Council, I think we can get started.

Welcome to our city council work session.

Today is Tuesday, February 3rd, all day.

I will call us to order.

And turn it over to Jay Chopa, I think, for staff announcements.

Good afternoon.

Um, I do would like to start off by uh calling up DJ Harrell uh to recognize his department for this current uh recent uh accolades that they received, and in fact he's got a little video he'd like to show.

So DJ being number one in permitting really embodies our one city one team mentality.

Leadership has had this vision for years of streamlining development in the city of Fort Worth, being innovative, forward-thinking, and propelling Fort Word to the top spot in permitting efficiency, energizing our community with smart growth concepts as well as orderly development.

The addition of the customer center on the fifth floor of City Hall is just more evidence of our commitment as a city of Fort Worth to bring all development services under one umbrella.

We've streamlined the whole process by having the fifth floor designated to customers to come directly.

So with the new consolidation, we're very customer focused.

I think that shows from our kiosk to our information desk to our walk-in area.

So this just shows that our team can keep up with continued growth and still process permits effectively and efficiently.

We work really hard to foster a get to yes mentality, ownership in every project.

But it's taken getting the right people to come and work for us to realize the success.

We are here for the customers.

We wouldn't have this ranking, we wouldn't be the 10th largest city if it wasn't for customers coming in and needing our assistance and just having a great team who works well together.

This recognition serves to energizes even more.

We have a great core team of individuals that are empowered to make decisions as well as they have a sense of community and a sense of pride in the city of Fort Worth and what we're building here.

Because we're working to build the best city in the country.

One city, one team.

Good afternoon, Mayor.

Good afternoon, Honorable Mayor Matty Parker, Council, City Manager Choppa.

I thank you for this opportunity to stand before you represent an amazing group of individuals that work extremely hard every day to realize your collective vision and set the you know and work on the policies that you guys have set for the city of Fort Worth.

I brought a gang of them with me.

I'm gonna ask them to make their way closer and potentially get a photograph with you all.

Um but you know, the important thing that I wanted to leave you guys with, it's it's a one-city, one-team concept.

You know, for years you guys have set the vision and invested in um development in the city of Fort Worth, and we've realized a lot of the gains year over year because of that investment.

Uh in fact, on last year we were here celebrating um uh we were ranked number one in Texas for permitting and zoning.

And this year we're here celebrating rank one number one in the nation, right?

So who knows what's next, right?

So thank you.

So again, it's uh the work of multiple departments, multiple stakeholders, our development community has been a huge support, but most of all your vision is set um you know the path for our success.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I think we are gonna take a picture, council, but everyone on this diocese is probably guilty of calling you, DJ or someone else on your staff when there's a problem.

We probably don't do a good enough job calling you when we get praise and thanks from the city of Fort Worth and people in it.

They've seen a difference, and your leadership is incredible.

Your entire team should be commended.

You work tirelessly.

We are one of the fastest growing cities, so as a result, your staff has to try to keep up with that amount of growth and progress that's happening.

And I know that you're not done yet.

Again, you mentioned the development community.

They're also really proud to work with you.

Um, the development advisory committee, real estate council, and others um have all been collaborative, which we appreciate.

I don't think we'd be here without that.

And also the continuity of leadership between David Cook and now to Jay and all the management team really focused on this to support you and your service and your team, and also the other departments that you interface with, whether it's TPW or water.

So this is a big deal.

We recognize that, and I think this entire council is incredibly proud to work with all of you.

So congratulations.

Thank you.

Okay, we gotta take a picture, y'all.

Over here.

Yeah, maybe so.

Let's go on that side.

No, I don't.

I'm I'm taking it down.

Thank you.

Like for presenting terrible right now.

Next, I'd like to invite Dana Bergdov to come up to the podium for a recognition on the library side.

Thank you, Jane.

Thank you, Mayor and members of the city council.

I'd like to welcome Cynthia Fletterer, who's the immediate past president of the Texas Municipal Library Directors Association, who's joining us to bring another honor here to the City of Fort Worth.

Cynthia.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the City Council.

It is a wonderful day to be in Fort Worth, and I am honored to be here to help you celebrate the many teams that come together to make your city great.

Today I'm here to recognize the Fort Worth Public Libraries, and I would love to invite them up, Midori and her team, so that I can read the announcement to them for their award.

And your library is now in the top 20% of all Texas public libraries.

Again, again, thank you for your accomplishment, and thank you for enriching the lives of your residents and providing your community with outstanding and innovative services.

Yes, absolutely.

But maybe stay right where you are, and we're gonna come that way since the podium was a problem.

Next mayor, I do have some updates on the organizational side.

Last week marks a year since I uh uh became city manager, and one of the first things that I did overall after observing the the organization was reorganize the portfolios of um the ACMs so that similar functions were together.

Now that we're a year into the whole process, what's become obvious is there's some imbalance where uh one ACM specifically has a lot more of kind of the grunt work associated with the rigors of getting business done at the city, especially when it comes to M and Cs and meetings and uh the documents that are involved.

With that in mind, I've announced a little change, a little tweak in the portfolios of the ACMs so that to better balance everybody's workload.

So uh two departments that were previously under Jess McGregor are being moved now.

Umic development will be under the Dana Dana Bergdas portfolio portfolio going forward.

Um public events will be moved under Diana Giordano.

Those adjustments will be uh through a transition period, so Jess will work with them to get them all up to speed, make sure that our partners uh involved in the overall uh everyday things that we do are comfortable and and everybody's up to speed.

And so as we move forward, that's the the makeup of the portfolio.

So we'll be publishing or creating new organizational chart and we'll provide it to everybody and make sure it's updated on the website.

So I think uh I think going forward we'll have uh a much uh a much better um outcomes on on things as we move forward, just with that balance going forward, and also the fact that Jess had those portfolios, she's available to step in if there's ever any gaps uh as we go forward.

So with that, that is um on the organizational updates and employee recognitions.

I can move to informal reports.

Let's roll on.

Sounds good.

All right, first informal report are 2026 recommendations for resolutions of support for nine percent housing tax credit applications.

Any questions or comments from council?

I do.

Okay, council member nettles.

We have Casey Thomas here to answer any questions.

Or Dana is here to answer any questions.

Casey or Dana just uh just a brief overview, but I want to kind of hit on the fact of the resolution and how we get to uh the approval of the resolution.

I know we have a lot of questions within our communities uh that somebody still requires zoning changes, and it's just the resolution part, a part of our ordinance.

Yes, sir, that's correct.

So the we bring forward all of the applications for the competitive nine percent housing tax credits that comply with the housing the city's housing tax credit policy and have identified within the informal report those that require a zoning change and those that do not, and so it's still within the city's council discretion whether to approve or deny those zoning change requests when they come forward, and so the it's not a guarantee that those projects will move forward just because you act on that resolution and per ordinance uh the recommendation is for all these to be approved on the resolution.

So there is an M and C, yeah.

So there is an M and C that would be um that contains the resolutions for each of these sites that would be on your February 10th council agenda.

Uh and then um it comes to you with because they all comply with the policy, staff brings them forward to you all together, uh, and then it's up to each council member.

It's your discretion if for some reason you want to do something different for any of the sites within your districts.

This is part of the process process in order for these are competitive, so in order for a developer or development, they have to they have a scoring system.

If they don't comply with the city's portion of that, they don't get the points.

So there's likely they're not gonna get picked because it's competitive.

And so in order to create a an even playing field, we have our ordinance and we review it to make sure that it meets that portion of our housing requirements.

It doesn't necessarily necessarily say the city's gonna allow any additional steps to go forward.

That'll be a separate council decision as we go forward.

Okay.

There's typically about Chather Road uh neighborhood services.

There's tick typically about two to three projects that actually get awarded tax credits.

Nine percent in Fort Worth every year.

Because we are competitive with the whole all we're the same region as Dallas Fort Dallas, we're all one big region, so we have to compete with all those other cities.

I do I have a question.

It's okay.

Councilmember Hall.

Thank you.

Uh my question is about um I know there's a requirement for there be a community information session held.

And um, according to this IR, there were sessions held.

There's one particularly my district, um, the view at Alta Mesa that I didn't know anything about, and perhaps that was my oversight.

But my question is when I did inquire about it, there were no attendees at this community session, and it was a virtual session.

Um does that amount to me.

Is that community input if there's no one present?

How do we know the efforts to market that to ensure that there is someone there um to voice their opinion either in support or denial?

I mean, how does one have a basis of support or opposition when there was no engagement at all?

Yeah, we can excuse me, we can request a developer reach back out and hold another meeting uh prior to prior to final approval.

Uh but uh if I was correct, they did reach out to the neighborhood associations, and they not receive any response uh from those it was from Wedgewood, it looked like and uh also the developer reached out to committee encouragement just to see if there was any other additional contacts and so I I did see what I would amount to when them reaching out, but there was no publishing of like the actual link for the meeting.

There was the notice that they were going, they intend to apply and this, that, and the other, but there was not necessarily we are having a meeting on this date.

Here's the link, it's a virtual meeting if you want to engage.

And so I guess what I'm just highlighting or lifting up is that um there has to be a good faith effort, I think, to engage people in order to check this box that a community meeting was held.

And I think the absence of any neighbor, even the person they reached out to being either neighborhood services or that HOA leadership, if no one wants there, I would say that that kind of throws in the face of community engagement at all.

Can I just add Councilman Nettles?

Um per our ordinance.

I think the support that we're giving us a resolution is simply per the ordinance.

