're also looking at Spay Neuter Network, Operation Kindness, some of the other major players within the um uh animal welfare community to to help with that as well.

So it's kind of a creative combination of all of them.

But yes, we are currently working on it.

And so, sort of can you provide a little color conceptually towards and I know you said you're gonna work with Marcom to describe this to the community, but can you put a high level how how you think during these the that phase two and of phase two beginning of phase three where the disruption happens, what that's gonna look like for the average dent night in terms of or are we gonna have vets throughout the city that we're taking animals to?

How how and how how can you provide a little color for the those sort of that staging and and how we're gonna do that?

Are you are you said phase two to phase three?

Or do you mean like phase one to phase two where we're starting to use the phone?

Well, whatever I may have had the phasing wrong.

Whenever we start losing capacity in storage and veterin capacity.

So I think we start now before as we're before we lose access and the capacity in that um in the current facility is we're focusing on microchipping.

In the next uh two newsletters, we we're gonna focus on microchipping, right?

So, how do we start getting people geared up to for us to lose capacity?

And then we train and focus on return to owners in the field.

What does it look like to make sure that we're getting animals back to their owners before they end up in the shelter?

And so it'll be a combination of working with them uh with Marcom on the best way to communicate that out.

I we don't have a fully fledged plan yet for doing that, but that's something that we can definitely work on and share with council before it goes out.

But it will be it will be more keeping animals together and keeping them out of the shelter, obviously.

No, no, that makes a lot of sense, and I yes, uh absolutely please um communicate with with council and Marcom.

And I mean I I think this is gonna be in a situation where uh surprises to the community are are are gonna be the worst thing, and if if you can have more uh Marcom events and more more public engagement so that there's more understanding for your surprises, I think it'll go a lot smoother.

And and we should have the capacity to be able to get more out into the community.

We will have more bandwidth within our our officers to go do those educational events, those community events because we have the limited capacity, we're not providing daily care for as many animals, so they can focus on return to owner in the field, educational events out at different various community groups, schools, etc.

And so really hit hard the um intake diversion.

And last question, I know that in the past there's been some um exploration without any concrete plans about uh mobile activities.

Do we anticipate the use of mobile activities during these phasings, or that's not really something we're exploring?

We would love to if we could find uh 400,000 to buy a mobile unit.

So if you're willing to put that up, then sure, we we can absolutely do that.

Um we there are different partners, Spain Neuter Network.

Operation kindness also has a a mobile unit that they can um bring up here, so that is something that we're we can explore with them also.

All right, I appreciate thank you, Nick.

Anyone else questions?

Representative from District Five Putting me down for encouraging you also to uh work with um with operation kindness.

They do they do great work.

So just a couple logistics questions.

Um how much of the parking lot are you gonna yield at least initially?

And I asked that question because I know some of the volunteers are elderly.

So, how much how many parking spaces are we gonna be yielding during the construction process?

I'm not sure, but we do have a large grass area um around the facility.

So if we needed to push other people into the grass area, we could save spaces up front for the elder elderly volunteers or those with with mobility concerns so they can access the facility a lot easier.

We do that if we have large events, we'll open up the grass area as well.

Um and I know there's gonna be staging for the construction, but we'll make sure that that's coordinated so it's not impacting as as much as they can.

I know they're gonna take they they've been working through mitigation effort efforts that way.

Is it too much trouble to pull up the map and just kind of show me uh this might be the best area to show?

So this is the um grass space area on the side.

It's easy to pull off there.

Uh and then this is the parking in the back for um shelter staff.

So we we push shelter staff back there, and then we could put other people in the in the area and make it make it work for so ideally you might make a temporary entrance then in order to get there.

I don't I don't know, I'm not sure.

We I don't know that we'll lose this space because I from my understanding the staging is gonna be further off to the back side in between the dog park and the facility.

Yeah, there is plenty of space there.

Okay.

Um and uh so second perhaps final question.

Um I know that um you'd mentioned that and when phase two comes, you're gonna lose some of the opportunity to do daily daily activities.

So correct me if I'm wrong.

You walk in the door, you turn left, you go through the conference room, and you have the the fenced in play area.

Is that what you're gonna lose initially?

Yes.

During phase one, yes, we'll where will where will animals go while you're cleaning the cages?

So during that time, we will have um temporary kennels.

So right now we worked with facilities to put up some temporary kennels, knowing that we were gonna be able to relocate those during the construction.

So we'll pick those up and we'll move them into the green spaces outside of the facility.

So all along the uh staff parking inside the compound, there's some grass spaces, and we'll set up kennels inside there.

Temporary kennels as in it's just a kennel move.

It's not a pop-up, it's uh a little bit heavier duty than that.

We we bought it from tractor supply.

They're actually put together, they're stable, they're not like little pop-up kennels.

We we currently use them now, but they're able to be picked up and relocated.

They're not cemented into the ground.

So will the dogs have um how much freedom will they have to run and play?

It'll be similar to what they have now.

We are very fortunate that our volunteer program has grown substantially over the last year with the addition of our new volunteer coordinator.

Um, I think we have an average somewhere around 800 plus hours of volunteer service uh a month.

And so we get volunteers that come and walk dogs daily, and they get a lot of enrichment that way.

And so we'll we'll have that continue.

They walk them out onto the trails, they're allowed to take them back into the green space back here.

Um we will, I'm sure we'll have a fenced in area uh of additional green space that we'll be able to take the animals out to, and we still have the small yard um that we'll be able to take the animals into as well.

Okay, so essentially what you're saying is what you're losing in play space, you're making up for and volunteers walking the dogs and interacting with them.

I think both a combination of both.

Okay.

I would just ask that you all just continue to be mindful of yeah, the the parking spaces, particularly for those elderly folks who want to come and and and volunteer their time, make sure they have ease of getting in and out of the building because we don't want to discourage those folks during the construction process.

So thanks for what you've done taking care of the shelter.

Anyone else?

Mayor Protoum.

I just wanted to say thanks for all of the clearly y'all have discussed this for a while, figuring out you know what problems could occur, how are we going to mitigate it?

Um and I can tell y'all have thought it through.

I hope it goes well.

I know things aren't perfect.

Something's probably gonna go wrong, but I appreciate the the effort and the time you all have put into it.

I pretty sure I'm gonna be revisiting this presentation as this proceeds to refresh myself as things are popping up.

I'm gonna be like, oh, they thought of that, you know, and here's what they're doing.

So I really appreciate the thought y'all put into this.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Seeing none.

Um this construction question.

First, can you orient me on this on this slide?

The where's the front of the existing building?

So let me jump to the floor plan.

So the current front of the existing building is here.

Right.

So if we go back to the other slide.

Right here.

Got it.

And so you're you're telling me certainly you've done the math.

How close does phase two get to the dog park?

Does phase two get to the dog park?

Yeah, because if if that that wipes the the le lighter shade of blue just behind the front door you yes right here.

Right here.

How close is that?

That would be directly behind the front door.

The the dog park would be.

Yeah, so I think the dog park would be back over in this area, um, to the southeast.

But yes, sir.

Maybe we can go Google maps.

Is that then I mean the dog is it's directly behind the door, like the larger one that because it's up on the on the highway.

So if that's the front door, then there should be one.

We're talking about the the the dog park yeah.

You were doing the play areas, or are you thinking about the actual dog parking?

Actual dog park.

Yeah.

I'm just trying to see how far how far the construction goes.

So we're not leaving what is going to be the site of where the animal service is sent.

So this area here is for a detention pond that we have to build for um drainage purposes, but otherwise, we're not gonna be encroaching into the the dog park area.

So all of this area currently is existing kind of back parking.

Okay.

At the facility that's in place now.

Okay.

Yeah, so this this section of of concrete stuff is not being constructed per se.

It's just a part of the phase one improvements.

Got it.

So up here, if you wanted to orient yourself, is Elm 77.

Yes.

Back here, this is the existing concrete fence or wall, and then there's the field, which is a good at least a football field, and then you have the the dog park there still.

So we're not expanding our footprint into that field area.

There may be some temporary uh encroachment when we have the staging for the construction, but then that'll be cleaned up and returned to to a field using field space.

