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.

So this alignment between priorities and survey findings really does give us a clear and actionable framework for future planning and resource allocation.

So in closing, uh the 2026 survey gives us a clear balanced picture of how our residents are experiencing Denton.

Residents continue to see Denton as strong, safe, and a desirable community with high quality amenities, customer service, again rated excellent, and many positive quality of life attributes.

At the same time, it highlights several challenges that are shaping how our residents experience Denton.

That includes infrastructure, transportation, mobility, economic opportunity, homelessness, and again with this year's survey, we see the broader impacts of growth that we're experiencing.

So really these insights give us a strong foundation for planning, for budgeting, and then for aligning our services around what matters most to the community, reinforcing Denton's strengths, and then guiding progress where it is needed most.

And with that, I'll stand for questions.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh questions, feedback for staff, no action needed, correct?

Correct.

Yes, I've got it.

So feedback.

Any questions, comments for staff?

Representative District 6.

Hi.

Well, thank you for this.

It's always helpful to see.

I know it's just a thin sliver of the almost 150,000 people, but it's still it's it's good information and very helpful.

Couple of things.

Um, first, I was wondering, I I didn't see in the survey where the household information came from.

Is that the those that have registered to vote?

Is that from electricity?

So signing up for yes, we are very, very fortunate to be a full service city, so that gives us access to information to our residents' email addresses, which is extremely effective in getting responses versus the traditional mail out.

So because we have access to those that account information, we use our our email addresses that we have in our utility billing system.

So you gather those from, say, when people sign up for uh waste disposal, things like that.

When they set up a utility account, signed up for okay.

Um I'm just trying to think of, you know, if there was any.

I guess there's no real need to bet as far as are you 18 years of age or anything like that.

If they've got accounts, they're probably good to go.

Um, and then can we get a copy of the questions, how they were worded?

I would be interested to see how they were phrased and the results we got.

Um, you know, it it it just can't help but have some kind of effect, so I would be just interested to see that if that's all right.

Um, and uh yeah, I I think I don't know if anyone is gonna be surprised at the results, uh, those of us that are attending forums and out there in the public eye, so uh, but thanks for the reinforcements, and we've got our work to do.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Mayor.

And and just to point out, if you look at the vast dependencies, these this is actually the exact wording of the questions for the survey, but we can pull those out separately.

No need.

Um, I I was not sure if they were if that was exact, so no need.

I've got it right here.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions for staff?

Representative from district four.

Thank you.

Uh just a couple of comments um i'm i'm particularly pleased that streets and transportation scored so high on this.

Uh, that's always been a concern of mine, and I'm pleased that that that that others feel the same way.

And I'd like to think that the congestion is tied with the construction.

Uh once once we get past that, and I understand that's troublesome to uh to to to lots of people in lots of neighborhoods Mr.

Stevens uh I I think I think that'll get better and better as we get uh progress further uh I was pleased to see a stronger police presence is desired um that that's that's heartening I'm I'm I'm glad about that and and like me lots of lots of my fellow citizens like the downtown area and uh and I like it too I think it's an important compartment important component of our city and I um I'm I'm pleased about that thank you excellent report thank you mayor okay thank you anyone else representative from district two hi there yeah thanks for your presentation I appreciate it a lot of helpful information I I wanted to uh piggyback off of uh councilman holland about the desire for stronger police presence and responsiveness I was wondering if you could ex if it if it's possible to all to expound on maybe what residents are desiring more of or would that just be conjecture do you think?

I wish I had the report that I sent to Chief Salais the other day very specifically line that out but but it truly is they they want to see more of them out in the community whether that's in our retail areas within their neighborhoods there is a tie-in with police presence responsiveness and issues related to homelessness that's another big uh topic of conversation or comments um within the survey because we do provide a section for open ended feedback and so that's very helpful in really understanding that sentiment but it truly is just wanting that greater visibility that's that's really the biggest thing behind behind that is wanting to see them in the community.

And I I guess I just wanted to be clear on that because I know like maybe I took it too literally this desire for more responsiveness because I know with with public safety we're very responsive and so a lot of it if I'm hearing correctly is really focused on perception of presence yes okay that is correct okay thank you so much.

Okay Miss City Manager I just wanted to point out um the 81% overall customer service satisfaction I am very very pleased with our staff they are really our ambassadors for our com to our community and that while some of the other um figures and statistics we have a lot of work to ahead of us but I'm really proud of how professional and how wonderful our staff are and they care about this community and they are great ambassadors for us so just wanted to give a shout out to our staff parks maintenance library staff all of those those people work really hard every day to make sure that Denton is special and main and continues to be special.

We should give a round of applause anyone else questions uh for staff representative from district five Amy thanks for the great job you and team did compiling this uh survey just a couple questions um what were the what were the drastic changes between this year's survey and the 24 survey um the biggest one was parks parks maintenance that was the what that was one of the bigger changes I'm sorry that question was unclear I'm sorry okay I meant in terms of um compiling the the questions that you're asking are this the exact same they're the they're the exact same we had um some tweaks in the communication section but everything else was the same and and that's important because we want to see trending over time um so then does that mean that 22 was also the same um as a survey 22 was done outside 24 so 24 and 26 are the same survey okay we can expect to see a similar survey in 28 but absolutely okay um it is my favorite thing, by the way.

Okay.

It shows you y'all did a great job with it so uh this one I'll say 18,000 people.

Um to what do we attribute the the eight percent response rate?

Is that what you all would have expected based on what you've seen in the past or other cities in the county, what their response rate is when they're getting when they're sending out community surveys.

Where are we at?

So let me just say it just keeps getting better.

Uh 2020, we had 300 and ish responses that was done by an outside entity.

Uh 20, I'm sorry, 2022.

2024, we brought it in-house, increased the responses, went up to 836.

This year, I don't even think we needed to leave the survey open for a month because we got responses in so quickly, ended up with the 1509 um responses, completed responses.

Um we don't take partials, you have survey abandonment, things like that.

So 1509 factored into our findings.

Um that's a I'm I'm thinking of of other surveys that I'm done.

I mean, that is that's a that is a good response rate, and and really what matters most to me, um, and response rate does play into that, but that we have a statistically valid survey that I can say with 95% certainty this applies to our entire population by plus or minus, and um 2022 it was six per six points plus or minus.

Last year it was three point, I believe four, and this year we're at two point five.

And so that to me is really what matters most.

Do you know how we stack up against other cities in the county when they're sending out their surveys?

And I don't expect you to have to know off the top of your head, so I'll I will accept I'll get that for you, but I'd be curious that no other cities send out surveys as well.

Yeah, I will get that for you.

Okay, um, we've got um we sent out the survey in English and Spanish.

Correct.

What was the response rate uh in Spanish?

Very low.

Um well response rate.

You can't quite plug it in, but we we got nine completed surveys in Spanish.

Um that's not a lot, but we have it and people take advantage of it, which means that's the preferred language they they want to respond in, and and for that I'm um I'm happy with with that we have that available in Spanish.

I'm curious as to how we can get a better response rate from our Spanish-speaking brothers and sisters.

Um uh Hispanic Dentonites make up almost 25%.

So in the future I'd certainly love to see that that number higher.

And the last question I want to talk about um dealing with homelessness.

We talked about um the the most pressing concern that folks believe that we need is is inclement shelter.

Um Miss City Manager, you send out statistics to us when we have inclement weather, um, based on availability of beds and in our shelter, correct?

Yes, is that made public?

Is that anywhere?

Yes, we put it, I believe it we put it on the website.

Oh, I'm sorry, in the Friday report.

We publish it in the Friday report.

Um going forward when we get to inclement weather, particularly in the in the heat of the summer.

I'm curious as if we can't maybe try to do something different, maybe link it to the website um weekly, um, maybe on the social media.

Uh looking at this statistic, we have inclement housing and and beds available for people, but clearly that's not penetrating the community.

So I'm curious to see is if we can put that information out more in a more readily accessible way so that people will know we do have, in fact, uh shelter available for people during income and weather.

We we can do that.

We do have a scorecard that's available on the website, but we can work on making it maybe more prominent so people can find it and see it.

And may I add during periods of inclement weather, rather than that being up that data is updated monthly for the scorecard during inclement weather, it is updated daily, and that is a special scorecard that is made available during that time period.

Okay, uh, thanks for all you've done with the survey.

Thank you, Amy.

Anyone any other questions for that?

Representative from district one.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the phenomenal survey.

Really appreciated reading over it.

Um, I I want to piggyback off of Councilman McGee's uh second point about the demographic response rate.

Um, it's a little concerning.

I know we're doing everything we can, uh, but you know, the fact that our black response rate and multiracial response rates about half of what it should be.

The Latino response rate's about a quarter of what it should be.

Uh, was this the first year we've offered it in Spanish or if we've offered it in Spanish in years prior for the community survey?

Um I don't know that I can speak to before I arrived here, but last year, last 2024 it was available in both English and Spanish.

Gotcha.

And is there any way we could you know improve our outreach to those minority communities to help improve the you know accuracy of our uh community survey at all, or are we trying anything new in years to come or I think we can certainly do that?

It's a random selection, but I have seen where cities do post on their website to alert people that they may receive that invitation to respond, but I will certainly work with Mark on on that.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Any other questions for Seth?

Seeing none.

Uh then to conclude.

I did I didn't see a definition.

Can you help me with a definition for transportation system?

The transportation system is our lights, um, our roadway signage, our road.

It's it's it is um, it's separate and apart from DCTA?

Yes, yes, that's so there's another section that asks about ease of transportation, transportation system in itself is our our lights and how we manage that system, particularly during um peak traffic times.

Perfect.

To follow up on a question earlier, are you able to kind of discern between infrastructure frustration and construction fatigue?

Are you able to read through that and in the data?

Um we have feedback on that.

We have community feedback on that.

I can certainly get a um summary specific to that question from within the system.

Um a lot of it really does have to do with growth and congestion and and with development.

There's a tie-in with that as well as with the development of multifamily housing and concerns with the impact of that on our infrastructure.

Um, that is a key key concern for our community.

And another level to that, upon just thinking about your answer, uh maybe in the next survey it's worthy to parse that out and ask that person if they respond to that frustration, how long they've been here, right?

Because if you've been here long enough, you circumvent things.