Does the ordinance require uh the public engagement piece from the uh developer?

Uh it only requires it if there's a registered neighborhood association within one half mile of the development site.

However, they can reach out to the council member and get additional uh recommendations for outreach.

There's no neighborhood association within that one half mile.

Okay.

The requirement is to have a meeting.

It is it's not whether or not you get support or not from the it's just it's it's part of the process.

I understand what you're saying is that they reached out, nobody responded, and they went ahead and had the meeting and nobody was uh nobody attended because nobody had responded to them.

So um I guess technical technical on the technicality, it met the requirement, but maybe we need to look at our ordinance to ensure that there's there's a meeting that actually filters to our citizens.

Yeah, I mean, excuse me, in the future policy, we can look at you know requiring a meeting and making sure a link's sent out to you know, we'd have to get a list of stakeholders from member and I just think I think at the the point I wanted to highlight is I believe this meeting happened during the ice storm.

So I mean, not only was there no one there, it happened during you know an incident in our city.

So it just doesn't seem in good faith to say we check the box and that we met that requirement.

So if there, I mean, if there's an opportunity somewhere, I'm new at this, so I'm I mean, again, not trying to issue blame, but just making sure that what we're asking to be done is actually done in good faith and realizing the outcomes that we're seeking.

Yeah, and I believe the the meeting was a virtual meeting, but we'll reach back out to the developer and have them they can reach back out to the neighborhood and see if they can hold another meeting for next week.

Mayor just one.

Yes, council lawyers.

Um to that note, uh there's there's also a time requirement, right?

Like do they they have to provide at least seven days' notice?

Okay, because I I believe if I'm not mistaken it for another, because we've had quite a few of these in district four, and I can't remember if it's the Thompson or not, but one of them there was like a three-day notice, which obviously is not nearly enough.

So if they they don't provide enough notice, tell them like, well, that's not gonna work.

I mean, they can still hold the meeting, I'm sure, because it's their call, uh, but then we require them to hold another meeting and give proper notice.

Um, and if if they don't do that, is that the point where we'd come back to y'all and be like, hey, like we're not in support of this?

Because it's a support or no support, right?

Isn't that correct?

If they did not have the proper notification, the seven days then that is not meeting the policy, so we would not move forward.

Okay, awesome.

Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you.

Any other questions from council?

No, thank you, Chad.

Um next IRs, next steps on the council priorities, and Christianne Simmons, I believe, is here to answer any questions.

Questions from council?

No.

The next is collegiate and vocational student internship placement and Kristen Smith, HR director is here to answer any questions.

I'd like for Kristen to just give us a quick overview, if you don't mind.

There she is.

I couldn't hear at the back.

Did you was there a question?

If you could give a little overview of the IR.

Oh, sure, absolutely.

So there is a prior uh guidance around internships, uh, and this is uh an attempt to update that just to make sure that there's framework.

And so it talks about both um paid internships, what the limit is on uh both age for participate minimum age for participation, uh the hourly rate that those interns are paid, uh, and then what the framework is for uh students that are returning to us.

Um, one thing that is different about the current um draft AR is that there is um specific guidelines for city council interns, including uh funds to be able to cover cost um for intern one annual year uh intern placements.

And so I'm I can defer to the city manager to speak more about the funding, but uh it really is just for all of the student partnerships and student internships that we have across the city, making sure that there are consistencies and how we are um both recruiting for those students, how we're selecting them, that there's transparency in the process, uh, and that it you know creates opportunities for uh many uh and that the framework is uh reflective in every single department.

But other questions or comments any other questions, council?

Yes, Councilman Hall.

Yes, um, is there um a limitation?

It says here that uh 20 240 hours, it looks like it could be intermittent if you'd like, and it could be I guess across various interns, so you could determine the term um if you wanted a six month intern or three for two months, is what it sounds like.

So the you this the area that you're mentioning is specific to city council interns, the number of hours is representative of the funding.

It initially was intended to be for one placement, um, but I'll defer to the city manager if you'd like to speak to them.

Yeah, I mean the idea is that you'd have four months available for interns at part-time, and if you wanted to divide it, I don't see if there's an issue you wanted to divide two months with one intern and two months for the other, because traditionally the interns have been in the summertime, and the council is not here in July, so that kind of creates an issue, I think, for uh for some of y'all on the ability to have an intern have a uh a good experience because there's nothing really going on in July, oftentimes.

Uh the idea is to provide the four months, and the the council member can choose when when that occurred.

And is there a limitation?

Meaning it could you uh if you chose to supplement that program that that allocation that's being provided to each of the council district's office with your own council district budget.

The intent was to have just one per group, but we could have a conversation if the council wants to use other funds.

Um but there's a lot of technical parts of that as well.

Uh well one of the reasons we needed this is we started looking at it.

There's a lot of questions about interns.

Is the city didn't really have a policy that was following the IRS guidelines when it comes to interns, because typically interns are tied to folks that are in school and they have a different, they have a different with tax withholdings and all those kind of things.

We're trying to make sure that we're uh we're following the letter of the law, and so um looking back into how things were done before, it was there was not a uniform system, and so it's our attempt to try to put something in place.

Well, thank you.

Well, we were here last July, so the mayor had some great interns, and I snuck some of their time, so we would use them during the summer because we worked all of July in my office.

Yeah, and good point, and making sure the council feels good about what's outlined here too.

All of you've also used um interns or folks in your offices when it worked best for you when you have a high season.

I know summertime June is very, very busy.

July, it is if you have intentional projects, but as long as everybody feels like this is helpful to their office, which I think it I think it is.

I like it being integrated with a whole city because that before it kind of felt like the council was an afterthought, and we were kind of on our own to figure out what we needed.

Councilmember Flores.

Is this applying to the next gen program as well?

I actually just left a meeting about the next gen program.

So we are looking at the parameters of that program to make sure it aligns with the new guidelines.

It's very close and just a slight difference in the hours and age.

Um, but we are any of the existing kind of partnerships or programs that we have in house, we're looking for alignment opportunities with this new guideline.

Okay, because that requires coordination with the ISTs, right?

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for doing this.

Yeah, it's great.

So I I do want to go on the record and I appreciate you, um City Manager Chappa saying that there's an opportunity to discuss this further.

I just wanted to make clear.

I mean, the question that I had was could you supplement the program if that's something that you chose to do.

And I think that that's a great area.

So I do want to leave that opportunity on the table to decide if you want to have 260 hours or if you want to do it longer or whatever.

I understand the the requirements of the IRS and the limitations of them not going over a certain amount of hours and all of the legal ease that goes along with that in the and the rationale, but I do feel like there's some areas that we could iron out.

And I do have that I have that noted for follow-up as well.

Councilman Nettles.

This IR is pertaining to some of the interns that we have now.

Or is this something separate for just the summertime?

It would it would apply to all interns going forward.

Okay.

And so this outline that instead of I think we had some that are working since the summer, this was this is basically saying they'd only be able to do it for four months.

Four months starting going forward an intern for four months on a so in this fiscal year would be the four months left in this fiscal year, next fiscal fiscal year would be four months in that fiscal year.

Yeah, well, I'll just add to I think if it's currently so we currently you the the council does not have funds in the budgets for interns.

Sure.

So that's where looking at this, and I get questions from the media, I get questions from others as far as how does the city govern this, and we don't currently.

So we're trying to put a framework around it and recommend putting funds behind it to allow there to be a system that is followed uh and that this funding is being paid out of the correct, you know.

We have the different accounting uh pieces that we put into place that are being paid out of the correct, you know, places and all those kind of things, so that when questions come up or a request comes up for funding and for charges out of all the council members, you know, district offices, so that we can make sure that everything's aligned.

That's the attempt here.

We can have additional discussion around uh but this is our attempt to try to put the framework around as we go forward.

So I would like to have some additional conversation about uh possibly adding it within the city council budget.

Uh we talked about like travel, how some of us don't travel as much as others or don't use certain things in our budget, and if there's a mechanism of putting the interim or switching it to keeping the intern policy, but switching it to a part-time that allows it to be more than four months uh throughout the uh physical year is something I'll be interested in looking into.

If it's part-time, right, so something I'd be looking into.

So this is one of the issues.

There's interns that have been hired, and they're here all the time.

That's a full-time position that should go to the city council, be part of the budget budget process and should be added to the budget.

It's not an internship.

And that's a whole different thing with the IRS and all those kind of things.

So that's why there needs to be a framework that we can then use it as the the what we use to govern how we move forward with this program.

If the city council wants to hire additional positions that are part-time, we can do that through the budget process if that's the desire of the city council overall.

Um we would need to figure out what all these people do.

Also, I mean that would be my recommendation.

Uh again, I am grateful for this because we last summer the mayor had high school students, and it was excellent that we had one young woman from district five, that it was really a great experience for her, and we were able to use her, and I am appreciative that at least we've approached this to try to bring some of these young folks on board.

Well, and I volunteer, Kristen, to meet with you all individually to get your feedback on the IRs to see if we can see what everybody's questions, desires, where there's kinks, where there's issues, to see how we can address that and bring something back.

And if it's helpful to the council members, um, Dr.

David Sines, who runs Terrant 2 and 3, but also mayor's council, he's a great resource for all of our ISTs.

And maybe we could also work on sort of what everybody would like to see, and if you have preference on your district, of course, or schools to make sure you have better representation and opportunities for students to Deborah's point, you know, if you want to especially when you offer it to high school students that never thought it was possible to come work at City Hall for a summer, it really is eye-opening for them.