I'm tracking with you.

And then uh I I just I I just want you to take copious notes on communication because obviously you're you're not getting everyone, right?

So someone's gonna say, I didn't know, and and so it'll just be critical that you have that historical data that shows that.

And well, but I'm sorry, come back so yeah, yeah.

Here's that easy.

Here's the thing.

I I am I am gun shy about adding on to existing buildings, right?

Because just walk over to the police station if you want to know why.

Yep.

So my question is what contingencies, what plans, what I mean, step me through why the foundation isn't gonna bubble up here.

Yeah.

Great question.

Uh again, we're we're nowhere near the age of the facility that we dealt with in some of the previous ones.

We did do a lot of exploratory things during the design process to make sure that we're checking a lot of those boxes and mitigating as much risk as possible.

Um this renovation too, uh, again, a lot of the spaces are going to stay somewhat the same.

We're just renovating inside of those spaces.

So we're not as many tearing down of walls and and reconfiguring.

Um it's new flooring, it's new tech things, it's it's new uh paint and ceiling tiles uh again to make it operate better, and then the new facility is a hundred percent new.

So the only thing that's gonna be touched on that side is is this wall that will be shared that will come down and be an internal wall instead of an external wall.

Got it.

But those two, you know, because concrete is the right concrete or cement.

Either powder, the powder, one of them's a powder, one of them's the final product.

I forget concrete, thank you.

There you go.

What would I do without you, Judge?

Uh so they they don't play well together, right?

Irrespective of age, but we feel good about those things, yes, sir.

Okay, got it.

Uh and then um I had another thought, it got away from me.

But okay, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Um, any other questions for staff?

Seeing none.

Thank you all very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Uh and so before we go, so our last thing is closed.

I I just want to go back and get not for for staff to come back up, but I did have a question I didn't get to on the first item.

And so if you could, Miss City Manager, if you could take a look at that, and that's I know you mentioned we visit revisit the contract every five years.

My question to you is could we revisit that more frequently if we desire to?

Which I think the answer is yes, because you can't encumber a future uh council, but I'm I'm curious about that because I I think I want to explore options to to maybe you're talking about the merchant service contract, yes.

We can explore it more frequently in five years.

Got it.

Okay, yeah.

I just maybe that and you know it's just like when you switch your cell phone.

Uh, if you get a new cell phone, all of a sudden you get a good deal.

If you're existing customer, you get the bad deal.

And you know, so I think we may want to uh try to be a new customer more frequently.

Okay, so the city council will now at uh 3.13 p.m.

convene and closed meeting to deliberate the closed meeting items set forth in the agenda, which include the following item A ID 260464 deliberations regarding real property under Texas Government Code Section 551.072, consulting with attorneys under Texas Government Code, Section 551.071.

And we'll set the room.

Good evening, and welcome to this meeting in Denton City Council.

Today is uh it's uh Tuesday to April 7th, 2026.

It is 6.31.

We have a quorum, so I'll call the meeting back to order.

First thing on the agenda pledges to the United States and Texas flag.

Please stand with me if you're able.

Under the guy, one individual.

Okay.

And then we have a proclamation or presentation for AP WA Water Award.

Is there we are?

Okay, great.

I'll meet you at the podium.

And then anyone else that wants to join us associated with the water department.

Yeah, so um, thank you very much.

You can introduce yourself and uh well, here we'll go down and let so everyone knows who's here and introduce yourself.

There you go.

Um Dennis Qualls, uh assistant general manager of water utilities and street operations.

I'm uh Stephen Gay, the general manager of water utilities and street operations.

Okay, and um Tobias Nelson, uh Field Service Supervisor, drainage department.

Got it.

Thank you.

So if you could tell us what we'll recognize and thank you for being here.

Uh Mike's yours.

Mayor, thank you so much for the uh opportunity.

Uh my name is Cesar Molina.

I am uh currently the state chair for the awards committee for the American Public Works Association.

We are an organization of about 32,000 members throughout all 50 states, uh about six provinces in Canada and the territory of Puerto Rico.

So uh in Texas, the Texas chapter is the largest chapter by membership.

And rightfully so.

Right, rightfully so, of course.

Well, every year we we have an awards to celebrate the accomplishments of our public works professionals.

That's part of our our duty.

We we educate and provide uh some some visibility to our hard working men and women out in uh out in the field.

So every year we request nominations, and this year uh we received uh some nominations from people look locally.

And uh I'll tell you a little bit about the award.

The award is the public works in-house project of the year.

We have uh an in-house project, it's a project versus a standard public works project, which is one where you have it's at a public agency administering it, an outside company or firm designing it, and an outside company or contractor building it.

Means exactly that it is designed, it's constructed with only personnel from the from the actual agency.

So let me tell you about the actual award.

The award is the in-house project of the year under the disaster and emergency construction category.

The project is called the Misty Wood Emergency Storm Pipe Repair.

So as it was presented, the project address severe deterioration, some corrugated metal pipes that were discovered during a routine street construction project.

The city's drainage department, Mr.

Tobias here is his crew, managed to emerge make an emergency repair in-house, which saved the city money and maintained the schedule of the larger reconstruction project.

This project this work was done between May and September of 2025.

Involved doing uh having safety measures, environmental protection, uh, including wildlife checks.

They also had to deal with groundwater that was filtrating into this into the repair area.

They had to also use bypass pumps to move the stormwater, as it was raining throughout and to get it away from where they were working.

So, despite all these challenges, he was able, the team was able to get it done with high dedication professionalism at a cost of 133,000 dollars, which was likely a fraction of what it would have cost if they had gone out.

So, with that, the Texas Chapter of American Public Works would like to present to the City of Denton, the Emergent Repair Project of the Year Award apply.

Man, can you hear?

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Thanks for okay.

Well, thank you very much for that recognition and for everyone that kind of helped uh bring that to light.

And uh so with that, again, thank you very much for uh and to the decision making body for considering and appreciate the recognition uh again.

Thank you very much.

Yes, sir.

So we're gonna get a picture here.

Slide in here.

We'll all slide in.

Okay.

Thank you again.

Great to see you.

Hey, thank you.

Okay, and if we could play the video on a dressing council.

The Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure, including a code of conduct that applies to the public as well as council members.

These rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum.

Speakers will have four minutes to give a scheduled report and four minutes to give an open mic report.

A bell will ring when time has expired.

If the remarks are not concluded by that time, the speaker will be asked to stop speaking.

If the speaker does not cease and a second request is made, the mayor may request to have the speaker removed from the chamber.

Speakers should not approach the dais.

If a speaker has materials for the council, please notify the city secretary in advance.

For scheduled reports, the council may initiate discussion or ask questions.

For non-scheduled open mic reports, the council may listen.

However, because no notice of the subject of the open mic report has been provided to the public in advance, the Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits discussion or decision by the council on non-scheduled items.

As a result, the council may only proceed as follows on non-scheduled items.

Propose to place the item on a future agenda, make a statement of factual policy, or a recitation of existing policy.

Speakers are asked to direct all remarks and questions to the council as a whole, and not to any individual member.

Please refrain from making abusive, personal, impertinent, profane, or slanderous remarks.

Anyone who violates the council rules of procedure may be immediately removed from the chamber.

Thank you in advance.

Copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary.

Okay, thank you very much.

And our first public speaker is Dr.

Abraham Benavides.

If you can come down and give your name, and then you'll have four minutes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Dr.

Abraham David Benavidas, 3008 Brokenbow, Denton, Texas.

I'm here to offer an invocation or an opening prayer for this evening's uh session.

I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a high priest in that church.

Let us pray.

Our dear kind Heavenly Father, we're thankful for the opportunity that we have to be here tonight and to be able to commence these meetings.

We ask the Heavenly Father that thy spirit might be here with us, that those who speak here might be able to do it civilly, respectfully, and that we might be able to talk with one another and discuss those things that are important.

We ask the Heavenly Father to bless the City Council as policy leaders, that they might be able to formulate those things that are important and necessary and essential for the members, the residents, and the citizens here in the city of Denton.

We ask you to bless the city manager and all those that work with him and her, that they might be able to also implement those policies that have been established here.