If you've not if you're new, you you stay on the beaten path and you're frustrated where I'm just gonna cut through, right?

And so I'd be curious to know if there's a way to kind of if you're new to town or not, or you know, if you know how to the work the the other streets to navigate that or not, so for what it's worth that that may be a thought.

Uh and then the data on major the it was as a major problem homelessness dropped.

Can you read into that to see if that is tied to the number, the total number estimated homeless dropping as well?

Are those correlated?

You do you believe?

I'm not sure that I can make that correlation.

Um, honestly, it's a is it was a six-point drop, which is statistically significant, um, but I'm not sure that I can make that direct correlation.

Okay, I was just curious.

Um, and then affordability.

Are we using the numbers that Billy uh not Billy uh that Jesse um provided us a few few months back as far as affordability for the specifically for the city that didn't, or just their the person completing the surveys feeling of affordability based on their lived experience?

It's it's the perception of the individual completing it based on their thoughts around the availability of quality affordable housing.

Okay, and when was the survey done?

It was done February 18th to March 18th.

That's interesting.

Because that that would have been about the time, certainly in the middle of time where everything's frozen.

There's no there's no rent increases going on.

Where it was year-to-year increases, but because of the supply and demand issue, it's been pretty static around around that during that time.

Matter of fact, someone said that during the meeting last week.

So that's interesting.

Okay, thank you.

Um, and then I have to guess the policing side of things is just a staffing, part of it is a staffing issue, right?

Being able to cover everything we need to cover with the staffing, and I'm assuming as we work on that, that'll come online.

And then lastly, uh the homelessness as an issue, I think that's a that's another conversation for this council to have.

And for what it's worth, I think it if we're before we publish anything publicly, I'd ask that we have a work session or some kind of direction from the entirety of uh of uh the council for this reason.

Uh we've had to, and it's not it's it's city staff.

We have had to make sure we we're equitable on our announcements of um warming centers coolings because if you just candidly, other cities won't list any availability, and the city of Denton via the the paper, really not us, we're having to fix that.

Uh, but the paper lists every library we have, every fire station we have, and so it gives the perception that if you're experiencing homelessness and it's hot outside, you have to travel to Denton to get in the in the shelter versus Lewisville's 13 hot libraries or whatever they have versus Corinth's library.

You know, it just it it's it we're we're carrying more than our fair share, and so before we go advertise that further, I'd want to have that conversation as a body to say it is a key issue for our community, and I want a record vote of those that are wanting that are not heeding that concern or at least exploring that concern further.

Uh, because we can't save Denton County, cannot.

Uh we have to take care of those that are in our community that we're trying to get um rehoused, put back to work, and and and and those sort of things.

So I I just think it's a healthy conversation to have where the city of Denton wants to be, how much responsibility we want to shoulder and how much we want to put out there advertising people come to Denton uh for your concerns versus if you're in Denton and you have concerns, let us help you.

I think those are two very different messages, and and and I will tell you uh it'll be before your next survey and all those things, but I'm already hearing rumblings because of the um FIFA coming into town that Dallas is cleaning, and and that's gonna put pressure on the city of Denton if if we're not careful.

And again, want to help everyone that's here that we can veterans, all those things, but at the same time, uh we have to do that decent and in order.

So uh my concerns, and I think at some point we're gonna have to have that conversation about how we want to approach those things and how much we want to advertise uh that Denton's the place to be to address those things, and again uh at that point I'll have I have more thoughts, but thank you very much.

Appreciate your your insight.

Thank you.

And we will get together response rates, um, and then infrastructure by the time length of residency in the city because we can segment by that.

So we'll get that to you as well.

Excellent, thank you.

So no closed, right?

Yeah, that's one last question.

Okay, that's fine.

I'll ask one.

Okay, so that that is uh no closed.

We'll we'll reconvene at 6 30.

It is 4 32.

Good evening, welcome to this meeting of the Denon City Council.

Coming in hot.

Man, uh today is uh May 19th, it is 2026 and it is 6.30 p.m.

We do have a quorum show called meeting back to order.

First thing on the gender pledges to the pledge of allegiance to the United States and Texas flag, please stand with me if you're able.

And to the Republic for which it stands one nation, another God, indivisible liberty and justice for all.

Honor the Texas flag.

I don't want to be used to be Texas, one state under God, one increases.

First of what's the Salvation Army appreciation uh from Mayor Hutz?

What's it?

I'll meet you there at the podium.

If you're come down.

So good.

On behalf of the Salvation Army, I'm Major Mark Gillum.

And we'll give you that.

Alright, this is Major Rebecca Gillam and Tiffany Jackson.

And we're just wanted to come and say a big thank you for participating in the uh Red Kettle Merrill Challenge.

And so uh we're here to present this to you to say thank you.

Thank you very much.

And uh you uh I don't know if you remember the day is in December, it was a cool day, but you started off there at Hobby Lobby and you and your team you raised six hundred and twenty-five dollars and ninety-one cents.

Oh man, and so that's a one day.

Super, and uh you're very instrumental in also encouraging other mayors in Denton County and all the mayors together.

We raised uh 14 you all raised uh 14 over 14,000.

And so we appreciate uh your leadership.

We appreciate your example and uh and just encouraging the other mayors to take part.

And we just appreciate uh you because uh you uh champion for the salvation army in Denton County.

And so on behalf of anyone who's received a warm meal uh shelter and uh groceries and just uh uh support uh by the community, we want to say thank you.

Oh thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

What a blessing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Here I'll get that out of the way.

Here we go.

Okay, you came to come down.

Yeah, fly in, please.

No, don't go away.

I do want to.

So how can people help?

How can it be a blessing?

They'll get plugged in and serve and then um I think I spent about 700 at Hobby Lobby that day.

So that's so that's a dangerous place for me to be.

But no, how can people get involved and and support what y'all are doing and serving our community?

And for those that don't know, the city does the best it can, but these nonprofits such as Salvation Army really help us fill in gaps and serve our community in ways that we can't, or it would just help us find people we can't reach or reach people we can't reach.

So and it becomes a force multiplier, so truly a blessing.

But how do people get uh active and and support what y'all are doing?

So if you go uh salvation army uh org, it will you put in your zip code wherever you're at if you're not from the Denton area, but it will point us uh point you to our location and uh during Christmas time we're looking for volunteer groups to go ring a bell and help raise those funds, uh, but it gives all the information there and it tells you where our location is and what we're doing.

Uh and and at Christmas time we're helping um uh thousands of of uh uh young people with angel tree gifts.

And so we thank you for your support and uh thank you for all that you did.

Excellent.

Thank you all very much.

Appreciate you.

Thank you again, thank you, appreciate it.

Great to see you.

Thank you very much.

All right, God bless, thank you.

And the next group, yes, the next group is uh water safety, is that right, is on the on the agenda.

Building safety first.

Thank you.

I wasn't sure which order.

Okay, if you're here for building safety, if you can come down, please and thank you.

All right, you uh tell us what we're recognizing?

Yes, okay, great.

May is building safety month, so that's what we're recognizing today.

Um building safety month is really just geared around trying to bring more awareness of building codes and the need for building codes, the uh reason behind building codes and how they provide a safer place um for everyone to work, uh live, play, and then also uh the just uh sorry, we're blank for a minute.

Also, just like the need for permits and why permits are important.

So, permits are here to protect everyone, not to make requirements harder or anything like that.

So that's what we're here doing today.

Just recognizing building safety month.

Okay, and everyone can introduce themselves, that's all right.

Sure, and yeah, go ahead.

I'll go first.

Yeah, please.

Uh Amber Rogers, building official.

Uh Ryan Hartley, deputy building official.

Joanna Stevens, permit technician supervisor.

Josh Amlin, Chief Plans Examiner.

Uh Charlie Rosendal, Director of Development Services.

Great.

Thank you.

And and just how many how many permits are we talking about for the city of Denton?

Or just kind of what's a what's a measurement that they kind of give us a scope and scale?

Sure.

In one year, we issue about 10,800 permits.

Wow.

Wow.

Goodness.

Well, thank you all very much.

I sure appreciate it.

Um and so we have a proclamation, and it reads a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton, Texas, to all whom these presents shall come greetings.

Whereas the safety of our communities' buildings and well-being of their occupants are paramount concerns for the city of Denton.

And whereas our confidence in resilience of our buildings is achieved through devoted construction professionals who ensure implementation of the highest quality codes and standards to protect us in buildings where we live, learn, work, and play.

And whereas each year in observance of building safety month, we encourage, we encourage commitment to improved building safety and economic investment at home and in the community.

And by adhering to the and by adhering to the safest standards and regulations, we contribute to a safer and more resilient community for everyone.

Now, therefore, I, Gerard Hutch with Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, do hereby declare and proclaim May 2026 as building safety month in the city of Denton.

If we can give them a hand.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yes, you are great to see you.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate all you do.

Okay, and next there is we're gonna recognize Denton Reveal Preservation Month.

If you're here for preservation month.

Hello.

Oh, I love it.

Why is everyone doing this?

Yeah, I didn't I didn't pass balancing class.

It's rough out there.

Okay, so uh well, it makes it easy though.

So thank y'all.

So you can tell us what we're recognizing and give your name, and then we'll we'll uh let everyone induce it.

Thank you.

Of course.

Hi everyone, my name is Cameron Robertson.

I'm the historic preservation officer for the city of Denton.

Um, this evening we are recognizing Denton Revealed, uh, which is our fifth annual month-long series of events for recognizing National Preservation Month here in Denton in Denton County.

Um it's a collaboration between the Denton Public Library, um, the County Denton County Office of History and Culture, as well as uh City of Denton.

Um we've had nine events um happening during the month of May.

Um currently we've had seven.

We've had over 290 attendees across those seven events, um, which has been amazing, which have included walking tours, cemetery tours, lectures, workshops, um, and we still have two more events.

Uh we have our Denton uh vintage short film fest next Friday, uh May 29th at UNT Collab from starting at 6:30.

We're gonna be showing some vintage short films that happened in the city of uh Denton, and then um on Saturday, we will also have a spring jubilee at the Gibson Grant um property in the town of Flower Mount.