We could maybe have a one funnel for you to send out those applications for for every office.

Okay, sounds good.

And I did just want to add, and it's not unique to the city.

You know, the term intern is kind of loosely used to define a bunch of different things.

So there are options for departments that want, you know, kind of early career professionals and need to retain them for longer, you know, full-time or part-time positions.

But this is truly where it's an internship and it's a cooperative educational relationship.

Um, but you know, happy to discuss further.

Thanks, Kristen.

The next is floodplain management plan, uh five-year update.

Jennifer Dykes is here to uh provide answers to any questions you may have.

No questions.

Nope.

Jennifer's great, wherever you are, Jennifer.

I don't know where you are.

She's hiding.

Next is uh Panther Island Public Improvement District and Brady Kirk from the Fort Worth Labs here to answer any questions.

Yes, Councilman Martinez.

Hi, Brady.

I really just want to know if this is a staff-led effort to secure um, I guess the the application from the different property owners or or how does that work?

Do we use a third party?

Absolutely.

Um Brady Kirk with Fort Worth Lab.

And so usually the staff would not be leading a petition effort on the creation of a PID.

In this specific case, TRWD has been very involved, but the lead petitioner in requesting that this district is formed is a company and property holder named Seiko within the Panther Island District.

Thank you.

That was it.

Thank you.

The next is a proposed council initiated zoning change for 5329 and 5335 East First Street, between the East First Street and the Trinity River, and LaShondra Stringfellow is here to answer any questions.

Councilman Pupils.

Well, no questions, but I do want to thank uh City Manager Dana Bergdoff and her staff for being willing to look at this.

It's in council district 11, but uh Jeanette and I have worked together on this because it's very close to district five, and I just appreciate the fact that you were willing to work on this.

Yes, I just want to echo that as well.

Thank you to the staff.

We really need to protect certain areas uh in the floodplain.

Um, you know, just there's concerns uh from various groups, but we really thank you for this.

Um quick uh turnaround on this.

Thank you.

And this last one is about 20 years in the making.

I had dark hair then, a proposed subdivision ordinance amendments to promote infill development, and DJ Harell's here to answer any questions.

And I think if just an overview, DJ, if you don't mind.

I think to Jay's point, this is a long time coming.

So I actually had hair when it started.

Oh, you did?

So this is just our efforts.

This um, you know, like like we laugh about it, but it's been multiple years where we've tried to figure out how we want to grow as a city, right?

Uh we've embraced in the city of Fort Worth the smart growth concepts, which are basically uh, you know, smart development, you know, compact development, walkable developments, development in the interior, not on the fringes, you know, where we know it costs us more to serve those communities, and it's just harder to get to them.

Um so you know, this is another effort to to make it easier to build within the loop of the city instead of you know going out on the fringes for every development.

We want to incentivize the developments that we like to see.

So um, quick question, again, overarching theme here.

What does an optimal result look like from the creation of this new ordinance long term for in field development?

So we've got about Mayor, we've got about 22, 23,000 people moving here every year, right?

And you know, the the most housing starts and the most of the density is starting to end up on the fringes, you know, you know, Chisholm Trail, Walsh Ranch, you know, Alliance area or whatever, um, which is which is great.

However, what we want to do is grow from within, you know, um in you know inside the loop.

So, you know, when you ask what it looks like, what success looks like, it looks more like you know, a lot of that density coming downtown in the downtown periphery, um, because we know that that's that's an area that we can serve.

The roads are fully built out, the infrastructure is there, and we don't have to you know invest a whole lot in those capital improvements over time.

Yeah.

And how would this ordinance help say in more established neighborhoods where there's redevelopment opportunities, there are current lots, maybe they're not cleared yet, maybe we don't own them yet, or they're privately held individually.

How would this option make it easier for infill development there?

So those areas that fit into the infield development overlay.

Um, you know, basically, uh, and here's the other thing that we're gonna be bringing to you soon.

Uh a lot of our uh ordinances are updated.

You know, we we just you know, as a city, as we've been growing, we've been focused on you know the thing in front of us, right?

The new permits, the you know, the new whatever's on our plate today.

So what we're gonna do is actually step back, and this is one step in that direction as well, step back and look at holistically where we're trying to go and start focusing on those those text amendments and ordinance improvements to to get us there.

So, you know, what this does, it gives us a little discretion, you know, because you know, sometimes we were trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, but in those neighborhoods that you're describing, it just doesn't fit, right?

And so it gives more discretion to the director level and director's designee to to make concessions when necessary when it doesn't justify, I mean, when it doesn't um um it doesn't create an unsafe or disorderly development concern.

Thank you.

Consorhill.

Thank you, DJ.

And this has been a lot of hard work.

Um, does this change the relationship at all between your department and the city plan commission and any kind of decision making that they have?

No, no, no, ma'am.

Um, we actually presented this to the city planning commission three times.

Three times, and we kind of talked through a lot of that.

You know, you know, there was concern about the administrative authority that you know we're kind of shifting toward.

And you know, we kind of judging from the pulse of you all and you know where you were uh directing us as a department to you know try some of those things that you know we always approve in plan commission.

They you know, they they go through that in entire process and they always get approved.

So those are some of the things that we put in this ordinance to just not have to take through that bureaucratic process when we know we're gonna approve it anyway.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Any other questions?

No, thank you, GJ.

Thank you.

And that's all for the IRs.

Thank you.

We'll move into any changes on boards or commissions for February 10th meeting.

Zoning cases or MNC log questions or concerns.

Okay, our first presentation is the Fort Worth Convention Center phase two expansion schematic design.

Michael Crum, our public events director, is here to present.

Mayor and counsel, good afternoon.

I'm gonna ask Bob Jameson and Michael Bennett to join me here at the podium, and we will serve as the three-headed monster today to introduce to you the phase two designs for the renovation and expansion of the Fort Worth Convention Center.

We're gonna run through a phase one real kick recap real quick, and then we'll we'll show you the renderings and the floor plans uh for the uh uh the phase two uh design, uh talk a little bit about schedule going forward, and of course, we have a sizzle reel for you uh to conclude our presentation today.

Um, so phase one.

Uh we completed phase one ahead of schedule and under budget uh and celebrated that recently with a ribbon cutting.

Uh I believe that by now the mayor and council member Beck have recovered the feeling in their fingers and toes because it was a little brisk on the day that we cut the ribbon.

Uh hustled inside to celebrate uh with the convention center's new coffee retail, belt buckle brew.

Um and you know, just the result of this project again.

Uh remember what we set out to do.

Uh new back of house food and beverage facilities that brought the quality of our food and beverage operation into this century.

Uh a new entrance uh on the southeast corner of the building uh to respond to what's happening with our new neighbors uh over at Texas AM.

Um a uh redirected commerce street, and you can see here we have completely changed the vista uh from standing in front of the AM law school down into the center city and have created that connectivity that our AM friends uh felt was so important.

Um got a better sense of that in this picture, and then here two things that are are very important to us.

One is that we have more than doubled the loading dock capacity of the convention center, uh, making it much easier for our clients uh present and future uh to load in and load out uh of the facility.

And also we've created uh a piece of property there on the east side of the building uh on uh what we call the commerce street property, and we'll be talking to you in the future about the redevelopment of that property as we move forward with phase two.

So with that, I'm going to hand it to Bob to kick off our phase two design overview.

Thank you, Mike.

And it's a pleasure to be in front of you with this update.

Phase two, you know, move quickly through a lot of the floor plans that are going to be in front of you.

But just to give you a sense of what's ahead, there's two parts to what's happening in phase two.

What I'm talking about is how it works on the inside.

Michael will then follow with, you know, what really is the you know the presentation of the building itself from an exterior standpoint.

And I think, you know, in many respects, that's part you want to see.

Um the part here is what's most important to Mike's team and my team and how we present it to our customers and clients.

And uh, and I can tell you we have plenty of people that are very anxious to get an idea of what is going to be available to them in 2030.

Now, there's um a couple of things that I want to highlight about this, and that is that this was customer driven in terms of what how the facility worked, how the building was going to support future meetings and expanded meetings, and we used a multitude of ways to get information feedback from our clients.

And so, you know, a lot of what we presented to the designers was uh driven by their comments.

I want to emphasize also that a major consideration was how to take space, particularly what has been the arena, you know, and served its purpose many years ago, but it's proven itself to be very inflexible space as our clients have tried to activate the building, and how do we do things behind the scenes and within within the building to make it more flexible?

Functional back of the house, the reference to the to the loading docks and expanding the number of loading docks pretty dramatically.

Um here is a you know, just a quick list.

This is all new construction, the space that is uh affected the amount of square footage that's affected by new construction, 360,000 square feet back of the house, front of the house space that is as a result of this second phase.

Um addition here we look at the new rentable space, and so we've got about 155, 160,000 square feet of additional rental space, uh, broken out into you know, exhibit hall space and its expansion, the addition of meeting rooms or expanding the number of meeting rooms, and then adding a second ballroom.

One of the things that I want to highlight for you in the thinking here is that the emphasis on exhibit space in the way meetings are held today is much less than it used to be.

And the justification that many, many clients present to their attendees in order to come to their meetings is the education that takes place in the smaller meeting rooms, and we have worked to write size, the ratio of those smaller breakout and meeting spaces compared to the amount of exhibit space that we have.

So here we get to some floor plans.

This is level 100, this is street level.