We're grateful, Heavenly Father, for the opportunity that thou has allowed us to live in this great country where we have freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and be able to express ourselves in a good way to be able to have things come out right for our communities.

Heavenly Father, please help us.

We recognize that we live in troubled times and things are difficult.

But here locally, we ask you to bless us that we might do those things which are important for our residents and citizens.

We ask a blessing upon all those that participate in local government that they might be able to carry out the wishes of the people.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Thank you very much.

And our next speaker is Kathleen Davis.

If you can come down and give a name, you'll have four minutes.

Hi, my name is Kathleen Davis.

I live at 2620 Piccadilly Lane.

Thank you for allowing me the chance to speak today.

I've been living at that address since my husband and I, Johnny, who's here with me tonight, got married in 1998, and I was born in Denton in 1973.

As you can see by the picture on the screen, I live directly opposite where this picture was taken, which is at the corner of Sherman and Hercules, and used to be a property owned by the Jennings family that was filled with horses and cows at various times.

When the Sherman Crossing neighborhood went in in 2019, they designed a detention pond, which is supposed to fill with water when it rains a lot and then quickly drain.

And per usual detention pond fashion, there's a small outlet at the end, which allows the water to drain away.

However, when it was designed, it was probably designed just to accommodate the water from the Sherman Crossing area, and it quickly has become overwhelmed.

Around the last two years, what we noticed as water and sediment were retained after rains, pond habitat emerged, beavers built dams, beavers attracted a lot of attention.

Migratory birds came.

Also with the sidewalk surrounding the area, it's become a natural area where the neighbors come and they recreate, they walk, they ride bikes when there is water in it.

They were actually fishing and catching and sledding in the winter.

However, because it's supposed to be a detention pond, when City Code Enforcement got wind of this, they went ahead and notified the HOA that the detention pond was non-compliant.

And the HOA responded first by trying to mow when it was dry, as it sometimes was in drought.

Then when it was filled with water, they dispersed herbicide via drones using a company they hired, which without notification of the other neighbors who've been there, as I said, since 1998.

It caused a large cattail and decay and a big algae bloom, which smelled a lot and was unpleasant because, as I said, my driveway is directly across from this area.

The pond was drained and mowed several times, and in that process, it became an eyesore and a danger to public health.

My sons and I um were out there walking along and noticed dozens of fish that were dead, which smelled for many weeks.

And really, it's only me and my kids that have been removing the trash.

We've also noticed since we've been there for 30 years that there's large numbers of mosquitoes that were not previously present since this has happened.

The efforts that have been undertaken to do this have not controlled the street flooding that's gotten worse, and the cost is reportedly in the tens of thousands and ongoing for the HOA.

It's also created this mud pit for us.

And as I said, there are many neighbors in the area that were not part of the HOA and have no voice in what happens with this property.

As you can see, this is the pond, and this is all the area, and this is includes the runoff from the C.H.

Collins and parking lot all run through this drainage ditch down to the property directly from us.

So it doesn't accept that capacity.

We had no idea why the property across from us has all these issues, but we finally investigated.

And when we found out that there was really nothing we could do about it, we organized a town hall meeting and invited our council members, including Brian Beck, we um Chris Watts came, our friend Dalton Gregory came.

It was covered by the Record Chronicle, and we had over 70 in attendance who were generally in favor of pond beautification and a functioning screen space.

However, and I don't want to go too far into this, what we found is that in conversation with city staff after the meeting, the cost of a retention pond, which is what we proposed was cost prohibitive.

Brian Beck followed up with our assistant city manager who verified that their department weren't threatening fines to the HOA and the city was open to collaborative solutions for managing the basin.

That's the end of my part.

Okay, thank you very much.

Next speaker, Jamie Baxter Sly.

Give your name, you have four minutes.

Thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to come and speak to you tonight.

My name is Dr.

Jamie Baxter Sly, and I work at the University of North Texas.

I don't have a house in Denton.

I live over in Aubrey.

But the reason why I'm here tonight is to talk to you about what our proposed solution.

So my expertise is helping municipalities come up with green solutions.

So something called BGI or blue-green solutions.

And so here, when you have this detention area, when the HOA hires this company to take away all the cattails and all of the water, it sterilizes everything.

So what we thought about doing, and and Brand Richter was able to speak with the assistant city manager, and we were talking about a retention pond at that time, somewhere where you could fish, but that was going to be too cost prohibitive.

And so then we started thinking about bioswells.

And so bioswell is just a fancy term for like a very shallow area that does not hold as much water as a retention pond, but still allows some fish, some really beautiful aquatic plants, and actually UNT has been really great at learning how to grow these native aquatic plants for different projects like Corinth and other municipalities.

And so what we're envisioning is an area that you would still have some life.

It would be a centerpiece of conversation, not only for the Sherman Crossing, but also the residents who live across the street.

It would not be sterile, but it would be beautiful and it would be accessible to everyone.

So this is kind of a rendering.

This is from Terrort Regional Water District.

So there's lots of things that can happen, and it looks like it would be expensive, but I'll show you a paper in a second that it's actually less expensive than like a uh like pavement or uh like a detention pond because it doesn't take as much maintenance.

There's not as much mowing that happens.

And so you have different kinds of rock structures allowing different ecological niches.

This is going to capture water and polish it.

Um, it removes a lot of pollutants before it heads downstream.

It also helps take in particulates from the air, which raises uh the air quality for your constituents.

And um, you know, for the by people that like you know wildlife, it's great for that too.

These plants are beautiful, they add pops of color too, so it becomes something that you can talk about and really appreciate.

Um, here is a paper that talks about the cost effectiveness, and so you get a lot of bang for your buck.

You actually save money by installing these.

And if you're wondering who could do the maintenance, I've got four or five hundred ecology majors rearing to go.

And in fact, we do this all across I-35.

We help different communities such as Corinth and Grand Prairie do projects just like this.

And so TWU also has a brand new uh environmental science program.

They're on board, Kelly Albus, this is her specialty, it's my specialty, and we're ready to help.

Um, so when we reached out to the HOA, they declined a meeting with us.

And so there's been a complete lack of communication.

I can't reach them.

Um, and so they don't want to talk to us until after the detention pond reconstruction is complete.

Um, but it goes further than this.

We really feel that Denton needs like uh another mechanism to address these kinds of issues because it's not gonna just be Sherman Crossing that has this issue, it's going to be um other areas.

So we provided a list here, and because I'm running out of time, um, I just want to mention the JB Denton College neighborhood that was able to secure um different parklands through their own means to help really beautify their area.

So thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Next speaker Sheila Peterson.

Can you give your name?

You have four minutes.

Thank you.

And I'm here to um to put in our first request to you, which is to please consider a two-minute pitch to allow combining city and private funds for neighborhood green space solutions with broader community positive impact.

Our second request to you is to please consider buying the adjacent vacant parcel on Ponsetta Boulevard north of East Sherman Drive and Hercules Basin to build a community green space and playground.

This area could be created with Sydney funds plus resources and kind support by UNT, TWU, and local orgs.

So why consider our request?

Hercules Park is noteworthy in that since its inception in summer of 2025, it continues to sustain community-wide support.

We had 200 plus signatures in our original petition for re-establishing the pond habitat with nearly 70 attendees at our November 2025 town hall meeting.

And this month and last, we canvassed multiple neighborhoods with consensus for green space solutions.

A public private partnership would establish a pathway for Denton neighborhoods to build innovative, cost-effective green infrastructure by combining public and private funds, and this would help local neighborhoods and the larger community.

And in terms of funding, we're not asking for um a brand new mechanism.

This would be similar to the existing neighborhood empowerment grants that the city already offers.

Another related example is the Lewisville property enhancement program, which allows residents to use city monies to make improvements to their home.

Albeit these have been limited to public land and single residents respectively.

Our proposal requests widening that application to include quasi-public land, such as HOA properties.

Even though this North Denton area established in the 1960s has never had a walkable park, newer neighborhoods have paid park dedication and development fees with no tangible results.

This adjacent park may help make Sherman Crossing HOA more agreeable to collaborative implementation of a beautified creek in the East Sherman Drive and Hercules Basin with stormwater management and beautification benefits that extend regionally.

