to the City Council meetings tonight we have two meetings we have a special call at 5:45 and then the public comment meeting will begin at 6: p.m. um before mayor Parker calls the meetings to order we ask that you please silence all electronic devices for anyone who has requested to speak there are two podiums in the chamber the podium in the front and the podium in the back is for individuals with Mobility concerns we ask everybody else to step forward to the front Podium each Podium has a countdown clock located to the speaker's right that will indicate how much time is remaining a bell will sound when you have 30 seconds left um please before you begin your comments please state your name thank you good evening and welcome to the city council special called meeting on Tuesday January 9th I'll call our meeting to order and turn it back over to Janette to present resolution 24-4 uh tonight's res resolution 244000 uh I will call on Mike Crum City staff to provide the staff report good evening I'm Michael Crum I'm the director of the city's public events department and it's my responsibility this evening to brief the Council on the culture and tourism funds capital projects overview this evening we'll touch briefly on what makes up the culture and tourism fund uh we'll talk about the status of uh the uh the tax funds and their recovery uh after the pandemic uh talk about where we are with capital projects the city has a very ambitious capital projects program uh that is facing some Financial challenges um and we will uh uh present you with an option to consider to help address those challenges uh the takeaways from tonight is that uh from a tax revenue standpoint the current funds are not only uh back past 2019 levels of collection but they are currently ahead of the pace the projections that were established in 2018 and 2019 that led a prior Council to decide to move forward with the convention center Expansion Project uh the flip side uh of the situation is that those revenues have not kept pace with postco inflation and so the cost of projects particularly the second phase of the Fort Worth Convention Center expansion uh have outrun the financing capacity of the current revenue streams so uh the city needs to find additional revenues in order to fulfill its capital program uh what makes up culture and tourism it is five funds uh all of which are related to visitors who come to the city of Fort Worth and those five funds serve as seven businesses that help generate those taxes uh where does culture and tourism fit into the council's Strategic priorities uh it plays primarily in Economic Development and Community investment and then in infrastructure respons growth and fiscal responsibility uh in terms of tax revenue growth what we see uh is what I described earlier that the funds uh all experienced significant downturns during the pandemic and then subsequently recovered uh surpassing 2019 levels uh of collections in fy22 and then surpassing uh our current projections for fund growth in FY 23 this is a good news story and it applies to all five of the culture and tourism funds downturn and then subsequent recovery uh in terms of the future uh we are forecasting uh what I would consider to be steady growth uh over the next 30 Years these projections are designed uh to account for economic variability uh the line is never straight right it's going to go it's going to go above Trend it's going to go a down Trend but uh over an extended period of time this is the type of growth that we expect in the hospitality Market uh in terms of capital projects uh our goal is to finance $659 million in capital projects between today and 2026 uh as you are all aware uh we have over the past uh year financed $126 million in capital projects supported by culture and tourism revenues uh and our our next uh wave of financings are related to the second phase of expansion for the for Fort Worth Convention Center first to fund design expenses uh perhaps as soon as FY 24 uh and then to fund Construction ction uh which we would uh forecast to begin in the fourth quarter of calendar 26 to be completed at the end of 2029 early 2030 um at the same time that we're looking to fa to finance the second phase of Convention Center expansion we also have an obligation uh in the form of the city's uh incentive to expand the Omni Hotel from 600 to 1,000 rooms and on the horizon we have additional projects uh we uh uh aspire to build a second Hotel tower on the Commerce Street side of the convention center after the second phase of the expansion is complete and as my friend Richard Zavala reminds me every time he sees me the 100th anniversary of the Will Rogers Memorial center is only 12 years away and so we need to be talking today about uh what we're going to do to prepare for that event um this gives you a real sense of how things have changed from a cost standpoint uh the original projections for both phases of Convention Center expansion as expressed in the 2019 Hunden strategic Partners study was $377 Million today the forecast for that same work is estimated at 71 million million we are currently committed to $95 million for phase one it's the66 million that represents the nut that we need to crack for phase two one option for you to consider uh is a 2% increase in the hotel occupancy tax uh as you may be aware uh the use of hot is restricted to tourism related Investments uh the city of Fort Worth is currently at 15% nine of which is local 6% goes to the state of Texas uh there is a state legislated cap of 177% uh on Hotel occupancy tax that is both state and local uh any sort of change in the occupancy tax rate must be approved by the citizens of Fort Worth uh we believe that a 2 % bump would add approximately $10 million uh in capacity to the culture and tourism funds on an annual basis uh if you're thinking about how a 2% bump compares to uh other cities that we compete with in the state of Texas uh it keeps us in the ballpark is the best way to put that and if you're going to the bottom of the list and you're asking yourself why El Pas is over the state legislated cap it's because they were at that at that number before the state imposed the cap uh what a 2% bump in the uh the occupancy tax rate will do is permit the culture and tourism funds to meet all of its current obligations Finance the projects that were described earlier and also sets the table for future Investments like the Convention Center Hotel like the additional investment in the Will Rogers Memorial center uh what do we get for our investment essentially the amount of convention and meetings business generated by the Fort Worth Convention Center is forecasted to double next steps so we started this conversation uh in early December we're here tonight uh to uh ask you to consider uh taking the steps necessary to uh move forward with an election to ask the voters to approve a 2% increase in the hotel occupancy tax um a positive vote tonight will send a request to the state of Texas comproller who then has 30 days uh to uh evaluate wait our requests to make sure that it doesn't conflict with anything else that the state of Texas has in place uh a positive uh result uh from the controller uh would put you in a position to consider calling for an election on February 13th which would then take place on May 4th with that I'll take your questions questions from Council okay thank you very much thank you very much Council that's the last of our presentations for this special called meeting um at this point we can take action to close the public hearing and act on the resolution Council rebec move to close the public move to close the public hearing and approve got a motion and a second any there discussion councel if not please vote motion carries with that this meeting is adjourned just give us a minute and we'll start again with our public comment