The brighter yellow is the new exhibit hall space, and I would just suggest to you that in that space we've been able to raise ceiling heights above what is currently existing in the current uh uh exhibit hall space.

That's gonna give some flexibility for some sporting events that we've not been able to accommodate before, and so that's one way that uh the work here will support that particular market segment.

Um, this is level 200, which really uh is mostly back of the house because of the ceiling heights in within the exhibit hall, you know.

That you know, that's you know, that that's still looking largely at the exhibit hall floor.

This is a 300 level, and the lighter yellow on the on the right side as you're looking at it as our current space, our current ballroom, our current meeting rooms, um, and then on the left, the darker yellow are the new meeting room spaces that uh will be created.

And when we get to this page, you can see how you know on the right side it shows what they look like when they are in their larger floor plan, and on the left, it shows what they look like in terms of the number of smaller meeting rooms that are available and how they break out into sections as needed by our clients.

Level 400 is on the north side, a new 40,000 square foot ballroom.

And so ultimately what we end up with is a building that can handle larger groups than we've been able to accommodate before.

Two groups of about the same size.

We can move people in and out more efficiently.

We can shorten the number of move-in days and move out days, all of those things heightening the opportunity and the flexibility of the building.

This is just a look at all of those floor plans.

And so that's that's what it will look like for our customers, and we're excited to be able to take those drawings because that's what means most to the folks that are standing posted up, anxious to hear what this new building will look like for them.

Now let me turn it over to Michael and he'll tell you about what the exterior of the building looks like.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Sometimes when you're designing a building, especially one like this, it's very public building.

It's it's informative when you're looking forward to look backwards first and understand the context of where you are, understand elements within the city.

And so that's one of the things we did here.

Fort Worth has a long history of tower elements that that define and terminate views.

On the right hand side is a building that that a lot of us don't know about.

It's even older than me, actually.

I I will say that building uh was the original Texas and Pacific uh train terminal, and that tower that you see anchored the very far south end of Main Street.

So there was a point in time uh that if you're walking north on Main Street, you would have seen uh one of our county courthouses since the late 1800s, the one that's there today.

At that same point, you would have seen this building at the far south end.

And so we felt like a design team, it was important to think about that idea and and to maybe revisit that idea in what we're talking about here.

It's certainly a strong kind of urban planning idea, but as well for a building like the convention center that that is both a functional building like Bob was talking about, but also has an urb has an urban planning element to it that's important as well.

Um that's hard to see, I apologize, but that's Main Street uh in the in the 1930s, and so you see at the very far kind of bottom left center of the of the uh photo uh that original TNP terminal building.

Uh it was replaced in the 30s by the TNP building that you see today, and so that corner element uh at the TNP building today anchors the end of Throckmorton Street.

There's not a tower like that anymore.

And so when that when that was built, uh the the uh we went through a period of time after that that uh original terminal was was demolished that there were about 30 years where there was no no terminus at the end of Main Street until the 60s when our current convention center was built.

You see on the upper right uh what we've all seen for a long time looking south on Main Street.

These two photos were taken, the one in the middle and the one on the right, from about the center of Main Street.

So we're trying to get an idea of the scale of things as we as we design this.

Those diagrams on the bottom are a little bit hard to see, but but uh what we were trying to do there was analyze kind of the size comparison between the courthouse and and the future uh convention center uh terminus uh building there at the at the south end of Maine, as well as trying to understand kind of the relationship of what that's like with the existing uh existing convention center arena.

Then one of the other things that you'll see as you as you see the design stuff that we're gonna show here in a couple minutes is uh much like uh what we did on phase one.

We're we're taking the idea of the modern West about Fort Worth being not only a place that's proud of its history, but is also uh innovative and forward-looking.

So we're using many of the same materials, many of the same kind of open transparent ideas.

You'll see that the north end of the convention center is really transparent and open to the city that it embraces.

Uh, and then thinking about too the vernacular and regional response so that you feel like you're in Fort Worth when you're in Fort Worth.

Uh one of the things we still have left to do is there is actually the the north end of the of the new building will be a little bit shorter than the than the north end of the of the uh arena today.

And so we're gonna end up with a little bit of extra plaza space there that that we're gonna be working with downtown Fort Worth Inc.

to think about how that gets programmed so that the design can follow the programming of that plaza and think about how that might be if we close close streets off for some some special occasions and things like that of how that plaza might work, and also thinking about the idea of bringing the kind of Fort Worth Prairie landscape into the plaza.

So again, when you're at the convention center, you feel like you're in Fort Worth.

So with that, I'm gonna hand it over to Mike Crumb, who's gonna kind of walk you through the the building.

Thank you, Michael.

So we'll start off on the north side of the building.

And uh to Michael's point about the modern West and uh honoring our history and looking to the future.

Uh this is an expression of that idea.

Uh I'll tell you that when I came here six years ago, one of the first meetings I was in was the original convention center advisory committee that had been convened by Mayor Price, and one of the marching orders that we had from that group was to create an iconic counterpoint to the county courthouse.

Uh, and we have maintained that idea through the pandemic and into the reboot of the expansion project.

And I know I've thanked you for this before, but uh the 47 million dollars in ARPA money that uh you committed to phase one of the project gave us a jump start on this, and uh so we would not be where we are today without your support.

Um if we look at it from ground level, uh again, it's a a very transparent, uh very open facade.

Again, this is this is uh feedback that we received from our customers, and what you'll what you'll see as we walk through the building uh is the idea that the building needs to be functional and comfortable for our attendees so that they are spending eight hours a day in the building, yet at the same time transparent enough so that uh they have that sense of where they are, they have that Fort Worth destination experience.

Uh Michael's already mentioned uh that in our advisory committee meeting, which we had a couple of weeks ago, we had an extended conversation uh about the plaza and uh the need to activate the plaza so that it is just not a sun-baked space.

Uh so uh in fact, Michael came up with the idea of uh going for going forward with design, we're gonna take a little time to deal with this plaza issue.

So we are going to segregate it from the conversation with the downtown development review board about the building.

We'll do the building first, and then we'll come back and talk to them about the plaza later when we have a more comprehensive game plan for that.

Um the building at night uh will be a uh a beacon for our visitors to the city.

So uh once you get to Main Street, you'll know whether you need to walk north or south to get back to your back to your hotel.

Uh the other thing that I'd point out about the uh the tower is that we have configured it in a way to host an iconic piece of public art.

Uh and so imagine something very interesting at the very top of the tower uh that is as notorious as the star in the 12th street lobby is today.

Um if we look at the uh the building from the corner of 9th and Houston, uh you can you can see how it sits a little farther back from uh from 9th Street.

Also, you can see how it integrates into the uh the the current facility, what we call the legacy portion of the uh the building.

Uh we have uh have been working on the green space question, and you can see that on the Houston Street side of the building.

We're trying to bring green to the experience of entering and exiting the facility.

Um this is what it looks like if you're standing across Houston Street from the building.

Um I learned something in this process, those white thingies are called a brisolet.

Basically, that means a wall with holes in it.

Um it's meant to absorb and deflect uh some of the afternoon sun uh that we're we get here in spades in Texas.

Um if we go over to the other side of the building, uh so this is from Ninth and Commerce.

Uh you really see here how we've brought the design from phase one around to the uh to the front of the building.

Uh and again, if we're thinking about the development of Commerce Street, we need to make sure that we have two really good visible entrances to the building because uh our conventiers are not gonna be able to walk directly across the street into the building because that's the loading dock.

So this side of the building again is meant to draw people towards entry into the facility at this point.

If we go inside, this is where you you see more of that that expression of the modern West.

So the carpet should look familiar because we've already picked the pattern and it is in the uh it is in the southeast entrance of the building.

And a lot again, a lot of the interior treatments uh that we're using here we have we have drawn from that first phase of work.

This comes around to the Houston Street side of the concourse.

So here you're looking north towards the uh the 9th Street side of the facility, again, a broad open concourse with, as you'll you see there on the right, spaces for people to gather.

Uh informal gathering spaces are a thing in the convention business today, so we've we've built a lot of that into our design.

Uh looking up to the top of the tower again, you get a sense for what a uh a great piece of public art is going to be able to do for this space.

Uh, and then this is this is probably the shot I love the best because uh this is you're standing on the 400 level with your back to the ballroom door looking up Main Street, and this is this is the welcome to Fort Worth shot right here.

So and this is you you can imagine this is pre-function space we're looking at.

So this is where you gather for the reception before you go into the ballroom for dinner.

Uh another angle.

This is uh looking uh in the pre-function space on the 400 level, looking towards the commerce street side of the building.

Uh the ballroom.

Uh so we had a high bar in terms of uh trying to create a look that was equitable to the iconic stars in the ceiling look that we have in the uh in our first ballroom.

And so here we have chosen to express uh welcome to Fort Worth in the lighting system.

If you you look up that if it reminds you of the Molly, there's a reason for that.

It's because we were we were intentional about that.

Uh again, this is 40,000 square feet of ballroom.

So this is essentially 40% bigger than the ballroom that we have today.

Uh divisible, Michael, three ways, right?

So we can break this down if we need to, and uh this I think is going to become the next great civic space in this community.

You're gonna you're gonna be really proud to uh hold an event here, attend an event in here.

It's gonna be a great look.

In terms of schedule, uh we are through schematic design and programming and currently feel very good about where we are from a budget standpoint.

Um with what's called design development by the end of the calendar year.

Uh in September, uh, we'll be uh celebrating the uh the last days of the arena with a community event.