So as you can see, it's both in the city and across the county and we are happy to hear um to celebrate Denton history uh my name's Dallan Theresi I'm in the special collections department at the Denton Public Library I'm Kim Cupid I'm the curator for collections for the Denton County Office of History and Culture and um with Kelsey Gistel who's not here um we are the Denton Review team and then we have our lovely assistants and our sponsors well and I am Pat Sherman I serve as a commissioner on the Historic Landmark Commission.

Hi I'm Kristen Kendrick Bigley Director of the UNT Collab and president of the downtown Denton Foundation Other Kristen Kristen Polito Main Street Program Manager for the City of Denton Charlie Rosendal Director of Development Services Planning Director Angie Mangleris assistant planning director Ashley X that associate planner shown Jacobson senior planner thank you thank you very much I always forget do you need a passport to go to Flower Mill?

I don't get out of Denton much do you it's uh yeah there you go there you go there I know it was something like that I could not remember well thank you all very much for for the work you do and recognizing that history is such an important part of what what we do and uh learning from those and and sharing experiences so appreciate all y'all do and so we have a proclamation and it's a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton Texas to all whom these presents shall come greetings where whereas the National Trust for Historic Preservation establishes May as preservation month in 1973 to promote historic places for for purposes of instilling national national and community pride promoting heritage tourism and showing the social and economic benefits of historic preservation and whereas the city of Denton and Denton County are celebrating preservation month with a series of events called Denton Revealed Preservation Month 2026 and whereas Denton Revealed has instilled instilled awareness of locally significant buildings landmarks and historic districts over the past five years and continues to celebrate the role of history in our lives and contributions made by dedicated individuals to help preserve the heritage that has shaped our Denton community now therefore our Gerard Hudson with mayor of the city of Denton Texas do hereby declare and proclaim May 2026 as Denton Revealed Preservation Month 2026 in the city of Denton if we give them a hand.

Thank you and I do have a question what kind of oldest or where you find most of the history or older buildings in Denton what what part of Denton is that traditionally so most of our older buildings are within the 288 loop so a lot of them are located west of Carroll Boulevard so we have our Oak Hickory Historic District we have our West Oak Area Historic District but we also have a lot of older neighborhoods also southeast of downtown and southeast Denton but also near the TWU campus.

Got it okay thank you okay so we're gonna need to balance out uh on on this end for the picture.

Awesome thank you very much I appreciate it thank you.

Appreciate it all right and next in our last record recognition is water safety.

If you're here for water safety, if you can come on up, please.

Hello.

Okay.

Awesome.

All right.

You'll sh tell us what we're recognizing, and then we'll let everyone introduce themselves.

I fell a little short.

No worries.

We are trying to recognize May as Water Safety Awareness Month across the nation.

Cities are doing this all across in the month of May to celebrate and educate water safety.

It's a huge important part of our lives, making sure that all of our families are safe and understand how much fun water can be, but at the same time know how to enjoy it in a safe way and educate by learning how to swim, as well as learning about life jackets, boating safety, water safety, open water safety, all those types of events on the water.

Excellent.

Now, do you does that is that to include like how to recover from a proper belly flop?

No.

Is there a class for that?

Awesome.

If y'all can introduce yourselves, now remember, no pressure, but we have millions of people watching.

This is your chance.

So, and it's archived, so give your name and uh whatever you want to share.

Go right ahead.

And my name is Maria Campbell.

I'm the interim program area manager for Denton.

My name's Haley Belcher, and I've been a lifeguard for four summers.

My name's Chad Mateuse, and I'm a lifeguard.

My name's Rosie Rodin, and I'm also left guard.

My name's Ethan Robertson, and I'm a lifeguard instructor.

My name is Ryan Commedall, and I'm also a lifeguard instructor.

My name is Ian Dalton.

I'm a lifeguard.

My name's Samantha Ormsby, and I am a pool manager.

My name is Eva Faulkner, and I'm a pool manager at the water park.

My name is Eliza Hickman, and I'm a lifeguard instructor.

My name is Bethany Harrison and I'm a lifeguard.

All right.

My name's Kaylee Ennis, and I am a swim instructor.

My name's Alexandra Heidelberger, and I'm a part-time recreation specialist.

My name is Devin Wright, and I'm a LTS coordinator.

My name is Tristan Fairbanks, and I am also an LTS coordinator.

I'm Alison Wing, I'm the interim director of Parks and Recreation.

Ramir Martin, assistant director.

Got it.

LTS coordinator.

Learn to swim.

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

And and and man, I can't believe you're graduating.

That's been, man, that's outstanding.

Tell mom dad I said hello, please.

Thank you.

I sure appreciate them.

Uh so.

Well, and and thank you all.

Like how many visitors do we have over the summer?

Do you know round numbers to either pool, waterworks, all those things?

Is there is there do you have a feel for that?

If not, it's okay.

So no, I mean we usually have about 250,000 that come through.

Wow.

And then we have about 3,000 um water uh water safety lessons.

So we'll learn to swim lessons.

Okay.

Thank y'all very much for that.

So important.

Um evidences in the news is you have those divers that they had to go save and and uh recover, so uh even at our all levels, it's really important to remember those those techniques.

So uh let me make sure I can see the words.

Um there they are.

All right, a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton, Texas, to all whom these presents shall come, greetings.

Whereas swimming and aquatic related activities enhance the physical and mental health of Denton residents, and whereas our citizens understand the essential role that education on water safety plays in preventing drowning and recreation recreational water-related injuries, and whereas the city of Denton is committed to promoting water safety and raising awareness about potential hazards by working together with residents, community members, and organizations to create a culture of water safety for people of all ages and abilities.

Now, therefore, our Gerard Hudson with Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, do hereby declare and proclaim May 2026 as water safety awareness month in the city of Denton and encourage all citizens to promote water safety habits in on and around water to support educational uh initiatives that reduce water related risk.

If we give them a hand.

All right.

All right.

Matter of fact like the role.

Can you all hold that for me?

Thank you all very much.

You appreciate it.

That is y'all also then I have this one as well.

Just in case.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate y'all for the time.

All right.

And selfishly, I will say my uh cousin by marriage, Gavin Hernandez is a new uh lifeguard out there, so I'm pretty pumped about that.

So uh hey Gavin, how are you?

Good to see you.

Kinda, I can't see you.

Um, that concludes our proclamations, takes us to our consent agenda.

I'll take a motion.

Nothing was pulled.

Representative from district four.

I move the consent agenda be passed as submitted.

Representative from district one.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Any discussion?

Seeing none, let's vote on the screen.

That passes 7.0.

Takes us to our next item.

Get there.

So items for individual consideration.

Item five A, which is A two six zero zero zero one.

Consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas regarding a municipal service agreement pursuant to Texas local government code section four three.

Between the city of Denton and COI, Mark and Carolyn Rollins for provision of city services to approximately two point nine four acres of land.

Good evening, Mayor.

Members of council.

Angie Mangler is here to present the Rollins Annexation Municipal Services Agreement.

A little bit of background on this request.

This specific request is considering adoption of a municipal services agreement for approximately 2.94 acres of land, generally located 1,600 feet east of Mayhill Road and north of Mills Road.

Along with this, we will be approving a schedule of annexation.

This is the first of several items in a series for annexation requests.

So just a little bit of background on this specific request.

This property was under a non-annexation agreement.

This agreement did expire in August of 2020.

A new annexation agreement has not been signed.

And so we are pursuing annexation of this particular property.

It looks like a accessory building, and there are no utilities currently serving the subject property.

As part of the municipal services agreement, we do have all of our departments review it and confirm that we can provide city services that any property within the city receives.

So that's what we would be approving as part of this agreement.

We're also approving the annexation schedule, which is in accordance with both Texas state law as well as the city charter.

So this evening we will have four items.

Happy to answer any questions you all may have.

Thank you very much.

Questions for staff?

Seeing none, representative from district five.

Mayor, I will uh move approval.

August uh 2020 is a long time, so it's time to give a vote on this.

And if you'd like, I'm happy to uh move approval on all of them.

Okay, yes.

And representative from district one.

Second.

We have a motion and a second, and and we'll just for because do you have a separate presentation for each of them?

Okay, got it.

Okay, thank you.

Um then no other discussion.

Seeing none, let's vote on the screen.

That passes 7 to 0.

Takes us to item B, which is A261001A.

Consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas regarding the issuance of a service plan pursuant to Texas local government code, section 43.056 for property owned by COI, Mark, and Carolyn Rollins for the provision of City Services, approximately 2.94 acres.

Thank you, Mayor.

Members of Council, Angie Manglaris, Assistant Planning Director.

This is um, my apologies.

Approval of a service plan for the Rollins annexation case.

Again, this is 2.94 acres of land.

It is generally located 1600 feet east of Mayhill Road and north of Mills Road.

Um, and in pursuant to Texas local government code.

Specifically when this uh original non-annexation agreement was signed in 2012.

Uh, we are taking action to issue a service plan.

This is additional explanation as to how full municipal services will be provided to the city upon its um eventual annexation into city limits.

It was reviewed by all of our relevant departments confirming that we can extend uh the same services that are in city limits to this particular property.

This is the second of four items this evening, and this one does require action as well.

Um following this, we'll have the public hearing in the first reading.

I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have.

Thank you very much.

Representative from district five.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

There's a pond on this property, is that right?

Some type of pond or a little pond.

There may be a pond.

I know there is an accessory structure located on it.

Um, there may be a small detention pond as well, yes.

Okay.

Okay, and you still have the floor if you want to make your motion.

Yes, mayor, motion approval.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Representative from district two, second.

We have a motion.

We have a motion and a second.

Any other discussion?

Seeing none, let's vote on the screen.

That passes seven to zero.

Takes us to our public hearings.

First of which is 6A on your agenda, and it is A26001B.

Hold a public hearing and consider a petition for voluntary annexation.

Approximately 2.94 acres of land generally located 1,671 feet east of Mayhill Road and north of Mills Road.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council.

Angie Manglaris, assistant planning director.

This is A261B.

This is the public hearing for the Rollins annexation.

Um, so in accordance with um Texas local government code as well as our city charter, we do hold a public hearing for annexation cases.

So we will be holding a public hearing for approximately the annexation of 2.94 acres of land, generally located 1600 feet east of Mayhill Road and north of Mills Road.

Uh currently there is no zoning on the subject property as it is not in city limits.