So in conclusion, council members, we emphasize that our proposal is cost effective.

It would pool existing resources for long-term economic public health and environmental benefits with no need to build initiatives from the ground up.

Moreover, it is vetted with the interim city manager, interim director of development services, and our sustainability commissioners.

And so with that, we also have friends here wearing green.

Citizens, could you please stand to show your support for the Hercules Hercules Park project?

Thank you very much, Council members, for your time and consideration.

Okay, thank you.

We have one representative from District Five.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, just a question to um to you, ma'am if you don't as you just spoke.

Have you all, as a as a group as a neighborhood, discussed kind of a dollar amount you're looking for the city to contribute to a fund like this?

Have you gotten that far in the process?

Um no.

very much council members for your time and consideration okay thank you we have one you represent from district five thanks mayor um just a question to um to you ma'am if you don't as you just spoke have you all as a as a group as a neighborhood discussed kind of a dollar amount you're looking for the city to contribute to a fund like this have you gotten that far in the process um no okay fair enough specific we just wanted to open up the pathway to start that conversation I appreciate it this was this is a well vetted presentation I thought you might have already gotten there so I wanted to to ask that thank you very much representative from district two thank you very much um I I'm not I guess I'll I'll ask Shelley uh since she was the last to speak um but do we um it's my understanding from from this area that um since the development in this region that this the the street flooding has has changed can can some of you that live in that area comment on on the levels of street funding well but unfortunately well the answers are well first you gotta you gotta you come to the you have to come to the mic so a million people that are watching can hear you but give me just one minute uh give me give me just one minute okay yeah just to clarify we're limited on what we have on the agenda so we're talking about the Hercules Park project yes the time flooding right around the park what does that have to do with the park uh it has to do with uh the drainage that these the citizens are addressing okay okay go go go right ahead okay so to answer your question um uh council member beck the answer is yes um because uh particularly for um neighbors who live in the older um areas like Royal Acres have experienced flooding um like they have never seen uh in fact um by their accounts there was no issue of flooding until the Sherman crossing neighborhood and the the detention pond which is still really not functioning um there was no flooding until that time and that um it the um detention pond was first established in 2019 okay thank you appreciate it okay thank you that takes to our next speaker Greg F U E S S I don't want to say it wrong you can give your name and you'll have uh four minutes great Greg Fees I appreciate the opportunity to address the mayor and so he council uh I'm here to voice a concern about the concreting the cinder paths at North Lakes Park it appears to be a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist as a it it seems like the solution is the problem the city parks director said in an email to me today that the uh concrete 10 foot wide sidewalk connects a grammar school to the children's playground and yet the existing cinder track provides that access he said it was ADA compliant and yet the cinder track so ADA compliance requires a firm stable and slip resistant surface the cinder tracks provide that ADA compliance as a matter of fact while they aren't a common site on the trails at North Lakes Park I have seen on occasion uh people in wheelchairs enjoying those trails but the core consistency for the trails at North Lake Parks is walkers and runners and that's where this concrete surface is uh poses a serious concern it is concrete is the hardest surface you'll ever walk or run on and contributes to stress fractures plant or fasciitis shin splints killing tendonitis runder's knees uh ilia tibial band syndrome to name a few of the concern uh injuries caused by con to the best of my knowledge there has been no public notice or public hearing regarding the paving of that of those trails and uh no discernible benefit that the that the concrete sidewalk provides an obvious detriment to to the core constituents of the of the trail so I I'm asking that we put an immediate halt to the uh construction of those sidewalks and we remove what concrete has been placed it it's just been a it's a bad idea and it it disservices the the people who use the the trails most thank you thank you very much appreciate it takes us to our last speaker Dana Zoltner you can come down give your name you'll have four minutes looking for something to do when I retired in 2015 I began going with a friend to the animal shelter to walk dogs at the time the shelter was under the purview of the police department not sure what year it was that the city decided to make

Looking for something to do when I retired in 2015, I began going with a friend to the animal shelter to walk dogs.

At the time, the shelter was under the purview of the police department.

Not sure what year it was that the city decided to move the shelter to customer service, but it was a good decision.

By that time, my friend moved, and I decided I was too old, little, and soft hearted to walk dogs by myself.

Therefore, I switched to washing blankets and towels.

Being in the hall by the stray dogs, I had time to observe that in addition to cleaning kennels and walking, the staff was also working on helping socialize the strays in addition to taking time to observe the temperaments of the animals in order to help them be ready to be adopted.

While I was there only once a week, I saw how hard it is to keep up with the needs of all the animals that came through the doors.

Staff was always in constant motion.

Pretty sure the only time they ever sat down was lunch.

It didn't take long to realize I was never going to be able to walk out with all the laundry done.

Most of the time it was piled up when I got there, and I could always tell when a washer or a dryer was down because those days the laundry would be on the floor, cleared the countertops.

Sometimes near the end of last year, I noticed that there was more staff than usual.

It took me a while to find out, thanks to collaboration between Ken Tesh from our Daily Bread and staff members Morgan Stumbaugh and Nikki Sassaneuse.

The city made it possible for the shelter to have clients from our daily bread come in the morning to help with the needs of the staff.

I've been volunteering since the end of 2015, and this is the first time ever that my laundry room floor had been mopped while I was there.

Now all the kennels are clean, all the dogs walked, and cats are cared for almost before the end of my day.

In addition, staff has time to effectively figure out how to utilize our two small space, and the shelter has never been so organized.

In addition to helping the animals, the city has done a great job helping our underserved population.

I can honestly say that the daily bred staff is hardworking, happy, and helpful.

I've already passed along that I'd feel honored to write a job recommendation for several of them that I work with and around.

Their work ethic and enthusiasm is a real testament to how positive this program is.

Thank you for greenlighting this endeavor.

It's a winner.

And I'm sorry I'm gonna get weepy, but it has been such a huge help.

So thank you all, and I hope you continue this program.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate your service that way.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

That takes us to our consent agenda.

Nothing was pulled.

I'll take a motion.

Mayor Pro Tim.

I'll motion approval.

Representative from District 4.

So second.

We have a motion and a second.

Any other discussion?

Seeing none, let's vote on the screen.

That passes 7.0.

Takes us to our first public hearing, which is item 5A, DCA2601A.

Hold a public hearing and consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, amending the Denton Development Code Sub Chapter 2, Section 2.12 Affordability Incentive Procedures Amendments include include but not limited to subsection 2.12.4.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Leah Atkinson.

I serve as the housing programs coordinator on the community services team.

A little bit over a year ago, uh staff brought forward a proposition for a new affordability incentive program to be housed in Section 212 of the Denton Development Code.

That program has been in operation for a little bit over a year, and we are in front of you again today to propose some amendments to that program.

As background, the Section 212 affordability incentive program was created on October 15th of 2024.

The program offers nine different zoning incentives for residential developments that commit to leasing or selling some of their homes to low income households at affordable rates.

So essentially, a developer says, I am willing to commit some of my new homes as affordable housing in exchange for some zoning incentives.

Since the program's creation, four multifamily developments and two infill single family developments have applied for the incentives.

Of those, two of the multifamily developments have executed agreements with us and are currently under construction.

This is a list of the incentives that are available under the program, as well as the rate at which they've been applied for, broken down by multifamily versus single family applications.

Most popular so far has been the parking reduction, followed by the reduction to the landscaping area point system.

As a reminder, that's not a reduction to the overall green space of a project, but specifically it's a quantitative system to evaluate elements of a landscaping plan.

Also available are a minimum unit size reduction, a maximum building height increase, a reduction to the minimum lot area, depth, and width, a deviation from building coverage requirements, and a minimum setback reduction.

As you can see, only four of the nine incentives have been applied for thus far.

This program is available to any residential development, although so far of our six applications all have had some other type of affordability financing tied to the program.

Staff is committed to evaluating this program on an ongoing basis to ensure that it's operating as effectively as possible.

In the years since program creation, staff have identified four immediate opportunities to improve the program and remove some pain points.

First and foremost, staff are proposing to remove the right-of-first refusal requirement.

Next, to increase access to the incentives by removing scaling qualification.

