Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council on July the 21st, 2026.

It is uh about two minutes after 2 p.m.

We'll start out with our work session agenda items.

Our first work session item is citizen comments on consent agenda items.

Do we have any citizens here that are wishing to comment on any consent agenda items?

Seeing none.

All right, we'll move on.

Request for clarification of agenda items listed on this agenda for public hearing and individual consideration.

Do any council members have questions on any of the agenda items?

I do uh just want to make a comment.

I uh had requested to pull agenda item P from the consent agenda.

Uh I'm rescinding that.

So uh at this point, we do not have any items pulled for the consent agenda.

Okay.

All right.

Uh any uh questions, uh any comments on the uh meeting questions, responses, and and so forth that we received today.

All right.

All right, we'll move on with our work session reports then, which is agenda item 3a ID 26-078.

Receive report, hold the discussion, and give staff direction on economic development priorities.

All right, good afternoon, mayor and council.

It's great to see you.

I'm here to present an economic development update to get your upcoming get your feedback on upcoming priorities.

My name is Brittany Satella, and I'm the economic development director.

Our primary mission of the economic development department is to attract and retain jobs, create capital investment for the city to foster resilient pro-growth tax base and improve the community's quality of life.

Why is economic development important?

It's because of this tax triangle.

Cities are funded through Avalorum taxes, sales tax dollars, and hotel occupancy taxes.

Um by tourists, residents, and businesses.

Our primary focus is on the business side of this triangle, and where we're actively trying to increase the amount of avalorum valuation and sales tax dollars that are being generated in the city.

Based on the appraisal district's recent taxable projections report for 2026, business personal property taxes alone contribute an estimated 25% of all net taxable value projected for the city.

This doesn't include rural property that businesses pay for in taxes as well.

We also uh stay attuned to our economic indicators in the region, and we produce a quarterly economic trend report.

We also provide entrepreneur and small business support.

Uh we put together small business workshops, we serve as liaisons between businesses and city departments.

We also serve as business resource connectors.

We have relationships with uh companies and nonprofits that support small businesses in the region, and that includes SPDCs and scores, and so anytime a local entrepreneur needs out of census, we can connect them with those organizations.

We also work with workforce solutions, the Den Chamber of Commerce, United Way and Goodwill Industries to put together a job fair every year at the Civic Center.

We also provide creative programming, including main street programming and managing the annual accreditation.

That includes managing historic preservation efforts and also uh supporting our downtown businesses.

We manage film and music friendly programs to the state of Texas, and we are actually a film and music friendly certified city through the state, which is great.

Um, and we manage all film permits through the city.

So anytime a production firm is looking to shoot a movie or a commercial, they will go through our office first and we will coordinate with other departments to ensure that they are um getting the best customer service when tuning their film.

And it's important to note that economic development is a team effort.

It's not just our team that works on these projects.

Um we definitely rely on the help of our internal and external stakeholders as depicted in this Novar Discround breaking picture.

Um everyone in the picture helped out with the Navartas project at some point, and we know that this doesn't even include that half the people that actually touched the project.

Recruitment tools.

As of January 2024, our work plan between the Chamber of Commerce and our department was updated where our office is primarily leading recruitment efforts.

We do this in a for in a variety of ways, and we provide incentives in the form of rebates for Avalorum and sales tax dollars.

This is on new uh avalorum and sales tax sales of revenue generated and for business expansions.

We also provide one-time grants for headquarters, job based grants, and deal closing grants.

This is funded through our catalyst fund.

At the beginning of the fiscal year, we had a little over 5.6 million dollars in the fund.

The fund does not have a sustainable source of funding.

An allocation from the general fund is discussed annually through the budget process, and the last transfer to the Catalyst fund was in 2024.

In 2025, council approved considering expiring incentives to roll over to the Catalyst fund through the budget process.

This was through a two-minute pitch that council member Jill Jester pitched.

And so that's something to consider in the future.

We also looked at other cities that have a type A and type B corporation that they use for economic development efforts.

We looked at Arlington, for example, they have 24.2 million dollars in sales tax revenue.

That was as of last year.

McKinney had 24.6 million, and Mesquite had 15.9 million.

These cities use funding in various capacities, including personnel and administration, marketing and promotion.

Arlington, for example, uses 2.3 million dollars.

That was last year.

Arlington has 13, McKinney has 11, and McSquite has 10, and they have various populations.

Obviously, Arlington's larger than us, but Mesquite's a little bit closer to us in population.

Our primary target market are C suite executives, managers, and business owners.

And one of the most common questions that we get asked is how do we generate leads?

And that's two ways directly and indirectly.

Directly we receive RFIs to the state of Texas Economic Development Division.

We also receive RFIs from the Dallas Regional Chamber.

Those entities typically will speak to companies when they're looking to expand to the state or region.

Those companies will have a specific utility usage or site requirements, and then those entities will send it to economic developers across the state to respond to.

We also receive referrals from site selectors and commercial brokers.

Indirectly, we have to generate our own leads.

And so we attend various trade shows.

We just got back from Automate Trade Show, which is focused on advanced manufacturing.

We also attended a live science trade show that focuses on biotech.

We attend regional networking events.

We just partnered with BizNow to host the first ever Denton County Save the Market a few weeks ago.

We also attend several trade organization events like bio and TX.

We collaborate with our local universities, including UNT and TWU.

UNT, we just held a mobility summit in partnership with them through their Jim McNat Logistics Institute, and they actually paid for the mobility summit through an NSF grant, which we are very thankful for.

Over the course of the past two years, we've made significant improvements to help with recruitment.

That includes updating our marketing materials.

We adopted a slogan called where creativity meets commerce.

And that for that reason, we want any business project that we're speaking to to know that we value our arts, our music, and our downtown.

We also created a GIS site database in partnership with our development services GIS team to track all of our industrial projects or I'm sorry, our industrial sites to help us respond to RFIs quickly.

And this has also saved us three to five thousand dollars because our GIS team put it together on their own, which is amazing.

Economic development is a competitive game.

And according to the 2026 Site Selection Guild, State of the Market Pulse Check Report, the site selection guild, by the way, is a trade organization that site selectors join.

The site selectors ranked the top project elimination factors.

And the top one is utility infrastructure capacity, including electricity, water, natural gas.

So if a company is seeking to move to another city, they may need a certain utility capacity of during a certain timeline.

So they may need to open a year after closing on the land.

If they can't get to that utility infrastructure in time, then they will automatically eliminate the site and pick another one that has the capacity.

The second top ranked is available suitable site that can include everything outside of utilities, including maybe proximity to a highway, maybe zoning of a site.

The third one is workforce availability and quality.

We don't necessarily have this issue because of our universities.

And fourth one is business environment and regulatory climate.

How friendly is your city to businesses, and also how fast is it to get through some of the permitting processes?

And the fifth one is speed to market.

How fast can they get a certificate of occupancy when choosing a city?

So again, if a company is looking to move and they need to, they get down to they love a site, and then they have a second site in mind, they may choose the second site if they can get their development permits quicker than the first one.

In 2025, we improved the way that we track all of our leads and projects.

So this is our an except from our 2025 annual report.

We had a total of 61 new project leads, and what leads are is when a company is seriously looking to move to the city.

We don't count anything outside of that if they're not interested or we don't see that they're as serious, maybe they just need business support, we won't count them as a lead.

We had 14 leads loss and 15 recruitment visits and 12 incentive applications that we process.

All of those leads primarily represented the manufacturing industry.

We also received 118 RFIs from the state and Dallas Regional Chamber.

We submitted on 64, and we were able to convert nine of those to leads.

It doesn't seem like a lot, but that actually is when you're competing with sites across the state of Texas.

And we're also tracking why we lost the leads.

Sometimes it's hard to get an answer from either a commercial broker or a company why they haven't chosen your city to expand to.

So we were into those challenges sometimes.

Also, there's various reasons why we won't submit on RFIs, and that's because we may not have a site, or we don't have the appropriate, we do have the appropriate site and it's not the right zoning, or we don't have sufficient utilities at the time of when they want to open.

Currently, we had 25 active projects and 10 new leads and five recruitment visits.

We had two incentive applications, 14 leads were classified, and 266 recruitment outreach attempts.

We also received 18 RFIs.

We submitted on 12, and out of those 12, there's a potential capital investment of 5.2 billion and a little over 8,700 jobs potentially that could be created.

We went back over the past decade to 2015 and reviewed all the chapter 380 and chapter 312 agreements that were approved by city council.

In 2015, there were six that were approved.

In 2016, there were two.

From 2017 to 2019, there were zero.

There was one in 2020 and 2021, and then in 2024, we picked up efforts and there was five approved and four in 2025.

Many of those 2024 and 25 projects are listed here under our project wins.

We had a few existing businesses that expanded, including United States Cold Storage, Made in Manufacturing, and Southwire.

We also had a few recruitment projects, including Navartis, Panel Ray, and Stolts who did not apply for incentives, by the way.

We also had the Fine Arts Theyer, which was a downtown Catalyst project.

In total, all these projects total around 470 million, with total job creation, a little over a thousand.

Um incentivized projects from 2004 to 2015, including Fastetal, TetraPack, the Razor Ranch Development, Bucky's Travel Center, and the MBC Suites.

We looked at the initial Avalorum valuation they had during the base year, the first initial year that the incentive was approved.

And then we value we estimated the difference from 2025 with their current value is today.

The current increase was 577.4 million dollars, which is outstanding.

Our other big win has been our decrease in vacancy rates downtown.

In Q1 and 2024, the vacancy rate was 8.3%, and in Q1 in 2026, it was 4.8%.

So a little down, a little over 3% that it's decreased.

We get this vacancy report from CoSTAR, it's a real estate platform, and this is based off our Tours 1, our original Tours 1 boundaries.

We like to think that our downtown reinvestment grant has assisted with these business expansions.

A little over 387,000 has been awarded in downtown grants through our tourist fund over the past two years, and that includes Ruby Rodeo, the Pod Twist, Rose's costumes.

And in total, those businesses have invested over 2.9 million dollars.

And although we hear that several businesses have closed over the past two years, in 2025, there were several new businesses that open, including Bindos, Hemlock Fox, Denton Yarnworks, Mexican Oak, and Market Behind the Square.

We track openings and closings through our mainstream program.

We're also paying attention to future workforce opportunities.

Based off this county to county work worker flow, 37% of Denton County workers live and work in the county.

The rest will travel to Collin County, Dallas County, and Tarrant County every day for work.

Compared to Dallas County, 76% of workers live and work in the in the county.

And with a small percentage traveling to Collin County and Tarrant County.

So we're actively trying to create the jobs that residents want to see in their backyard.

We're also looking at increasing the average wage over time with the type of industries that we recruit in.

So we took us uh the Denton County average wage as of Q4 and 2025 was 64,300.

And we took a snapshot of the Denton County industries that paid over 100,000.

And all of them are in manufacturing.

This includes electrical equipment, that's over 131,000 salary, semiconductor and other electronic components, that's 127,000 salary, aerospace product and parts, pharmaceutical and medicine, audio and video equipment, motor vehicle manufacturing, and engine turbine and power transmission equipment.

Moving forward, we know that growth is happening quickly.

We went back from 2015 and took Google screenshots, Google Earth screenshots, to compare what the current aerial maps look like today.

And as you can see, there's been significant industrial and residential development on the west side of the city alone.

To compare, we know that Amazon Alexa was invented in late 2014, early 2015.

We also went through an entire pandemic during the past decade, and so we know that the next decade is going to go even faster.

And so that's where we're really wanting to target specific industries to focus on recruitment.

So that includes advanced manufacturing, advanced mobility, including automation, UAS, supply chain logistics, and tech, aviation and aerospace, life sciences, and creative sector.

So we know that we lose significant retail sell sex dollars to Tanger Outlets, to Highland Village, Flower Mound, and Grandscape.

We have over 17%, we have 17% more millennials than the national average.

So that means that most millennials are probably selling down, they're buying homes, they want something to do nearby versus having to travel.

So we really want to start identifying retail leakages, but we also are looking into building the film industry.

So we're just starting to explore what type of uh what those jobs look like and how we could actually create that ecosystem.

Our future focus is of course on city council priorities.

Based on recent election forums, we heard that council may be interested in increasing small business support, job creation and diversification, and workforce development, which could include upskilling.

We also just held a board retreat with our economic development partnership board a few months ago where they identified six top goals, including workforce development, business recruitment, business retention expansion, storytelling, customer service excellence, and fostering relationships.

Our downtown boards they would like for us to revise the downtown reinvestment grant policy to ensure that it's competitive with today's world, and then we will continue to implement downtown master plan goals, including activating Austin Street.

So council feedback based on what you've heard today.

Is council interested in staff preparing program and funding scenarios for the upcoming budget workshop?

If so, is there a prioritization?

So one option is focusing on recruitment.

We discussed potentially creating a certified sites program, a certified sites program.

I want to read you a definite uh definition here.

It's a pre-qualified property verified as cleared for commercial or industrial development.

The certification guarantees that boundary surveys, environmental assessments, utility access, and zoning restrictions have already been completed to reduce development risks and accelerate construction timelines.

So we know that property owners have owned land for generations and now they're wanting to sell.

They have their own ideas of what they want to see at their sites.

They all start working with commercial brokers that have their own idea of what they want to see.

So we would like to work with the landowners to influence what type of developments go to those sites in the future.

The way we could do that is creating a qual a qualified sites program.

Um it's a simplified version of a certified sites program to assist with uh influencing future development.

Also, we'd like to focus on increased storytelling and marketing.

We know that the Ditton story could definitely be highlighted a little bit more, whether that's attending more trade shows or hosting forums for local residents to learn more about our target industries.

Um that's an option.

Another option is increasing our small business support.

We have increased the amount of workshops that we're providing to small businesses, but is there the council may have another idea of what we would what you would like to provide?

Um we'd also like to consider revising work plans with our partner agencies, Stoke Co-working and the Chamber of Commerce.

Um, right now our work plans are a bit ambiguous, and um they're they're broadly aligned with our 2020 economic development strategic plan.

And so moving forward, we'd like to ensure that we're utilizing all economic development funds to meet um some of these priorities that we've discussed today.

And then another option is focusing on job creation and workforce development upskilling.

Um so the city of Fort Worth mayors has a education and workforce task force that um they manage, I think, on a quarterly basis where they're focused on upskilling, helping adults that have graduated already high school that want to get a higher paying job.

Um, so that could be a consideration as well.

All right, and that is I will pass this to May.

Any questions?

Uh questions, council?

Yes, Mayor Pro Tim.

I have a few questions for you.

Um one is if you talk about the top first, I'll say thanks for the presentation.

Mayor Pro Tim.

I think what's Mayor, no, you're no your mic, yeah.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay, yeah.

Um thanks for the presentation.

I think one of the things that popped out to me was maybe how little money we have invested compared to some other cities and how much you've done with that.

Um I don't think that should go unnoticed.

It is very impressive, and thank you for that.

Um I had a question about your uh slide on top project elimination process.

Uh, one of the things that was listed there was regulatory or business environment.

How do you feel like we add up compared to cities surrounding us on that?

I think there's some apprehension.

Del Din has a uh reputation of maybe being anti-development in the past, and that's just what happens in site selectors or real estate commercial brokers, they hear certain um feedback from other people that may try to do business, but I think it's improving, and I think that's why you see Biz now um hosting events now, and the Dallas Business Journal was hosting an event in August as well.

Um it's a Dinn County uh state of state of the market as well.

And so I I think it's gotten better.

Um, who's in the future we want to ensure that we're still being friendly to businesses and and considering them in the process to get permitting or whatever that may be to make it easier for them so that they're not um so they want to continue vesting here.

Okay.

Um then two more questions.

Uh one is uh you talked about like direct recruitment and then also your industries that you're targeting.

Um one of them was creative industries.

I know you talked about uh like film and also just you have a lot of younger people who they want to shop locally or you you can you just delve into that a little bit more about what it looks like to directly target that.

For sure.

I think it's targeting companies that specialize in either retail or family-oriented venues.

We know that our downtown square has a higher um rent price, and so we need to find businesses that can afford that type of rent.

Um but Monster Mini Golf is a great example.

Um Chris and Polito, our mainstream manager, she had reached out to uh Monster Mini Golf uh months ago to get them interested in downtown.

And so um she reached out, they couldn't find a site downtown, they ended up choosing another site outside the Go and Triangle Mall, but that was our biggest hit on social media, and so that's really what made us realize we need to start focusing on family-oriented venues.

Um it's a matter of of researching.

Um we could potentially get feedback from council or residents on what they want to see.

We've gotten better.

Well, I say this the first quarter of this year, we started posting on social media asking uh the public what they wanted to see, so it's a matter of following up with those entities and finding the right site to um get them here.

Okay, um awesome.

Uh yeah, I was walking, it's too hot to walk outside, so I was at the mall today and just thinking about again the endless possibilities.

Um I had one question about the direction uh uh being given, which is, and this is the last question I have.

Um wording uh under recruitment, uh looking for council feedback.

Uh you mentioned increased storytelling and marketing.

Um understanding is that we have maybe an issue with uh uh needing a carve out uh to local ordinance that would uh allow you to increase marketing and securing recruitment.

Is that still accurate?

I would say so.

I think it's worth exploring again.

Um we would love more marketing dollars, obviously.

I think we are fine for this upcoming year.

I think we're primarily worried about our the catalyst fund of ensuring that we have a sustainable source of funding.

Um that's kind of where we're at.

Okay.

And then I guess then just to answer with council feedback.

Um I'm in favor of exploring these.

I mean, I think anything that y'all are recommending that we can do to help uh with recruitment and small business support.

Uh yeah, I support that.

Um as far as job creation and and development, uh, you had talked about new programming and skills.

I I'm certainly interested in learning more about it.

I'd be curious in towns surrounding us how effective those are if if people use them.

Um, we'll do that.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Councilmember.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Brittany, for this presentation.

Just to kind of um add to what Mayor Pro Tem said about uh what y'all have done with the budget that you have.