Um there is a variety of zoning districts surrounding this, including rural residential, some R6, as well as public facilities to the south as far as the future land use goes.

Uh, it is kind of split.

There is both moderate residential and low residential future land use on the subject property.

This is the third of four items this evening.

Uh following this, we will conduct the first reading of the annexation ordinance into the record.

I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have.

Okay, and confirming no action required on this one.

Correct.

Okay, and I'll open a public hearing.

It is a public hearing.

You can fill out a card and speak.

Uh you can speak and then fill out a card after the fact if you'd like.

If not, I'll close the public hearing and uh then any questions for staff.

Seeing none, that concludes item six A takes us to item six B.

And that is PD 26001B.

Hold a public hearing, consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas regarding a change in zoning district and use classification from residential 7 R7 district to overlay planned development PD district with a mixed-use neighborhood base zoning district of approximately 0.786 acres of land, generally located on the northwest corner of the intersection of Jago Street and Scripture Street in the city of Denton.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, members of council.

Sean Jacobson, senior planner here to present PD 261B, the 1716 Scripture PD overlay.

So this is a request rezoned from R7 to a PDM overlay.

This is on a.786 acre property, north side of Scripture Street at that corner of Scripture Street and Jago/slash Malone, which we've all seen the street that changes names three times.

This request would establish an MN-based zoning district on the property, and then would add to that uh one provision, which is that any multifamily development in the future would require a specific use permit.

So it's essentially an MN zoning district, but with that one change, which key requirement uh for development of multifamily there that exists on the property today under the R7 zoning.

Staff is recommending approval of this request as it does comply with our standards within the DDC.

Existing conditions, there is a commercial building existing on the lot now, and the applicant has indicated no intention of changing that.

They're more looking just to have additional our options for commercial development of that existing building.

Surrounding land uses are commercial to the east-west and southeast, so kind of that commercial node there at the intersection with some residential to the north and southwest.

This would meet our uh standards for a PD and rezoning.

The requirement for the SCP would provide for that additional review to minimize potential adverse impacts, and this does comply with our future land use map.

So overall, this is meeting our criteria for approval.

Future land use here is neighborhood mixed use, which is really intended for predominantly residential, but to include local serving non-residential retail and service uses, which this zoning change is intended to facilitate more of those local serving commercial uses.

So that does comply with our comprehensive plan's goal to have that infill development to maintain and strengthen commercial and employment areas and to support a fiscally advantageous land use pattern.

So this is where we already have that infrastructure.

We just want to continue to see that area do well.

It also aligns with the recommendation of our Oak Gateway area plan, which included encouraging more businesses in the Scripture Street area that are walkable and in scale with the area, so overall consistent with our future land use plan and our comprehensive plan.

We always want to make sure that we're minimizing adverse impacts, so that SUP requirement really to make sure that if there was ever a desire to redevelop this to multifamily, that it would go through that additional scrutiny of the SUP process.

There's also additional requirements within the code that limit significantly any height increase that could incur without significant oversight.

This is also an intersection where there's quite a bit of MN zoning around it.

It's been there for as long as MN zoning has existed.

It's also an area where there's been commercial in the area for longer than I've lived here in Denton.

There's always been you know grocery store, pharmacy, etc.

That's kind of the intent of this intersection.

So this would be in keeping with what is existing in the area.

We did our standard public outreach.

Uh there was a neighborhood meeting.

There was one attendee at the second one, asked some questions, express no opposition, we received no letters and opposition.

Planning and zoning commission recommended approval five to zero, and staff does recommend approval of this request as it meets our criteria.

Happy to stand for any questions.

The applicant does also have a representative here if desired, happy to answer questions if needed.

Okay, thank you very much.

And I'll open the public hearing and recognize representative from district four.

Thank you.

This is a office building currently, is that correct?

Yes, sir.

It was most recently used by UNT for some uh research offices.

Is it occupied currently?

My understanding is currently it is not.

Okay.

There was an interest.

There was a party that had come to them with an interest, specific interest in developing it.

So that's what had triggered this.

That party backed out and they decided to continue with the process just a out of a desire to have more options for commercial development of the building.

And does this back up to multifamily?

Is that is that correct?

Well, it's a multifamily.

Yeah, there's multifamily in the area more across the street.

Okay.

What does it share the the West border with?

There's a small building there that's on fronts on scripture.

What's behind that?

Behind the office building.

Um have to check.

I believe that is.

Honestly, I'm not sure in that direction.

All right, very good.

Very good.

Thanks, Sean.

Uh representative from district two.

Thank you so much.

Um, I know you said that the reason for the reclassification was just wanting broader options.

Was there like a precipice that made them desire to apply for this?

So again, I think they had been approached by a specific uh use that was interested in occupying it, and that would have required the zoning change once it was started.

Uh, you know, let's continue this.

This would give us more opportunities to better serve the area.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Uh any other questions for staff.

Seeing none, representative uh Mayor Pro Tim.

Appreciate it.

This is my district and my neighborhood.

Um, the one attendee that uh that attended the meeting, she did share her thoughts with um some of the neighborhoods, and nobody that reviewed it had any issues either.

So I would like to motion approval.

Okay, thank you.

And uh I'll second.

And if I hadn't I'll close the public hearing just in case I hadn't closed it.

Um representative of district five.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um Sean, got a question for you.

It's Sean, right?

Yes, sir.

I couldn't recognize without the hat.

I didn't know where you were.

Um in the last session, uh a Senate bill got passed that said that multifamily has to be allowed and MN now, is that right?

Or was it commercial?

I just want to make sure this isn't going to put us afoul of that.

No, my understanding is that while there were some provisions that came into place, not all of those applied to us given our current population.

And now, happily, oh, it's because we're not city manager.

You'd like to correct.

It's off the census data, so it's going off of the last census, so we didn't meet the the population threat threshold until the next census.

So when we have the next census, uh and I know that we said that this person doesn't necessarily want to do it, but when we have the next census, this provision to allow uh to uh require an SUP for multifamily will then not be allowed, correct?

Because our city will then heat the uh meet the census population requirement of 150,000.

So we're putting in an SUP requirement for four years, correct?

That won't will no longer be required after the next sentence, correct?

Correct.

Okay, I just want to make sure we all make note of that.

This is an SUP requirement that's only gonna stand for four years.

Okay.

Any other questions for staff?

Seeing that we have a motion and a second.

Uh let's vote on the screen.

And that passes five to one in one recusal.

Okay, that takes us to item six C.

And this is Z two five zero zero one seven A.

Hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, regarding a change in zoning district and use classification from a residential rural residential rural district to a suburban corridor district on approximately 4.37 acres of land generally located on the south side of Hartley Field Road, approximately 580 feet east of East Sherman Drive.

Good evening, Mayor, members of council, Ashley Extet Associate Planner.

This is Z2517A, Denton Stryker.

This is a request to rezone approximately 4.37 acres of land from a rural residential zoning district to a suburban corridor zoning district.

This property was recently annexed at the beginning of this year, and the property owner is seeking to align the zoning with the remainder of the property shown here to the west and the south.

It is also zoned SC.

It is consistent with the future land use map and the zoning purpose statement.

This is the community mixed use future land use in which commercial uses remain predominant and complement and embrace existing viable uses.

The SC district is intended to provide moderate to high-intensity commercial office and retail uses along high traffic corridors.

It is consistent with the criteria for approval.

As stated, it's consistent with the comprehensive plan and the zoning district purpose statement, and it's not expected to generate adverse impacts on environmental infrastructure or fiscal or have adverse impacts on surrounding properties.

Ads were posted in the newspaper and on the website, and a sign was posted on the property.

We mailed out notices to everyone within 500 feet.

We did not receive any responses in opposition or in favor, and the applicant also held a neighborhood meeting on April 6th.

The planning and zoning commission recommended approval 50, and staff also recommends approval as it complies with the criteria for approval, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

Questions for staff, and I will open the public hearing.

Representative from district four.

Thank you.

Do you know what the property owner's intentions are?

They do not have development plans currently.

Thank you.

Okay, it says uh oh uh in uh a public hearing, so it's open to speak, you can speak and fill out a card afterwards if you'd like seeing no movement, I'll close a public hearing, and then I have a question.

I just want to make sure uh that that state highways set to be widened, right?

In the future.

And loop yeah or that is um Sherman.

Um Sherman.

So I did talk to our transportation department about Sherman.

Um, the city is in coordination with the county in Tex Dot to widen Sherman, but there are not any final plans for that right now.

Okay, but eyes wide open, they know I don't think it gets that far to the east, but potentially there they they understand all those things right.

Okay, got it.

Okay.

Uh I'll move approval.

Is there is there a second?

Representative district one, second.

We have a motion and a second.

Any other discussion?

Seeing none, let's vote on the screen.

And that passes 70.

Takes us to our last public hearing, which is item 6D on your agenda, and that's Z26004A, hold a public hearing and consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas regarding a change in zoning district and use classification from rural residential district to residential one district on approximately 3.3 acres of land, generally located on the north side of Chin Road, approximately 1,180 feet east of Ganser Road in the city of Denton, Denton County, Texas.

Good evening, Mayor, members of council, Ashley Exted Associate Planner.

This is Z264A, the Chin rezoning.

This is a request to rezone approximately 3.33 acres of land from a rural residential zoning district to a residential one zoning district.

Um the purpose of this request is to address a nonconformity.

The minimum lot size in RR zoning is five acres.

Since this property is only 3.33 acres, they cannot meet that minimum lot size and cannot construct the single family home.

It is consistent with the future land use and the zoning district purpose statement.

Um, this is the agricultural future land use, which includes large lot residential that continues the present character of the rural areas of Denton.

And the R1 district is intended to preserve existing single family neighborhoods that are compatible with the existing land uses and patterns in the area.

As stated, it's consistent with the comprehensive plan in the zoning district purpose statement.

It's not expected to generate adverse environmental infrastructure or fiscal impacts or have adverse impacts on surrounding properties.

We posted ads in the newspaper and on the website, and a sign was posted on the property.

We mailed out notices to everyone within 500 feet.

We did receive one response in favor shown here on the map in green that totaled 17.58% of the land area within 200 feet.

The planning and zoning commission recommended approval 5.0 and staff also recommends approval.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay.

Thank you.