Third, to adjust affordability requirements to be entirely affordable for Denton, meaning below our market rate, and additionally distinguishing between those separate rental and ownership markets.

And lastly, to clarify the affordability requirements for small developments with fewer than 20 homes.

These amendments were considered by the Planning and Zoning Commission on March 18th and were recommended for approval with a 5-0 vote.

So digging into it, first and foremost, staff are proposing to remove the right of first refusal requirement for program participants.

So this as it stands today requires that any new development that participates with this program for the 30-year affordability period, offer the city the right to purchase the property first should they ever go to sell before going to any other buyers.

This was originally included because staff just wanted an extra layer of protection on the affordability.

Since then, staff has determined it does not actually offer additional protection to the affordability.

The affordability is protected by our existing restrictive covenant process.

We execute an agreement with the developer.

It is registered with the county, it's a restrictive covenant, and it survives a transfer of ownership anytime within our affordability period.

And we have the ability to enforce it still.

The right-of-first refusal has caused some pretty significant administrative barriers in practice for developers who are using this program, their lenders, and for city staff, and so for that reason, we are proposing to remove it.

Additionally, staff are proposing to adjust the qualification requirements to increase access to the incentives and reflect these separate market rates of local rental and homeownership markets.

We have a visualization of this on the next slide, but just as a general overview, across the board, staff are proposing to remove the scaling qualifications to increase access to the incentives, setting 15% of the total units being affordable as the threshold to access any number of incentives.

On the rental side, staff are proposing to reduce the target income thresholds to be entirely affordable for Denton, meaning below our market rate.

On the homeownership side, staff are actually proposing to increase that target income threshold to only include 80% AMI, which is still below Denton's median sales price and increases the financial feasibility for these projects to pencil.

Additionally, staff are proposing to align the affordability period for homeownership projects specifically with other existing programs for affordable homeownership, bringing it down from 30 years to five years.

So these are the this is the table that we use to qualify projects when they come through.

On the top we have what was originally proposed and exist today, and on the bottom we have what staff are proposing in front of you today.

As you can see, as the program stands, it's a minimum 20% of units that must be dedicated as affordable to access three or fewer incentives.

Within that, we have three subcategories of income thresholds, 30% AMI, 50% AMI, and 80% AMI.

That overall threshold scales up to a maximum of 65% of units being set aside as affordable to access all nine incentives.

This table doesn't differentiate between rental and home ownership projects or single family multifamily, and across the board sets the duration of affordability at 30 years.

A few notes on this.

As noted, we have not had more than four types of incentives used, and we've actually had no applications request more than three incentives.

In fact, some of our applications, some of our applicants were already qualified to access more incentives and found that only two or three at a time made sense for their project.

Additionally, we conducted a work session with City Council last November regarding our housing tax credit policy, which dug into the rental market rate in Denton and found that a lot of times our units that are restricted at 80% AMI do not provide a rental reduction for our residents, as our rental market tends to float around 60% of the area median income.

For these reasons, staff are proposing a few changes.

First, to simply remove the scaling qualification requirements and say if you meet our qualifications, if you have are dedicating 15% of your units as affordable, then you can access the number of incentives that make sense for your project.

On the rental side, staff are proposing to remove the requirement for low to moderate, 80% AMI income house units altogether, and instead just preserve those units that are affordable for Denton, 5% at 30% and 10% at 50% for a total of 15% of the units.

On the homeownership side, we are proposing to bring that income target threshold up to 80% AMI.

Denton's median sales price floats a little bit above 90% AMI typically, and that's for both existing homes and new construction homes together.

And so a new construction home being sold at an income threshold target price of 80% AMI is still a cost reduction for our residents.

It's still getting new affordable homeownership built, and this increases that financial feasibility and helps it to pencil.

We are additionally proposing to bring the affordability period for homeownership projects only down to five years from 30 years.

This helps us align with other homeownership programs, namely our internal home buyer assistance program, for example.

And additionally, it prevents a situation where the city has a 30-year restrictive covenant on a low-income household's personal homestead.

Finally, staff is proposing to clarify the affordability qualifications for developments which have fewer than 20 homes.

As you may have seen on the previous slide, staff qualifies these developments in increments of 5% of the total units, which can be difficult to apply if your project is three single-family homes.

So we have early doors in the first year of operation, found that this program shows promise for helping get these small-scale infill projects, which may be in established neighborhoods, maybe on a weird shape lot, get built under the existing development code without needing to go through a plan development process.

As such, staff are proposing two rules to address this.

For developments with nine or fewer units, the project would be qualified at one unit at the highest applicable income level, which would be 50% AMI for rental or 80% AMI for homeownership.

And for those developments between 10 and 19 units, that it would be qualified by a minimum of 15% of the units at the highest applicable income level and would not need to include units for lower income categories.

So for example, a rental development that had 19 units in total would need to include three affordable units, 16% of their total, but all three could be at 50% AMI rather than two at 50 and one at 30.

Again, the intention behind these amendments is really just to help make sure they are clear, predictable, and accessible for our infill developments.

Those are all the amendments proposed.

Options today are as follows.

First, to approve the debt and development code text amendments as presented.

Next, to approve the text amendments with conditions, third to deny, or fourth to postpone to a date certain to allow for further deliberation.

Staff does recommend approval as the ordinance meets the criteria for code amendments outlined in DDC section 274D.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

I will stand for questions.

Thank you very much, and I'll open the public hearing and uh any questions for staff or uh direction.

And I'll open to public hearing and uh any questions for staff or uh direction.

Uh Mayor Protein.

Thank you, Leah.

Um, I just have really two questions.

Um, how did we settle on 15% as the number of units to be affordable?

What was that math that happened?

There's a few things that go into it.

So when we look at what exists today, what we're really getting from our rental specifically uh is 15% of units because that 5% is not providing a rental reduction.

Um additionally, we have found that this is right about the threshold uh before a project needs further funding to pencil.

Uh so this project, this program does not provide funding.

We hope that it brings costs down for developments, but it does not actually provide a subsidy for their construction costs, and so uh we want to be realistic about what it can achieve and stay usable.

Awesome, thank you.

Um and then will y'all continue to monitor how this program is going, and if something new pops up or any of these changes aren't working out, y'all would bring back changes again.

Absolutely.

Yeah, we will continue to monitor.

All right, thank you.

Representative from district two.

Thank you.

Um Leah, both my questions pertain to sort of removal of of features.

Um the first one is uh on the subordination changes, or sorry, on the right of first refusal.

Um I can understand that um other financial or financiers um might have uh quandaries um with the the you know subordinating their claim to the cities.

So why wouldn't we just preemptively subordinate our claim rather than completely eliminate a right of first refusal?

So that's what we needed to do.

It still causes significant barriers.

Uh other financiers, as you say, or nonprofit partners sometimes who have right to first refusal on these properties, um are uh in the ownership structure, and uh might foresee themselves actually owning and operating the property at a later date.

Uh the city does not have any intention to directly own or operate multifamily housing uh at this at this time, and so uh that's why we're proposing to remove it.

There's there's let me ask it a slight different way, and then I'll move on to the next question.

There's there's no benefit in in maintaining it in the absence of anyone else's right of first refusal.

There's there's nothing to benefiting the city to hold on to it.

I mean, what we put that in there in the first place, but I I guess for those ones that don't have any barriers, there's no value to the city for that.

Staff has determined that our affordability, uh, which is staff's priority in this, is perfectly well protected by uh the restrictive covenant.

Okay.

Um, I uh and and then my other one, I appreciate that.

Um my my other one relates to home ownership and is similar.

Um, if we have if we're focusing on the 80% criteria, why remove the 30 and 50 percent targets?

If the 80% qualifies, what's the harm in leaving the 30 and 50 in there?

Okay.

And so help me understand why why just limit ourselves to just 80.

Okay.

If I'm understanding your question correctly, I believe you're asking um why not also require 50% and 30%?

Or just have that as an available option.

I'm I'm sure people will mostly build 80s.

Okay, but but uh you know, why remove those targets?

Sure.

Uh for one thing, I would say um any developer is still welcome to sell at lower prices or to lower income thresholds.