I know that a lot, and I've said this to you before, but a lot of it is the hustle of you and your team, because as we saw in this presentation, businesses are more likely to locate or stay in places where it's not a pain to work with us, or it's slow or whatever it is.

So that speaks a lot to like all those recruitments and and locations that have been attracted to Denton are in large part because of thank you, uh, or in large part because of the hustle of you and your team.

So thank you again for that.

Um in terms of uh feedback, um, I'm interested in, I'm always interested in scenarios and just kind of seeing what the possibilities are.

In terms of priorities, I would actually rank them in the exact order that I'm seeing them on the screen.

Uh for recruitment, special emphasis on certified sites.

Again, I've heard frequently that um businesses are more likely to uh stick with it.

You know, some people might start to relocate somewhere and then it just gets to be too difficult, the city gets in the way, whatever the case is.

So anything we can do to make it easy uh so we don't lose people in the process, um, I'm going to support that.

So certified sites, I really like that idea on the small business support, um, other ideas that that I'm interested in that maybe don't include um more training, which we should still be doing training and that kind of thing, is if we don't do it already, periodically um having economic development and development services, working with small businesses to understand from the space or permitting or whatever side of things, what are the biggest barriers that the city has control over in terms of a new business a new small business getting started or them um being able to stay open?

Um and sort of exploring where are those pain points periodically and trying to address those as much as possible.

That's what I have.

Okay.

Thank you.

And Councilmember Villarreal and then Councilmember Jester and then Councilmember Hall uh Holland, I believe.

Holland, yeah.

Holland, yeah.

I didn't see if your hand was, it's not that I forgot your name.

Thank you, Mayor, and uh thank you for this presentation.

Uh phenomenal job.

And uh just to echo what Mayor Pro Tem and the councilman were saying, the fact that y'all are being able to recruit so many businesses without the existence of an economic development corporation is incredibly impressive.

Um in that regard, I would like to see when we bring this back during the budget workshop.

What would the pathway uh what pathways may exist to us having an economic development corporation in the future and how would that benefit the city in terms of economic uh recruitment and job creation here in the city of Denton?

Um in terms of number three job creation and workforce development, I would also like to see how we could partner with the two world-class universities we have, UNT TWU.

Similar to how Richardson works alongside UTD to bring new jobs into their city as well.

I'd like to see how we could partner more uh firmly with our universities in that regard.

And in terms of prioritization, uh, if we're looking for a rank order, I guess one, three, and two in that order would be my prioritization.

Awesome.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, Councilmember Chester, huh?

Thank you for the presentation, and thank you for getting back on some of the answers.

I know that that's always a scramble council puts forward questions and magically the city the city fairies come and elves and do the work and and get back to you.

So thank you for that turnaround.

Um I I have uh a couple of notes.

First, I wanted to uh note that uh for everyone else, the economic development partnership board is actually uh looking into what you brought up today, the Fort Worth Mayor's uh workforce uh program, and that's something that is is on the table.

I think that we're going to be looking at thanks to the um, I think successful workshop that uh Brittany and and others led in her department.

Um and then also I wanted to note uh just for those maybe newer that some of the the snapshot that we saw of some of the wins that we've had, those are not all of the incentives in chapter 380 agreements that exist or that have existed since 2010, but but those were some of the big ones which we're very grateful for.

Um I I agree with my fellow council member uh Varial in that I I think it would be helpful to uh have a time that we can give a quick primer to this council regarding why it is that we see revenues in these other cities so much higher uh and they have more dollars to spend than we do, uh what a chapter, you know, the A or B uh choices as far as funding we have available and what can happen.

So I really appreciate that question being asked, and I I would love to see that in a future session, even just for a short period of time for everyone to kind of get on the same uh board game as we try to move those pieces and do the best we can.

Um I I uh appreciated some of the numbers that you put out, and in the attachment B, when we looked at some of the comparables with Arlington, McKinney, and Musquite.

One kind of outlier I wanted to ask you about was um, you know, Mesquite uh is a smaller city.

Uh it has 10 full-time employees in the economic development department, and their personnel cost is something around 4700,000, um, which is four more full-time employees than we have.

And then you've got McKinney, which is a larger city, and they have 11 full-time employees, uh, and that's five more than we have, and uh yet their uh personnel cost is only a hundred thousand more than our department.

So we have six lower than both of those cities, and our personal costs are $1,317 and $811.

Why is that?

Sure.

So the data from Arlington McKinney and Mesquite are from uh the state controller's office, and so that's based off a reporting they have to submit.

Having worked in Arlington, I know that they also have a catalyst fund that's outside of the cell site.

It's it's not just Arlington.

Yeah, McKinney and Mesquite.

They they use uh partially general funds and they also have a Catalyst fund, and so that's I think I want to say it's like from gas wall revenue.

So some of these cities they may not be using all the sales tax dollars for economic development, they may be tapping into other funds for full-time employees.

So that's a difference.

For our I'm sorry, can I clarify uh your answer before we keep going?

If not, I'll I'll forget my question, so forgive me.

Um so under and in the attachment B, so the cost for personnel and administration, uh, the listing that you have for Arlington McKinney, Mesquite, and then Denton, you're saying those are from a specific fund versus that's the understanding of what they spend on their personnel?

Correct.

So the Arlington McKinney and Mesquite, that's based off their sales tax fund specifically, and that's controller daily.

So I can I can send you the full list or you're getting a friend.

Okay, that's helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The Denton numbers, that's the we added personnel and also operations.

So that includes both our operations and um salaries.

And so the only thing that we excluded from our operations is marketing promotion, which was 57,000.

Um and then for direct business incentives, that comes from another accounting uh unit that's for all the businesses that we actually pay out for incentives.

Um that's 4.7 million.

So that's really all we have to provide.

We just we couldn't do really uh uh apples to apples comparison because they're through two separate funds, two different entities.

What might be helpful in the future to split those up so that when we get the information, we know exactly what we're looking at and where it comes from because uh that can raise questions, and I also think like I said, it'd be helpful to know where those revenues come from and where the potentials are in the future.

Um and then as far as uh council's direction, my my my question as we go into budget season is um any additions that we make at that time, would that be additional budget that's being asked for, or you're saying status quo, what can we add to what we're currently doing without an increase in the budget?

And I'm just asking for clarification as we go into budget here next month.

Right.

It it could be an increase, or we could definitely uh see how we could utilize the current Calus Fund.

I think the problem is that the CALES fund doesn't have sustainable sustainable source of funding.

So in 2024, um that's when the last transfer occurred, and it was only about 600,000 in 2025 there was not a transfer, and in 2026, so you may be considering upcoming transfer.

So, and that's something that finance, CMO, City Council, you can decide.

Um, but that's something that we would like considered.

Well, and I as you know I'm on board with that.

Um I think we're fighting with one hand tight around our back as far as the the best jobs uh out there for our citizens.

Um, and as far as uh feedback, um, I would say I would put as definitely number one recruitment and especially the certified sites, that's something that I do hear about, and so I also appreciate that you've looked into qualified sites and how we can just kind of do the most we can with uh the the most the the little the smallest amount possible um as far as small business support I appreciate our partners as far as what Stoke does and they have workshops almost every week as well as other meetups, etc.

The chamber does the same with our also with workforce solutions that is housed here in Denton and that uh the chamber and the city also help fund so I don't know that we need with the six full-time employees we have to start creating a bunch of new, I would say let's lean on those partners and help direct them as far as what we're helping fund uh so that they can accomplish that, and that I think is what they're good at.

Um I don't know how many people in the department have had employees or I've had to make you know the kind of choices that businesses make.

So I would say that would be the lowest on the totem pole, and let's if we have specific direction as far as what kind of workshops, let's make sure that those are happening there.

Um and then last as far as the job creation, um, I'm with my uh council member Varial here in that.

I I think that is constantly being worked on with our uh universities and college here in North Texas, um University of North Texas, Texas Women's University, NCTC, as well as our uh workforce solutions, which is also here and working on that constantly.

So it might be just getting out the information.

Um I think maybe we can also work with Discover Denton as far as some of the marketing, just to try and make the biggest bang with our buck.

Uh, but I think that you know, just like the triangle you showed, the money has to come from somewhere for the services for the city to work.

Uh this is uh in our all of our best interest uh to help them thrive, and so anyways, I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Councilmember Holland.

Thank you.

Excellent presentation as always.

Um slide 12, please.

Uh 4.8% vacancy rate.

Can you break that down into square footage?

Something that I can understand.

I wish I could.

I I'm sure I can send it to you, uh, but I did not uh get that data from the report.

I could probably I can probably have one of my team members pull it up real quick while they're searching for it.

Okay, okay, and to that end, does the vacancy on the square on the east side of the square, does that contribute to that number?

It's the original TURS boundaries, and so I believe it stops at Carroll Street, the east side of the TURS stops at Carroll Street.

I'm sorry, not Carroll Street.

What's it what's the other oh my gosh.

I'm just gonna find a bell.

Someone find Bell, yes.

Yeah, you're going the wrong way.

Okay, so okay, so again, does the the what is it, the mini mall, the vacancy there, is that part of the 4.8?

I believe so.

As in Q1, yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Um slide 13.

Uh I may have misunderstood this.

Denton 37%.

Does that mean that 30 37 percent of Denton residents live and work in Denton County?

Yes, 37%.

Okay.

That's troubling.

Right.

Uh and and the thing that concerns me about that is that and I'm and I'm thinking nobody's going out of town to get a low-paying job.

Uh it's it's it's the low-paying jobs that that concern me, that we need to have have more of those, duh.

Um, but but but more high-paying jobs in in Denton.

I like I like what what Denton is, but we need to have more and more people stay in our community, live and work in our community.

I'm I'm can I'm concerned about that.

Uh obviously the majority of them are going to to uh to Dallas, but uh but lots are going to uh to Collin County.

That's concerning.

Thank you.

Um as far as uh slide 16 the the uh um what is it council feedback?

Um how much how much interest does upskilling that's a new word for me, upskilling get.

Is is that something that that that really attracts people to to to increase their their toolkit?

Sure.

I think from the resident perspective, um, when you see on social media channels, and I've even heard um a resident come to city council member uh meetings in the past where they're saying I have a degree, but I'm looking for job diversification.

I'm not getting the jobs here, or maybe they don't want to work in a specific industry here, and so um that's where we would like to come in and maybe help them get certifications or build career paths with the universities to get them to a place where they could work at a Peter Belt or a Stoltz or Novartis.

So that would be the goal.

Okay.

Okay.

As far as priority, I think all those are important.

All of them get a one from me.

But again, I'm very, very concerned about high-paying jobs in Denton, something to keep to keep to keep those people working and living here.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yes.

Fitzmarry.

Hello.

Hi.

Thank you so much, Brittany, for the presentation.

I do have several questions, and it's totally okay for like I can't answer that today.

I will get back to you.

I was wondering, and I appreciated Councilmember Jester requesting that attachment C actually, specifically of Stoke.

I'm also a member of Stoke, as my my business is a member of Stoke.

And I was wondering, speaking to incentives, that was not a good correlation.

Moving on.

Incentives that you mentioned that were expiring in 2025.

There was the discussion by council to potentially reallocate those.

I'm wondering which ones are expiring and what would that amount look like?

Sure.

That's a great question.

Thank you.

I would have to report back.

I believe there's maybe one or two.

Okay, okay.

That's totally fine.

I can tell you the estimate over the 10 year period, what we did estimate based on the current um incentives back in 2024, I believe, is when it was taken to council.

But we estimated nine million dollars would be generated over the next 10 years.

And so that will be have to that will have to be evaluated every year by city council and CMO to see if that's um that's something that you want to do.

Um but that's the estimate we have.

Excellent, thank you.

Um discussing um the catalyst fund, you talked about like site ready.

Um, yes, the certified site, shoveling.

Certified site, thank you so much.

Uh currently, how many, if any, do kind of exist currently in our city?

That's a great question.

Um there are not any that are certified per se, because that's a speci special program.

Sure.

But there are sites that do have um infrastructure ready, um, shovel ready sites.

And so, but they are selling quickly.

Um, one of them we are presenting to the Economic Development Partnership Board tomorrow.

Um, and so at that point, we would want to consider additional sites to add, um, especially for heavy industrial, because we are losing out on heavy industrial sites because they are selling quickly.

Okay.

Yeah, shovel ready, right?

That's that's the goal.

I hear that, to then get them through that program of certified.

Thank you.

Um, and then speaking to industries, you had listed you know, the top the screenshot under the average income.

Yes.

Uh I was wondering in discussions with universities, because they do serve on the EDP Economic Development Partnership Board, EDPB, thank you.

Brain, um, I'm wondering what on this list is maybe not included in terms of in conversations with TW with UNT with NCTC, which programs are pushing out a high number of graduates where we could be searching for an industry that maybe we don't currently hold or don't have a lot of um interest in, but need to shore that up based on who's exiting for the folks that want to stay living here and working here.

For sure, that's a great question.

Uh well, we have talked to the media arts department, and I believe that they do have quite a few students.

I can't remember the enrollment numbers off the top of my head, but um they have told us that they would love for us to build some type of ecosystem to hire some of those students so they can stay in Denton.

Because a lot of them have to travel to Dallas or for work to work because it's a creative industry, right?

But if we add more opportunities here, then I think that could definitely be helpful.

You are just doing such a great job of segueing into my next question, friend.

So my next question about um when we're talking about creatives was one of the listed um targets.

Uh for job creation, I'm wondering in terms of um our creatives, what are some opportunities that we've had currently with different partners with public forums and meetings with community members?

You know, you've heard council member Stevens talk about them all and opportunities to micro-entrepreneurial there, right?

Or the other micro micro-entrepreneurial experiences for specifically creatives, pilot programs, even and when we talk about vacancy rate downtown, how we could utilize some of that space with funding through grants to provide opportunities for like micro entrepreneurship.

Yeah, that's a great question.

So Kristen had actually through the mainstream program applied for an accelerator grant earlier this year.

Um we didn't win the grant, however, that was going to um help us maybe potentially develop an accelerator for those types of creative jobs or retail jobs.

Um and so we are looking into it.

We haven't established something, but that's something we can explore.

It's something on our uh pipeline list.

We'd love to do it.

Awesome.

Okay.

Last question, I promise.

Um in terms of small business support, which is the number two priority or the number two talking point for direction.

Um when you said revising the work plans with partner agencies specifically, like Stoke was an example.

You said that they were kind of broadly discussed to kind of align.

Uh I'm wondering what other opportunities again can come up for program creation, like council member uh Jester was saying, you know, the ones that they already provide, but what else is an opportunity that's been discussed that might be a need that council needs to hear of this is what the community is talking about wanting?

That's a great question.

Um so we have talked to Heather in the past because I think she agrees that the work plan has been the same over the past five, ten years, however long it's you know been active.

Um but we've talked about potentially building a tech ecosystem where we're recruiting mobility startups, and so we're just really starting to build a framework of what that looks like, but we think that stoke could be a good uh partner in helping some of those startups land there for a few years.

Um and so Heather had such that she's open to potentially updating the work plan, but I guess we were just really waiting to see uh what council priorities would entail.

Excellent.

Thank you so much for answering all my questions.

Uh in terms of direction, um I definitely think if you don't mind going back to that slide, I'm so sorry.

Um the the three talking points that you want to know how we want to prioritize council feedback, that's the words, thank you.

Um definitely small business support, job creation and workforce development slash upskilling.

I think upskilling is a great idea, you know, keeping in an industry, but maybe getting a better opportunity at another company that's still in Denton even through different programs, and then um recruitment in that order for me, I guess.

Because we have a lot of folks here, so I feel like recruitment for me in my mindset comes last.

Thanks.

Awesome, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Okay, I'm just having a couple of questions and a couple of questions of clarification.

First of all, really appreciate the presentation and really appreciate council feedback.

I think uh it's been very informative.

And and at the end, I'm gonna ask you if you've gotten the direction need because I want to make sure that whatever presentation is made, the staff gets clear direction from council and whatever they're seeking.

So, a couple of questions of clarification on the county to county slide on the workforce.

I want to make sure I understand that because uh I think council member Holland he said something.

I want to make sure that I understood what this is really saying.

Does that square saying dent?

Does that represent Denton County or the city of Denton?

Denton County.

Okay.

So in Denton County 30, so do we have an idea?

I thought I've seen these numbers before.

Do we have an idea of how many people in Denton actually live here and work outside of Denton, even if it means even in Denton County?

I mean, do we have that?

And if not, is there a way to possibly just pass that along?

Correct.

Yeah, we pulled this from the Dallas Regional Chambers uh economic uh annual guide, that's what they call it.

Um, and so you can kind of see how some of the residents are leaving.

So 30% are going to Tarrant County, 31% are going to Dallas, 15% are going to Collin.

And I'm sure that the rest are probably maybe a small uh percentage is going to Wise and Parker County.

And so that's the best that we have, but we there's also other uh data platforms that we can research to find um uh another outlook.

Because yeah, that that because I just want to make sure I understood that this wasn't necessarily 37% of Denton people, I mean it could be more, it could be true, more, it could be less.

Um so I I just needed clarification on that.

Um the catalyst, if you could go back to uh let me see.

Yeah, so if you go back to the the um site certified.

Oh, yes, that's the last one.

Oh there yes, that one uh well, right, uh certified sites.

What do you mean by catalyst fund in parentheses next to that?

Help me understand that.

What does that mean?

Sure.

Well, we could potentially use catalyst fund to support um funding certified sites or what we should call probably qualified sites because I don't think we can afford a full certified sites, which inquiry includes purchasing the site and then building out the infrastructure.

Um but we could support um helping property owners with phase one environmental reports, which include um analyzing soil samples, uh surveys, and everything that goes with analyzing a site, um, and then that would we can create an agreement with those property owners then to hopefully influence development that they put on their site.

Okay.

Could you you talked about that the heavy industrial sites are selling quickly?

Um what is an example of a heavy industrial user?

Is that a manufacturer?

Is it like a Peter built or what what what is it?

What would be an example of that?

Sure.

Uh let's see.

Two years ago we did have a uh a chip manufacturer, and um they needed a significant amount of electricity within uh one to two years.