And uh open and public hearing, and anyone can speak if they'd like and fill out a card after the fact.

And um representative from district six.

Thank you.

Thank you for this presentation.

So this is an area that seems to be getting more interest as far as is what I've been seeing as far as changing hands.

What is the um what do you see as as happening out there?

I see it's close to uh it looks like a uh development, uh, but there's still a lot of the rural residential, and then we also have some ETJ.

Um, what can you tell me about this area and what what do you see happening here?

So most of the homes or most of the homes in this area are already constructed single family homes.

There are a few vacant lots.

There's this one and then one on the other side of Chin Road.

Um, I've also been talking to them.

Um, they will need to go through the same process.

But for the most part, um, the surrounding property is part of um the hills of Denton, which is a master plan community.

So that's mostly what is out there now.

But these this area specifically Chin Road is mostly developed with single family homes already.

Okay, and do we know if there are other homes that are currently non-conforming?

And if so, do we need to communicate that that to them if they are not within the five um five-acre requirement for that rural residential?

I mean, I know that's a default, so it's not necessarily anyone's fault.

Right.

Uh, but it are there.

Sure.

Most of the lots on this street are about the same size, a little over three acres, but any that were constructed in the ETJ before they were annexed into the city, those are legal lots, and um, so they are not non-conforming.

Okay.

So they are they're good.

All right.

Well, I appreciate the answers.

Thank you very much.

Got it.

Judge Holland, I think you're uh not non-conforming as well.

We get you get a jersey.

Soccer jersey for you.

Uh any other questions for staff.

Uh it is open, it is a public hearing.

You're free to speak.

Uh if there's anyone who would desire to do so, you can speak and then fill out a card afterwards.

Okay.

Then I'll close the public hearing and representative from district one.

Move approval.

Representative from district two.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Any other discussion?

Seeing none of the vote on the screen.

That passes 70.

Takes us to item 7A items for individual consideration on the agenda.

7A is A260001c.

Conduct the first of two readings of the ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, annexing approximately 2.94 acres of land generally located 1,671 feet east of Mayhill Road on North Mills Road in this into the city of Denton, Denton County, Texas.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council.

Angie Manglaris, assistant planning director.

This is A261C.

This is the first reading for the Rollins annexation.

So this is the first of two readings that we will conduct for the annexation of approximately 2.94 acres of land.

As a reminder, this property is approximately 1,600 feet east of Mayhill Road and generally located on the north side of Mills Road.

The property owner does have an expired non-annexation agreement, and we are pursuing annexation at this time.

This is the fourth of four steps this evening.

Following reading of this ordinance, the entire annexation ordinance will be published in the paper.

It will come back for a second reading and adoption of the annexation ordinance in July.

So now I will read the caption into the record.

This is an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, annexing approximately 2.94 acres of land, generally located 1,671 feet east of Mayhill Road, north of Mills Road, into the city of Denton, Denton County, Texas, providing for a correction to the city map to include the annexed land and providing for a savings clause and an effective date.

I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have.

Thank you very much.

Any questions for staff?

No, and in no action, right?

Correct.

Perfect.

Okay, great.

That takes us to item 7B.

Which is ID 260751.

Consider adoption of the ordinance of the city of Denton, a Texas Home Rural Municipal Corporation authorizing a city manager, execute a cut a construction manager at risk contract with steel and freeman inc for construction phase for construction services of the Linda McNat Animal Care and Adoption Center project for the Capitol Projects Department.

And good evening, Mayor.

Good morning, Council.

I'm Christine Stewart, construction project manager.

I am here to present the 2023 bond program.

Renovation of the Linda McNett Animal Care and Adoption Center.

This is for a construction manager at risk contract.

The project scope includes a expansion of 900, I'm sorry, 9,000 square feet.

We will be triplicating our veterinary clinic services, going from 1,000 to 3,000 square feet.

We're adding 19 additional parking spots, five additional play yards, and uh plethora of upgrades for staff and animal services.

Includes the cost of work, a contingency for the construction manager, risk contingency as far as marketplace flux fluctuations, uh construction fee, other various fees, and then um some alternate items that we were able to negotiate into the contract.

Our project schedule we are looking to get started as soon as possible, so uh May or June.

The construction timeline will be about 12 months for that 9,000 square foot addition.

And then upon completion of that, we'll move into phases two and three simultaneously to renovate the existing facility.

Um we're looking at an estimated completion of November 2027 that makes a total of 18 months of construction.

Staff recommends approval of a contract with the city of Denton and Steel and Freeman Incorporated in the not-to-exceed amount of 17,546,956 dollars.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh representative from District 5.

Thanks, Mayor.

Couple questions.

So we're paying for this with bond money that was voted on and approved by the voters, correct?

Yes, sir.

That bond was 15 million, right?

Yes, sir.

Where's the the rest of it?

So we brought to council.

Um where I'm going with this is yes, I know it's more fun.

So as we've seen with the completion of previous um bond items, we've had to come back and ask for more money.

Are we gonna have to come back and ask for more money?

I know we don't know.

So why aren't we just overestimating a bit to make sure we capture it all now?

That question makes sense.

Sorry, Seth.

Yeah, great question.

Seth Garcia, Director of Capital Projects.

Um, so it was December of 24 that we came back to council and asked for an additional 4.5 million dollars uh to go towards this project.

Uh I think when the bond was originally anticipated, we did not do a thorough job of investigating all that needed to be done with the renovation of the building.

So when we actually got in there, we were still dealing with market fluctuation with prices.

We also found a lot of scope that needed to be changed.

So through our CMAR process, we really leveraged our design partners and our CMAR partner to ensure we can meet the intent of what that bond program was and get within the schedule and budget that we communicated in December of 24.

So with this project, we have about a half million dollars worth of contingency built into the GMP.

We also have some money that's remaining that was not charged to building fees, so we have a small contingency outside of the contract as well, but we're pretty fairly confident that we're not going to exceed the budget at this time.

Okay.

Uh at the time, and I believe Mayor Protima, I think you were on the bond committee, right?

I remember this being discussed in in bond community um in the bond committee.

Why didn't we ask for more at that time?

Why because I mean the committee discussed it.

Correct.

I so I don't know the specifics on why.

I think going forward, future bond programs, we will do a better job of getting to some sort of schematic phase in investigating so we can vet out those costs a lot better prior to taking that to vote, so we don't have to come back and ask for additionals.

Again, we I think we had roughly two and a half or three months to put together costs uh based off of zero percent design and just a few walkthroughs of the building with some estimates for what facilities around the DFW Metroplex had been built within the past couple years.

Um does this contractor have experience building animal shelters?

They do.

They just got done with Steel and Freeman.

Gainesville?

Mansfield, okay.

Yeah, and they do have uh various ones.

So we go through an RFP process to select them.

They did have pretty extensive animal services experience.

And last question for Nikki, if I might, Mayor.

Yes, sir.

Nikki, as you're coming up, I know that we're gonna have to do some relocating of the animals.

And uh we are about to enter summer fireworks season.

So what does relocation of the animals mean?

And when we get around 4th of July time, are they going to be relocated to a place that provides them some noise protection?

Or were they gonna be relocated after 4th of July?

Like I'm trying to figure out noise protection for the dogs in particular.

Sure.

Nikki's assassiness director of animal services uh construction is going to begin in May or June, I guess, at this point.

But the addition is going to happen first, so we will not be relocating any animals until the year after that.

And so when we go into, I guess, uh June of 27 at this point, we will have the new additions, so we'll be able to move them into the new housing spaces.

So that with the sound buffering and the plans that we have put in place for the architect, there shouldn't be any uh additional impacts from fireworks.

Thank you, Nikki.

Thank you, Mayor.

Representative from district two.

Yeah, thank you.

Um, one question uh about the RFP itself, because just because I was looking through the backup material and I probably just didn't look through it well enough.

But how many people um bid on this?

Yeah, so um the first step, the pre-construction, I think we had nine or ten um CMARs that bid on it.

When we actually went out, so the CMAR has to follow chapter 2269 that publicly bids all major work categories.

I want to say we had over a hundred and forty uh or a hundred and thirty subcontractors that bid on all the individual work packages.

Okay, and then the the CMAR essentially takes all of those and puts them into the guaranteed maximum price.

Okay so that amount that you're seeing for the total cost of work is all of the subcontractor packages totaled into one package.

Okay, awesome.

Thank you.

You bet and then uh the qu I I had a question uh for the city manager if that's okay.

Just because uh council member McGee had talked about the uh increase of cost of the project and some of it's gonna come from the general fund.

I'm new to this job, so I just want to make sure I'm um I'm learning as I go, that additional amount has been accounted for, correct.

Yeah, the additional amount is actually coming from certificates of obligation that we've already sold.

Um, so council approved that.

And so that it's it's another form of debt, but it'll be paid out of the INS rate from the the tax rate.

Okay, perfect.

Thanks.

Okay.

Any other questions for staff?

Seeing none, representative from district six.

Um, yes, I I'm just uh want to say um I'm just it's a it's an exciting day.

Uh this has been years in the making.

This is something that the citizens voted for, saying this is where we want to invest.

Um, I love animals and our city loves our animals, and so uh with this HVAC expansion, the facility expansion, uh all of the upgrades being done to accommodate volunteers.

Uh the bond was voted on in 2023, uh, started moving forward in January of 2024, and so uh today I think is a big step, and I'm um I'm very proud of all of the work that has gone into all of these plans.

You've come to they've come through council multiple times uh for input for questions and um for those that were not uh on council.

Um I'm just it's a very proud day, I think for Denton, and I'm I'm proud to move adoption.

Representative district four.

Go to the shelter and find your new best friend.

I second.

Okay, so we have a motion and a second.

Any other discussion?

And if I could meet you at the podium one more time.

So, we have an elephant for you to remember your your first presentation.

How long have you been with the city?

Two and a half years.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Great job.

And so here you go.

Uh thank you very much.

Great presentation.

Yes, and then we'll we'll get a picture if that's all right.

Yeah, awesome.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

And if we could vote on the screen, and that passes 7-0.

Takes us to item 7 C, ID 260692.

Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton temporarily amending chapter 25 streets, sidewalks, and public places.

