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

Today, Tuesday, May 19, 2026.

It is 402 p.m., so call the meeting to order.

And first thing, citizen comments on the consent agenda.

Seeing none.

Takes us to request for clarification of agenda items listed on this agenda for public hearing and individual considerations.

So any questions, public hearing or individual considerations.

Seeing none takes us to our first work session.

Which is item A 3A, and for the record, nothing was pulled, so we'll when we vote on that.

So 3A ID 260416 receiver report hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the result of the 2026 community survey.

Here to present the results of the 2026 community survey.

The community survey is one of our most important tools for understanding how residents experience Denton, what we're doing well, where are their concerns, and what they want us to focus on going forward.

This year's survey was sent to 18,000 randomly selected households and opened from February 18th to March 18th.

We received more than 1500 responses from across the community.

With a 95% confidence level and a margin of error or plus of plus or minus 2.51, we can say with confidence that these results apply to the entire population.

So rather than walk you through all of the charts in the serve in the report, today I'm going to focus on the strategic takeaways, what's going well, where we're seeing shifts, and what residents say should be our highest priorities for the next two years.

Throughout the presentation, you're going to see results presented based on the top two most positive responses of excellent and good, safe and very safe, likely and very likely, just to make sure that we're being consistent across the presentation.

So overall, residents continue to feel good about Denton's quality of life.

67% rated as good or excellent, which lines up with state and national benchmarks, though there is a slight decline from 72% in 2024.

Perceptions of neighborhoods and Denton as a place to live continue to be solid and help anchor overall resident satisfaction.

One of the notable shifts in the survey is Denton as a place to work, which dropped 9% points to 53%, and that uh aligns what with lower ratings for employment opportunities, which is at 34% this year.

Um we're also seeing growing concerns around development and housing affordability, including ratings for well-planned residential growth, quality of new development, and availability of affordable housing.

These trends suggest that development patterns, the pace of growth in Denton, and affordability play stronger roles in how residents experience Denton day-to-day.

So then looking at infrastructure mobility and transportation.

These continue to be major themes again in this year's survey.

They represent some of our more clear challenges and our highest priorities that have been identified by the community.

Transportation ratings are amongst the lowest in the survey, with ratings for traffic management during rush hour rated at only 23% positive, and only 29% of our residents rate the overall transportation system positively.

Streets and sidewalks also performed below benchmark comparisons and stormwater drainage declined to six percentage points since 2024.

These results highlight ongoing concerns about capacity, infrastructure, and system performance.

Resident comments consistently reference congestion, roadway conditions, and the strain on infrastructure as very visible day-to-day impacts of the growth that Denton is experiencing.

Many of these concerns extend beyond just traffic, and they reflect frustration with development patterns, and then stress the need for infrastructure to keep up with demand.

Streets and sidewalks emerged as the single highest priority for our community over the next two years, followed closely by transportation and infrastructure.

Results suggest that residents are increasingly evaluating quality of life through the lens of mobility, infrastructure performance, and the visible impacts of growth.

So residents report a very strong sense of safety in Denton.

Nearly 90% rate their overall feelings of safety as safe and very safe.

And then ratings across neighborhoods, parks, retail areas, and downtown all exceed benchmark comparisons.

Fire and ambulance services also receive high ratings and performed at or above benchmarks.

While safety perceptions are extremely strong, ratings for police services remain moderate, particularly around visibility, traffic enforcement, and crime prevention.

Residents feel safe, but they're looking for stronger police presence and responsiveness.

So community amenities continues to be a major strength for Denton.

Parks maintenance saw an 11-point increase since the last survey.

That's the biggest increase across the survey compared to 2024, and it is one of the highest rated services in the survey.

Libraries, recreation, and other amenities also performed extremely well.

Denton as a place to visit exceeded state and national benchmarks, and residents consistently pointed out parks, trails, downtown, and events as things that they value and they want to preserve because these amenities shape the quality of life and it strengthens Denton's unique sense of place.

These sentiments are also reflected in broader measures of community attachment.

So we have 75% of our residents indicated that they plan on remaining in Denton for at least the next five years, and 73% said that they would recommend Denton as a place to live.

Homelessness remains a significant concern for the community.

84% view it as a moderate or major problem for Denton.

While percentages identifying it as a major problem dropped slightly since 2024, it does continue to be a concern across the community.

Residents show strong support for services such as sheltering during inclement weather, mental health programs, substance abuse programs, and supportive housing, but only 28% rate the city's current efforts positively.

Comments frequently mentioned visibility of homelessness in our public spaces and the importance of addressing underlying causes.

Residents are looking for continued progress and visible action balanced with long-term service-oriented approaches.

Residents are very engaged.

So 80% of respondents said that they had visited the city's website in the past year, but overall ratings for communication are a bit mixed.

Residents want to see improvements in how we communicate complex projects, complex issues, and then long-term planning in ways that are both easier to access and easier to understand.

Residents who interacted with city staff in the survey, 68% said that they had interacted with staff over the previous year, reported very positive experiences, professionalism, responsiveness, willingness to help, and overall customer service all exceeded our benchmarks, and these are amongst the strongest ratings in the survey.

Broader perceptions of confidence in government, value of services for taxes paid, and overall direction are more moderate and decline compared to 2024, as did all levels of government.

For Denton, these views appear to be strongly tied to concerns about growth, infrastructure, and transportation.

When we asked residents what we should prioritize, the responses aligned almost perfectly with survey findings, where we saw lower rates or where we saw declines.

So the top five priorities selected were streets and sidewalks, public safety, transportation, infrastructure, and homelessness.