Uh the visit Fort Worth annual meeting, which Bob and Mitch and the team do a great uh uh it's a great production uh will be the hospitality industry celebration uh of the arena, and then we'll do the community celebration later in the year.

Um we're gonna sell 541 million dollars in culture and tourism debt in September.

Um we will at about the same time begin the uh the uh abatement environmental abatement that we know uh we've got to do because the building was built in 1968, and asbestos was not a bad word back then.

So we've got we've got work to do.

Um you can expect demolition uh probably at the end of the first quarter in uh calendar 27.

Uh right now it appears that we can implode the dome, but we've got to pick apart uh the exterior because of our neighbors.

Uh and at this point in time, still uh still anticipating a construction completion date of December of 2029.

With that, I'm gonna hit this button again, hopefully, and the video is gonna play.

There we go.

The Fort Worth Convention Center is evolving, setting the stage for a new era of connection, collaboration, and community.

While visitors continue to enjoy events inside the convention center, the construction team is working behind the scenes, executing one of the most complex renovations in the city's history.

Phase one is complete, setting the foundation and inspiring the next chapter of this landmark project, phase two begins this year, expanding and modernizing the convention center to elevate Fort Worth's place as a premier destination for conventions, events, and entertainment.

This will be accomplished by delivering 359,000 square feet of new convention space.

Enough room to double Fort Worth's historic capacity to host meetings and conventions.

Designed for flexibility, the new space adapts with every event.

Elevated finishes and refined details are drawn from Fort Worth's distinct flair, bringing the city's bold character to every gathering.

This expansion will also deliver the largest ballroom in Tarrant County.

Ensuring the Fort Worth Convention Center remains a catalyst for growth in the region.

Well, again, thank you for your support of this transformative project for the city.

And with that, Bob and Michael and I are available to take your questions.

Thank you, Mike.

Councilman Martinez.

Bob, I just want to know what's gonna happen to the star.

The cowboy hat star.

I don't know what it's called.

The star stays.

Okay.

Yeah, it's I was gonna say move it over here.

It is it is in my experience, it is one of the best pieces of convention center public art that I've ever seen, and it's not going anywhere.

Anyone else?

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, no, sir.

Any other questions or comments?

No.

Great.

You've had also a lot of participation from the community in your task force group.

So I think this is maybe Councilmember Beck's fifth time to see the presentation by four or five for me, but it's very exciting.

And it's still beautiful.

Every time I see it, I can done such a great job.

So good job.

In fact, Chris was a little upset because the dome was being imploded, and that's where he graduated high school.

And I reminded him that just shows you how old that building is.

You can you get to participate though in the explosion.

Does that help any?

Okay, great.

There you go.

You have to wear your cap and gown.

I on the other hand took the bar exam there, so I'm happy to see it go down.

He's gonna push the button for sure.

So every time I see it, it's it's just it blows me away.

And I'm excited to show it to people.

And um, I've already seen, you know, images were leaked today ahead of this, um, or I say, you know, given to the public ahead of this presentation, and um social media is already um, you know, I honestly expected some pushback, you know.

People we don't like change, and so people kind of upset about the the dome, the spaceship going away, but um you've done a great job because overall what I've seen is just nothing but positive um positive feedback.

We have a great team working on this project.

Umager has brought us an associates and David Crabtree.

Wave David, you're here.

Design team, uh TBS out of Atlanta, uh supported by uh Bennett partners, and I can't tell you how invaluable Michael's Council has been and how it has influenced the the design of the project, particularly the exterior, and then we are carrying forward our construction manager at risk, a joint venture uh between uh Acom Hunt, uh Bern Construction and EJ Smith.

Uh again, you deliver something ahead of schedule and under budget, you get to you get to go back to work.

So we're we're very pleased with where we are and very excited about what the future holds.

Thank you, guys.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

I believe Mike's back up for the next one.

Okay, so if we're gonna build a great building, then we need to think about uh monetizing that in terms of finding a naming rights partner.

Uh and this is this fits into the manager's mantra that departments look for ways to produce more revenue.

Uh so today we're gonna introduce you to the concept of convention center naming rights.

Um do a little overview, talk about convention centers specifically, and what the partnership opportunity looks like for the convention center.

Um we're all familiar with naming rights deals because we have a lot of them here in the Metroplex.

Uh and one very big one here out on uh Montgomery.

Um convention center naming rights has become a trend here in the past 10 to 15 years.

And you know, what do you what do you notice the difference between an ATT and an American Airlines and what has happened in these particular communities is that uh the partnerships tend to be with local or regional uh companies again uh uh B2C relationships where the the company is trying to uh uh expand its customer base through increased name recognition.

If you looked around the country, uh other convention centers are associated with energy companies, healthcare, restaurants, uh, and have a couple of casinos that have put their name on uh on convention facilities.

The dollars are a tad different.

Uh so you know, at the top end of the scale, you have ATT Stadium at 19 million dollars a year.

Um, just to give you a feel for kind of the range, American Airlines is probably in the in the $7 million range uh these days.

Um convention facilities because they don't get national TV exposure, right?

They're not on Sports Center, you know, with the score of the game from such and such arena.

So their valuations are a little different.

Um the Huntington Place Building, uh, which is in Detroit at 1.5 million dollars a year is currently at the top end of the convention center naming rights game.

So uh we've taken a look at this, and we brought in uh a group called the Superlative Group, which specializes in naming rights valuations both for convention centers and stick and ball facilities.

They think Fort Worth uh is probably at this point in time worth 450 to 500,000 a year.

And when you add that to what the current revenues are for the convention center, it's not insignificant.

And the way that we think of this is that every new dollar we can produce permits us to invest a dollar out of the culture and tourism fund uh in capital projects.

And as we have have been talking about, uh we have a lot of capital needs, uh, particularly out at the Will Rogers complex, so you can connect the dots from generating revenue at the center to it showing up in terms of improvements out on Lancaster.

Uh big question.

Uh, do we lose anything by taking Fort Worth off the convention center?

And uh the answer to that is no, because uh conventions come to cities, they don't come to venues.

So uh, you know, think about you know the conventions you've been to, and they say join us next year in Fort Worth.

Now they may say, join us next year in Fort Worth at the convention center, but the the fact of the matter is that they highlight the destination, they don't highlight the venue, and that creates an opportunity for us.

They don't highlight the venue.

And that creates an opportunity for us.

So this we we tease this a little bit in the in the first presentation, but you see, you know, as you do out at Dickies, you see naming deals end up in places where they're conspicuous, right?

And so this would be you think about all the tall towers downtown, uh, what's there now and what's to come and putting a sponsor's name on the building would be conspicuous.

Um process is a multi-year process, so we would uh uh we would probably fund uh a uh uh a sponsorship marketing agency relationship in the 27 budget and then spend uh uh FY27 and maybe into FY28 marketing the opportunity.

Um you would like to land someone and negotiate the agreement so that you can uh handle the the fulfillment portion of the naming deal as part of the building project, and you don't then have to go back and take something off the building and put something else on.

Uh so what we're aiming for is to have this teed up uh uh to come back to this body uh for approval uh with the idea that when we reopen for business at the beginning of 2030, we reopen it with whatever the name of the facility is going to be.

With that, I'll take your questions.

Thank you, Mike.

Um I know naming a convention center is very different than naming like a Dickies, for example, that is um selling the naming rights, changing or impacting the licensing opportunities that we might have otherwise.

No, ma'am, I don't think so.

I think a a naming deal essentially sits on the outside of the building.

Uh what happens inside the building is is more of an operating issue.

So I don't I don't think it stops us from doing other things or entering into other relationships.

Okay, thank you.

Councillor Blok.

So Mike, thank you for that presentation.

Could since this is all scheduled to happen, you know, around the the reopening after stage three is done, uh that $500,000 is based on that future date and configuration.

So that's a that's a current valuation.

And I think usually what what happens is that that would be that value would be escalated if we're cutting the deal into the future, and then normally these deals have escalators in them.

Uh so that uh if it were a 10-year deal, it might be you know, three years from now it might be $550,000, and you end up at let's say 700 or 750.

For reference, could you give me a comparison between our convention center and Huntington Place at 1.5?

Well, understand it significantly.

Yeah, so Hunting Huntington Place, and this is what's interesting about the naming game is there are now two Huntington Place convention centers because Huntington is a Cleveland, Ohio headquartered bank, and they put their name on the convention center in Cleveland, and then they they acquired a financial institution in Detroit called TCF, which had their name on the on what was formerly the COBO convention center in Detroit.

So now they've got to deal with the question of two.

We'd like to avoid that.

I was going to point that out because I know about hunting the place, but so I know it's very early, but do we have any nipples?

No, ma'am.

Okay.

Start spreading the word.

Uh, and then uh I think once we have something that we feel good about bringing back to this group, then you'll the we'll start to talk about that.

Anyone else?

Councilwoman Peoples, are you interested?

Thank you, Mike.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

Before Mike sits sits down, I do want to this is an organizational change that's going on.

Um so it's a it's a change in leadership.

And really, after six years, Mike mentioned here he was here, been here for six years.

Of course, he showed up, and a month later he his job became supervisor of the largest shelter, homeless shelter in the city as we had to convert the convention center into a homeless shelter for COVID.

Um and he had originally um agreed that he would stay five years when we hired him.

We hired him specifically, his background was to help us through this convention center expansion, help us with convention center hotel, uh and he's been doing that.

But his him and he and his wife have decided to go home and uh transition back to Charlotte.

We have been able to coax them to not just get up and leave.