They need a I believe like 20 10 megawatts, which is a lot.

And so um we could probably provide that over a span of five years or ten years, but in in terms of maybe a quick turnaround, a year or two, we weren't gonna have that um available.

They like the site, but we just didn't have the utilities to support them.

So that's what we mean by we need more heavy industrial sites to support some of those uh manufacturing companies.

Okay.

So what I hear you saying is that we have land primarily in the north um east kind of northwest.

I mean, that's where a lot of our vacant land is within the city limits.

Um, that a lot of land that may be a potential, we simply do not have the infrastructure support there to deliver.

In other words, there might not be water to the site, there might not be sewer to the site.

When you talk about electricity, if somebody requiring 10 megawatts, I mean we probably don't have uh we we can provide 10 megawatts if we had the the distribution and transmission capability because that's what gets really expensive.

So uh I I think that's really something that I'm interested in is how do we how do we find um the ability to look at the land that we have that is not served by utilities, um and there's quite a bit on our fringes.

And how do we put together a plan that will do that because it's expensive?

And so we're sort of caught in the rock between a hard place between how how do we get it there?

Do we go ahead and pay for it now?

In hopes that you know you build it, they will come or otherwise uh they may not.

And as far as the money, I mean, um, and oh, go back to the slide on the uh cities, the city comparisons.

I want to make sure I understand uh as far as the the the budgets.

Uh Arlington, uh Mesquite and whatever the other one was.

McKinney.

McKinney.

Oh, no, the the uh oh it's the attachment.

Is it the attachment?

Yes, the attachment.

So I I want to make sure that I understand what this is telling me.

Because when I see type A or B sales tax corporations, now we don't have one.

I mean, and and to my understanding, some of those are independent entities outside of the municipal jurisdiction.

They may but but the board members may be appointed by the municipal jurisdictions, but it's it's an outside entity.

So in this attachment, because you're comparing the city budget, which is an interior department.

Are these first of all, are these EDCs?

Are these economic development corporation numbers that we're looking at on those other cities?

They are, yes.

Okay.

And are they under the umbrella of the municipal jurisdiction or are they an outside entity?

That's a great question.

Um I know for Arlington because I work there, I believe it's still under the local uh jurisdiction of the municipality, city manager.

Um they do have a separate board, but they work really closely together.

McKinney does have a uh type B corporation and it's separate.

Um, but ultimately I believe they still have to work with the cities at the end of the day.

Um not for sure how I I want to say it's separate, but it's I think it is just underneath the city manager's office.

Okay.

Well, I know there was some questions about apples and oranges and Denton's budget compared to Arlington McKinney and Mesquite.

So I would really need to know because we are fully under this budget is fully under the not only the city manager, but it's under city council jurisdiction.

If someone has a separate board, who approves the budget of that organization?

Because that's really where the question becomes relevant.

It's like who approves that budget and how is it funded?

Because if they're outside of the city, they're gonna be funded by those sales tax dollars that are directly attributable to funding the ED, the either uh 4A or 4B.

So it's no secret that, and I've said this for years, the city is not behind the eight ball.

Well, we're not even on the same playing field.

We're really not even on the same planet almost, because we have very little uh sustainable funding source to do that.

And I think it's gonna come down to a conversation in the future, especially depending on how our data centers perform or don't perform, because if somehow they perform in a way from a uh adverum tax position on business personal property and such, we're gonna have to have some conversations about uh that's gonna be a large sum of money, and you know, what do we do with it?

And so it may be an opportunity if it materializes to really begin to move forward to create something that really allows us the same playing field because it it's very look, you guys have done great with what you have.

And that's that's not a that's not a dig, that's not we we we have been in a disadvantage for a while.

And I would like for us to also think when we do our legislative program to see if there's a way we can begin to push the legislature to say, hey, if you have transportation and you're using your half cent for transportation, which I think that's a good public policy.

I think should we be punished economically for that?

So is there a is there an avenue where we can maybe say, can you give people an increase in that potentially if they vote for it?

You know, the citizens vote for it.

To where if you have a transportation, you can still have an EDC funded by sales tax.

It's just something to explore because until we really find a way to truly fund something where you can attract businesses that uh are coming, um, it's gonna be very difficult.

I think I remember, if I remember correctly, Plano when Toyota came, I think they paid six million dollars out of the city share to attract them, and quite honestly, that's a drop.

I mean, that's nothing.

Uh and I I really hope, and so let's go to a feedback.

So I'll give you some feedback.

Um let me look.

Oh, one other question.

On the wages.

The wage source was job something, job EQ.

Do we know uh and somebody does it, maybe not in here, but uh we've talked about it a lot, what the average median income is for Denton County, not Dallas with the all these calculations they do for affordable housing, but do we know uh what it is for Denton County and can we get specific enough?

And I'm not causing in a question calling into question the the rela reliability of that number.

I'm just saying, is there a standard out there like through housing and urgent development, the census track where they actually go and ask people and boom, here it is.

If if we can if we if we can find that out.

I just would like to know how close they are, and um, because I think that's important.

And all right, and and also that 64,000, where does that fit in the rubrics of our public policy of affordable housing?

In other words, if it's 64,000 for a household of one, two, three, or four, what does that translate into rents?

Because if you know, I we need all level of jobs, and sixty-four thousand dollars for people is is a is a good wage.

We also need to provide people potential upward economic mobility by having other jobs available that are a little bit higher.

And we this isn't anything anybody, we all know this.

Um so I'm all for uh if we go back to the feedback.

Um I think the recruitment issue, um I I like that as a high priority.

The challenge is we sometimes lack the real heavy hitting tools to do that.

And unfortunately, sometimes that's how can we help them come to Denton financially?

So that's something, but I certainly put that as a priority.

Small business support, we've got the chamber and stoke doing a good job.

Uh I don't think sometimes you can never have too many uh people thinking about a project, so I don't I don't have an issue with that.

I as far as priority, I I don't really have a priority on these.

Um I think they're all important.

It sounds like from what I've heard from the council, it seems like at least recruitment has garnered four at least four as a high priority.

Uh and then small business and job creation that's sort of split, you know, two or three or four.

So I I'd say those would almost be tied, if you will.

Uh um, but so you've heard our feedback first from council.

Yes, Councilmember Jester.

Not a question, but I just want to say how encouraged I am at the feedback of every single council member and what a great discussion this is, and it's very energizing.

And um, I think you're just with the zeitgeist as far as other cities and groups that feel like we're being penalized because we contribute to transportation, that that's something uh going to the legislature that many in our region want to coalesce around.

So I think adding that to our uh legislative agenda is right on point, and something they're gonna be hearing from others.

But um, I just want to say I'm in agreement and really really do appreciate everyone's uh feedback as well as the presentation and the chance to get to talk about this.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Do you do you have anybody else?

anybody else?

Do you have uh the direction that you need as far as clarity and kind of when you walk out the door you know which way you're moving?

We do, and I know there was a few outstanding questions, so we will respond to you and maybe ISR or uh just a follow-up document, and we'll we'll start working on your objectives.

Thank you so much.

This is great.

Okay, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Great, great job.

All right, we'll move on to work session uh 3B, which is uh ID 26-0558.

Receive a report, whole discussion of staff direction regarding the fiscal year 2026 27, excuse me, preliminary utility budgets and rates for solid waste, water, wastewater, drainage, electricity, and customer service.

Are we taking those in that order as far as the budget presentations?

Yes, sir.

Okay, all right.

All right, good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Amy Caslick, Chief Strategic Officer, here today to discuss the preliminary budgets and rates for our utilities.

Thank you.

So in today's presentation, we'll do a quick recap of the budget development process.

We'll also take a quick look at workload and service metrics.

And then we will dive into preliminary budgets for solid waste, water, wastewater, drainage, electric, and customer service.

Um, I know last week we talked at great lengths about um the city's fund structure.

So just as a reminder, solid wastewater, wastewater drainage and electric are enterprise funds, and it was really fast, enterprise funds that are supported by rates, and then customer service on the other hand is an internal service fund, which acts as a cost pool with expenses allocated to departments benefiting from services provided.

So here's a look again at the um planning calendar.

You'll recall that the process uh budget development is rather lengthy with a lot of in-depth reviews between the Office of Strategy Budget Budget and Performance, City Manager's Office, and then the budget task force uh for utilities in particular.

We do updates to PUB and then we update council as well as we move through the process.

Um not applicable to utilities, but certainly something that we are happy to point out to change from last week's presentation is that we are going to receive certified values on July the 24th, which removes a lot of uncertainty going forward.

Yes, thank you.

All right, so this is a slide that is similar to the one that you saw last week.

Um it is focused on those workload measures for the funds that we will be covering today.

Again, I'm not gonna go through all of these numbers, but just want to demonstrate the volume and variety of daily activities supported by the funds we'll be discussing.

Um workload changes with growth with development and then with customer expectations.

I do have and I'll say I just wanted to point out that uh when the the appropriate uh presenter comes up for the appropriate utility on the wastewater infrastructure inspected, it went down a lot.

So I'd just be curious what what that's about.

Um let's see.

There was another oh um in the I like this caption.

Water valves exercised.

I've not seen that, but uh just you know what's what's up with the 49 percent.

It may just be routine, and you're just and then um I think I think that's yeah, yeah, concrete channels cleaned.

I don't need that.

That that makes sense.

Okay, yeah, sorry.

Thank you.

Okay, so we're gonna start today with solid waste, which provides funding to support reliable waste collection, recycling, and disposal services.

Um, a key part of this work is around residential uh diversion rate, which that really just shows how effectively households are keeping waste out of the landfill through recycling and other recovery efforts.

Um I will say that improving this rate is a significant effort on the part of all involved, including community outreach, targeted trainings and education, um, and then making sure that our recycling options are accessible.

Um the city is on target to achieve our first goal of 30 percent by 2030.

Sorry, I think I clicked one too soon.

There's that diversion rate calculation and the results of that.

All right, so in our assumptions, we are not proposing a rate increase for fiscal 2027.

However, we are expecting to generate between 500,000 and a million dollars and additional revenue for the sale of renewable natural gas that is produced at the landfill.

So on the expenditure side, uh we are funding a supplemental request uh for solid waste.

I know last week I indicated that as part of this year's budget process, we were not considering supplementals, and we were telling departments to maintain their current service levels.

However, for solid waste, in order to maintain their current service levels, they do need to add personnel and vehicles.

Um that is really to meet the demands of growth, particularly when we are looking at landmark, hunter, and coal.

Um so you'll see from these revenue growth projections, um, they do have a significant impact on the customer base moving forward.

So this year's um budget, we are seeking to add an additional seven FTEs.

Four of those are for residential collections.

Uh then beyond staffing, the budget includes funds to acquire land for the first transfer station.

Um that will be used to consolidate waste and reduce long haul trips.

Um it cuts caught, cuts costs, improves efficiencies, and it keeps operations running smoothly.

So here's a look at the fund pro forma.

You'll note that while we are using available fund balance to cash fund vehicle replacements, and sometimes I may say cash funds, sometimes I may say revenue fund.

That's that's available dollars.

Um we will continue to maintain the target fund balance by implementing small rate increases in the out years and again planning to meet the ongoing demands that growth creates.

So here is a look at solid waste CIP.

Um, this has been corrected, so it does balance out the expenses with the funding sources.

We did not have the um revenue funded vehicles correctly accounted for in that above table, but that is for again the uh cash funding of vehicles.

We are gonna be taking a very in-depth look at the CIP at the August 4th meeting, so we'll go into a lot of detail um into all of this.

Okay.

Uh next, we're gonna look at the water fund.

It supports delivery of safe drinking water.

Yes.

Just a couple questions back on solid waste for clarification.

Um, and I asked this question at the last meeting.

There was a bond program it called it was called organic something infrastructure.

And um, if somebody could I I'm just curious, is that in solid waste?

And if so, because I think it was 17 million dollars.

Yes.

And uh I'm just curious as to what what that is, if this is an appropriate time to ask that question.

If that's and sorry I wasn't available to answer.

Oh no, you're fine.

Absolutely.

So it's 14 million dollars.

And that is a digester, so an anaerobic digester that will be part of Stephen Gay's expansion out at Pecantry water reclamation plant that we will be able to use, all of the organics that we're collecting, we'll run them directly into that organics diversion program through that.

Sounds great.

Thank you very much.

And then on the $1 million for the land acquisition, if I heard correctly, that's to provide some consolidation or or or you mentioned something about consolidating or making long haul trips shorter and all those kinds of things.

Is that that is for a transfer station?

Transfer station.

Okay.

Um and so I'm I'm assuming that we've done a calculation on you know what we're doing now.

And that um if we keep doing it, we're gonna spend this much money.

If we spend this kind of money, we're only gonna be so do we have sort of an idea of what the rate of return on that is.

And if this is too premature, then we'll we'll we'll we'll while wait till specific budget.

Just that's a preview of coming attractions.

Preview of coming attractions.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yes, yes, Councilmember Hollis.

Could could you just tell me again the number of the amount of money that's generated by the I guess it's the methane in uh in the landfill?

Was that five million?

Five hundred thousand to a million.

Yeah, yeah.

Five hundred thousand to a million.

It's very premature at this point.

We are we just put gas into the pipeline for the first time July 2nd.

So we are we are doing this speculative based on what this company has done in other places.

So the more gas they capture and clean and put in the pipeline, the higher the percentages on that rate of return to us.

The initial estimates for right now is 500,000 to a million dollars in this first year.

I'll have a better sense of that as soon as we get that first check, um, which is gonna be you know 60 days out from when we did this.

So as we go into the fiscal year, we'll have a better number on that.

Believe it or not, I had friends over yesterday at my house and we were talking about this.

We need to give you better entertainment conversation.

That's what happens at my house.

But that's great.

That's great.

I love it.

Council member.

Um on the transfer station, is is this just for some of our more immediate growth to the west of town, and will we be expecting a second transfer station when the north starts uh coming in?

I'm gonna say yes and yes.

Got some nods, some yeses.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um this land, and I just to clarify, we're we're still in land from Tony.

Um, so um, we're we we've got land over on that west side um that we're looking to put that first transfer station on because that's where we're seeing all that expansive growth.

Um we do have one years down the road here in the next in our 10-year growth plan.

We're looking at another one up on the north side of town to address that.

Okay.

You're not stealing your you're paying a million dollars, yeah.

I am yeah, yeah.

Yeah, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Uh Mayor Pro Tim.

I just have one question about the uh what page is this?

Six, slide six.

Or at least it's slide six on mine, just about the resources and expenditures.

I I just have a quick question.

Uh I know in in the backup, council member Jester had asked about differences uh for another program with admin versus personnel services.

For this one, personnel services includes salaries, is that right?

Salaries benefits for anyone within that fund.

And so I I was curious about our estimate for 26 versus the preliminary.

It might look like let me make sure I'm looking at the right one.

Sorry.

Yes, uh, the 2025 to 6 budget versus estimate.

Um our estimate in general, and and you'll see this as you look at multiple funds.

Um, that would include any salary savings from vacancies throughout the year.

And so are you suggesting through the preliminary numbers for 26 that that increase would be to fund those vacancies or and hire more staff?

It is to it is to fund fully fund, it fully funds their personnel, and then you'll see the bottom line um supplemental requests that is those additional personnel for 731,000.

Okay, thanks.

Okay.

Anyone else?

All right.

All right.

Now next we're gonna look at the water fund, uh, which I said uh supports the delivery of drinking water by sourcing, treating, testing, and distributing through the city's water system.

Um, as part of our assumptions, we are proposing a three percent overall rate increase for 2027 again to support growth.

And I feel like I say growth a lot anytime I stand up in here to present, but it is what we are dealing with.

Um we are also assuming that we will receive um WiFIA funds with repayments set to start in fiscal year 2032.

Um, we're gonna share the impact of both of those uh assumptions when we look at the perform in just a moment.

Um, one of the main focus areas for the department or for the fund um this next year is replacing the current SCADA system.

Um at this point it's become very difficult to support.

And then by standardizing the technology across both water and wastewater, um, it's gonna not only make it easier uh and more efficient to maintain, um, it's gonna improve the reliability of that SCADA system.

Um, but you will see as we move particularly into the capital that an even bigger focus within water, as well as when we get to wastewater, are the infrastructure improvements and expansions that need to be made across the utilities.

So here's a look at the water performa.

Um, when looking at this performance, you'll see that the fund dips slightly below its target debt uh coverage ratio in fiscal years 2028 and 2029.

But when we combine that with all of the utilities, we are meeting our coverage requirements.

Um and then with all years, the overall uh reserve targets are being met.

Um in addition, um, we are projecting to achieve our coverage requirements again by fiscal year 2029.

Um in addition, um we are projecting to achieve our coverage requirements again by fiscal year 2029 on this one too.

You'll see the three percent rate increase uh that I mentioned, and then we have slightly higher increases uh planned out in those future years again, preparing for the repayment of the WIFIA fund starting in 2032.

Um we are still in the process of securing this low interest federal loan, um, but planning for the repayment now helps us avoid rate shock uh going into those future years.

We're also mitigating significant rate increases now by drawing down on cash reserves to fund capital for the water utility, and you may also notice um on that very bottom line that we are ramping up the use of impact fees and revenues in order to pay for capital.

Okay.

Um here's a look at the CIP for water.

Um you'll notice it is rather extensive.

The most uh significant categories in this are for our water treatment plants, uh planned expansions, upgrades, and improvements, um, which equate to about 65 percent of the planned capital.

Um this is followed by transmission line repairs and line replacements.

Um the majority of this debt um is anticipated to be funded through WIFIA dollars.

Any questions on water before I move to wastewater?

Councilmember Holland.

Um I'm I'm terrified to even ask this.

29 is when we think that our expansion and our increased revenue even out.

Is that what I understood?

So we meet our just just to be clear, we meet our reserve requirements across all of the years shown on the performa.

We do go slightly below our debt coverage um in 2028 and 2029, but overall we meet our target.

Um so we combine that with the other utilities, and we do meet our targets.

Okay.