Uh most of these projects do have other affordability commitments that we are hoping ours are lowered and we're getting them a little bit uh more affordable, but if they have another funder, like for example, if they're using city home funds, we often do require them to sell at 50 or 30 percent sometimes, or rents often more often.

Um we have found uh pretty thin margins on these projects.

So one example is um a project that we have right now that looks like it will be operating at about a hundred thousand dollar deficit for every home that it sells at 80% AMI.

So they're already needing to make up that gap.

It gets closer to about I think it was 200,000 when we ask them to sell it at 50% AMI.

And so the and forgive me if I'm getting in the weeds here.

Um but the the question for us is really um if we require these developments to sell at 30 or 50, when we know it costs them much more to build that, um are we negating the usefulness of this program?

Yeah, okay.

Uh I I guess l I'll try one more time and then I'll I'll I'll move on.

That does and and maybe it's just my lack of understanding.

The if if you qu if you could be profitable at 30 or 50 percent, you are still qualified at the 80 percent number.

Is that correct?

Correct, yes.

All right, I I I think that's that's sufficient.

Thank you for indulging me.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Representative district five.

Can you go back to slide six, please?

And forgive me for speaking for you, Dr.

Beck.

I think what he's hung up on is that it says threshold to only include that word only.

Is that what I'm Dr.

Beck?

Okay.

Yeah, I think that's why before I asked, do you want to say anything any more about that real quick?

No, thank you very much for the question.

Yes, it is 80% AMI or below.

Uh when we say only, we're saying we are only setting our standards that uh at 80% AMI, anything below it also qualifies.

Okay, so it does capture okay, all right.

I appreciate you.

So thanks for the clarification.

Um, so in your presentation, you said that you found that not many developers that qualify for all four criteria.

You said you said something to the effect of that they'd found that even if they did qualify for all four, it was more advantageous to the project to only use a couple.

Can you say more about that?

Yeah, absolutely.

Uh so we can see the things that are being the incentives specifically that are being used are the parking reduction, the landscaping area point system reduction.

Uh building height increase has been used a few times, and minome lot area reductions have been used.

Uh, a lot of these are much more applicable to either single family or multifamily developments.

So uh it would be pretty difficult to fit all nine incentives on a single project.

Uh but then additionally, developers are still trying to build a project that makes sense for them that they think is going to work, is going to be desirable.

Um, and also they still need to meet every other requirement of the development code we have in our language.

Just because we said you can have a um a building height increase if that runs up against fire code or our building height and transition areas uh rules, then you don't get to use it, right?

Um, and so the not every incentive makes sense for every project, and so we found developers are uh being selective with what makes sense for them.

Okay.

And last thing I want to say is um well question did um did DCRC look at this first?

Uh the N Code Review Committee, no, they did not.

Um it I'm sorry?

Planning and zoning did.

Any any insight to why this this seems like it'd be prime real estate for DCRC to have uh taking a stab at this.

Uh uh staff's perspective was that these were um quick fixes that we wanted to bring forward uh as quickly as we could.

Um some of these are some real pain points as a timing issue then the timing issue.

Okay, I can understand that.

Well, I just want I want to applaud staff and and and listening to the community and really reevaluating this, particularly um getting rid of the first ride refusal.

Thank you very much.

So I I applaud all the work you all did to this to help us uh bring forward a better project that's gonna work on the development side, but also on the residential side at the end of the line.

So thank you all very much.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

This is a public hearing.

You can fit out a card if speak if you'd wish.

There's one card.

Uh George Ferry, if you can come down and give your name, you'll have three minutes.

Sure.

Four minutes.

Good evening, George Ferry, 4708 Conley Lane.

Good evening, council, good evening, mayor.

I'm here to strongly support tonight the proposed amendment to the affordability incentives program.

In my daily work as the board president of Denton Affordable Housing Corp, we constantly see everyday people struggling to find housing that doesn't completely drain their paychecks.

When this program was created, it was a solid first step.

But for policy to be truly effective, it has to be practical on the ground.

And staff has rightly identified key opportunities to improve it.

First removing the right of first refusal requirement feels like common sense.

Right now it creates the administrative headaches for staff, lenders, developers, while doing very little to actually secure the housing affordability.

So removing this red tape would allow everyone to focus on the actual goal, which is getting homes built and getting families in affordable units.

Um by adjusting this code, but adjusting the code is only one piece of this puzzle.

If we really want to move the needle on housing, our city departments have to work together more efficiently to fast track these types of opportunities.

We absolutely must cut down the pre-development timeline.

The longer an affordable project sits in the pipeline, the more expensive it gets to build, and those costs inevitably get inevitably get passed down to the folks trying to buy or rent, or sometimes the development having to shift focus, like your question about 80% for how homeownership.

50 and 30 would be ideal, but it's hard to do 50 and 30 when you've spent 400,000 just in pre-development to get before the city, right?

Um when we streamline our internal processes and eliminate the bottlenecks, we get roofs over people's heads faster and less expensively.

I also want to highlight the wisdom in setting a clear flat threshold for incentives and distinguishing between rental and homeownerships.

Uh this keeps homes below market rate uh while ensuring these developments are actually financially feasible.

And finally, clarifying the rules for small-scale in-fill housing opens the door for smaller community-focused projects that fit right into our existing neighborhoods.

It feels pragmatic.

It's community-first policy, and I urge you to approve these amendments and to keep pushing for more streamlined collaborative pre-development processes across all city departments.

Thank you for your time and your service to the city.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Uh any other speakers that is a public hearing open.

Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing.

Representative from District 6.

Um, I uh just wanted to say that I I really appreciate the work that went into this.

I think it does simplify the process and so it can be more accessible to developers.

Um, and I appreciate staff's assistance in council's initiative for affordable housing, making sure that if incentives are given, it's really affordable for Denton, uh, which is the problem we've had in the past.

So um I uh recommend approval or I move to approve the Denton Development Code text amendments as presented, and pleased to do so.

Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tim.

And I want to thank staff for continuing to monitor the to the incentives.

We didn't just adopt incentives and then put them over there.

I so I appreciate y'all continuing to monitor it, monitor that and make adjustments as you see that there's issues.

And I will happily second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Any other discussion?

Seeing none, let's vote on the screen.

Passes 70 takes us to item B 725025.

Hold a public hearing, consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas regarding a change in zoning district and use classification from rural residential district to GO General Office District on approximately 5.36 acres of land, generally located on the north side of Barpo Road, approximately 2,580 feet west of North Interstate 35 in the city of Denton, Denton County, Texas, and I'll open a public hearing.

Good evening, City Council, Map Odean, assistant planner here to present the Arkhamma zoning case.

So this is a request uh as said to rezone approximately a 5.36 acres from rural residential to general office district uh for the purpose of developing various commercial uses on the property.

It's surrounded by uh property zoned L I and R R as well as uh ETA properties in the county.

It does take access off of Barthold Road, um, which will be a Text Lat Road and is currently classified as a primary arterial.

So this request was reviewed against our general and zoning criteria for approval.

And to highlight uh a few of those criteria, this crest this request is consistent with the purpose of the general office district, which is to provide for a variety of workplaces and those complementary uses.

This district does permit several commercial uses in it, and this site is located near employment areas along I-35.

The request is consistent with the future land use map, designation of light industrial, which is intended for light industrial activity, but also supporting commercial uses such as those allowed in the GO district.

It does support um economic and growth goals of the comprehensive plan.

Uh, there is a criteria that there is significant changes in the area.

We have seen that with industrial development coming in along I-35, um, as well as tech stock projects to improve I-35 as well as realign state road FM 110 1173 to go uh in front of uh this project and follow Barthold Road in support of that text lab project.

Uh the strip of land in front of the area being rezoned today that has been dedicated to tech stop for the purpose of public right-of-way.

Uh, this request was noticed to the public according to city and state law.

At this time, the staff has not received any responses.

Um, staff is recommending approval of the request and planning and zoning commission recommended approval at the February 11th meeting.

Um, here to answer any questions.

Okay, thank you.

Uh questions for staff.

Any questions?

Seeing none, this is a public hearing.

You can fill out a card and speak if you want to.