Article 5, special events adding division six neighborhood block parties, section 25-252 through 25256 to create a one-year pilot program to establish our application and permitting process for implementation of a streamlined process for neighborhood block parties commencing on June 1st, 2026 and expiring June 1st, 2027, providing a savings clause, providing a serverability clause, providing codification, and providing an effective date.

I have the privilege to be able to present this proposal for the neighborhood block party pilot program.

The goal is to implement a one-year pilot program for the neighborhood block parties with a streamlined requirements.

The current conditions block parties are treated like the large uh scale special events, which require uh requirements a little bit more cumbersome and a cost cost prohibitive.

The proposed uh block neighborhood block party is defined as a residential street closure with 200 or fewer attendees intended solely for the neighborhood residents and not open to the general public.

The proposed block party criteria, said that.

Sorry.

Um the key points.

Sorry, key points.

Uh number one is the stops and clear criteria for distinguishing neighborhood block parties from the largest special events, extend uh reducing the documentation requirements to better match the small-scale nature of the block parties.

Extend the adjust and review the timeline to ensure that the adequate uh that there's adequate in the interdepartmental review process.

Update the fee structure to recover the appropriate administrative cost while eliminating unnecessary charges and then limiting the temporary street closures to low impact areas to minimize the traffic disruptions and uh preserve uh emergency access.

And the table of comparison shows that the fees, the pilot program will replace the current tiered fee structure and the multiple permits with one simple fee of $60 for documentation.

The pilot streamlined documentation will be reduced from 10 to 15 required documents to about four to four to six.

Uh the departmental review from eleven departments to seven departments.

Um the alcohol permit will shift from alcohol requirement from needing city council action to simply following the standard uh TABC.

Traffic control.

The pilot will shift the traffic control from requiring the hired barricade company and the engineering to have the barricades to providing just directly from parks and recreation.

Uh neighborhood notification.

Uh the pilot would change from neighborhood notifications from the property owners to require the signatures from the affected neighborhoods, and also with uh the noise ordinance, the pilot will shift from approving the required city council action to approving by the parks and recreation director.

With the resources guide, we will have a uh neighborhood block party guide that allows for um instruction.

Um the permit application will be online.

You have the temp uh a template for permit checklist as well as examples of uh approved permits and staff is recommending the approval of the one-year pilot program, and this was taken to the community partnership committee uh the recommendations as well as park parks and recreation beautification board recommended approved at 5-0.

Any questions?

Okay, thank you.

Did they in the packet that you get do you get a picture of how to properly and safely execute a keg saying or no?

That's other things.

I was just checking what all is in there.

It's it's not uh exhaustive, but it's it's good.

Uh okay.

Uh Mayor Pro Tim.

I appreciate it.

Um, staff, thank you so much.

This all started because I had a constituent who came to me and said that he had started the process of trying to throw a block party, and it was gonna be about a thousand dollars just for the barricades and the uh traffic control plan and all of that.

So, and I'd heard from another constituent elsewhere in the neighborhood or in a different part of district three um that they had had similar problems.

So I came to staff and said, hey guys, like I'm concerned that we're you know accidentally making these really important community building activities financially infeasible for neighborhoods, and staff took off with it.

Um I really appreciate the work y'all have done.

I appreciate the parks board for supporting it, community partnership committee work the staff did, and to Kevin, who's my constituent who brought this to my attention.

Um, I really appreciate it, and I would like to motion approval.

Okay, representative from district one.

I think we see other cities have similar processes in place for block parties like this, and I think it's a phenomenal idea, and I'm proud of the second.

Thank you.

Uh representative district five.

I'm gonna thank my colleague, I'm picking right when you left off.

What other cities have a process like this for neighborhood block parties?

I'm sorry, could you say last part?

What other cities have a process like this?

Um, you have uh other cities around the DFW, you have um we've seen uh City of Arlington, you have um uh Irvine.

Uh there's uh others up at north as well.

So is our fee structure similar to other cities?

Um our fee structure is similar to other cities.

I'm not sure what their cities are, ours is just being able to try to recover some of the um cost, cost recovery.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Um representative from district two.

Thank you, Mayor.

I I just wanted to say thank you to staff.

I think that this is very cool, uh, especially for the neighborhood I live in because there are so many block parties that do take place.

Anything that we can do as a city that makes community easier is just a very exciting thing.

I don't know if it's possible, but I would love to see in like six to eight months how how many more applications we got.

I feel like I'd I'd just be really interested in seeing that.

Absolutely.

Representative District 4.

But this doesn't start till June first.

Right?

I mean, we can't partake right away.

We got a couple of weeks.

Uh yeah, okay.

Okay.

I guess that's not so bad.

Okay, very good.

Very good.

Thank you.

Invite me.

Okay, we have a motion in a second.

Any other discussion?

Questions for staff?

Cindy and the throat on the screen.

And that passes seven zero.

Takes us to our last uh individual consideration item or uh which is uh D ID, pardon me, seven D, ID two six zero six three two.

Consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas adopting the city uh adopting the city of Denton Vision Zero Action Plan, providing its severability clause and providing an effective date.

I need some help with the item.

It looks like it's not in the list.

Okay.

Steve, can you come out and help us?

Do you recognize that they took down the TVs, gave us new TVs, they're great.

They don't weigh two million pounds anymore.

Yeah, it's uh if this is the list, then uh the item is not in there.

Yeah.

Sometimes you gotta put a quarter in the machine.

Zero six three two, right?

I mean, all the ones here.

And this one?

No, this is parks.

Yeah, like phones that you gotta bang it.

No, this is Vision Zero, so zero six three two.

And you emailed it to us.

Yeah, went through the whole process, yes.

Yeah, did he mean it all in here?

Maybe I'll refresh it.

Good time.

That one, this one, okay.

Okay, good.

That'll be twenty bucks.

I'll give you a tiny how about that.

Good evening, Mayor Council.

Uh for Han Butt, Deputy Director of Transportation Services Division.

Um, I am here to present Vision Zero Action Plan.

This uh study is in uh is recently completed by Transportation Services Division, and it um helped us uh establish Denton's Vision Zero framework in alignment with federal and state guidelines.

Vision zero is a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries while increasing safe uh safe, healthy, and equitable mobility for all.

It provides many benefits to on all levels for the communities.

In particular, in terms of reducing traffic fatalities and injuries, enhancing quality of life in terms of pedestrian friendly environment and promoting active transportation.

It also returns it provides economic benefit benefits as well, in terms of lower health care costs and reduced property damage and increased productivity and commercial spending.

In terms of sustainable and smart urban planning, it also provides benefits in terms of sustainable transportation choices such as walking, cycling, and public transport.

When it comes to Denton's vision zero process, we followed the safe system approach, which hinges on five pillars of safety, including uh safer people, safer vehicles, safer speeds, safer roads, and post crash care.

And it also uh was uh uh this whole process was influenced by core principles, which were aligned with uh ideas such as death or serious injuries are uh are not accept are uh unacceptable.

And then humans typically make mistakes and uh humans are vulnerable, and so we must plan around those considerations.

Then we also looked into responsibility side of things, that it is a shared responsibility, it is not just uh drivers, it uh is the responsibility of all users to be safe.

And uh, and then finally we uh looked at safety as a proactive uh initiative where we would look into data driven approach instead of just using assumptions or our uh vague uh approaches, we looked into data and uh made our choices and decisions for the framework, vision Denton's Vision Zero framework based on uh the data.

And then finally, the redundancy is uh another important aspect where in many cases we cannot have costly interventions immediately.

So that should not mean that we would not be able to provide those safety improvements, but we would just try to figure out what is the backup plan and have those in our pocket.

A good example would be uh Swiss cheese uh model that we followed that approach, is where we have these pillars lined up.

And if all of them, all of these pillars, including safe people, safe vehicles, and speeds, and the list goes on.

If they fall, if all of them fall, then we have fatalities and serious incapacitating injuries.

And if some of them prevail, that means that we have some way of uh improving safety, and we still have some safety mechanism in there in the road network.

With that, we uh kicked off uh our vision zero process, and the first step was to establish a vision zero uh Denton Vision Zero Task Force.

We had a we established a task force.

This is also a federal requirement, it's a state requirement.

It's it's a guideline that we must follow because uh the process essentially uh and this establishing vision zero task force ensures that we have uh stakeholders, we have participants from different uh public agencies and uh key stakeholders in the region are participating in the decision making process, and that's what happened.

We established the task force.

Our task, vision zero task force has uh members, uh as council members are part of that, including uh council member Jester, Mayor Pro Tam, and then Commissioner Provet and the former council member Bird was part of uh our Vision Zero Task Force, and then we have um uh Denton County and then DCTA and uh on uh agency size, Text TOT is part of that uh task force as well, and then key staff from City of Denton.

Another objective that we achieved through this study was to align ourselves with the timelines uh where federal processes when we go for external fundings.

Uh, those processes and or per se for state as well, they ask us that what is your vision zero timeline?

When you want to achieve as a city, we want to achieve this target, and that timeline was set as 2050.

That by 2050 we would like to be uh to have zero fatalities.

That's the aim, that's what we are aiming for.

And then by 2035, we would like to see ourselves at 50% reduction.

And so that was also done in alignment with Techstart.

We ensure that we are not um having uh our own tangents, but we were uh totally in alignment with Techstart, and that's what they are doing as well.

We conducted um around six Vision Zero Task Force meetings starting in January 2025, and uh in all of those meetings uh these task force members were consulted on many approaches that we were going to establish as our vision zero framework, and they were well vetted through each one of them.

Uh there were many sessions where we grouped together in different groups and then had strategies discussed.

We explored, we had Explorium touch a truck event as well in May that we uh attended, and then uh there were a lot of uh citizen feedback we got from there.

Community open house was there in July, where uh council member, former council member uh Beck attended, and then Mirportam attended that session as well, and then we got a lot of feedback on that, and then uh from public as well, and then we had online engagement session all the way from May 2025 to October 2025, which was a pretty good session.

Online session was there, and uh we got a lot of feedback from public.

I would provide later in later slide the information about that those sessions, and then finally we had a report which is well thought and well structured, and it is in total alignment with federal and state processes, which means that we will be able to apply for many external fundings.

When it comes to engagement, we had uh uh online engagement session which ran from May 15 to September 18, 2025.