Uh also how much I guess what percent do impact fees cover actual costs.

I would have to do that percentage percent, and I'm not good with percents in my head.

Okay.

Could you could you give me a 25, 50 percent, 75% kind of number?

So in 2027, we are looking at using 3.5 million in impact fees.

I'm sorry, 2027, 2028, so it's 3.5, and then we have a total of 175 million.

It's a build-up.

Okay.

Very small percentage.

So it doesn't, it doesn't cover anywhere near, actually.

No, absolutely not.

It doesn't cover anywhere near.

Thank you.

Yes, Councilmember Fair, yes.

Thank you.

Um, I know you just answered a similar question from Mayor Pro Tem Stevens, and I wanted to make sure I fully understood, so I wanted to take the question a step further.

You said yes in terms of the 2526 budget versus 2526 EOI estimate.

You are fully covering um salaries and benefits.

There it is.

Yes, we are.

Um so from what I'm the step further question I have is so for example 2425 personnel services was 11.1.

Um, you budgeted 13.6.

I'm to imagine that's because you're estimating the full cost including um vacancies, correct?

Yes.

So we but we adopted 13.6 in 2026, and then we have 13.2 as our preliminary number for this next year.

Right, if fully staffed, right?

And then so the vacancies, I'm my my question for you then is um are we hitting the median of what the range is for the position?

Are we going to the low end, the high end, how much in terms of in terms of budget?

Yes.

Um, in terms of budget, um, we are budgeting at at the lower end.

Okay.

Um, knowing that if we need to bring in someone a little bit higher than that, at that point, we likely we we would have savings to cover any changes in that.

Thanks.

I just wondered, appreciate it.

Okay, go ahead.

All right.

So next we're going to look at wastewater.

Um, much like the water fund, um, where I'm actually supposed to be talking.

All right.

Um, so looking at the wastewater fund, we are proposing a nine percent increase uh in overall rates in uh that particular fund.

Again, we are also assuming that we will receive WiFiA funds and then are preparing for that eventual repayment in 2032.

When looking at the performa, again, we do achieve in this uh case, we have our minimum fund balance targets are met across all five years shown.

And we meet and exceed our debts uh coverage ratio for the five years shown on the performance.

In addition to the rate increase in 2027, we are also proposing additional but slightly smaller rate increases moving forward each year.

Um not only as we plan for growth, as we fund the capital needed, um, but as well as to repay WiFIA in 2030.

Beginning in 2032.

So when looking at the CIP for wastewater, uh it includes water reclamation plants, lift station improvements, uh sanitary sewer interceptors, and then line replacements any questions that was quick.

Any questions on wastewater?

Yes, Councilmember Ramora.

Thank you.

Um what is our target debt coverage ratio for these utilities?

1.1.

1.1.

Okay.

That's all I had.

Thank you.

A couple of questions.

Uh I wanted to go back to and if this is the right time.

The wastewater infrastructure inspected.

Does uh it said 186% decrease from uh last year's anyway, big big huge decrease.

I guess we're not we're not inspecting again.

So what we did during that period of time, so we had the lead and copper rule revisions were a requirement for us to go out and inspect all of our um service lines throughout the entire distribution system.

So we redeployed our resources internally so we could go out and do that evaluation.

So that accounts for the dip.

And I just verified we're actually ahead of schedule right now to meet our KPIs for this year.

Okay, great, great.

So just took people off of the inspecting uh wastewater infrastructure to inspecting the the water lines as required by regulation.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

And then your other question was about the uptick in the valve exercising.

We bought this program called P90X, and we started putting our valves.

That's okay, man.

We are we are we are rocking and rolling today.

Let me tell you.

We had uh we'd actually done a review of the industry best practices with regards to valve exercising programs and found that we were significantly delinquent, and so it would same same scenario, we redeployed resources into that area of the operation, and we got those valves exercises and up to snuff.

Fantastic.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much for that information.

Councilmember Holland.

Thank you.

Uh do you know off the top of your head how many lead water?

Supply lines were found.

It's it's less than five in our entire service area.

Now we do have some less than five.

Less than five lead service lines within our tire distribution system.

Now we do have that number does go up a bit because part of the rule requires that we evaluate galvanized lines that were connected to a lead service line.

And if you don't have any data that shows that it unequivocally wasn't connected, you have to put it in that category.

So lines requiring replacement out of the 48,000 service connections were at right around 30.

Okay.

Well, that's gonna render my next question virtually useless.

I was I was gonna ask if there was any help available for those households that that had to replace those those lines.

Well, we're we are looking at a program to where much like uh like our water conservation where we have um uh rebates to where we can provide some financial assistance, but we're still working with our legal team to to work that out to essentially the customer would replace the line.

So the utility is responsible for service up to the meter.

Sure, but the customer takes it from the meter to their home.

The way that the lead and copper rule is written is the federal government doesn't acknowledge the line as being replaced unless it's replaced up to the envelope of the home.

So it includes both the customers and the city side.

So we felt that it would be prudent for us to look if there's any any funding mechanisms or programs that we could offer our community to help offset those costs of replacing the line from the meter to their home.

Now we're not required to do it if they and we're not required to make the customer do it.

What we are required to do is let them know that it's there.

It does require replacement, provide opportunity for them to replacement.

If they do replace it, then we have to reply, we have to supply them with uh rid of filters for six months.

And if they choose not to do it, we just have to make three attempts to get them to replace their service line and then document it.

Tell me once more.

I'm sorry, tell me once more what that outside the envelope is from the from the wall outside wall of the house.

No, there's a there's a building envelope, and I'm not sure.

Let me interrupt just a second.

Uh I think the city attorney is saying we might be a little bit out of the scope of the presentation.

These are broad discussions generally because they're just budget discussions, but they are still budget discussions.

If the questions are related to city cost and something like that, that's a different story, but um to just have conversations about another program or off topic for that.

I beg your pardon.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Anyway, any other questions?

Okay.

I I do have one on the um the five-year forecast slide.

So the estimated 2526 was 41 million, and then we budgeted 51869303.

I was trying to look up there real quickly to see where the major difference is, and it looks like debt service transfers is a major contributor to that, that uh close to six to seven million dollars.

And is that um is that because we brought on some new infrastructure and we've got higher debt payments and things such as that?

That's correct.

Okay.

And then uh I guess the other one is uh personnel services a little bit.

So um okay.

Oh, and the interfund transfers.

All right.

So uh just to clarify for everybody, because I didn't know that I thought I did, but administrative cost is what are they called transfers?

And then the but the interference, so that the administrative costs are transfers into the general fund, and the interfund transfers are funds that are dispersed to other departments that are outside the general fund.

Is that correct?

For instance, tech services, fleet and facilities, um, materials management, which is our warehouse and procurement group.

So there's other funds outside of general fund that support these utilities.

Okay, great.

All right, thank you.

That's all that's all I have.

Yes, Councilmember Ramore.

Just for the audience or anybody who watches this video later, you you did point out that there's a pretty big spike in debt service transfers in this pro forma.

Um, what are the I guess top three um projects or new pieces of infrastructure that are driving that might be a Stephen question?

Steven, sorry.

Stephen, I was asking what are the the top three major infrastructure projects that are driving the increase in debt service we're seeing on this pro forma.

Oh, on on wastewater?

Yes, on wastewater.

That's gonna be um, I would say the Pecan Creek uh plant replacement.

I would say the Clear Creek interceptor sewer, and then the um the construction or I would say the design for the uh Clear Creek uh the plant at Hartley Field where we're gonna be doing we're designing the headworks and the initial phases of treatment.

Those are the three big ones.

And I know Pecon Creek is is partly it's an older plan and that one's reaching capacity, so it's a mixture of it's old and and growth.

Um and then this these are mostly for anybody watching the video, these questions.

Um for Clear Creek, what is the reason that we're building that?

Just job.

Clear Creek is really to address the growth in the area, the demand in the area for services.

We have no we have no infrastructure up there or very little, I should say, and so we're building the the uh interceptor sewer from Mylam Creek from the um diversion facility all the way over to our Clare Creek property on in Hartley Field.

Gotcha.

And to your point about uh Pecan Creek, 100%.

The line share of those costs are to fix what's uh what has degraded at that facility.

So as briefly as you can, why a second plant and not just making the concrete bigger?

We're limited by our discharge ability at that site, and so TCEQ, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality limits the amount they do, they they determine how much waste can go into a specific point on the waterway.

And so we're limited down in Pecan Creek.

We have the opportunity up in Clear Creek, and it's more affordable because we're utilizing uh topography to help us with the flows.

If we were to move everything to Pecan Creek, we'd have to have large transfer stations in a way to lift stations to lift the waste from a lower elevation to a higher elevation, so it increased maintenance cost and operational cost.

Gotcha.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Any other questions on this?

All right.

Thanks.

All right.

So next we'll look at drainage.

So the drainage fund is responsible for for protecting life and property, managing Denton's stormwater drainage infrastructure in order to reduce flood risks.

So as part of our assumptions in building out the performa, we are including a rate increase of 5%.

One of the major changes that you will notice whenever you are looking at this, and you'll see it in both the revenues and the expenditures is due to the movement of the watershed HBU to environmental services.

So that is no longer within the drainage fund.

So the drainage fund budget for 2027 for both revenues and expenditures is $5.9 million dollars.

Currently, any fund balance that uh over the $1 million is used to cash fund projects.

The 5% rate increase over the next few years will further enable the fund to cash support projects and effectively address the operational needs of the drainage system.

Any questions on this one?

Any questions?

So here is the capital plan for drainage.

Um we do now show those sources of funding on the slide.

I know we had a question about that.

Uh sources of funding are both cash and debt.

Um we do rely on a mix of both.

We are recommending the use of unallocated dollars to fund the capital in 2027, but then we'll rely on the mix after that with the rate increases that you saw, and I probably did not spend quite enough time on that, five percent across the next five years.

That will help us to better fund ongoing needs of the drainage fund through cash.

Any questions on drainage?

One primarily is the major driver that it moved one of those uh back to the slide where something moved into environmental services.

Yes.

Um the uh watershed protection function moved to environmental services, so you no longer see the transfer from the general fund.

There was uh a watershed inspection fee that went here that is now in the environmental fund, and then some changes then in the expenditures, personnel supply, nothing too dangerous there.

So the primary decrease here uh from the estimate to the proposed budget uh sounds like over 50 percent or large part of that is this moving over of this basically department to another to another organization.

It's a division within environmental services and sustainability.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Any other questions?

No, we can move on.

All right, so next we're gonna look at uh the electric fund.

We are looking at a three percent increase to the base rate, which is effectively a 1.5% increase.

Um, we are including the assumption that we're going to continue to review and adjust as needed, the ECA and TCRF uh pass-through charges on a quarterly basis.

Um of the major changes um is the creation of a new planning and inspections HBU or division uh within the department.

So this is just really an internal reorganization.

Um it does not result in increasing staff in fiscal year 2027.

Um, it does, however, help the department improve how it tracks expenses.

So by consolidating these related costs into a single HBU, they can more accurately uh monitor and manage related expenses.

So uh overall, the preliminary budget is slightly below the current year's uh budget.

While we are exceeding our debt coverage ratio, ongoing incremental rate increases are needed to meet reserve targets.

Um importantly, the increase this year, which will be to the base rate, um, will help keep the native load revenues aligned with fixed expenditures that don't change with changes in consumption.

Um that includes things like staffing, debt payments, essential maintenance, and then regulatory requirements.

The capital for the electric fund is approximately 68 million dollars in fiscal year 2027.

Uh this is funded through debt, revenues, and then participation agreements with TechSot and the Texas municipal power association.

Sometimes I get the acronyms.

All right.

So overall, the CIP includes funding for uh transmission and distribution infrastructure, as well as funds for DME uh campus fencing and parking lot improvements.

That is a small piece, but I felt like you might wonder what building construction is.

So I thought I would point that amount out.

Uh, but that is what that building construction line is referring to.

These are a lot shorter than they were in my head.

Any questions?

Uh council member uh mayor for Tim, excuse me.

I I have just some questions about the uh again the budget versus the EOI estimate.

Um we budgeted, for example, like with revenue 526 million, or off by 200 million.

Um what's it what's the main driver of that?

I'm gonna have Tony come up and address uh your questions around the performa.

Okay.

Uh council uh council Tony Puente, the Amy General Manager.

Um so a few things uh are happening in the performance.

Certainly um the weather hasn't quite cooperated uh from what we originally estimated, and so base rate revenues um are down just as a result of um less demand what we anticipated.

Uh in addition, uh power prices um, you know, this this summer certainly we'll see in the next couple of days how they how they materialize, but they've certainly been less than what we anticipated.

Um the big driver is that you know projected uh revenue from from data centers uh is also down.

If you could, I don't know if you can, but if you could put those into percentages of uh how much of it is from the data centers?

Yeah, I think I think the lion's share of that is is from the data centers.

Um I know we have a closed session discussion that can uh later on, and we can go more specifically as uh as to those specific uh projections.

I I guess my question then is um kind of along those lines is there something that changed in our methodology moving forward?

Um like what makes us confident that the following year will jump back up uh to over 500 million?

Yeah, so so the projections for next year are are based on um the projections that we've had um not just from from the specific companies uh but also kind of where we think uh weather will materialize, where forward prices of energy, um, and so we mean we're we can be as confident in those projections as what I know today.

Uh but those continue to evolve.

Um and the other thing to the other item that I'll mention is a lot of these projections we've been working on them since January, and so some of the you know a lot of things have happened since January, and so um, and that'll continue to happen.

But again, uh today um about as confident as that can be in this projections.

And last question on that, and I I don't mean to pick on electric uh in particular.

I guess what I'm asking is has there been any change in methodology from last year to this year of hey, maybe we can share up these things that we're analyzing to get a more accurate number.

Like has anything changed from how we did that last year to this year?

Yeah, I think on the on the base rate side, certainly for the native load, we've actually um gotten more conservative.

Um last year we had projected an 8% increase for the current year.

That hasn't really materialized.

We're now projecting about a two percent growth uh for the current year, and then for next year, uh usually for the out years, we usually project the four percent increase in base rates.

We've now lowered that down to two percent.

Okay, so we have gotten a little more conservative uh than we have in the past, just purely uh based on kind of where we've seen uh the historical trends.

And I apologize, Mayor.

I do have one more question.

I uh I this is for my education.

Can you help explain to me like the link between uh purchased power and like ECA revenue?

And the reason I ask is when I was looking at the drop in budget versus estimate, I don't have the numbers in front of me uh for purchased power.

I think it is like a 42 and a half percent decrease.

Whereas ECA revenue is I think four percent less of a decrease.

And so can you help me?

Does that question make sense as far as just how are they linked?

So they're directly linked, and so um the purchase power expenses that are based on what we pay for energy through uh open market uh um transactions, financial transactions, power purchase agreements, uh net of any debt revenue, that's how we get to that purchase power number.

That is a complete pass through through the ECA plus a markup for the general fund transfers that are made.

And so generally you'll look at that purchase power number and you look at that ECA revenue, the ECA revenues you know, a little bit a little bit higher than that purchase power number, just because again we we need to make sure that we have enough revenue to cover those associated expenses.

So those are direct directly linked, same with transmission.

So if you look at transmission cost of power, that transmission cost of power line is associated with that TCRF uh revenue.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Yes, Councilmember Real.

Thank you, Mayor.

And this is uh jumping off Mayor Pro Tem's point, and you may have answered it previously uh when he was asking about the uh revenue, uh, but in terms of our uh budgeted um expenditures versus the estimated projected expenditures, uh going back to the last question, Mayor Pro Tim asked, why do we overestimate our need for purchase power this year um as opposed to what actually occurred?

Yeah, uh so the budget for purchase power is based on the forward uh projected price of power, right?

That may not necessarily materialize in the prompt year.

And so certainly this year um we are tracking below uh what we had originally estimated on purchase power, just simply because the the price for power has not developed based on the power forward, the forward prices of power that we had utilized initially to come up with those projections.

Gotcha, thank you.

Yes, Councilmember Ramore.

Tony, can you explain um or maybe it's uh Amy the so we're saying it's uh we're projecting a three percent increase, but it's like a one and a half percent increase.

Can you help explain how it's like a one and a half?

Yeah, yeah.

So uh so the so the base rate when you look at a customer's bill, uh, only represents about 45% of their total bill.

The lion's share of a customer's bill is is associated with the pass-through charges for ECA and transmission cost recovery factor.

And so a three percent growth factor really amounts to a one and a half percent bill impact to an individual customer.

Okay, that makes sense.

I think I was ignoring the part where it said base rate.

Yes, um, I appreciate that.

And then what I know I asked this question ahead of time, but similar if anybody watches this video now or later, what are the primary drivers of these projected rate increases coming up?

What what purpose are they funding effectively?

Yeah, so so by and large, um as you can see in this forecast, uh, we are projecting that we will not be at the minimum fund balance um until fiscal year 2031.

And so those rate increases based on the revenue projections that we have today and the expenses that we've that we've projected would be needed to be able to get this fund back to the minimum fund balance.

And so so without those rate increases, we would extend uh get into that minimum fund balance for probably another 10 years.

And can you explain the the risks of us not being at our target fund balance?

Um yeah, uh I mean I'm looking at amount of map might be more appropriate, but uh I mean certainly uh not getting to uh to the minimum fund balance.

Um we would not be meeting our internal debt management policy uh that require our fund balance policy that says that if we dip below the minimum fund balance, we have to get back to the minimum fund balance within a five-year period.

The rating agencies are certainly aware of those policies and are looking at these performances.

So there could be an impact on our credit rating.

So it's it affects our the cost for us to borrow money that's correct.

That's basically what you're saying.

Um and then what generally, as briefly as you can, what do we use the fund balance for?

Yeah, so the the fund balance is generally there for um emergency type situations.

Uh winter storm year is a perfect example, summer of 23.

Um if they're if revenues don't materialize, uh expenses are higher, uh then we could draw down that fund balance.