Um, he's committed to stay with us, and we're gonna go through a process of having starting this weekend of having Cynthia Sir Sanchez Serrano here, Flip to become the director of the department, and Mike become the deputy director, and uh basically have Mike support Cynthia through this transition as well as continue working on those projects.

He will then, once they actually move, he'll transition into a part-time role uh serving as a consultant on all these projects and to Cynthia.

And although he can do most of the work uh virtually, he'll he will be traveling back to Fort Worth uh to help us as we move along through this whole process.

Um Mike Mike's been uh a great asset to me.

I actually was at a hand in hiring him, uh was over the department previously, and we went through the national search and the things he had done at Charlotte and the successes they had in Charlotte.

He was part of that for 30 years, and he brought a lot of that uh of his rigor and finance background uh to put things in place and set us up as we move forward.

Uh Cynthia has been an employee of the city for 26 years, 20 of those years in public uh public events.

She's moved her moved her way up the the organizational chart.

Um, and as I mentioned, as we go forward, once we get to about the end of the year, Cynthia will take on the role of both the her current role and the director of with Mike as deputy director, then part-time consultant, and then probably going into next year.

We'll bring back the uh deputy director position, which is actually manages the the convention center itself.

And the the arrangement with Mike, as long as he's he is uh feeling like he's helping, and as long as we feel like he's uh adding value to this, uh you know, as we move forward with the convention center hotel and this project.

Uh we saw that this is set to open at the end of 2029, so there's a few years there.

Um hopefully he'll hang on and and we'll keep him going uh to get to that.

But I want to congratulate Mike for his next phase and congratulate Cynthia as we move forward.

Uh but I wanted to make that announcement and I wanted uh to thank Mike for his work and Cynthia for all the work she's done and what she's gonna be going forward.

So with that, I'll let Mike make some comments.

Okay.

Well, thank you, Jay.

Uh, as part of this leadership transition in public events, I'd like to share my sense of gratitude for the opportunities I've had here in Fort Worth over the past six years.

First, there's the opportunity to lead the public events department team uh on a whole series of transformative projects from the city and collaborate with community leaders like my friend Bob Jameson.

Second, uh there is an opportunity.

The there is the opportunity to continue to work in a project management and advisory capacity.

I'm grateful to Jay and Jess and Deanna for coming up with a creative solution to keep me in the game.

I'm excited to work with Cynthia as she takes responsibility for day-to-day operations and public events.

And lastly, I am grateful to you and your predecessors for your consistent support of programs and projects and culture and tourism.

Not every elected body understands that great places to visit are also great places to live and work.

We don't take that for granted, and we're thankful for your support.

I am confident that as a visitor destination, Fort Worth's best days are in front of it.

And I look forward to working with everyone to continue that record of success.

Thank you.

As someone born and raised in Fort Worth, I'm honored to lead the department through this monumental phase two expansion.

I mean, you saw the video, it's it's going to be amazing.

And the transition of the Will Rogers Memorial Center.

We have an outstanding team at both venues that have continued to showcase their excellent customer service talent, even through the construction projects that they're both engaged in.

And I look forward to working with you, Mayor, Council, visit Fort Worth and all the partners in delivering an iconic modern venue that speaks to the Fort Worth's heritage and our hospitality.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next presentation is Josh Giles is going to lead us through uh economic development presentation.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Uh Josh Giles here to discuss a proposed economic development program agreement for Weir Minerals.

This is a retention project for a divisional headquarters of Weir Minerals, which is a global mining technology company.

Their office here in Fort Worth includes high-paying professional roles such as attorneys and engineers with a $10 million annual payroll.

The parent group is We're Group out of Glasgow, Scotland, and is publicly traded.

And here in Fort Worth, the there's an expansion proposed of their lease space from 11,000 square feet to about 15,000 square feet, and that will include significant tenant improvement investment in the building.

Here with us today in the room, we've got Phil Carey, VP of Finance.

Like to wave and say hello.

Project location is at Triple 7 Main on the 16th floor in Council District 9.

This building was built in 1982, has a vacancy rate of just over 17%.

And we've got percentages shown here for scenarios of the loss of this tenant and also the proposed expansion.

So there were some ground floor renovations made in 2021 that's made this building continue to be competitive.

But when it comes to the actual office floor plates, there's rare opportunities for those to be renovated, and this is one of those.

The company is proposing to sign at least an eight-year lease at 777 Maine with a minimum capital investment of $3.4 million by the end of this calendar year.

Those would be spent on real property costs and would have significantly upgrade the space.

Interesting to note, we've got that $3.4 million capital investment number above, and that would be subject to the 30% of real property improvements, uh, subject to our small business firm program and the stipulations there.

Company is also committing to 260 hotel nights per year, which supports our hotels, in addition, uh restaurants and retailers.

This would be determined by salaries of jobs retained and created uh as reported by the company.

Uh it would be a three-year grant uh period with partial or full clawbacks.

We've got those performance requirements listed here, and minimum capital investments, full-time jobs commitment, and a minimum annual average salary.

Taking a look at the bigger picture here, this is a target industry sector.

Uh energy is very important to Fort Worth, as well as a strategic development area supporting high-paying jobs in our downtown.

Uh, they would host uh continue to host corporate visitors, uh, international and domestic here in Fort Worth.

And this is an example of providing support for our downtown office market.

In short, this is a $3.4 million minimum capital investment for at least 15,000 square feet of uh lease space at 777 main, 67 full-time jobs at an average annual salary of at least 160,000.

Uh, interesting to note uh that this supports the company's return to office strategy.

So, although this is a retention project with a larger, nicer space, we anticipate uh the company will see some of their remote workers in office more often.

In today's dollars, the grant is valued at 171,000.

The city participation rate is just over 5%, with a private public ratio of just over 18 to 1.

This project is consistent with our EDIF goals, funds are available, clawbacks are provided, and the company's committing to average uh hotel stage of at least 260 nights a year.

It's listed here as limited fiscal impact.

Really, the goal of this project is the retention of those high-paying jobs and to capture the improvements in the building uh at 777 Maine.

With that, staff proposes to enter into a three-year EDPA capped at 185,000 and consider this item uh a week from today, February 10th.

And with that, I yield the floor.

Thank you, Josh.

Questions or comments?

Looks great.

Thank you all for the hard work.

Councilor Lust presentation involves a charter election, and Gavin is gonna lead us through the presentation.

Mayor, Council, uh, good afternoon.

Gavin Midgley, Assistant City Attorney.

Um, first off, I want to apologize.

I don't have a nice flashy video like my CAD.

Instead, have some very exciting ballot proposition language for y'all to review.

Um so next time I might have a video.

All right.

So if you'll recall back in December, I came to you with uh uh in work session uh with a presentation on the possibility of holding a uh charter election.

Um since then, we'll in response to some feedback, we've narrowed it down to these nine charter amendment propositions.

Of course, our propositions A through F are gonna be the bond propositions, and so we have propositions G through O, uh, mayor and council pay, change to uh the quorum requirement for a council meeting, removing public hearings for department directors, and also for council appointees, uh allowing for a budget adoption at the same meeting as a budget hearing, removing the public utility annual report requirement, removing in the ordinance requirement for the grant of street privilege, removing the ordinance requirement for the creation or abolition of uh city department, and then some conforming changes to align with state law, those are mostly election law or election code related.

Um the first proposition mayor and council pay as a reminder the current salaries are uh mayor at 29,000, council at 25,000.

The recommendation uh is to adjust those to a fixed number, taking count council member Nettle's feedback into consideration and using an easier to understand fixed number rather than an index number uh like what was attempted in 2022.

We went with uh 60,000 for mayor, 50,000 for council.

Um, and interestingly enough, those are those are pretty similar to the uh recommendations of the 2016 task force, which was a decade ago.

Uh, but that those recommendations were 45,000 for council and 60,000 for mayor, uh, and that was the 2016 charter tax task force.

Um so for all of these propositions, I'll have the proposition language in bold.

For this one in particular, I've I've sort of got a an ask of you all on on some direction.

Uh so you have the option of it going into effect immediately after uh assuming it passes.

If it does pass, it can go into effect immediately after the election results are in.

Um, or it can go into effect at the start of the next fiscal year, which is October 1st.

Um for reference, the last time this charter provision was amended was in 2006, and at that time uh it did go into effect at the beginning of the fiscal next fiscal year, uh, which would have been October 1st of 2006.

So precedent is there to have it go at the start of next fiscal year.

Again, that's entirely within your purview to decide whether or not it goes into effect immediately or at the at the start of the next fiscal year.

The change to the quorum requirement.

So our current charter provides that uh a quorum is two-thirds of all the members, which would be eight of eleven council members because you can't have a percent of a council member show up.

So our proposed change is that you change that to a simple majority.

Uh most other Texas cities are at a simple majority.

I think the only other one I found that wasn't at a simple majority was Dallas, um, just as a point of comparison.

Um, not that not that we need to compare it other cities, but just for reference.

So that would be six of eleven council members to hold a hold of council meeting.

Uh proposition to remove the hearing requirement for department directors.

Currently, the charter uh require or provides department directors who are dismissed or removed after at least six months of uh serving in that position, the ability to demand a written statement and a hearing before the removal is fine final.

Uh, our proposals to remove this provision from the uh remove this provision from the charter.

Um it's sort of in conflict with the council city manager form of government and in that after a department director is removed, or if the city manager elects to remove a department director, an appeal to council uh really doesn't change anything as council doesn't have the direct authority to rehire or continue to employ that direct department director.