We had uh uh interactive map that provided information, uh, thematic information to users, and they would be able to drag and drop the locations where they feel that there is a problem.

There's a concern, safety concern.

So it was pretty interactive.

And so we had two over 2000 views and then 1588 visits, over 1500 visits, and 609 total contributions, uh, including 516 for map survey pins and 119, 193 written surveys.

They are very important.

They provided us very useful information on what per public perception is and how we need to structure our uh framework, vision zero framework for the city for in-person engagements.

We had six uh uh vision zero task force meetings uh from January 15 to February 23rd, 2026.

And then, as I stated earlier, Explorium Touch a Truck event was there.

Uh, prior prior year attendance in that for that event was 2300 to about over 2002,000.

And then we also did a community workshop with 30 participants and got a lot of feedback on our uh safety process.

Uh as part of this uh study, we also relied uh on crash data analysis.

So there were uh several different types of analytics model we used, and um in simple terms, we figured out last five years of crash data and looked at fatalities and looked at severe uh incapacitating injuries and severe injuries and uh uh and draw and drew conclusions from from there that what it means to us.

And in terms of uh KAB terminologies, uh we had uh around uh 15,000 records that we went through, and then we uh had total crashes in those five years were around 68 or 70, and then crash peaked in 2019, with three thousand over three 3,700 uh total crashes and number of fatalities per 100k population, which is a key index for uh fatalities and uh severity of uh uh safety situation was 10.8, which is slightly higher than similar size communities.

And then while the the curve that we are seeing here on the right side, top right side shows that overall the crash frequency has decreased, but in recent years, uh the crash frequency has decreased.

But KAB wise, if we look at KAB, uh the severity has increased.

So that's uh that's a concern which uh we are basing our future uh uh processes on, and we are aiming to reduce these fatalities and severe injuries as much as possible by 2035 to 50 percent and by 2050 to zero.

As part of the process, uh another major uh component of this study was developing high injury network for any federal external grants, federal or state, when we go to these stakeholders and request for funding, they ask us that where is your uh high injury network, where are the hotspot analysis?

And so basically, what this high engine network does, it provides us uh on our road network, Denton's road network provide us the road segments with higher density of uh fatalities and serious incapacitating injuries.

So basically, in at it in many of those roads that we have, when we look at Denton's map, we get these red lines after our analysis was done, and we were able to identify 10 miles of corridors, these red lines, where we have high density, high occurrence of uh fatalities and uh severe injuries.

But it means that it is a powerful tool for us to just go directly to these locations and start making interventions, road safety interventions instead of just guessing or instead of uh uh making assumptions, we have a methodic process now where we have short-listed projects and we will be able to one by one start uh uh develop doing interventions in those at those locations.

And uh so from network wise, this these red lines present 10% of the road network of Denton.

And but they encompass 70% of fatalities and severe injuries in the indenton.

So this is how important it is.

And then lastly, this when we make a reference of this methodic process of developing high injury network in our federal grant application, um, there is no further evidence needed because the process itself tells about the uh how we came to this conclusion.

And then in addition to high injury network, we also, as part of this study, we also developed uh established six corridors based on high injury network locations.

We established six uh high injury corridors.

Uh these corridors are the ones where we'll be uh spearheading for road safety improvements because these are the uh pain points, these are the critical corridors where we have to make interventions.

So uh these six corridors are where we are starting our comprehensive road safety audits, we are doing ADA assessments, we are doing uh traffic operation optimization assessments, traffic flow characteristics assessments, all of those things will be done there, and our CIP fundings will be allocated to these projects.

And then last but not least, we also uh developed countermeasures.

So based on these observations, we found out that uh we must come up with some strategies that could be developed immediately that could uh uh those interventions could be there for us to deploy when we start looking into these improvements.

Some of these countermeasures are listed here.

Um we uh use the highway safety manual based approach approach which relies on crash modification factors.

Without going into the depth of crash modification factors, it simply is a mathematical tool where it says uh after all those calculations, we get the ratio, and that ratio this is listed as CMF 0.29, 0.31 and all those numbers.

Uh so for as an example, roundabout from uh first uh third sixth row roundabout is 0.59.

What it means is that according to the CMF clearinghouse, a roundabout has a CMF of 0.59.

If a signalized intersection is removed and we introduce a roundabout as a safety measure, it will give us reduction of 41 crashes.

So that's how effective it would get.

So in the nutshell, we are trying to use different action items uh that uh are provided in the study that are based on six pillars and uh also the principles that we are using.

And we are listing them not only by category tie, but we are listing them as an action as emphasis area and also the time frame that it would require to implement.

And then also we are we have suggested implementation partners.

For example, do we need to coordinate with Techstore, Denton County?

Who would be the coordination partners in there?

And then we also have provided action matrix.

It's a pretty comprehensive matrix that provide 43 actions in total.

And then they uh each of these actions is designed to reduce severe crash risk, improve multimodal safety, and advanced behavioral operational and engineering solutions.

They will also assist in building towards a city wide culture of safety.

And then we have actions by pillar as well, and they are listed in the industry.

We uh partner with uh a lot of uh agencies uh here.

Uh looks like two slides are still missing in there, but I'll complete it anyway.

Uh we partner with multiple agencies, including Tex Dot, uh Denton County, both universities, and then uh DCTA and then key staff from city and from different departments.

So it was not just transportation services.

Uh for our vision zero task force, um, there were multiple departments and multiple agencies sitting around the table and providing their opinion, and each one of their opinion was counted in the process.

And then the second thing is that we are uh we are looking at vision zero target, trying to achieve that by 2050, but we have 2035 as our first aim, and then before 2035, we are doing some intermediate uh improvements.

Uh, we are already we have started that process.

And uh last, we have uh, since we have already presented to the mobility committee, staff recommend uh adoption of this plan because this will not only help us um uh you know uh take it as a strategy, Denton's strategy for safety improvements, but also it opens doors for millions of dollars of federal and state funding that we will be able to apply and rely on this plan.

Whenever we will apply, we'll be able to attach this adopted plan by the council.

Thank you very much.

I'll be happy to address any questions.

Thank you.

Representative from district six.

Um hi, uh thank you, Dr.

Bud.

Um, I don't have a question.

Um I just wanted to uh make a couple of comments.

Uh, first, uh, I don't know if you saw the work session earlier today, but we had a community survey that was conducted, and the number one concern, the number one focus that our citizens wanted were uh included streets and and transportation.

Uh so this is exactly what our citizens are saying.

Please be paying attention to this.

With that, this has been over a year and a half working on this.

It's been an incredibly collaborative process, which is good, but is also difficult with all of the different components.

Um, and like I said, a council member former council member bird, council member, and myself uh were uh lucky enough to get to participate in the uh vision zero committee, and through that we just uh I learned so much, and and you've got uh certain portions that talk about how this type of work not only reduces traffic fatalities and injuries but also enhances quality of life for those in the neighborhoods, uh increases economic benefits and uh sustainable smart urban planning.

These are it encompasses so much more than just traffic flows and traffic safety, it affects so many different areas of our community.

Um, and then of course, especially, not especially, but it does very much, as I understand from uh not only speaking with you and staff, but also through the North Texas COG and Regional Transportation Uh Council that this does very much increase our ability to uh apply for certain funds and grants from the federal and state government.

Some of them actually require uh that this process has been gone through.

So I just wanted to say thank you, of course, to all of the participants uh for spending their time.

Uh thank you to staff for this fact-based, not I mean, we do look at perceptions, which is important as far as citizens, but it's it's fact-based uh as far as where these accidents are, uh, the information about how to prevent these and then how to also um deal with them when they happen.

Uh, but I just want to say that you and your staff continue to exceed my expectations in every dealing that I have with you all.

And so with the focus our citizens want uh in these arenas, um I have the utmost confidence in uh the diligent, careful uh and methodical way that uh you and your staff have been uh executing this.

And so um, you know, it this is a lot bigger than just tonight.

This has been a very much long time coming, and I had this much to do with it, but um the information has been really helpful and it sets itself for such success in the future.

Thank you for letting me uh have a couple minutes and um thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, can you give me some examples of uh opportunities for funding that having this in place makes us potentially available to receive if we apply?

Yes.

Uh we have already started the process already in place.

We have uh three applications.

We have first one we made uh was to NCT Cog, TPI, uh transportation project identification, and this project will um uh assess uh technology applications to look at these uh some of these high-NG locations and address those technology deployments.

And this we have already applied that, and no match required for that.

And uh it is 800,000 grant that we have applied, and the announcement will be awards will be sometime in September.

The second one we have applied is um build grant, which is 15 million dollars.

We have applied to it's a federal grant, it has rail components plus safety plus ADA plus uh uh a lot of safety improvement already there.

Then the third one we are applying is um uh SS4A 2026.

Uh by the end of this week, we will submit 12 million dollars funding application to USDOT, and this will be looking at three corridors in Denton, which are part of uh which are recommended by this vision action uh vision zero action plan and also by NCD COG, and we will be able to, if awarded, we'll be able to comprehensively improve those corridors from safety standpoint.

Last, uh we have SS40 2024.

The agreement is at uh City Manager's office and for execution, and as soon as it is executed, we have around 720 improvement of comprehensive safety action plan.

Um I I believe that uh we are working towards implementation side of things.

Uh we last one year was planning, and it was important because federal and state partners they require us to have some planning documentation, a structured process that is in line with their expectations and their guidelines.

We have that now in the form of adoption, uh adoption of this plan.

And once we have that, then we can apply for many other funds.

Okay.

Um can you go to the slide that you have the high injury network on?

That's um seven.

Um definitely not surprised to see McKinney there.

Um glad that all my neighbors who live off McKinney are finally being understood about the traffic nightmare that is going down McKinney toward uh the loop.

But one road I was surprised to see in this network was um locus.

Can you talk to me about Locus?

Yeah, so it's basically the crash data that is providing us information that some kind of um hot spots are occurring at this location and in the last five years, and so based on that, this uh this corridor was identified.

So, why locus and not Elm?

So our criteria is driven by crash data and it goes back to five five years.

And uh L locust must have uh more cases.

I could have I'll have to look into that, but locusts must have more cases and then also more recommendations from Vision Zero Task Force.

I understand that.

I guess I was just wondering to what do we attribute that?