Seeing no sudden movements, I'll close the public hearing.

Representative from district six.

Um I move approval as presented and want to just commend all of the backup material that has led to no questions during this council meeting.

Uh, but of the 12 exhibits uh going into the fiscal ramification, zoning ramifications, our comprehensive plan, land use, etc.

I'll stop talking, but I move approval.

Thank you very much.

And I'm excited to see what happens uh with this building.

Thank you.

Representative from district two.

I won't add any more to that.

I'll just second.

Okay, 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 C, ID 260288, hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton adopting standards of care for recreational care programs administered by Denton Parks and Recreation Department pursuant to Texas Human Resources Code Section 42 dot 041B 14, the parks and recreation and beautification board.

Oh, don't need that.

Go right ahead.

And it's a public hearing, so I open a public hearing.

I don't see the presentation loaded on here.

Okay.

Steve, can you help us with that?

Oh, hangard.

Okay.

Is it in here?

Okay, I was looking over here.

There it is.

Thank you so much.

Cancel that, Steve.

I know that's all.

I'm not presenting in teams.

Yeah, I understand.

There we go.

Sorry about that.

No problem.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor.

City Council, Megan Thomas, programming manager, parks and recreation.

Each year, Parks and Recreation is uh required to present the standards of care to council for review and adoption through a public hearing.

This uh these standards outline the minimum guidelines under which we operate our recreational care programs.

This is our spring break and holiday camps, our summer camps, and our kids stay off programs.

By adopting these standards annually, these programs remain exempt from state licensing requirements.

This year we do not have any substantial changes, minor changes to program and staff contact information, camp locations based on Denton ISD availability, and clarification of background check requirements by outside organizations.

The parks recreation and beautification board reviewed these standards of care at their March 2nd meeting with a vote to recommend approval for of five to zero.

And at this time, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay.

Thank you.

Questions for staff.

Uh seeing none.

Umortim.

As a former part-time parks and rec summer camp, I guess counselor.

Um, I would like to motion to approve.

Thank you.

And this is a public hearing.

Anyone can speak if you fill out a card.

Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing.

And representative from district two.

As a parent who has used the summer camps, I will second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Uh how are we doing on hiring?

Life guards and everything.

Are we we're doing we're doing pretty good?

Okay, got it.

Excellent.

Okay.

Uh okay, so we have a motion and a second.

Let's vote on the screen.

And that passes 7-0.

Um, we good.

Um that takes us to item sixa.

ID 260446.

Consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, a home rule municipal corporation authorizing city manager execute a contract with intermountain slurry seal inc.

Say that 10 times fast for roadway surface treatments for the streets department.

Good evening, Mayor.

Council members, my name is Dennis Qualls.

I'm the assistant general manager of water utilities and street operations.

I'm here this evening to present the roadway surface treatment contract.

Um, included in this contract consist of micro seal and slurry seal.

These treatments are cold applied paving mixtures that when dried protect the pavement from moisture moisture, which prevents further damage to the pavement.

The surface treatment can extend the life of the payment five to seven years, and they are cost effective alternatives to mill and overlay uh mill and overlay projects utilizing the hot mix asphalt product.

In the past, Denton has exclusively used micro seal.

In this contract, we are adding slurry seal, a product that is more suitable for low traffic in residential areas.

The roadway surface treatment is part of Denton's annual street maintenance and preservation efforts.

The contract is for the micro and slurry seal materials and for the contractor to apply these materials to streets identified by the city.

As I mentioned earlier, um this surface treatment extends the life of a road, delaying the need for more aggressive and uh more expensive and aggressive maintenance methods such as mill and overlay or reconstruction.

A request for proposals was sent to over 900 suppliers, including 50 firms in Denton, and the RFP was advertised publicly.

Two proposals uh were received and were evaluated on approach, experience, schedule, project management, and cost.

As you can see in the slide, the two million dollar total annual cost has been broken out by microservicing, asphalt surrey sleel, asphalt slurry seal.

Say that fast.

Mobilization and contingency.

Um the contract is a one-year contract for with four one-year renewals for a not-to-exceed amount of ten million dollars over five years.

Staff's recommendation is to award the contract to Intermountain Slurry SEAL Incorporated for a term of one year with four optional one-year renewals under the same terms and conditions.

And I am available, or at this time I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much.

Representative from District 2.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh Dennis, um, I was trying to do my homework on these slurry seals since we've both mostly done uh the micro sealing before, or at least that's been my experience.

So I had more familiarity with your previous education.

For these slurry seals, I was reading that it they really are only effective when your OCI is above a certain level, so you're not patching a bad road, you're you're patching a good road.

Do we have that kind of standard in our roadway?

Do we we only seal above a certain OCI and repair below?

We would seal between a 75 and an 85 OCI.

Okay, which is which is still a good road, and we want to keep it a good road.

But anything below that we would schedule it for repair.

It'd either be a mill and overlay dependent on the depending on the repair that's needed, a mill and overlay or reconstruction.

Perfect.

That's the exact answer to my question.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Representative from District 4.

How does this product differ from uh what the the term I've heard is chip seal?

Well, okay, so micro seal, gypse seal is even a even a different product because it has a larger aggregate in it.

The micro seal and the slurry seal have a much finer aggregate.

Um the difference between micro seal and and uh the slurry seal is micro seal dries faster, has a little has some more polymers in it, that is more suited for higher traffic, faster traffic, and the slurry seal is made in such that it's more suited for slower traffic, residential traffic, that type of thing.

There's also um going even further if you want to go into that.

Um I looked into odor because that's we've had complaints about odor in the past, that the micro seal, because of the the chemicals in it that make it dry quicker, leave off give off a little bit more stronger odor than a than a slurry seal, which is uh I don't know, it has a bouquet of you know um still it's still a uh that's what I'm looking for in my roads.

Yeah, so uh but it's just uh uh uh it's not as um strong in odor and it dissipates quicker in it because it it it cures over a four to six or four to six to eight hour period, whereas micro seal cures in an hour.

Back to my chip seal thing.

Is that gonna be commonly found on on a text dot road more so than a than a than a city street?

Yes.

Because and you've seen those they're very very rough, yeah.

And they they because they put the larger aggregate the the gravel, if you will, on that, which uh gets actually driven down into the asphalt itself.

Someday, yeah.

At some at some point after it's chipped after the window after I'm long.

Thank you for your help.

Representative district five.

Dennis helped me.

Um I remember.

I want to say it's been a couple of years ago.

We heard a present a presentation about streets.

What was the overall ABCDE score of streets in Denton?

Was that a B Remember that conversation I had?

I believe it was a work session.

Stephen.

I do not know the answer to that.

Uh something that I can find out and get back with you on.

I asked that question because given that City of Denton streets are scored.

I remember them scoring better than the perception of what city of Denton streets are.

It doesn't seem like we're gonna come anywhere close to 10 mil, right?

Even five years, right?

So then again, 10 mil, it doesn't seem that we're gonna come anywhere close to 10 mil.

10 mil is the is the not to exceed amount.

We're not gonna get anywhere close to that in five years, correct?

This is uh it seems based on that presentation we had a couple of years ago that our streets were better than the perception of our streets is so uh Stephen Gay, General Manager of Water Utilities and Street Operations.

The the overall street condition index that you're referring to included are as our both asphalt and concrete.

The concrete roads are in really good condition, our asphalt roads are in 400 both.

When you combine the two of them, it skews that actual number.

So this 10 million dollars will get eaten up within that five-year period of time.

Okay, okay, thank you for the clarification.

Not a word, Councilmember Holland, not a word.

You think it and hold it?

Lock it up.

For those that don't track along, council member Holland is a concrete, right?

I forget which one it is.

Which one is it?

Concrete don't smell.

He's a concrete road fan, and so Stephen has made his day.

So okay, very good.

Any other questions for staff?

You're welcome.

Seeing none, uh representative from district four.

Uh I move we approve the uh the item is presented.

Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tim.

And I appreciate us continuing to invest in preventative maintenance so that we're not paying the bigger bill at the end, or we're at least delaying it.

So I really appreciate that, and I'm happy to second.

Got it.

We have a motion and second.

Any other discussion?