And it also it just creates the opportunity for you know mudslinging and it and it creates sort of a confusion as to whether or not there's an at-will employment uh relationship or whether or not there's a property interest in that.

Um and so our our recommendation is to remove it, and then there's the proposition for language that uh that proposition, and then similarly for council appointees.

Uh chapter five, chapter six, and what's that chapter 27?

Uh so city manager, city attorney, and uh city auditor are all council appointees who have a similar provision in the charter that requires or ops gives them the ability to request a hearing uh before removal is final, and then in the same uh vein, we recommend repro removal of that provision.

It's not a requirement to have a hearing before the removal is final, but to take take action to remove council appointees uh requires a vote by council anyway.

So there would be a hearing or a public uh meeting regarding the removal, just not necessarily before the hearing is final or before the removals is final.

Proposition K, and that's to allow uh budget adoption at a budget hearing meeting.

Currently, the charter prohibits the budget from being adopted at the same meeting as a budget hearing.

It's not required by law to have a the budget be adopted at a different hearing than a budget hearing.

We have plenty of budget hearings.

Uh, this is just a uh an additional complexity into an already complex process, and so our recommended recommendation is to removal to remove that provision.

Final uh remove the annual report requirement for public utilities.

Currently, the charter requires public utilities to submit an annual report to council.

We recommend that this uh requirement be removed.

Um it uh where's my slide note on that?

So cities used to have more regular authority to regulatory authority when it came to franchisees and public utilities within cities.

Um so the this perhaps made more sense, especially before the advent of the internet, but with the advent of the internet, most of these reports are available online more readily and more frequently than on an annual basis.

Um, and requiring it a specific additional report to council sort of creates an additional cost and burden on our public utilities uh in in repackaging and reformatting that into a specific annual report.

Um so we recommend that that provision be removed, and then removing the separate ordinance requirement for a grant of privilege.

Currently, the charter requires a separate ordinance passed by a two-third vote for each franchise or grant of privilege that is granted by the city.

Uh the city uh city council has already adopted some minimum requirements for a grant of privilege, and those are found in our city code.

Um, and so what the recommendation is is to remove the specific ordinance requirements so that uh staff doesn't have to bring forth an ordinance each time an applicant comes forward seeking a grant of privilege who meets the requirements for that grant of privilege according to those standards that council's previously adopted and then are in the code.

All right, and so then staff would just administratively approve uh grants of privilege that complied with the stated standards, then proposition N to remove the charter provision requiring uh an ordinance for the creation or elimination of city departments.

Uh it conflicts with the council manager form of government, uh limits the organizational control of the city manager, and so uh similarly we recommend that it be removed uh as well.

And then finally, the proposition no just to can make some conforming changes to align with state law.

Um currently there's some provisions in the uh electing council members in the event of a vacancy that don't align with state law or that are not possible under under state law.

So uh if there is a vacancy, let's say within 78 days of an even year November election, uh we can't order an election that November, and so our next opportunity to have hold an election is the general election in May of an odd year.

Um, and so some of the provisions in the in the charter uh that call for an election at the next opportunity, a special election at the next opportunity don't make sense given those limitations that the election code currently places on us.

So uh next steps would be to bring bring an ordinance calling a charter election to council uh on February 10th as a reminder, February 13th is the last possible day to order an election uh to have it be on the May uh May um election date.

Um and so uh we'd need to have that ordinance approved at that meeting if if not no in advance in order to call a special meeting for February 13th.

Um with that uh one one last note.

Uh earlier uh in December at the work session I mentioned there wouldn't be any any financial or significant financial cost to hold holding a charter election since we're already holding a bond election and a special election uh to fill a vacancy, there wouldn't be any significant financial cost, but there is an opportunity cost to holding a charter election, as if the city were to hold a charter election in uh May on that May date, uh the city would have to wait an additional two years after that to hold another charter election.

So there's an opportunity cost lost if for example council wanted to come back in November, May of uh 27 to have a charter election, they could not do that if that was uh if that was called for the May second second date.

With that, I'll take any questions.

Questions from council comments?

Yeah, one mayor.

Councilman Larsworth.

So reading those, I I guess my main concern is making sure that these are and it goes out to the voters as marine proof as possible.

Because I know like it's reading some of those, it's like I I I know what you're saying, but I think it's important that the residents understand the the reasons behind them because like for example, the um removing the the the public meeting for you know the directors, it almost sounds like if you just read it at face value, it sounds like we're taking due process away from somebody, whereas like you said there's no teeth to it, so it wouldn't really matter.

And so I don't know what the communications plan is, but hopefully it's super easy to read, like here's what it's gonna say, but here's what it means, and here's why.

It's really just cleanup.

I think that's gonna help because just those on its own, I think are gonna create a lot more questions because obviously I think we all know right now government's messy and there's a lot of distrust uh with government.

Um and so it's like a way what do you try to sneak past me and why is this?

And so I would just say we've got plenty of Marines here in Fort Word running by them.

If they can understand it, then the voters are gonna be able to understand it.

So that's all I have.

Thank you.

On many of those, I'll suggest that we could if we could start the language with in an effort to save taxpayer money.

Yes.

And then the state's kind of set the president the other way, can we do that?

Any other questions or comments?

Councilman Addels.

Uh two questions.

I guess one uh regarding the um the quorum.

I I don't know if you mentioned it.

What is the the average quorum uh around the state of Texas?

So for the for the big five, I think Dallas is the only one that requires higher than a simple majority, uh ahead of my notes, but uh Austin, Houston, San Antonio are all at simple majority of council members to have a quorum.

Okay, and I think we kind of made the decision around when we was not making quorum quite a bit this past year, so yeah, eight is high.

How many times do we not make warm?

I don't have the exact number for you, but I know that there have been some meetings where it was a little difficult, particularly when now that the schedules change, we may not have that kind of an issue.

But eight is high, it's it's atypical.

So we felt like particularly in the future, hopefully I will not be here if the council's expanded again.

It just seems like uh simple majority is uh just the more standard way to go.

But certainly if you all don't want us to bring that forward, we don't have to.

My only concern was you're gonna be asking people for a raise, and then you're gonna tell them we're gonna cut back on the number of people required to hold business.

Any other questions or comments?

Yeah, Alan.

So Leanne, could you clarify?

If we went to a simple majority and you had six members of council show up, if there is a particular vote, does a simple majority of that simple majority present carry?

It has to be, it would have to be six that carried.

Yeah.

Questions, yeah, countries martinez.

So would there be an exception when there's a certain like zoning case that has a um supermajority petition or oh sure, yeah.

Those rules would still be in place.

Yes.

I guess I'm just with Charlie.

Oh, I misunderstood.

I'm sorry.

I I guess I'm with Charlotte.

Um maybe with that one and possibly the other one that you mentioned.

If we don't want to confuse and because of the distrust, is that something we want to put on now?

How important is that to this this body?

I'm okay with either way, I'm just asking.

I guess the question there would be when was the last time that ever happened?

Is it happened recently or brought up or threatened even to where it's like public hearing thing?

Correct.

Um it's come up a couple of times in the past, but it is not a very frequent occurrence.

Um it I will tell you, it happened.

The threats happen.

We've had one threatened within the last year.

Um so it's it comes up in the context of if there's going to be litigation over a termination.

That's typically when we're dealing with it.

And we would rather deal with those allegations and a written charge and all of that through the court system rather than litigate that at a city council meeting.

Well, and I guess your point earlier is that it's a conflict of a city.

Particularly that uh the department head um hire a fire at city.

And giving a hearing in front of the city council has no effect on um on his decision.

Uh you know, so it it's really just a cleanup.

Um we could not find the reason why it was put in, but Dennis did a lot of research and found it's been in the charter at least since 1950.

Uh, and a lot of things have changed since then.

So I would say it's cost us money because somebody is terminated back in the day.

I mean, I was I've been here for a while and I've seen it.

They asked for that hearing.

The council doesn't really want to hear the hearing.

And it ends up being, well, can we just settle with them so that it doesn't become a show?

Yeah, no, I because it it also confuses if you go to court, it confuses the judge of why that existed, and that whole property idea that they had a that they had property and it's not at will become the question.

Not so when it sounds entertaining to be honest, but um, you know, it to your point that the cost is it is true, but I really do believe in the way it's worded, it's it sounds like you're taking due process away, but the grants can be really won't matter.

So I think we all understand that.

But getting the average voter who's just gonna see that on a on a ballot, I don't think they would.

So Councilmember Hill.

Yeah, I've been quick question.

I don't want to make the ballot longer, but is there a way to do footnotes or explain what our current standard is underneath the proposal?

Yeah, so the exhibit to the ordinance will have the red line or it'll be black line, but they'll have the exact changes to the charter.

Okay, that'll be on the ballot for the voter to say.

Well, that won't be on the ballot, but that will be in the ordinance.

The the ballot proposition is a is a much shorter uh you know, length of text than the full ordinance will be the change to the charter.

Okay, I'm just trying to get down to Charlie's question.

How do you clarify this for the voter and in more simple terms on this is what we're doing currently, and here's the reasoning why, and maybe that's just advocacy we have to do before that election.

Yeah, so it's difficult because it's on a ballot and you sort of floose a voters, you know, uh attention span if the ballot proposition is a page long.

I did come up with some alternate language for that for that proposition that was something along the lines of remove the ability of a dismissed department director to force city council to hold a hearing.

Um so that may be a consideration if if uh just the removal of those provisions isn't doesn't convey to the public why it's being removed.