And if you don't know, if you don't have any, if you don't know, I'll accept that.

No, it was, well, I'm not sure.

I don't know right now uh that what was the reason, but the decision makers the the decision process included vision zero task force recommendation plus data and plus previous comments if we have received during the uh a public engagement session.

So it was a composite of that.

It was not just crash data.

Fair enough.

Well, Dr.

Butts, I appreciate your work on this.

I believe you all began this in 2021.

Is that correct?

So is it 21?

21 was phase one.

Okay.

And then this we just started February 2025.

It's cool to still be here uh to get this across the finish line.

So thankful to everyone and staff for uh all their participation.

I look forward to um making Denton Road safer.

Representative in District 4, thank you.

Uh still on slide seven, 10% of roads are are designated deadly, is that what we call them?

Uh high density.

High density, thank you.

That sounds that sounds most but that is is that a lot?

I mean it's compared to other other communities.

Um, is that a lot?

When it comes to this a lot, it has to be context-based again.

So I'm not sure how what we are comparing to.

Okay.

When you say a lot, compared to what?

So I think for Denton, it is 10% of the road segments, and within 10%, we know that 70% is um 70% of the crashes are here.

And fatalities, uh it clearly says that 67% of fatal crashes are on these red lines somewhere.

So the next obvious step, because otherwise, I mean, you know, uh it has to be apples to apples comparison when we are comparing and trying to figure out that what other communities are have.

So in each corridor, the variation of fatalities versus severe injuries would be different.

Some may have more severe injuries and some may have fatalities.

For example, US 380 uh is one of the uh 380 is one of the corridors and uh corridors and it it on certain uh uh points it has more fatalities.

Okay.

And speaking of 380 university drive, 380 is part of this state state highway, but I 35 is not, why is that?

And and it seems to me that I 35 would have the greatest number of fatalities, yes?

It does okay, but it's not included in in 380 is because I 35 is uh text dot and US uh federal federal funds, and uh we are looking at this core, these corridors are mostly city maintained or within the city influencing city intersections and city corridors.

Because imagine if we include text dot corridors, uh, yes, they are that's a useful information for us, but could we uh make an intervention there that's subjective to tax auto approval?

Are the fatalities on I 35 and 35W included in this stat?

No.

Okay.

Um do most accidents in Denton happen during the daytime hours or the evening hours, nighttime hours?

I'm not sure.

Okay, but I can tell you that uh some of the main causes are speed, speeding is one of the causes, um, and then another is uh intersection related accidents.

And that was my next question.

What type of accidents is it?

Because uh uh it seems to me that running red lights is is at an all-time high.

So you have a right angle, uh, a crash where a at least one passenger is particularly vulnerable.

Yeah, so among the factors uh T bones are red line, yeah, red light.

I didn't know if y'all could use that term or not.

Yeah, so red line, red light uh running is another factor.

Okay.

One of the factors as well.

Okay.

So speed, red ride learning, and then intersections-related to extends uh they're all the factors.

Okay, is it reasonable that better better lighting would would would make make roads safer at least at night?

According to crash modification factors, yes, it does.

Okay, okay, thank you.

Yeah, as always, thank you.

Uh, it's always it's always fascinating to look to hear your to hear your take on this sort of stuff.

I appreciate you keeping us safe.

Mayor Protoum.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, this initiative actually was launched in December 2019.

The city council back then directed staff to create a vision zero action plan.

Um so I went to the tech stock crash database to look up uh how many fatalities and serious injuries there have been between you know basically 2020 and now, and there have been 87 people killed in traffic crashes in the city of Denton, 19 of those are on city streets.

Um during that same time, 430 have had uh life-altering injuries from crashes.

117 of those are on city streets.

Um, you know, one death is too many.

That's my opinion for sure.

Um I was proud to serve on the Vision Zero Task Force along with Councilmember Jester, former council member Byrd.

Um we like you said, we had multiple transportation agencies.

Uh we had Denton ISD, I think is maybe one that I can't remember if you said.

Um, and so I mean I want to thank also the the council members that launched this to begin with in December 2019.

So shout out to y'all.

Sometimes things take a while.

Um, but I know part of that was we were trying to do this right.

We were trying to gather the data because we want to have a vision zero action plan that actually it has the impact of reducing traffic fatalities because I know it's not been successful in some places, and that is why we did the earlier phase, I think in 2021.

Um so I appreciate the work that staff has done uh to kind of gear us up to be able to start applying for grants.

I know you've been going after grants like crazy.

Um so I really appreciate the work you've done and the detail that staff have done to start getting some of these fundings funding to start putting some of this stuff on the ground to start saving lives and having a safer community.

So I really appreciate all the work y'all have done, all the support of of this city council, past city councils, the community.

I'm really appreciative.

The SS4A2026 that we are applying, there will be 10 schools for safe route to school projects that we are adding to this grant application.

That's awesome for 12 million dollars.

Mayor Protum, while you have the floor, you can make your motion.

I will happily motion to approve.

Okay, thank you.

Uh, motion and second.

Uh is this representative district five?

Yeah.

Go ahead ahead.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, Dr.

Buddh, based on your uh conversation with Councilmember Holland, Judge Holland.

One more question for you.

Um I believe it was three years ago this council voted to uh reduce a lot of Denton streets by uh speed by five miles an hour.

Um given some of this crash data, can you evaluate the effectiveness of us reducing citywide speeds?

Yes, uh we are uh as uh we have applied for a TPI grant uh at uh uh with uh NCT COG, and a part of that grant would test uh different uh variable speed technologies as well as camera-based interventions to observe, but not archive data, not for citation purposes, but for our methods assessment, we will observe the data, and we will test different uh speed assumptions and see how it impacts.

And then we may test it on one or two corridors, and after that we will discuss that with vision zero task force, the outcomes, and if the decision is that yes, we can comfortably drop the speed, uh we may make the case with state for that.

Because it is state mandated, state we'll have to go to state to make the case for that.

So, based on what this council did three years ago, we don't necessarily know whether or not the vote that we took to lower speeds by five miles an hour has had a drastic effect on improving the road safety in Denton.

Um I'm uh unaware that if there were the speeds were dropped on Denton roads because what my understanding is that they're still 30 miles per hour on residential areas, and then we still are following um uh street section that follows uh functional classification that sticks to so street classification for major arterial or major uh uh primary arterial or uh uh collector, all of those are tied to uh certain speed rules.

So I'm not aware if the speeds were dropped in Denton.

After that, I was not here.

It's before me.

I can check that and uh we can circle back mayor do you remember exactly what we did three years ago dropping speed lists you remember uh there's certain particular areas but to his point you have to get the the state so we maintain our our immunity uh so yeah that that's key because state would ask us that what is the reason for that and we need to provide some crashes some crash data fatalities some reasons to do that but it is still possible um we as part of this vision zero adopted plan we are we have started looking into that okay thank you doctor button okay any other questions for staff we have a motion and a second any discussion seeing none let's vote on the screen that passes seven zero thank you very much that takes us concluding items any concluding items representative from district two yeah thank you mayor um I uh honestly I'll I'll keep it as brief as I can I just wanted to say thank you um this is like my first council meeting um it's also uh Manka's first day at work uh in Dallas uh at the Health and Human Services Department and so I I think we're both having our a good first day but I just wanted to say thank you to staff um uh uh a funny story this weekend because I guess she's technically still on staff is I was talking to Sarah Hensley and she was telling me about you know what she's up to and she said she was doing a workout with her son and she was at the airport the next day she could barely get up they wanted to give her a wheelchair because she was so sore and she's like I'm not that old uh and it was just good to uh talk to her and uh and and receive encouragement and wisdom from her but everyone on staff has just been so kind to me so uh to the city manager thank you so much uh uh to Ken and and Christine and Frank and uh Clarissa and Christy and everyone I met today uh Charlie um Brittany and uh Mac um I just I I really appreciated uh meeting y'all you've been so helpful and I'm just I feel very lucky to work with such wonderful people so I just wanted to say thank you so much.

Excellent thank you uh representative district one thank you mayor I want to echo echo what my colleague councilman Steven said uh these orientation sessions have been just a phenomenal help I can't thank the city manager's office enough for preparing those for us introducing us to every single different department here in the city um it's been very helpful to get us acclimated and ready to go um also want to shout out the fact that we do have our first of two runoff elections happening now uh over the next 30 days and you can early vote today until Friday and then election day is going to be Tuesday and you can earn vote anywhere in Denton County representative district five.

Also want to say please go and vote um if it didn't matter people wouldn't be working so hard to make it more difficult for us to vote so please go and vote and uh we have a holiday coming up a long weekend coming up next weekend so happy memorial day to everyone who uh who celebrates okay anyone else seeing none uh so didn't freedom house have their golf tournament this past weekend I appreciate them and all the work they do in our community and and beyond so want to congratulate them on a successful golf tournament uh then Nettie Schultz had their uh awards today and Mustang day last week so I enjoyed that hanging out with the kids and then uh coach sale is retiring from there and and we were in band together so uh want to wish him the best as he goes to do uh next things but he's been there 20 plus years as a uh with the school and so really really great work and I appreciate all he's done uh for the for the city and his his friendship and then I got out to Grapevine to uh visit uh and celebrate mayor Tate who is celebrating his 50th year who was so I was three when he started being mayor of grapevine interesting enough though credit to him their tax rate was in 80.80 or 80 plus cents per 100 when he took office and he it is now in the 20s it's the lowest probably in the state uh and and so they've done great work and and they they regularly point out that a large percent of their land is is not developable uh and so they have to do it different ways so credit to them for for saving the taxpayers that much money uh and then we had a bike ride uh with the mayors of Louisville and Corinth and mayor pro tem made it out and so that was a great event and so I thank all the staff uh that that helped pull that together DCTA was great in that and and helping us uh make that happen and then lastly uh next week is I have two birthdays I have my wife's and my daughter's uh birthday my daughter turned 16 I don't know when that happened uh but she's 16 next week my wife they have like two days apart so I got a lot of work to do uh but uh really looking forward to celebrating with them for and and as uh council member McGee mentioned have a happy and safe uh memorial day and uh if we could give our new council members a hand thank y'all very much good job we'll email you a report card on your how long you talked uh we'll give you your grades but at 8 16 that'll conclude tonight's meeting thank you very much