Generally, we like to draw down those fund balances uh for one-time type of expenditures, uh, but certainly if if we're trying to bridge the gap um and um trying to make sure that our rates are being affordable for affordable to customers, that's a good way to basically uh you could almost see it like a a self-funded line of credit.

So it's sort of to protect us from those shocks, basically.

So what Amy was saying was in a lot of these things we're trying to avoid uh rate shocks.

So if we didn't have sufficient uh revenue or fund balance, um, and we had one of those shocks to the system and we couldn't pull from this fund, um, that we could see much higher spikes potentially in the future if something hit.

Yes, ma'am.

And I'll point out that in fiscal year uh 24 25, uh we actually were at the minimum fund balance just the way that revenues came in and expenditures uh materialized.

Gotcha.

All right, thank you so much.

May I yes?

And then I've got a few after you, Mayor Pro Tim.

Sorry, just one more question.

Um if if you can't answer it in open session, that is under uh I understand.

Um the total revenue in in the 2025 to six budget estimated at 526.

So if you go down to the bottom, it was a projected change in fund balance is 17 million.

Uh so there's a 19 million shift in change of fund balance from what was projected to what we think we're gonna wind up having.

If it had panned out the way we thought it had, would there have been a need to still increase rates?

Um I I think over that five year period, I think the rates probably could have been a little bit you know, a little bit lower.

Okay.

Um I think just from a good financial uh best practice, uh some type of modest modest increase every year.

I I think is is one a good thing to do, and then I think it's bearable for our customers.

I think the number one complaint um I've had from our customers after our large increases in 24 was could you not do this all at once?

You know, can you kind of ease us into those?

And so we've been very uh cognizant of that certainly as we're looking at our ECA rates and our TCRF rates to not create that kind of that kind of rate shock again.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Any other questions?

Um go council mayor fairy yes.

I was gonna wait till the end, but I think you can see.

No, go ahead.

Sure, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um and I I appreciate all the the questions from my fellow council members about um the numbers, because for me they also are they're a little um concerning.

Concerning is the word that comes to mind.

I think it's just looking at the actuals for 2425, for example, and looking how similar ish they are to the actual 2526, and then trying to think why the budget was so padded for the estimate for uh or for the MO the mod budget, excuse me, those dark differences cause concern for me in how we're planning and and I think Mayor Pro Tem Stevens asked kind of, you know, are we seeing a change in how we're structuring our budget?

Um, because these numbers are so starkly different.

And to the question you just answered, sir, um about complaints from um users saying, you know, can we not throw a bunch all at one time?

Um I think that in this presentation, we're raising, I think across four of the five services, a total of 20%, which is the highest increase over the last six years.

So I think this is in fact exactly the opposite of what we're hearing in terms of concerns.

I say all of that to say it with a question.

Um my wonderment is do we feel like there are drivers?

I think council member Rumore asked this question, but I'm gonna ask it in a different way.

Are there drivers that are impacting the city's ability to keep solid lower rates for citizens?

For example, are we overextending our production through water by by by going outside of the city limits?

Um is there an opportunity that could exist to charge different rates?

Is there an opportunity to charge tiered rates for in-city residents?

Um that was a lot.

So I'm gonna stop talking and let you talk.

I'm sorry.

Uh yeah, yes, sir.

Um I I think that uh what I what I would say is when you look at uh our current um um average rate for a residential customer, uh, which is uh uh someone that uses about a thousand kilowatt hours a month, uh roughly 14 cents a kilowatt hour.

When you look at that uh compared to other MOUs, uh, and there's a lot of differences, right?

Uh I think uh most customers are looking at okay.

So if I could pick my own provider, uh what kind of rate would I be?

And that particular rate, that 14 cents today, is actually pretty competitive uh out in the kind of deregulated market where customers are seeing about that much for a 12-month contract or 24 24 month contract.

And so I think from an affordability standpoint compared to what others are paying across the state, I think that the current rate structure, uh the current rates that we have is very comparative, very competitive and very affordable.

Okay, thank you.

And then again, I'm trying to get clarity.

I know I asked a lot of questions and I said a lot of words, so I want to be succinct.

Looking at the actuals for 24 and 25, looking at our actuals for 2526, aka the EOI estimate, them being so closely in resemblance.

I'm wondering what metric are we using and how are we getting such higher numbers in an anticipated budget, not only in 25.6 but 267 carrying over.

Yeah, I I think if you're if you're looking at just purely base rates, I think for base rates, as I mentioned earlier, we have shifted how we are calculating that, right?

So that's now a kind of a two percent growth for our base rates.

Certainly, um, you know, when we go into closed session, I can talk a little bit about you know the data center projections, uh, but on the purchase power side, um, I mean, those the those costs are based on what the forward price of power will be.

And in some cases, that forward price of power is actually higher than what ends up materializing.

And so um now the reverse could could happen as well, right?

So that forward price of power that we're using to base the budget in uh could actually end up being below what the market ends up um uh materializing.

And so next next year we can be having some the complete opposite uh conversation here.

And so again, we're basing this budget one on a normal year, and then based on those forward prices of power, and the forward prices of power today tell us that the price is gonna be going up and up and up, and so that's how we base the budget.

Even though what actually materializes may not be that okay, thank you.

Yeah, I've just got a couple of questions.

Sort of you've answered a lot of them through some of the other some other colleagues.

Uh because really my main thrust is how does all this play into the budget process that we're in right now, and how much does it impact going forward if there's you know, we see that there's some uh differences in the forecast, and how does that impact, you know.

So the first thing I I want to make sure I heard you correctly uh to an answer to uh Mayor Pro Tim that you know he asked about what is there a particular driver for the difference between the end of your estimate and um what the budget was in 20 uh 2025-26.

And I think you said that it's you know the data center.

I mean, to some degree.

I mean, the the line share of that is the data center.

Uh so when we talk about forecasts with higher pricing and all that moving forward, there is, and we can't talk about it specifically here.

I understand that in in open session, but so in 2025 budget last year, and in this budget, which is very eerily similar, only five million dollars off.

I think it would be safe to say that if the driver and the decrease was primarily the the uh data centers, I think we've got two of them, uh not to call anybody out.

Whereas the forecast moving forward, the return to that higher uh, I'm gonna call it the ECA rate because that's really that's that's where it that's where it all was.

That that's also a main driver of going back to that is this projection of additional electricity being used or needed from other large sources.

Is that is that the yeah, so so just like the rest of our customers, you know, almost 60 percent of their bill is associated with purchase power and transmission costs that are passed through cost.

And so uh certainly if if if that load doesn't materialize, uh then the those those power costs will now materialize, and then the ref the revenue won't materialize either.

Okay.

Uh now for for um because those calculations do impact the ROI and franchise fee that's going to the general fund, certainly that's where a huge impact could be felt on the general fund side, right?

Because uh revenues that were projected um to be transferred won't must you know didn't materialize.

Okay.

So then to sort of kind of understand that now it I think in the revenue portion, the franchise fees and ROIs, they're contained in the administrative costs, is that correct?

Yes.

Okay, all right.

And so that would probably be uh so you go from 34 million on the budget to 24 EOI, most likely again the lion's share of that is the reduction of ROI or franchise fees flowing from those revenues that didn't materialize.

That's correct.

Okay.

Um so I understand that you know we all misforecast, I mean we all miss forecasts.

Forecasting is forecasting.

Uh in fact, I remember many years ago when Mayor before the uh CFO would always say, look, when you get two or three years out, three or four years out, it's all kind of just speculation.

So I I I get that.

I guess from the perspective of um, so when we're forecasting, so does that mean that on these administrative costs, if we if the the general fund didn't realize six or seven million dollars that it could have if those forecasted come through, all right, which forecast, I mean I understand that for utility departments, sort of a wash.

For us for the general fund, it's different.

Uh so I guess, and I'm not going to belabor at this point, but it'd be interesting to know as the budget comes forward, looking at the ROI and franchise fee from this kind of form for the general fund, what was the budget, what was the estimate, and how that that that typically impacted us.

Uh so I guess my my only um so the three percent increase, uh you you'd mentioned the large increases in 24.

I think there was a 25 percent or something like that.

Yes, sir, it was it was a 20 percent increase in April of 24, and then an additional 5 percent in August.

Um that was primarily on the ECA, okay, but also reinstating the transmission cost recovery factor.

Gotcha.

Okay.

All right.

Uh so then, and I know you'll probably address it some in close session, and I get a little, I get a little kind of I understand that's the regulations and the law and those kinds of things, but sometimes I really want us to make sure that whatever we can disclose, whatever we can share with the public, not disclose, but share with the public.

I know we're all willing to try to do that without you know crossing over a line.

Um I think it's important just to let people know that in this budget, there is a forecast that is projecting some load from data centers that is probably driving.

I I mean, I've said it on the campaign trail, and it's been in every publication that gosh, the data centers will require as much electricity in the end, potentially, as the entire city.

So it wouldn't surprise me if you know they double that or or come close to doing that.

Uh my my main concern isn't so much that, it's how this affects number one, the general fund.

So help me understand the correlation between when we're when we're off a little bit, or you know, when we don't hit those uh real close.

How does because we we council budget off the general fund and that based upon the budget?

So we set a tax rate based upon the budget.

If it doesn't show up, then we've got some issues.

On the utility side, let's say the electric side, so you set the rates based upon, I presume, assume your your budget.

Is that right?

So as I mentioned, um uh the last time I was up here, um, you know, the electric fund you gotta think about it, that's three buckets, right?

And so uh the lion's share of the expenses are purchased power uh that are recovered through the ECA, there are no fixed expenses associated with that, okay, other than the 11 percent general fund transfer.

Um and so if it doesn't materialize for DME, um there is no impact because there are there is no ONM expenses, expenses baked into that calculation.

Same thing with the TCRF, the TCRF is a pure pass-through of transmission costs plus an 11 percent.

So when those revenue streams don't materialize, the huge the the biggest impact is on the general fund um transfer all operating uh and maintenance expenses, personnel, you know, um debt, all that is all baked into our base rate calculation.

A component of that, a component of that, uh because the data centers also do pay a base rate component.

And when that does, if that does not materialize, then certainly at that point uh we're having to rebalance the you know our fixed expenses.

And one of the reasons why we didn't have any supplementals going into the next year, why we also uh did some reductions, I think uh I think they mentioned in the presentation, about 2.8 percent uh reduction in operating expenses to try to balance that out as well.

Okay.

So just to sort of summarize so I can understand it, base I I totally understand about the ECA rate and the transmission, those are sort of neutral in the sense of how it impacts the electric rate, let's say the base rate.

Yes, sir.

But yet if we forecasted some load that comes in because they pay a base rate, if it doesn't show up, then you have to either rebalance or find some way to if there's a little gap or if there's a gap, you got to find a way to try to fill in that gap just on that base rate component or all those things that go into that.

Okay.

All right.

Uh that makes that that makes sense.

Quickly on mention, mayor, so uh on the ECA side uh per our policy, we we also have uh an accountant balance, basically a separate reserve that uh can go, can fluctuate between minus 20 million and 20 million, right?

Uh but again, trying to be cognizant of the rate shock to customers, uh, we try to utilize that balance and keep that within the 20 million dollar uh kind of range, right?

We do draw it down uh generally during the summer and then it builds back up in the winter, but we're trying to keep that ECA rate that's currently at 4.62 cents pretty constant.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that's so that like you said, there wouldn't be a rate shock.

If you kept it at the actual cost of power, you could have a big huge spike at some point, and then you have nothing to really have a cushion when it when it uh when it hits.

Okay.

And the last in the last year, both the ECA and the TCRF, we've actually lowered that.

The council's approved lowering that about a almost almost a two percent decrease.

Okay.

And one last question uh for now is just so I understand on any of these personnel services on the the 2025 budget 26, and then on the EOI estimate, the budget represents fully funded all staff positions, whether they're somebody actually in that position or it's a vacancy.

Is that is that correct?

Okay.

Well, except for for one, and on the DME side, we do capitalized labor, and so there's about four million dollars of labor cost that we actually charge to capital projects.

And so the so the real number for personal expenses for DME is really four million dollars more than what you're seeing in that line item.

Where would where would what you just mentioned, the four million dollars in capital labor, where would it be in here?

In personal services, that is a net number.

That is net of that capitalized labor.

Okay, okay.

Because what I'm trying to understand, and and uh we don't need it now, but it eventually I would like to see exactly what is our total actual personnel cost that we write checks to people.

I mean, we we pay them.

And and how's that compared to what we're budgeting?

Because then that represents, I guess, the amount of money that is budgeted for vacancies, and that gives us a a sort of a better idea of that.

But that no, that's helpful.

Um thank you so much.

That that's that's very helpful, and I look forward to uh some closed session and we'll come over here.

Councilor Mamore.

Appreciate it.

Um I'll try to be brief as I can.

Um Tony, will you confirm that um the increase in the rates is driven by the need for a higher fund balance?

Is that the majority of the rate increase?

Yeah, so so that fund balance is calculated.

The minimum is 46 percent of the budget expenses.

So as those expenses grow, that the minimum fund balance grows as well.

Okay, and the increase in the fund balance is being driven by the increase in purchase power or forecasted purchase power.

Primarily as well.

Primarily.

Um and then the majority of the per increase in purchase power is the data center.

I think we've kind of said the lion's share.

I know, but we're growing as well, right?

So the native load is growing as well.

But the majority of the purchase power increases data center.

As that as that comes online and starts to consume power, yes, ma'am, we have to budget for that to uh purchase the power needed.

Okay, and then if those revenues don't materialize, so we've been talking about um the base rate and ECA rates, you know, not mat not matching previous projections.

So let's say it's not met again.

Um the need for a higher fund balance would be lessened for now.

Um and so in theory, maybe in future years we would see either uh slower increase or delayed increase potentially, something like that.

There's potential for that if that doesn't materialize.

Right.

Okay.

Um and then just for for the public and for my colleagues, um, it will be a priority for me to make sure that um this increase in fund balance that is seems to be impacting rates that um that we're not seeing our current rate payers paying for the it basically the data center's presence.

Um so I want us to be really careful of that as we make these discussions.

Thank you.

Council member.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh going on the next slide, slide 19.

Um that's okay.

Uh could you explain the connection that exists between the transmission lines project and the uh cost participation funding source?

Yeah, so so not not all those projects are included in that cost participation, uh, but there are projects um that are reimbursable through to TechSot.

If we're required to move a line, uh we are reimbursed by TechStop.

Also through uh TMPA, uh we we also manage their um local transmission system, and so we do pay for those up front, and then we get reimbursed uh from um uh from TMPA.

Uh the other piece is that for those transmission projects that the city owns, we do recover those costs plus a rate of return.

I know there's another closed session item today to talk about uh the TCOS case, and so we do do currently earn about a 6.21% rate of return on those transmission investments, and that shows up as a revenue for DME under T coast is actually embedded in that non-rate revenue.

It's about 26 million dollars a year that we're getting from uh transmission um uh transmission cost of service.

That's everyone else across the state is paying DME for utilization of our transmission system.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions.

Thank you.

I I didn't want to stop right in the middle, but uh it well let's just take about a five minute break.

We've been going for a couple hours, and so uh if we'll take a five minute break, come back.

We got customer service left.

Is that right?

That's correct.

Okay, all right.

Yeah, let's take a let's take five.

Welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council.

We're in work session.

It is now we'll reconvene at 41.

We've got one more uh utility or organization under agenda item 3B, and I believe it's customer service.

Thank you.

Uh as you indicated, one more fund to cover.

Um, so when we are looking at customer service, this includes both customer service and 311.

Um, these two functions support the utilities, um, and then to slightly lesser extent, really the entire organization is being supported through these two functions.

Um, one of the major changes in their budget this next year is the credit card processing fee, which will be implemented on October 1st.

Um that is a percentage service fee on all online payments with the exception of e-checks, uh, and it is applied to all customer classes.

This will result in a significant savings, and you'll see on the performa where that savings comes into play for uh customer service.

Um, so here is that performa.

Their revenues and expenditures for 2627 preliminarily are 9.9 million dollars.

Um you will note that there is no longer a cost of service attributed to streets.

Um, this is really due to a restructuring in the methodology and how we look at how 311 services are allocated starting in 2027.

Um, these costs are now included within the general fund as streets is a special revenue fund supported predominantly by general fund revenues or funds that pass through the general fund.

Um, the savings associated with the new processing fee are reflected in the preliminary budget on the operations line, going from 3.5 million to 1.8 million uh within that line item.

Before I go to the next slide, that is actually it for customer service.

Any questions on customer service?

Any questions?

Seeing none.

Okay.

All right.

So I wanted to share with you a history of utility rates.

We typically wouldn't go back quite this many years, but I did want to share that we did reduce rates for solid waste and for water in 2021, and those rates were held until 2025.

Um, and then you see the increases that we have proposed for 2627 that were on each of those individual performers.

Um this is a look at the impact on a utility bill.

Um we have basically what is a typical bill for a residential customer, including um solid waste, electric, uh, we assume a thousand kilowatt hours, um water, nine thousand gallons, wastewater six, and then drainage fifteen hundred gallons.

Uh they would see um typical bill an increase of eight dollars and thirty cents.

Commercial is more of your mom mom and pop smaller commercial uh business, and they would see an increase of twelve dollars and thirty-four cents under the preliminary um rates uh that were included.

We had a question yesterday about what this would look like over the five years that are shown on the performa.

Um, and here's what that would look like again for that typical residential customer, and then that smaller uh commercial business.

Any questions?

Okay, all right.

Um, so um I did actually skip the next step on this slide, which is we will be going back to PUB next Monday and get their recommendations on the utility budgets and rates.

Uh we will come back to you on August 4th to uh take an in-depth look at capital projects.

August 8th is the budget workshop, the 18th for any follow-ups, and then in September we have the budget and tax rate hearing and adoption.

All right.

I would say any questions.

Any questions?

No, see any.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Okay, we'll call our next item, which is an end of agenda item, excuse me, 3C ID 26-0627.

Receive report hold discussion give staff direction on pending city council requests.

Two-minute pitches, I guess is what we call these all right.

Good afternoon, Mary and Council.

I'm Justin Stackhouse, assistant to the city manager.