Seeing none, it's vote on the screen.

And that passes 70.

Takes us to item 6b, which is our last before concluding items, and that's ID 260418.

Consider an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas approving the acquisition agreement with Denton Destination Management and Market Organization for transfer of equipment and other assets to assets of Discover Denton, the assumption of certain contracts by the Denton Destination Management and Marketing Operation, and the grant of intellectual property license to Denton Destination Management and Marketing Organization.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Christy Franz.

I'm the executive director with uh Discover Denton, and I'm here to present to you about the transition of Discover Denton to being an independent destination management and marketing organization.

The purpose is to provide an overview of the transition from Discover Denton to an independent DMMO to highlight key milestones and actions uh completed, outline final steps required for full for full independence, and request council authorization to execute the acquisition agreement.

A little bit of background on December 17th of 2024, the council approved ordinance number 24-2486, which authorized the acquisition of Discovered Denton assets from the chamber of commerce, the assumption of contracts by the city, and the amendment to the lease agreement for the Denton Visitor Center.

The established long-term plan to transition to an independent organization.

Transition vision was to establish a standalone destination management and marketing organization, increase operational flexibility and efficiency, aligned with best practices for DMO DMMO statewide and nationally, and strengthen tourism's economic impact for Denton.

Legal formation milestones on February 3rd, the proposed bylaws presented to city council during a work session for review and feedback.

They were um brought to council on February 17th of this year.

The council approved those bylaws authorizing the filing of the articles of a corporation.

On February 18th, 2026, the articles were filed with the state of Texas.

And on March 3rd, 2026, an EIN was issued by the Internal Revenue Service Service establishing uh the Denton DMMO as an official 501c6 organization.

The funding transition on March 20th, 26th, the application was submitted to the community partnership committee requesting to transfer the remaining uh uh 2526 hot funds from the city uh under the Discover Denton uh department to the Denton DMMO.

The committee reviewed and provide directions to award hotel occupancy tax funds to the Denton DMMO for program year 2026.

So here we are today.

Uh the legal entity has been established, the government structure is in place, the funding pathway has been approved, and the pathway for operational independence has been established.

The current step.

What we are looking at tonight is the acquisition agreement.

It's the first phase of the transition that requires execution of an acquisition agreement between the city and the Denton DMMO, establishing a formal licensing agreement between the city and the DMMO for the continued use of the Discover Denton intellectual property.

The asset transfers that uh we're uh talking about this evening would be all inventory, tangible personal property, contracts, and uh intellectual property license.

Coming soon, um I believe the next council meeting you'll uh have before you uh lease agreements for and facility usage for the current lease of the visitor center space uh located on Hickory Street to the Denton DMMO and then establishing a lease agreement uh with the city for the office space currently occupied by the uh Discover Denton organization within the development services center, and then the hot fund agreement transferring the remaining hot fund uh that were allocated to Discover Denton to the Denton DMMO.

Uh the staffing transition that will happen, the current Discover Denton staff will be offered employment with the DMMO and receive comparable compensation and benefits.

This ensures uh continuity of operations and team stability.

So, in conclusion, today's request is for council to approve for staff to execute the acquisition agreement with the Denton DMMO.

Approval of the acquisition agreement allows the city to take the steps necessary for the Denton DMMO to have operational independence, and then coming soon again was the uh council approval for uh the hot fund agreement and for the lease transfer agreements.

So the staff recommendation is to adopt an ordinance authorizing the interim city manager to execute the acquisition agreement and ancillary agreements for the transition of equipment, intellectual property, and other assets of Discover Denton to the Denton Destination Management and Marketing Organization.

Do you have any questions for me?

Thank you very much.

Questions seeing none, representative from district five.

I want to thank staff for all the work that has been done um to put this all together to to unravel previous agreements and put this all together.

I want to thank um I want to thank everyone who participated in this.

I want to wish you all well as you uh embark on this endeavor, and with that, I'm gonna happily uh move approval.

Representative from district two.

I'm happy to get help get this off the ground with a second.

Okay, we have a motion and second.

Any other discussion?

Seeing none, let's vote on the screen.

Who we who were missing.

There we go.

And that passes seven to zero.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um that concludes our items takes us to concluding items, any concluding items.

Representative from district two.

Thank you.

Um, I uh just want to take a moment.

I think this is uh uh Cassie's first time to to run uh as city manager.

Uh so I want to uh welcome her and applaud her, even though she's been doing this for years.

Thank you, Cassie for uh starting us off as uh as our new interim city manager.

Thank you.

Very good.

And then I will um remind.

Well, first I'll take a moment of personal privilege to be delighted that I spent my entire day when my daughter flew back from London and and I I could have been hanging out with her instead.

I chose to hang out with all of you.

Um and uh that that's delightful, I promise you.

And I will do one one more announcement.

Remember, April 15th is coming up, and we all know what that day is.

That's national DNA Day.

Uh, but it's also tax day, so get your taxes in.

Get your taxes done.

Got it.

Uh, representative from district one.

We have been together literally all day.

We started at 12 o'clock this afternoon.

So we'll be glad to make it home.

And please go to 311 to put in all of your issues there.

And that comes back to the city so we can take care of all of those issues.

I have something I need to put in tonight.

And whenever there are some major issues or some things that you know the city needs to let you know of good and bad or whatever, in whatever it takes, you'll find uh that communication on Discuss Didden.

So make sure that you go there and also make sure that you are uh just you know engage, show up, tell us what you need.

We all carry city phones, we have direct lines, we all have emails uh that you can contact to us directly.

Uh so we're always looking forward to hearing from you and doing our best uh to help you where we can.

Thank you.

Okay, representative from district five.

Just wanted to say, of course, more elections coming up, city elections and runoff elections.

Everybody vote, remind your friends to vote.

Voting's important.

Um, if it didn't matter, people wouldn't work hard to take it away from us.

So voting matters.

And I just want to say I wish Keanu a happy birthday.

Okay, anyone else?

Any other concluding items?

So I I will say that uh I want to congratulate uh UNT Polo, they won a national championship again, uh, which is great.

I don't know what number this is, but they've done it regularly.

It's pretty uh pretty three.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's outstanding.

Uh and then TW gymnastics.

If we didn't mention it before, I forget during the break, uh, but they won another national championship, so uh credit to them and uh Kayla.

If you could help me reach out to them and see if maybe we can get them for a proclamation, that'd be great.

Thank you.

Uh and then um US Air Force band was at UNT.

If you missed that, I just it just highlights all the great stuff that we have here in town, and so uh that was a great concert.

Well at the sold out crowd.

Um so that was really neat to see.

Uh and then I think it's the 16th of this month.

Do we have a job fair, right?

Uh someone's hosting a job fair at the Civic Center.

I think that's right.

Uh on uh of this month, I think that's right.

So um double check that, but I think we have a jobs fair at Civic Center 46 at 416 uh or on 416, and then I saw the Denton Fire Department got three new trucks.

Is that I saw that?

I think they had a post, and that's uh so that's that's a feat.

I mean, I think it takes a year and change to get those in hand, so that's a really neat uh thing to make sure we're helping keep everyone safe.

And then spend some time out at uh uh North Texas Fair and Rodeo area hung out with Glenn and some I mean amazing kids.

I mean, uh they're they're doing livestock, they're doing um plants and baking and pigs, all the things.

I I met a steer that was two years old and weighed 1600 pounds.

Uh it's massive, and and so just really neat stuff happening there.

So if you stay in tune uh and support the North Texas Fair and Rodeo and those youth organizations uh that are doing great work and and training those kids to be amazing.

Uh and then plus I got to see uh the um mutton busting and it was wet, and so all the kids got dumped into the water.

It's fantastic.

Great day.

Great day.

So uh with that at 7 54, that'll conclude our meeting.

Oh, well, before I do that, Steve, are we still on somebody come out there?

We're still on.

Thank you.

Uh give the floor to you.

Anything you want to say?

Well, thank you.

It's been um an interesting week.

Uh we've made it through, so I appreciate everyone giving me the opportunity.

So thank you.

All right, great.

Thank you.

So it's 7 55.

We'll conclude tonight's meeting.

Thank you.