But it's it's a balance between you know the detail and uh you know keeping it short for voters to read fully and pay attention to.

What have we done for education for the voters in past charter elections?

I would have to defer to Leanne or Dennis.

Sure, yeah, and Dennis can speak from all of his firsthand experience last time, but because there was a bond election last time as well, um, mostly Dennis.

I I covered for him a couple of times, went around with city staff at all of the public meetings to uh explain all of the the charter provisions.

So yes, we we did have a very robust education process for both the bond and the charter in 2022, and because we have a bond and charter coming up again, that would be the expectation here.

And we can certainly between now and next Tuesday scribe the proposition language to try to tighten a little bit and make a little bit clearer to folks.

Yeah.

So I think that would be helpful.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Yes, Council Warhol.

So I wanted to make sure that I understood our um the explanation about the simple majority.

I get simple majority, but were we saying that we needed to have a unanimous vote on the simple when we have a simple majority in order to pass six in favor?

Go ahead, go ahead.

That would be accurate, yeah.

So you have to have uh a majority of counsel to pass anything.

So you if only six of you showed up, then all six of you would have to agree.

That's correct.

Is that what you're asking?

I think she's asking about so you know, sometimes you have to have a supermajority on a zoning case if you have so many so much opposition.

Yeah, which a supermajority is actually eight.

Right.

Of the total council.

So if only six showed up, you wouldn't be able to pass a super majority zoning item, which doesn't happen.

So if only six showed up you wouldn't be able to pass a supermajority zoning item which doesn't I guess I'm yeah I guess I'm trying to wrap my head around needing a unanimous vote on everything that we vote on when only six people can show up if it requires six people to pass anything.

Like with I think the point is more about those those few times when a quorum has been a difficult issue eight is a high threshold let's pretend that may happen it may require the management team to shuffle an agenda and say these items cannot be taken up because you won't have eight people there to do the supermajority but at least you could conduct most of the business of the council even if eight people weren't there it would be six.

But it to me it just kind of I I don't know it just gives me pause in the sense of we now would have to have a unanimous vote but we could still have a meeting and so I don't understand the purpose of the effectiveness of that the utility of it because it I don't know it just doesn't lend itself to seem very democratic to me.

I hear you but I think other Texas cities of our size have had a much smaller majority for that for correct yeah and they've been operating that way for it's not it's not the majority thing.

I mean that makes sense to me I mean I I'm a custom to that I'm saying the fact that it takes eight people to pass something and you're operating with but it does in other Texas cities also that's a state law it's a supermajority for zoning cases.

I think is that's the only point I'm trying to make I don't care I think this was just one of the items that council member excuse me city management team said these are some clarifying issues within our charter that they've been talking about for a while now this has not been something this council has really wrestled with that much so if there's consternation it's certainly not worth batting it back and forth.

We don't have to put it on the charter election at all.

It's just a nice to have by staff there's a lot of things staff would love to do so is the supermajority only zoning certain um most yes I I've never seen it happen on anything but a zoning case have you yeah I can't think of anything else and it's not every zoning case not everyone yeah yeah which is confusing too thanks to the legislature but yeah but to clarify though Mia it's not our charter that's causing that supermajority piece otherwise we'd fix that too but again y'all speak up with there's no reason if this is something that gives you any kind of pause let's not leave it on the charter there's no reason to worry about it.

Yeah I think I'm clear on this the supermajority but if it if only six of us show up and five will vote for something and one vote against it.

It doesn't pass it does pass.

Correct yeah I don't know if I like that you're always you're always gonna need six people to pass a vote no matter how many show up of 11 if 12 of us show up you still need six people right so we're I got in this gang because I knew how to count yeah I just I don't know if I like you've got your calculator out what's that mean I'm kidding I'm kidding.

I I guess I would just make the point that I don't think it would be appropriate for the public to have four people show up out of six and enact changes to the rules of the city.

Yeah agreed two I I agree with that I just could I guess I don't understand that so if we come and six people come five people it's a five one it fails and then we do it again or we don't do it again it just goes away it's done.

I guess it might be brought back before it could be brought back so then it's double duty no I think based on this let's just not include it no don't do don't let my committee like it is since I have been on the council there has never been a time when there we have not had a quorum and I just think the public expects us to be there to take care of business and I'd prefer to leave it like it is now that's my two cents.

Is anybody else really feel strongly about it?

No one cares you okay.

Okay so we'll take out proposition H.

Thank you.

And then I I'm hearing consternation about I and J as well okay we'll just simplify the language on those and all the rest I have not heard any anybody else yeah on any other propositions that were problematic I mentioned to Leanne about the uh the charter about I think when we agree it was we talked about 50 and I think we got 60 and 50 uh which is fine with me but I know currently I think it's like tw it's like a difference of five thousand so I don't know if that made a difference and I don't think nobody said anything about uh whether they want it immediately or in November I'm sorry October good point the effective date was that did that matter to anyone I think that would be deferred to Jade and budget uh issues as far as what would that do or would that take away from anything else I mean it's not a significant it's a few months three months right dollars council member back anything no no so we still don't have an answer what do you what's the consensus of the council I'd say next fiscal year okay anybody else have a problem with next fiscal year is that work great okay did we miss anything else Gavin is the horse dead great okay if if council's good okay then I'm gonna move to future agenda items who has future agenda item I know council member he'll go ahead um I would like a report on um I well I'm gonna preface this but the EPA is doing a study on the toxicity of fluoride

Great.

Okay.

Did we miss anything else, Gavin?

Uh is the horse dead.

Great.

Okay.

If council's good.

Okay, then I'm gonna move to future agenda items.

Who has future agenda item?

I know council member Hill, go ahead.

Um, I would like a report on um I well, I'm gonna preface this with the EPA is doing a study on the toxicity of fluoride in our water, and so I'd like to have an update on what we're doing um and how any if we remove the fluoride from our water system, how that impacts our wholesale customers, um, and probably more detail on what we're doing to mitigate any issues that have come up through fluoride in the water system.

Yeah, bear with me um as I try to request this.

We have an attitude about people telling people me.

That's right.

Me.

Um I'd like to um I'd like for staff to explore what a um fee structure looks like in our development process, um more of a fine structure for those folks that don't follow the inspection process.

Um, we don't really have anything in place to punish them.

And we recently had a case come through in district nine that um everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and um we need to make sure that we're protecting our our neighborhoods and our you know, construction or development around the city.

Um, and so I'd like to know if other cities have that kind of uh fine structure and nature as well, and if so, how they implement it and maybe what we can do here in the city of Fort Worth to um to get people to cooperate.

And then um I'd like to know more about how our um third party inspectors operate um within our development department.

I know there was a lot of discussion the last legislative session about them, so um just uh uh maybe an overview too of of what that discussion looked like and what we expect to bring back in the next session.

Okay, Councilman Martinez.

Thank you, Mayor.

I have two things.

So I'd like us to look into establishing an ordinance that will ban hourly hotel rates, specifically anything under 24 hours.

Uh so the reasoning is to come back combat uh criminal activity, prostitution, human trafficking, and drug use that is prominent at these type of establishments.

Um it's also my understanding that many years ago uh the city transitioned the citation of yard parking uh from code to the police department.

I want to hear more about that rationale and explore the idea of reverting this enforcement back to code.

Um essentially just let code address all violations on private property and PD on the street.

Any other future agenda items?

Yes, Councilman Larsworth.

Um I'd just like for for this body to get an update um really for public consumption as well on an update for the veteran owned small business contracts.

Um I know before at one point it was uh two percent.

Uh just like to know if anything's changed and if there's any gaps or information that we can work with all of our chambers on to help improve and grow that program.

Can you say the name of that program again?

The veteran-owned small business contracts.

Anyone else?

Yes, sir, Councilman Nettles.

Yeah, I don't know.

This is I or our presentation.

I know a few of us on council have been working behind scenes as a deal with the homeless and uh what's happening on East Lancaster, but I would like to see something regardless to uh who's giving a citation for what is it regularly law just simply being homeless.

I received a lot of feedback doing the ice storm that some people felt like they was getting citations for just being out there, which I know some of us know there may be some different things that were happening, but I think we should get some type of presentation so we can be very clear of letting people know what we will tolerate um on as it relates to homelessness and what we will not.

Anyone else?

Councilmember Peoples?

I'd like some information uh on what our policy is.

Why when we knew we had I'm trying to uh voice it, when we knew we had inclement weather coming, we still cut off people's water, and so we had a case where we had a person with no water and no way to get it turned back on, and so I just like some information on what we saw during that inclement period, how many water uh how many accounts were cut off, and if we have a policy to um to aid those people in times like that.

Yeah, and I'll just add to that.

We changed that positive here recently where water couldn't be turned off on a Friday uh by a certain time, yeah, for the same reason.

What it but this water was turned off on Friday, they it was turned off on Friday, and then we had the ice storm, and they had no water, and it turned out huh?

Okay.

And and maybe to add to Councilman People's request, we I know we've had this before, but I think it's been years, an understanding of how many cutoffs there are on a monthly basis, a breakdown of where they are per council district.

Okay.

I I don't want to create more work for the water department by any means, but I'm just curious if it's a if it's a significant number, this wouldn't ever work, but if it's a lower number notification, even to council offices of what's going on, because you're gonna end up being it sounds like in that situation you were the one impacted directly.

So maybe a longer presentation for Chris and his team.

Anyone else?

Okay, meeting adjourned.