Here to present our next item, which is on the two-minute pitches.

As a reminder, up to seven requests will be reviewed per meeting.

That's one per council member.

Staff will introduce each request.

The requesting council member will have up to two minutes to describe and justify the request.

Remaining council members will have a maximum of one minute each to provide feedback and indicate their support for the use of city staff time to respond to the request.

Staff will respond to all requests where there's a consensus of at least four elected officials has been established.

And a consensus of six city council members is required for resolution ordinance to be placed on a future council agenda prior to a work session honorary request.

And as a reminder, you'll have uh able to give uh priority of high, medium, or low on your recommendation on any item that you do recommend moves forward.

Um to start our first two-minute pitch is on the topic of boards and commission nominations, vacancies, and absence policy from Mayor Pratim Stevens and Mayor will hand it off to you to facilitate that.

Thank you.

All right, so we have two minutes to pitch your pitch, and then each of us give a minute.

I I'm gonna try to keep time the best I can.

So some of you might I don't think I'm gonna shortchange anybody, you just might get a little more than a minute, so please forgive me.

Mayor Pro Tim, you're up thank you.

Um so this is uh pretty straightforward.

Last uh September uh council member Jester put forward a pitch.

Uh that I think is great.

I'm looking forward to that discussion.

Uh and it was about a lot of these issues.

Really, the intention of this is to uh add a few more things that I'd like to look at, and I'll I'll I'll list two of them.

The the first thing is uh about vacancies.

Uh if a council member has a vacancy for more than six months, I I think that you know we're a team and we can help each other out when there is a vacancy for longer that we could revisit that policy.

Maybe it's uh at that point, for example, anyone uh could then nominate someone to that board uh to make sure that these are filled.

The other thing I want us to look at is the absence policy.

My understanding is right now if there's three unexcused absences, there's the possibility that it could be removed, but I don't think there's much clarity on what that process is.

Rather, it's the uh, you know, and I'd like to revisit that policy.

Maybe once we get to that point, it goes straight to the consent agenda, or does a council member themselves ask for it?

Does the person who appointed them ask for that kind of removal?

Uh on top of that, wanting to look at are the unexcused absences that we have, you know, fair.

Uh, do we need to revisit any of that?

So this is I I put as low to medium priority, but ideally, I think it would make sense for I think it's at September when council member Jester's pitch uh comes up in a work session uh for staff to add this on to that work session uh to go into detail with these things as well.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Uh okay, we're gonna start here.

We're gonna start here, then we're gonna go down the line.

Councilmember Jester.

Well, great minds think alike.

Uh yes, I did a pitch regarding uh addressing the vacancies, streamlining the process, recruitment for the seats.

Um also looking at the amount that we have, the amount uh frequency that these groups meet, utilizing tasks force, looking to see what some of our other cities have done.

Um a hundred and twenty staff hours were utilized in creating the report that um I think was just finally sent out to everyone today.

Uh but we do have that set for September.

So I would say let I I don't know that I would be in favor of a new report and a new um request for staff to dig in and spend more time until we have that work session and determine where we want to go with all of our boards and commissions, but I I think that um the these exact same things are some of the things that we want to talk about and are on the list for September.

So that's where I am.

All right.

So for clarification, uh, you're okay with including it, just not with additional staff work uh as far as because that was part of what we had talked about.

Sure.

Okay.

All right.

Councilmember real support moderate priority.

Councilmember Umar.

I'm definitely supportive of discussing this.

Um in terms of the timing on it.

Um, Cassie, if it makes sense to include it in the September work session, I'm happy to do it then.

If it if that timeline is too short, it would punt that other discussion, you know, maybe we time it um a little differently.

Um but I'm picturing it just adding it to the work session, maybe not a separate ISR.

Self-supportive.

Okay.

All right.

Anyone else?

Uh council member Holland.

Low support and and I would add it to the work session in September.

Okay.

Councilmember Ferry.

Uh medium support, and I would add it to the agenda as well in September.

Thank you.

Uh yeah, we've got four.

It sounds like medium support adding it to the agenda, uh, given that if it fits in well and it doesn't really create a is it okay, good deal.

All right, thank you.

The next one is on the topic of mental health training for police officers.

Uh from council member ferry.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Uh I actually want to start by saying I had um a wonderful meeting yesterday with interim chief uh Tony Salais.

And um got uh some really important information that I'm grateful to have that has been sent to me also through city staff.

Um outlining the numerous different training opportunities that they mandate for their police officers that I think is quite robust.

And I also checked with our city of attorney earlier today about tweaking this a little bit.

Um and uh I was given the green light.

So I'm I'm I'm wanting to have a discussion more so about increasing more mental health resources to aid and help our police officers and police department.

Um so currently, like I said, we've been I was given uh instruction on the training they currently have.

I think it's wonderful.

I think it's great.

It is still a high priority for me that in my conversation with interim chief solace, we also identified several opportunities to cross-collaborate across departments.

And I think it would be great to have a work session where we talk about those opportunities, the current challenges and barriers that exist and what those um would look like in terms of as we discuss budget, what might be needed to shore up certain things, what other funding opportunities exist for it.

So thanks.

Okay.

Councilmember.

Thank you so much, and thank you, Councilmember Ferry for adjusting your pitch a little bit.

Um, with that, I am of course am supportive of uh additional resources for our police officers.

I also want to make sure that we're including the police association uh involved with any conversation regarding this.

Uh so I am supportive, uh, just knowing staff you know capacity at the time with the budget coming up.

I do uh support that moderate priority okay, councilmember Jason.

Um I uh echo my council members' uh concerns um and I was gonna uh mention the same thing that I definitely want to start by hearing from the police and from the police association as far as what they already have, make sure that we're not duplicating anything.

However, um in my meetings with the police association leaders in the past, uh mental health is obviously something that's um uh concerning.

So I would be in favor uh moderate and thank you for bringing it.

Okay.

Councilmember Holland.

Uh I I'm I'm reluctant to uh to express an opinion on this one way or another.

Uh the pros are who I go to for this kind of a for this kind of a thing.

Uh I don't have a problem with discussing it, but but I'm I'm gonna defer to Chief Solace on this, and and I'm also a little concerned about the cost, but uh but but I'm gonna I'm gonna let the pros tell me what to do on this.

Okay.

So you're okay with having the conversation?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Council Mayor Pro Tim.

Yep, uh, you can add me.

I'm I'm good with the conversation.

Okay.

Yes, I I am as well, and I think uh I think the conversation will include some of the observations you had about costs and and hearing from uh the chief and the police association to really I mean to have this real collaborative discussion on a very very important topic.

So uh that moves forward, I believe, with a um was it a medium priority?

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you.

Yeah, you can put me down as okay.

I didn't you got you gotta you gotta throw something at me.

You know, I went at it late.

You're good.

All right.

You're fine.

Okay, all right, fantastic.

Right.

You bet thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Ferry.

All right, thank you.

And our third is on the topic of creation of a citizens committee of art and culture for Mayor Watts.

Oh, you need me?

Okay.

Okay.

Uh this basically came out of conversations that I had uh during the campaign with people meeting in uh Bruce Burns home, meeting with uh Chrissy Odin for GDAC, and just really and and honestly, the real catalyst was a breakfast meeting we had with the Denton Chamber of Commerce, where they had a panel of uh people who work downtown, you know, Denton County Brewery, rubber gloves, uh of those owners who talked about uh just the excitement that that is around those venues, but also that how many venues we've lost since COVID.

So I think for me, this isn't a council committee.

I don't envision this as a council committee, and I don't have any problem having it if it's if it's not overloaded with the work session on commissions and and boards and commissions, if not we can put it separate.

But it's really just to talk about is there some way we can structure things uh differently uh with our citizens to really get them to provide us with some expert knowledge, maybe some expert policy recommendations uh regarding this because it really is what makes Denton Denton.

And I think if we aren't fully aware of some of the deficient deficiencies, we can't help them.

If we aren't fully aware of the great opportunities, we can't help them.

So that's really what this is about.

It's not, I don't believe it would require a lot of staff time.

Um there's also I think uh Chrissy was working on you know some ideas that she had, which I think uh would be important to bring forward, which probably would be part of that discussion.

But it's really just an open conversation on how we can better improve and get a little bit better uh idea of what we need to do to really continue to promote the arts in our community.

And and as a shout out, I've told the GDAC that they can decorate my office with local art, and we can use that sort of as a promotional for uh just rotating it out.

But um, of course that might have to come through here and legal, but we'll deal with that.

All right.

That's my two-minute pitch.

Yes, Mayor Pro Tim.

I I think this is a great idea.

Um I've heard Bruce talk about this as well, and very excited about the possibility.

So uh I'm supportive.

Okay, all right.

Uh Councilmember Vilriel.

I think you so much, Mayor.

Of course, very supportive of the idea.

I do want to make sure this comes after our conversation on reducing the number of boards and commissions we have.

Sure, I am supporting this at low priority.

You bet.

All right.

Councilmember Moore.

I'm likewise supportive.

Um if it makes sense to have a nugget of this in the committee discussion that we're gonna have in September.

I'd like to just have that, you know, in our head, even if we don't have it fully fleshed out yet.

Sure.

And so I'm okay with low priority.

Sure.

Councilmember Ferry?

I agree.

Also including it and discussing it when we're discussing all boards and committees and how that all fits and timelines and how much time is spent.

I think that's important.

Sure.

Okay.

All right.

Anybody else?

Yes, cousin register.

Um appreciate that as I was at that breakfast as well.

It's interesting to hear that insight.

We have many great arts organizations, including the Greater Denton Arts Council, Artist Enclave, Visual Arts Society, the Denton Music and Arts Collective, the Art Room, and the Paper Chair Studios, as well as our own uh City of Denton Art uh committee currently.

So uh my ask would be uh and I I hear hearing this echoed with the other council members that this be tabled until after the conversation regarding streamlining our current uh boards and commissions and and figuring out exactly what staff role would be or if this is something that we can collaborate and hand off to someone else and hear one of our partners and hear back from them uh versus something else for our uh staff to be in charge of as far as seeing that currently we have twice as many boards and commissions that our staff uh follow through with, act as liaisons, prepare agendas, take minutes for then cities half our size.

So that that's my concern.

But I also see the need so uh low priority and definitely after uh the conversation that we're gonna have in September.

Thank you.

Yes, customer.

I too is at the breakfast, and uh and I would only support this after we have the discussion of reducing uh uh committees in our in our city secretary's package.

Sure.

Yes.

Uh I I'm not even gonna try to count on some people wanted it during a little bit tidbit during the conversation.

I'm real okay with having it after the conversation just because uh I think it would it might shortchange it a little bit if we try to combine it with something else and it might get a little conflated uh and we really want to give it the best opportunity to really have some good comprehensive discussion about it.

So I appreciate that, and so that's the direction we'll just do it after after that discussion occurs.

Okay.

Um I guess I want to confirm.

Do we want an ISR back on the first or third items as well?

Okay.

Sounds good.

Consensus on all three.

Okay, I think that's it.

But stay right there.

Okay.

Stay.

Stay right there.

First meeting.

I understand this is your first presentation with the city of Den.

Correct, yes.

Well, welcome aboard number one.

Thank you so much.

But we have a tradition here that wasn't started by me, it was started by someone else.

That uh we give you an elephant.

Okay.

Just uh to remember this time and for us to remember it as just a symbol and token of us uh really appreciating your your work and look forward to many more presentations.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Good deal.

Do we want to hold the elephant?

We can both can.

Hope we both can hold it.

Thank you.

All right.

I believe that concludes our work session items.

The city council will now at uh 4 30 3 p.m.

convene and close session meeting to deliberate the closed meeting items set forth on the agenda, which include the following, and I will read these.

Agenda item A, which is consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.071.

Agenda item B, which is uh deliberations regarding certain public power utilities, competitive matters under Texas Government Code Section 551.086, and also with that consult consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.071, and then C, which is consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.071.

So we'll give a few minutes to sort of let the room uh adjust to the closed session, and then we'll begin as soon as it is.

Thank you.

Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council on July the 21st, 2026.

It is 6 30 p.m.

We'll call this meeting to order.

Our first agenda items are a pledge of allegiance to the U.S.

and Texas flag.

Please stand with me if you're able.

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

Honor the text flag.

I pledge allegiance to thee.

Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible.

All right, I'll come down.

We've got a couple of proclamations.

National Parks and Recreation Month is the first one, so anybody here for that, please feel free to come on down.

And the second one would be for Disability Justice Day.

No, you're good.

You're good.

Well, good evening, everybody.

Thank you for being here.

Uh, this is I gotta take my glasses off, I can't see it.

This is a right.

This is a proclamation for National Parks and Recreation Month.

So, what I want to do is uh let you all introduce yourself, and then who's going to tell us a little bit about National Parks and Recreation Month?

Anybody okay?

Sure.

Uh this year for National Park and Parks and Recreation Month, um, which is uh put on by NRPA, the National Parks and Recreation Association.

Uh the theme is the power of play.

You see here on our shirts.

Uh, just to remind everybody that getting out, playing is an important part of life, and um everybody should embrace it.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

You want to introduce yourself and then I'm Alison Wing and I'm director of Parks and Recreation.

Uh Robin Hill, admin assistant for Leisure Services.

Good evening, Ziad Carrat, Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation.

Monica Martin, Park Planning Manager.

Heywood Morgan, Urban Forester.

Kelsey Stewart, Athletic Supervisor.

Robbie Johnson, uh DNA Rick, Supervisor.

Jody McLaren, recreation coordinator.

Jonathan Bell, recreation coordinator.

Ramir Martin, Assistant Director.

Thank you.

I love the the sort of title of the teacher's the power of play.

I mean, it's so important that we have a work-life balance.

And part of that is enjoying the great parks and recreation opportunities that we have here in the city of Denton.

I want to thank you all for providing those opportunities for all of our community.

So to all whom these presents shall come, whereas parks and recreation unite the people by creating welcoming spaces, inclusive programs, and opportunities for the community to build strong connections.

And whereas parks and rec support the physical, mental, and emotional growth of a community through recreation, education, and wellness programs.

And whereas parks and recreations increase a community's economic vitality through tourism, enhance property values, and the stewardship of beautiful, well-maintained public spaces.

Now, therefore, I, Chris Watts, mayor of the city of Denton, Texas, do hereby proclaim the month of July as National Parks and Recreation Month in the City of Denton.

And I call upon all residents to extend their sincere gratitude to these workers for their vital contribution to our quality of life.

Let's give them a hand.

I don't know enough.

Thank you.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you.

I'm looking for the mic.

Okay, the next uh proclamation is Disability Justice Day.

So for all who are here for that, please come down.

Won't allow you a chance to introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about what we're proclaiming today.

Give us a little history and just what it's all about.

Oh my okay.

I am uh Alison Kelly.

I am the chair of the city's disability committee.

Um July 26th, uh the ADA was signed.

Hence why we're here in July.

Um we have worked across all departments in the city to ensure that we have reasonable and unnecessary accommodations, but then of course to go above and beyond the ADA like we like to do.

I'm Judy Patman, I'm a committee member with Allison.

And I'm Daniel Glannon, also a committee member.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you so much for your work as well.

This is a proclamation greetings, whereas July the 26th, 2026 is the 36th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disability Act, the ADA, marking the beginning of the modern disability justice and inclusion movement.

Whereas we recognize the tireless efforts of disability justice advocates and allies who pursue equal access for all people, regardless of ability status in Texas and abroad.

Whereas on July 26, 1990, the ADA was signed by the United States President prohibiting discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including employment, transportation, education, and more.

And whereas members of the Denton community, including the Denton Committee on Persons with Disabilities, continually champion the cause for disability awareness, inclusion, and an end to discrimination and stigma.

Now, therefore, I, Chris Watts, Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, do hereby declare and proclaim the 26th day of July 2026 as Disability Justice Day in the City of Denton.

So thank you all for doing such great work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, y'all come down.

Come on down.

We missed the photo, sorry.

Y'all saw her coming down, but I didn't sound like a good idea.

Fantastic.

Thank you all so much.

Thank you.

Okay, our next agenda item uh is three, which is presentation from members of the public, we'll start out with a review of procedures for addressing the city council.

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

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

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

A bell will ring when time has expired.

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

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

Speakers should not approach the dais.

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

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

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

However, because no notice of the subject of the open mic report has been provided to the public in advance.

The Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits discussion or decision by the council on non-scheduled items.

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

Propose to place the item on a future agenda.

Make a statement of factual policy or a recitation of existing policy.

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

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

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

Thank you in advance.

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

So the first speaker we have is agenda item A3A ID 26-0999 is Gary Steele regarding the need to create a veterans committee, liaison, and or advisory boards.

Good evening, Mr.

Steele.

Good evening, Mayor.

Pull this down here.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Good evening, Mayor.

Council and staff, my name's Gary Steele.

I'm president of the Texas Veterans Hall of Fame, located here in Denton.

And behind me is one of the co-founders, and also my Vietnam brothers and other brothers of the wars.

I come before you and I appreciate you allowing me to come to talk to you about some areas that's that concerns us and offer a solution.

The concerns us are how our veterans are perceived and honored in the city.

The lack of memorials and visible recognition of our veterans, with limited memorials opportunities in the city.

An example.

And it's dedicated to the Iraq and Iran.

Uh Iraq and Afghanistan veterans that were killed.

Twenty-eight memorials in there.

In this park where there's jungle gyms and swings and everything.

When I looked at those 28 markers, there's only one in there outside Afghan and Iraq, and that's a Vietnam veteran.

And he was in there, I'm sure, because of being a Medal of Honor recipient from Pilot Point.

When I looked at those that were I'm running out of time here, I'll get on.

When I looked at those, most of them didn't have a connection to the city of Denton.

Now there's a solution to all of this.

And that is to create a commission, liaison board to make sure that we do this.

And let me leave you with a couple other things.

I know my time's out.

But there's two things.

Create the liaison boards that we can help make sure.

We wear these hats because we don't get a free meal.

We wear them because we want to remind you that freedom's not free.

And that everyone in this room is not immune for your loved one to serve in our armed forces, and you're not immune for them to come home wrapped in the arms of old glory.

To what?

To nothing that we have here.

I encourage you, please create this commission so that we can get this city where others will emulate how they treat our veterans.

Thank you, Mr.

Steele.

Thank you.

Agenda item B, ID 26-100.

Our next speaker is Tracy Duckworth regarding homelessness.

Thank you, Mr.

Horse, for coming.

Just state your name, your time will begin.

Excuse me.

My name is Tracy Duckworth.

Everyone calls me Mama T.

Um, I was formerly homeless.

Um went through the services here, became an advocate.

Um, and now I'm the founder of a nonprofit called Mama T's butterflies.

So welcome all the new people.

Um sorry, I only have four minutes, it goes fast, doesn't it?

Um I can't hold you any responsible or accountable for anything that previous council did.

I've been here 15 times, by the way.

Fifteen.

Like that's not a typo, 15 times, and I get four minutes.

Um, but I can't hold you responsible for anything that previous council did or didn't do.

But what they did do was let the homeless problem in Denton get out of control.

And what you can be held accountable and responsible for is not fixing it.

Um anyone that says that homelessness has not gotten out of control um and has gotten better is going out of their way to ignore it.

They're everywhere.

The audit report of the homeless response um in system in Denton found that the entire system is fragmented and broken, not just the shelter, street outreach, mental health outreach, all of it.

Um, and baby steps to improve a problem this big is not doing anything.

Um after the community shelter contractor, um, which is our daily bread, was proven to be in violation of the contract, and after all of these people were proven to be not providing the proper services in the system, the city went to those people who broke the system and asked how to fix it.

That doesn't even make any sense.

The audit report also says that the city has historically, which to me means never, not asked for input um from shelter guests or homeless people as a whole.

So a few of my um homeless people are putting together a list of their grievances and what they think of the current system, etc.

And you can blame me for that because I feel their head with things like your life matters, use your voice, it's all you literally have left, and nobody has the right to abuse you, especially people who get paid to help you.

I'm also putting together a um our own homeless coalition that is going to be made up of homeless people because the people that are involved in the homeless coalition now are all stakeholders, and you can ask Councilman Stevens how I feel about being called a stakeholder.

Um the most important part of the audit is really to me on the first page, and this is the part that it's the biggest problem, and nobody has talked about yet.

The um community is the whole thing is says the um community shelter contractor has generally not adopted housing first practices as required by the contract, and this part has created a punitive punishment system that likely bars more people than necessary from assistance.

That is not okay.

Um I also read somewhere that there's a QR code in the um shelter for guests and um whatnot to convey their complaints or whatever straight to the city after what they've seen me go through for four years.

That's a joke.

It's ridiculous.

This is not okay.

People are dying.

Um Jesse Kent said in a recent work session that there are less people on the permanent supportive housing list or whatever than ever.

Um that's because nobody is putting their name on it.

Nobody.

Um the giving grace has gone to helping families only, and the our daily bread shelter has gone to housing first instead of housing focus, which the housing first part they weren't following through with anyway.

And I did better than I thought on time.

I still have three seconds.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Oh, okay.

Uh I'm sorry.

Council Mayor Mayor Pro Tinney had a question or comment.

Hi, uh, I just first off, I wanted to thank you for being here.

I know it's my second time hearing you from up here.

I counted.

I think I've been here 13 of the times out of the 15, so I'm barely passing.

Um I want to thank you for all the work that you do.

Uh, it doesn't go unnoticed.

One of the things that you had highlighted was uh information you were collecting from unhoused individuals who have grievances.

Um I would love to offline talk with you about those things about a coalition that you're building to see where we can improve because I know that we can.

And so I just wanted to thank you for being here and for all your work.

Thank you for being the first council member to ever ever respond to me in 15 times here.

So thank you for that.

Councilman, there's one more question, uh, comment, Councilmember Ferry.

Actually, this is freaking me out.

Um, sorry.

Yeah, first, thank you so much for speaking.

And I I know how hard it is to come time after time after time to come speak to council, um, and I really do appreciate it.

I do want to let you know um today we also pushed forward having a conversation in a work session today about mental health resources and how to better support our community.

And I want to echo what Mayor Pro Tem Stevens said.

I would love to sit down and continue to chat about the feedback you are getting.

I don't want anything but that, and I'll be at that meeting.

I'm already signed up.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we'll go on to our next speaker, which is agenda item 3C, ID 26-1011.

It's Amanda Conway regarding why we must end parking mandates.

Thank you for being here.

And if you'll just state your name, your time will begin.

Yes, my name's Amanda Conway.

Thank you for having me.

My name is Amanda, and I'm asking counsel to direct staff to remove parking minimums citywide at the August 4th work session.

I'm asking specifically for the citywide uh removal rather than just downtown because I live down near Geyer High School.

I've had a difficult year and need to move with my child.

Despite new guidelines that allow for granny cottages, garage apartments, and other ADUs, I've found none in my area.

They're difficult to build in part because of parking minimums.

If parking is removed by enclosing a garage, it must be replaced by converting green space.

This is a hindrance to families that want to have grandparents remain at home or families that wish to share their home with relatives and friends in need.

Homeowners should have the choice to do what they need to do with their property.

As it stands, parking minimums add unnecessary strain and reduce green space.

I want to remain in my community, and I know others do as well.

Um to um echo what mom and said, I'm formerly homeless.

I have a master's degree.

I'm a former public school educator, and I have experienced homelessness.

It's not some other group of people.

I don't want to become homeless again with my child.

I know the statistics about children that experience homelessness.

I have gotten the advice from nonprofits, well-meaning nonprofits who care for me.

That I'm so sorry, but if you just spend a night homeless, you'd have a lot more services available to you.

I don't want that situation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we'll move on to the next speaker, which is ID 26-1012.

Liam, uh, is it Guam Wakefield?

Gom, excuse me.

Come down and state your name, and you're at it if we'll begin.

Thank you, Liam.

Hello, my name is Liam Gom Wakefield.

Um I'm here to speak about the removal of parking minimums because we are in a c like we are dealing, like the number one complaints we're getting is cost of living these days, whether it's about homelessness.

And I've I have been graced not to have to deal with being homeless, but I have been rent-burdened.

Uh most of my income has gone to my rent.

And ever since I've been renting, the price has gone up, except for these past two years because of the amount of housing that has been built.

But parking minimums are a increase costs to everybody because they are mandatory real estate that has to be bought in order to operate a new business uh or new housing.

Um it it restricts the current owners of older older businesses or houses older businesses from changing what they're doing because they're grandfathered in.

If they change their use, they're no longer grant grandfathered in.

So it's harder for them to either sell or change what they want to do with their land uh their business.

And to like the real estate bot for the parking spots.

That cost is passed on in to the rents, either to the businesses or to the people living in the place, or to the people that have to buy those locations.

And it's also opportunity costs.

Every every bit of real estate that's turned into a parking spot is not used for something else, either green space, homes, or business.

Uh and this isn't like getting rid of parking minimums is not going to cause everybody to rush to not build parking because you still have um you still have like the finance, like you still have the financial system that still wants parking, and they won't give you a loan if they don't you don't build enough parking.

And many other municipalities and state and like some even some states have gotten rid of parking minimums.

And it's not going to be a giant rush, and the places that already have problems with parking are already don't have parking minimums, like downtown it has very minimum, very minimum parking minimums, and that took like 15 years to get to that state.

This is uh a long-term decision that will we will reap the benefits of in like 10 years, but it's something that we have to do now because it's going to take a while to happen.

I yield the remainder of my time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we'll go on to speaker, the next speaker, which is agenda item E, ID 26-1013, Lauren Penn regarding reevaluating parking minimums and remove parking minimum citywide.

Okay.

I've got something I'd like to share.

Okay.

Good evening.

Thank you so much for having me.

I am here tonight asking counsel to direct staff to remove parking minimum citywide at the upcoming um work session on August 4th.

My name is Lauren Penn.

I have been here a couple times.

I'm a mom.

I live in the North Lakes neighborhood.

What I want to share with you tonight is um what I see as a real health issue we're facing.

Um today it's over 100 degrees.

Uh we have a lot of concrete and asphalt in this town.

Last week I took a surface temperature with my own measuring uh capabilities, and um it read 140 degrees on an area that is in the full sun, and then I was able to take a reading in the shade, and that reads 93 degrees.

Um, so we're able to see just how drastically our temperatures drop when we have shade.

140 degrees is hot enough to cause a serious burn on my toddler's skin if she were to fall down.

It's hot enough to make heat exhaustion a real risk, especially for our um our neighbors here that are without housing.

This is not just one lot, this is all over Denton, and this is not just my opinion.

This is something that our own city staff has determined in our urban forest master plan.

Denton had set a goal for 40% tree canopy citywide by 2040.

In the 2021 master plan update, it stated that we're only at 20.

And the plan is blunt about where we're fall failing and falling short.

It is in our commercial areas, exactly where parking minimums pile up the most asphalt and sit at just 12% canopy compared to 45% in our neighborhoods.

This master plan identifies parking lots as priority planting sites and says shading pavement is one of the most effective ways to fight the heat island effect.

And so our neighbors to the south, the town of Flower Mound, they just recently determined that they have a similar problem, and they just passed a massive change to their parking policies to afford more areas for green space to improve shade and even drainage.

So Denton already has the information.

We know the fix.

What it hasn't fixed is the code that keeps working against it.

Every square foot of parking we mandate where we require that is beyond what a business actually needs is a square foot that can't be a tree canopy.

It can't be shade, it can't help us hit the goals that we've already committed to.

Removing the parking minimums, it doesn't ban parking.

It just stops forcing more pavement than the market wants, which means more land available for trees in our own plan that says that we need.

Staff has had the research on this parking minimum since 2022.

The staff has had the canopy data since 2016, and they both point in the same direction.

The every month we delay is more pavement that's locked in, more heat for my kids to have to walk across, and a canopy goal that gets harder to reach, not easier.

This is some other information.

I don't know if we can see this, but uh I went to the Denton GIS.

This is um showing the lack of tree coverage.

This is in the um the Denton Center shopping area.

I went in and photoshopped.

This is our current trees in the shopping center.

If we were to eliminate the parking minimums, and if the property owners chose to, they could replace a ton of it with green space.

Uh we could also even put trees all along University Drive, which would also help.

And this also affords us other options.

Now we can maybe put in some paths for people to bike and walk under the shade.

They could even put in more commercial spaces, they could have more um income.

And I like to dream.

Here's an idea of what Tayochi could do if they didn't have to have those parking spaces.

And another little shopping center in my neighborhood.

I think it looks beautiful.

I think we need more shade.

We need more um grass and native plants, and so I urge you to um to go ahead and push this forward now.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for your time.

All right.

We'll move forward on agenda item F, which is uh ID 26-1014.

The next speaker is Kate Ross regarding removing parking mandates.

Hi, state your name, your time will begin.

I'm Kate Rose.

So I live in Idiot's Hill on Emerson.

I also run a renovation company and I own rent houses.

So I see all the sides of the affordable housing struggle.

Um I've also had an electric vehicle for 13 years, and the city is not walkable.

I mean, the whole state of Texas is basically everyone wants to have a car.

And so honestly, when I first got an electric vehicle, it's like playing a live version of Frogger with my life, right?

Walking through a parking lot trying not to get run over.

So I'm here to ask counsel to direct staff to remove parking minimums citywide at the August 4th work session.

Um I think one of the struggles you hear about affordability with rent.

Um, I have a construction crew, I have a family of five that's a one-car household.

I think that's telling you that one of the things they're doing to save money is decrease the number of cars in the household.

So then the other option is scooters, bicycles, walking the city of Denton.

I just bought one of my employees, a scooter, have a car, I'm sorry, an e-bike.

And the city has a rebate to pay for half of that.

Shockingly, costs it takes 15 minutes for him to drive, 20 minutes to ride the e-bike.

So that's a terrific thing.

That's reducing emissions.

That's you know, a community.

Um, he's communicating with people in a way that you don't in a car.

You can get mad at someone in a car that cuts you off.

You're not gonna get mad the same if you're walking or riding a bike.

So the other concern is I've done multiple ADU estimates in my neighborhood for customers, um elderly customers who want to age in place.

Maybe they want to turn the house over to their adult children, and I've never been successful.

So somebody might have one customer disabled adult children, wanted to build an ADU in their backyard for their child.

Wanted to build an ADU in their backyard for their child.

A young family who inherited a house, wanted to convert, wants to convert their two-car garage to kind of pay it forward to give an affordable rental opportunity to somebody.

So yeah.

So it's been studied for several years now.

You guys have the data.

So please push it forward.

And thank you for your time.

And I appreciate those of you new guys here.

So that's all.

All right.

Any questions?

Saying none.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Our last, at least registered speaker is ID 26-1019, and it's Chris.

I'm gonna, I'm not gonna say this correctly.

Uh Rashaber.

No.

Chris Reesocker.

Okay, thank you.

Appreciate that.

Uh state your name and your time will begin.

Appreciate your coming.

Thanks, everyone.

Letting us have the opportunity to address you.

Uh my name is Chris Grieshaber.

Uh I am a happy resident of Northwest Ditton and also a construction professional.

I've worked in real estate, architecture, and design, manufacturing, and across multiple sectors in my career so far.

Um so I would like to add my voice to request the city council to direct their staff to remove citywide parking minimums uh at their next August 4th work session.

Um, because I think I can provide an additional viewpoint here uh from a business and developer perspective.

Um do want to echo the other presentations because generally speaking, parking, especially surface parking is it is frequently considered the lowest value land use by um both residential and commercial developers, many of whom, including in this city, want to help build a vibrant, dense, and sustainable city as the city of Denton continues to grow.

Um requiring large amounts of off-street parking, require uh locks up space for maximized scenarios when average occupancies are far lower, right?

Tying up space and disuse and creating a less appealing environment for folks.

Um just when it comes to it, businesses are usually pretty good at understanding their business needs, right?

And that includes things like parking.

Um businesses will build what serves their needs best as much as they can, regardless of what those requirements are.

Um I think that those parking requirements often do torpedo development, and I've witnessed this firsthand.

Um when I was working within a national uh real estate department, a national company.

Um I was the one drawing conceptual site plans and test fits for new locations for uh build-outs across the country.

And I killed projects specifically because of parking requirements.

Um we were not physically able to fit the building that we needed to have in order to maintain our services onto the lots that we were able to access because the parking requirements were so outsized.

And I think that I'm far from the first person who would have ever um run into that.

Um you think about it, um, you know, I mean, all the way back in 1987, the Institute of Transportation Engineers they did they uh created some parking generation studies, right?

Um pretty problematic, but um fast food restaurants uh they did 18 survey sites and they showed ranges from three and a half to just shy of 16 parking spaces being used per thousand square feet of floor area.

It should show that the business type matters, right?

Different types of restaurants generate different amounts of foot of vehicular traffic, and and an average of 10 per 10 parking spots per thousand square feet means those those those uh requirements start stacking up really quickly.

Um if you think about it, a 10,000 square foot lot, somebody wants to build a restaurant on it.

If we look at the Denton Development Code and the prescribed minimum parking requirements, that's one space per four people, uh requires 20 parking spaces plus a maximum amount of occupancy for staff.

Nine people work there, say on their absolute most slam and day.

And you have a few more reserve spaces, you're over 30 parking spots, and now you're over 5,000 square feet on that 10,000 foot lot, which is a substantial portion of city um city-zoned property, you're half of that lot, and it suddenly becomes very difficult to fit a building in.

Um, and that's even before you consider green space requirements, setbacks, anything else, right?

Um, it's incredibly restrictive.

And of course, there are lots of quality of life issues like we've heard today.

Heat island effects, inefficient land use, people don't want to walk across large areas.

We need more flexible business and need driven responses to parking.

Um removing these rules simplifies the process, reduces variance requests, and generally shows the city is more open to creative demand-driven projects without unnecessary obstacles.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That that ends our public speakers.

I did have a blue card from Anna.

Is it Taus?

Uh I would encourage you to come back next, Councilman, because we we filled up all our slots.

If somebody had not shown up, I would have yeah, we we can't, it's just the rule, so I apologize for that, but uh certainly would welcome you back next time.

And I think uh they did they sign up uh for open mic.

Uh what's the when can they start signing up for that?

Tomorrow morning.

Okay, all right.

Okay, all right.

Yep, thank you.

All right, we'll go on to our consent agenda, which is agenda item four.

I do not believe any items have been have been pulled.

Um, we just had some.

Uh councilmember Villarreal.

I move approval.

Councilmember Jester.

I'll second.

We have a motion and a second.

Uh let's vote on the board for approval of the consent agenda with no items pulled.

Motion carries 70.

Uh I will be recusing myself from agenda I to 5A.

I have filed the necessary paperwork with I believe the city secretary and uh Mayor Pro Tem Stevens if you would take the dashboard, the chair, please.

All right, we're gonna call the next agenda item.

That's Z26003B.

Hold public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, regarding a request to rezone approximately 9,487 acres of land from a residential, a rural residential RR zoning district to a residential one R1 zoning district.

I now will open this public hearing, and the city will now present.

Lovely.

Thank you, Mayor Pro TAM and members of the council.

Sean Jacobson, senior planner here to present Z26003B, the Rifkin edition rezoning.

This is a request to rezone from rural residential to residential one R1 zoning.

It's an approximately 9.487 acre property off FM2153, so way up by Lake Ray Roberts.

It currently contains one single family home, and the purpose is to enable the creation of a second lot for a new single family home.

So right now the RR zoning requires a five-acre minimum, and you can only have one house per lot.

They do not have enough acreage to build a second home.

This rezoning would allow them to have a lower minimum acreage requirement, and therefore they could create a second lot and build that second home they'd like to have.

We do always look at our future land use map as part of our comprehensive plan with every rezoning.

This property is partially rural areas and partially agricultural for future land use designation.

Both of those are intended in part for large lot development, single family homes, as well as for preserving agricultural and rural development.

The R1 district is an appropriate zoning district.

It is intended in part to maintain scenic rural open space, maintain large lot single family, and it's also appropriate per our comprehensive plan for transitioning between rural development and large lot residential neighborhoods.

We do also want to look at the surrounding area.

One of the questions we ask with the rezoning is whether there's been a significant change in the surrounding area to justify that rezoning.

And in fact, a large area nearby was recently rezoned from R R to R1.

So that is shows that the pattern in this area is headed in the direction of R1 in line with this zoning request.

Similarly, we want to minimize negative impact on surrounding development.

R1 would not introduce uses that are not already present or permitted in this area, even if it was developed differently than the applicant currently intends.

And in general, it's compatible with the surrounding properties, which are a mix of smaller and larger lots, single family and agricultural uses.

So overall, this is consistent with our criteria for approving a rezoning case and with our criteria for uh development cases in general.

We did do our standard notification.

We received one response which did not express opposition or in favor, it was neutral.

The Planning and Zoning Commission did recommend approval six to zero.

And staff is recommending approval because this does meet our criteria for approval.

With that, I'm happy to stand for any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Holland.

Thank you.

To be clear, this is this is uh rezoning for single family.

Uh the zoning changes to R1, which is one of the uses permitted to single family, and that is the applicant's intent.

And that's their intent.

Good.

Good.

Um the the current structure that's there, will that remain?

That is my understanding.

Again, a zoning change obviously doesn't lock you into exactly how to develop your you can develop anything that's permitted within the R1 district, but that is the applicant's expressed attempt.

Very good, very good.

That's what I wanted.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions?

Okay.

I had one question for you, because I'd seen this at the PNZ meeting as well.

Just that there was no one for it, or against just neutral.

What what was the neutral feedback?

Uh the letter sent in expressed uh support for the Ray Roberts uh zoning designation, which in the county around that area.

Uh basically it's a special county zoning district which has its own standards, uh, but it didn't actually state there was no box checked for opposition or so.

Okay.

All right.

Okay, seeing no other questions, is the applicant present?

Okay.

Oh, um, I'm here just to answer any questions that you guys have.

Does anyone have any questions for the applicant?

All right.

I watched your presentation at PNZ.

It was wonderful.

Okay, thank you.

So I I think we're good to go there.

Uh this is a public hearing.

So and I don't have any cards.

Has uh does anyone want to speak on this item?

Seeing none, we're gonna go ahead and close the public hearing.

Uh I see a uh motion from Councilmember Rumore.

I'd like to motion to approve.

I'll second.

There's a second from Councilmember Jester, and we will vote on the screen.

I guess that do I have to vote on that screen over there?

But they fixed it for me.

Okay.

All right, that passed 6 0.

Thank you.

Did you take my agenda?

Did you take my agenda?

Oh, yes.

We're just we're leaving everything up here.

Okay.

Uh thank you, Mayor Pro Tim, for that.

We'll move on to public hearing item 5B, which is ID 26-1085.

Hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton authorizing submission of an application to the Texas Park and Wildlife Department.

Uh TW TPWD local parks non-urban outdoor recreation grant program 2027 and the amount of $750,000 for materials and construction construction costs for the addition of trails and the renovation of Robertsfield at MAC Park.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

Monica Martin, Park Planning Manager.

Tonight we're bringing you a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department grant for the local park grant intents for our use for improvements at Robertsfield at Mack Park.

The TPWD local park grant is a 50-50 fund match program for up to 750,000 in match funding.

Parks is proposing to utilize existing 915-916 or parkland dedication, parkland development fund accounts.

Our application is due on August 3rd.

If grants are awarded for this project, they would be given to us in 2027 if we are selected, and the project must be completed within three years of awarded funds.

Uh competition and play.

The project scope will include site work, which includes grading and field prep, smart irrigation installation, artificial turf, trail expansion, along with ADA improvements, and shade.

That's at this time.

I'm gonna ask if there's any questions or feedback.

Council Member Hall.

Council Member Holland.

Thank you.

Well, I was hoping you had a uh uh an artist's conception of said project.

We're working on our site plan at the moment.

It is just it's the the field, it's the actual field itself.

There are significant drainage issues over there, it doesn't need to be scraped and redone.

Um, and then we do have an aerial uh that we can send you and counsel if you want to have a follow-up on this as well.

Okay, I'm sure you want to vote tonight.

Um so when you say field, you're you're not referring to a baseball field or a soccer pitch.

It is the baseball field, yes.

It is a basement.

Yes, Roberts Field is uh the baseball field on the south end of uh Mac Park.

It's the only field at the south end of Mac Park for baseball.

I didn't, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that had a name.

No, that's okay.

That's okay.

And so it'll the in field will be AstroTurf.

Or the the outfield and the infield will be AstroTurf, I guess.

Yeah.

Our proposed scope at the moment is gonna have a uh artificial turf on the infield and keep the outfield as natural.

I see.

Okay, good.

Good luck.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Ferry.

Hello, good evening, friend.

I actually wanted to comment about or ask a question about shade.

Maybe talk to me a little bit about the shade, because you said it, and I love that.

You know I love shade in a park.

Right.

At the moment, the uh shade for uh the bleacher sections are the trees.

If you go out there, one of the bleachers are actually pulled back pretty far away from the field in order to have shade.

There is an existing area for shade canopy to be put over both the um dugout areas uh and existing areas for the spectator seatings on both the home and visitor side.

So that is one thing that we'd like to utilize um the funding for awesome, thank you so much.

Right.

Any other questions for staff before I open the public hearing?

Say none.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right, this is a public hearing.

Um I've opened the public hearing.

Any I have no blue cards on this agenda item, but if you want to come down and speak, uh just state your name and your time will begin Mayor and Council.

My name is Willie Hatspet 623 Newton.

I just wanted to uh thank you all for looking at the parks and uh thinking about doing some things that will help the kids and the community as well.

This is a perfect opportunity uh uh for the permanent city manager when you choose that person to oversee and make sure that that they're not things that's in this proposal that will hurt harm the the uh citizenry.

That's why I'm uh emphasizing that uh the per present city acting city manager should be the permanent city manager for reasons such as this.

Thank you for in me.

Thank you.

This is a public hearing.

Anybody else wishing to speak on this agenda item?

Anyone wishing to speak?

Oh, yes, okay.

State your name and your time will begin.

Thank you.

My name is Larry Lawrence.

And uh I just want to back what Mr.

Hudsbit said, you know, and I want to say congratulations to the two members.

Mr.

Mayor, congratulations.

And we do support the removing of the interim for city manager with Miss Ogden.

And if I can take just a couple minutes of your time, Mr.

Mayor and Council, if you don't mind.

I'm here tonight to express my strong support for appointing our interim city manager, Miss Ogden as Denton's next city manager.

Sometimes the best candidate isn't someone you have to search for.

Sometimes they're already here, already serving, already proving themselves every single day.

Miss Ogden is not someone who suddenly decided she wanted this position as early as the sixth grade dormant class project.

She envisioned herself as a city manager.

That passion has guided her entire career.

She became our deputy city manager, and for the past four months, she's essentially been interviewing for this job every single day.

Not with words, but with actions.

Bringing in an outside person could cost as much from what I understand is up to 350,000 to do the process at a time when city employee city employees haven't received a raise from my understanding in the past year, maybe a year and a half.

I have to ask is that really the best use of taxpayer dollars?

Imagine what that investment could mean for the employees who keep the city running every day.

Beyond the cost, there's a value of continuity.

An outside hire would need months to learn our community, our staff, our culture.

Surety knows Dayton.

She knows the challenges, the opportunities, and most importantly, the people.

Stability matters, culture matters, employee morale matters.

And there's another there's another message your decision sends.

If someone can dedicate their career to the city, rise through the ranks, excel as a deputy city manager, successfully serve as an interim city manager, and still not be considered ready for the top job.

What does that say to every other talented employee working for Den?

It tells them that there's a ceiling.

That no matter how hard they work, the city may look elsewhere when leadership opportunities arise.

I believe we should send a different message.

We should tell our employees that excellence is recognized, that leadership is rewarded, that den believes in developing and promoting its own talent.

As voters, we elected each of you because we believed you were the right people to lead the city.

We took a chance on you.

Tonight I'm asking you to take a chance on someone who has already earned it.

She's more than qualified.

She's she's already doing the job.

Don't tell her she's good enough to prepare the meal, but not good enough to sit at the table.

Let's invest in the leader who's already invested her career in Denton.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

And Larry, that's all in support of this agenda item.

You're you're wanting your comments to be in support of this agenda item for this park uh park grant.

Is that correct?

Oh okay.

Yeah, thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Yes, just as a reminder, you know, typically we want to keep the subject matter on the subject of the agenda.

That's why I made that comment.

In the future, we'll we'll take care of that.

Thank you very much, sir.

Appreciate that.

Uh all right.

Uh, this is a public hearing.

Anybody else wishing to speak on this?

Come down and state your name, and your time will begin.

My name is Lauren Penn.

Um, I am in support of this um opportunity.

What one of the things that I appreciate so much um about Denton are our parks.

I live near North Lakes Park and Bowling Green Park, and um every time we're out there and we're able to spend some time outdoors as a family, we see so many other types of folks that are out there enjoying um nature, enjoying our parks, enjoying sports.

And as a parent and as someone who's lived in Denton for 20 years and now kind of on this in this part of um of life journey, I see every dollar that we can put towards our parks as really an investment in our future generation.

Um, I want to thank our park staff so much for what y'all do.

Um, and I think the the fact that they are um they're always innovating and coming up with new ideas and new ways that we can use our taxpayer money to benefit our children.

That uh sends a message to parents here in Denton that our kids do matter.

One of the things that as I've learned about um how cities are made, how they are structured, how they're laid out, um, and one of the things I've done my own walking audits in my neighborhood.

Um there are very few places for children in Denton right now, very few places that are actually safe as far as open space, um places for them to even walk, um, to roam about the neighborhood.

Uh, besides really the library, where there are dedicated areas for children and for very small children, and our schools, which of course have dedicated spaces, our parks are really the only other place.

And um, and so I'm fully in support of anything that um our parks department puts forward, especially something like this.

So I hope I wish you all luck, and I hope that the grant is um is awarded to us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, this is a public hearing.

Anybody wishing to speak?

Are you wishing to speak?

I am listening to come on down, state your name.

And no idea I was gonna speak tonight until we talked about baseball fields and AstroTariff.

So my name is Aaron Ball.

Um, and being uh a coach of young men on national tariff over the last 15 years, my son graduated from Geyer.

Um, if you do, I know we've talked about a lot of shade and we like to keep it a lot more comfortable for our children and you know parks.

If you look at the black fill as opposed to the coconut fiber fill on an ashturf field, there's about a 20 degrees difference.

So from the sun that that caught, and I caught in college as well.

It gets really hot down there.

So that black fill dirt or the black fill rubber that they use on Ashoturf, it's about 155 to 161 degrees.

20 different 20 degrees difference when you use coconut fibers, and it's also a lot softer for the kids when they slide in.

But that's just just some FYI.

So if y'all are doing that, please look into that.

And I think it's a it's a good move forward.

So thank you, everybody.

Appreciate it.

Any questions?

And if you could, before you leave out a blue card, just note noting that you uh spoke on this agenda item.

Yeah, thank you.

Anyone else wishing to speak?

Seeing no movement, we'll close the public hearing.

Any questions from council for staff or seeing none?

Councilmember Villarreal.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, this is a great benefit to the people of District One and in honor of National Parks and Rec month.

I move approval.

All right, uh, Councilmember Wimore.

As somebody who lived in the apartments next to this field a long time ago and used to jog around the field when my knees were still good, I would like to second.

All right, thank you.

We have a motion and uh second.

Let's vote on the board, please.

Motion carry seven zero.

I want to come down to the podium.

Monica, if you join me down front, we've got a little token for you.

So uh let me just yeah.

So this tradition was started where when someone makes their first presentation to council and city staff, we like to give them a little elephant, which is a reminder to remember your first presentation, and thank you.

Great presentation.

Look forward to to many good ones in the future.

So we present you with your with your elephant.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

We get a picture.

You gotta hold that up.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we'll move on to agenda item six, which items for individual consideration.

Agenda item six A, ID 26-1057.

Consider approval of a resolution of the City of Denton, Texas authorizing the submission of an application to the Texas Water Department Board for the water supply and infrastructure grant program and the amount of up to 35 million dollars.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I'm Kyle Petigo, Planning and Engineering Division Manager for Water Utilities.

I'm here tonight to present a resolution to request uh for water utilities to apply for the Texas Water Development Board water supply and infrastructure grant.

The water supply and infrastructure grant was established under House Bill 500 of the 89th legislature and provides 100% grant funding that does not require a local match.

These funds must be used for water supply and infrastructure projects, and the application deadline is July 30th of this year.

Projects must address a water loss, a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality violation, or provide an additional water supply.

Based on population, Denton is eligible for up to 35 million dollars in grant funding.

And the funding must only be used for construction costs on a shovel ready project, meaning that planning and design costs are not eligible.

In April of this year, the advanced metering infrastructure implementation program was approved by both the public utilities board and city council, and is an excellent candidate for this grant.

This project addresses water losses through advanced metering and leak detection, is shovel ready, is scheduled to begin in September of this year, and has a two-year implementation period.

Staff is working with Badger Meter to amend the contract to include all eligible costs for this potential grant funding.

Here's the remaining timeline for the water infrastructure uh water supply and infrastructure grant.

The application deadline again is July 30th of 2026, and grant commitments are expected by this fall.

That's followed by a period of grant closing, which is expected to end in the spring of 2027, and all construction must be completed by February of 2031.

Staff recommends that city of council, that city council approve a resolution authorizing the submission of an application to the Texas Water Development Board water supply and infrastructure grant program for funding the of the advanced metering infrastructure implementation program authorizing the city manager or designee to execute all documents necessary to apply for except and administer such funding if awarded.

If approved tonight, the next steps would be to submit the application before the end of July and await the grant closing period.

Thank you.

Stanton, I'll stand for any questions.

Any questions?

I just have one.

When these smart meters are installed for water, will that alert people like if somebody's out of town or something's happened and there's a this there's underground leak or there's a sprinkler system, it will look at sort of an average uh usage that is above average.

Well, is there some kind of notification process along?

Is that one of those capabilities?

Yes, so uh customers would have access to a dashboard, a usage dashboard where alerts can be set up.

Okay, great, thank you.

Well, that's I've heard a lot of stories about that happening where people have a leak they didn't detect.

Okay, any other questions?

Councilmember Jester.

Thank you for being on the ball and putting this forward for us on our behalf.

I'm happy to make the motion.

Thank you.

Councilmember Villarreal.

Second, we have a motion and a second.

Uh let's vote, please.

Passes 70.

Thank you so much.

All right, we are moving now to agenda item seven, which is concluding items.

Council members, any uh council member Villarreal.

A very big announcement to make.

Uh this past Saturday was Mayor Pro Tem Nick Stevens' birthday.

So happy birthday, Mayor Pro Tem.

Yeah.

All right.

Uh Councilmember Jester.

Uh, for those of you that uh want to know the um celebration of life for John Baines, a real star and pillar of our community uh that we have lost is going to be Saturday, July 25th at our Quakertown Civic Center.

Uh visitation with the family will be 9 to 9 30 to 10.

At 10 to 10 30, there'll be time to be seated.

The actual celebration of life will be from 10 30 to 11 30.

Uh 11 30 to 12 30 will be uh time to dismiss and help clean up.

Um, and again, our hearts go out to his wife Tracy and his two children, uh Shauna Evet and Sean Evan Baines.

He also left six grandchildren, many other family members, and lots of loved ones.

So uh I've been asked several times about uh when that might happen, and so I just wanted to let everyone know and and thank you.

Yep, thank you.

Uh Mayor Pro Tim U What I wanted to say was any time you hand out those elephants.

Um I'm reminded of a story.

So congratulations on your first uh elephant.

Um almost exactly two years ago, I went before council to yell at them.

It was no one up here.

And afterwards, uh the city manager at the time came down as I was walking out.

She said, I need to talk to you real quick.

These are only for city staff, but they deserve that.

And so here's an elephant.

And I've put that elephant on my coffee maker, so I look at it every single morning when I wake up.

So kids, even you, even if you're not on staff, could get an elephant one day.

Um it was funny to me.

Um I'm tonight, I'm um I I wanted to echo uh uh someone speaking on the Texas parks today, which is I think our interim city manager is doing a wonderful job.

Uh outside of that, again, I'll eventually stop saying it.

I think we had a great meeting today.

It was really substantive and hard and uh satisfying.

So I I just thank you for the conversation and for the work that we've uh done together so far.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Ferry.

Thank you.

Umorm Stevens, I've spoken on this podium and on that podium millions of times, and I've never got no elephant.

But you know what?

That's all good.

That's all good.

Um, I digress.

I do want to say I'm so excited uh for the parks department.

I'm so grateful for all the work y'all do.

I've served on six six years on the parks board.

It was six of the best years I ever had.

Um, and I really appreciate all the hard work y'all put into everything and that it's your month, and let's celebrate you.

Thank you.

I think you're thank you so much.

Yep.

Uh Councilmember Holland.

Well, thank you, and I want to echo the uh the the great job I think interim uh city manager Cassie's doing.

But but after but what I really won't talk about, uh I find it ironic today that we're talking about parks.

I think that's great.

The Roberts Field Park at Mac Park and um July 11th, many of us came together for the dedication at the villages of Carmel Carmel Park, uh, which is just off of Edwards Road.

This is a very, very unique park, and it's got it's got playground equipment and and a and a place for for picnics and stuff like that, but man, it's in the woods.

I mean, you are you are in the woods, squirrels and chipmunks and bears and and all sorts of stuff around there.

So uh another example of a of a great of a great parks department doing great work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh anybody else.

I I too I too want to echo uh thanks thanks to my colleagues for great discussions tonight on or uh and today during the work session on some you know substantive topics that that we needed to discuss.

So thank you all very much for that.

And seeing no more requests to speak, we will adjourn this meeting at 7:39.

Thank you.

Thank you.