Good evening and welcome to the city council public comment meeting. Before Mayor Prom Bivvens calls the meeting to order, we ask that you please take a seat and silence all of your electronic devices. When your name is called, please come forward to the center podium. The countdown clock is displayed on the chamber monitor wall and will indicate how much time is remaining. A bell will sound when you have 30 seconds left. When your time is ended, the bell will sound again. Before you begin your comments, please state your name. Thank you. And with sorry and with that we are calling the meeting to order. Uh brother Robert Lee from the Chinese Baptist Church is going to lead us in the invocation. After that please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance to both flags. Thank you pastor. What a privilege to come to the city of Fort Worth to uh lead a prayer. Uh we know that prayer is important in our life. So uh we want to pray so that uh we got we get God's blessing. Let's pray. Oh Lord, a great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. We come to you tonight thanking you for this great country. We are so grateful that you gave our founding fathers the wisdom to write the constitution and grant each of us the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly. As we gather here tonight, we ask, oh Lord, to guide this city council meeting. Fill the leaders here with wisdom to properly manage the affairs of this great city. Give them courage to do what is right. We have observed so much that is happening in this world today. We see all kinds of natural disasters. Earthquakes are happening all over the world. We see people from all sort getting all sorts of plagues and diseases. We see famines in many countries. Even some of our own citizens are experiencing hunger and pain. We see nations fighting against nation. And apart from your loving kindness and your sovereignty, we don't know how to confidently live our lives. But hold on to your promises. As King David so eloquently said 3,000 years ago, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down on green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness. for his righteousness sake. Even though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, I will not fear evil. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So we come to you, oh Lord, tonight for your blessings upon this country. We pray for all of our leaders, the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, Vice President J. D. events, the governor of this great state, Greg Abbott, the mayor of this great city, Maddie Parker, and all of the city members and all the um uh law enforcement officers. We pray we ask you to give them their wisdom to guide this country justly and in a way that is pleasing to you. We ask you to bless this city council meeting. We pray that this meeting will be fruitful and that each one of us will perform their duties with courage, decorum, integrity. We offer this prayer in the name of the Lord who created this universe and his son Jesus Christ. Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible for your Thank you, Janette. Should I read them? I'll read them. U and now for the consideration of minutes from meetings held on March 11th, March 25th, April 1st, which was a special call bond workshop, April 1st work session, and April 1st public comment. Is there a motion? Move to approve. All in favor? Cast your votes. Okay. And with that, minutes are approved. Now, Janette, if you will. Okay. Our first speaker, Kelly Horak, I believe, is not present, but I want to confirm. So, our next speaker will be Joshua Friend, followed by Chris Wood. Please just go to the front uh center podium. My name is Joshua Friend. Uh dear Mayor Prom City Council, I've had the pleasure of getting to know many of you over the last few years and I speak to you today as the president of the newly formed Greater Mebrook Alliance. Our neighborhoods boast natural beauty, hardworking families, and the bones to be something very special. But, however, due to historic neglect, the families within our territory are in dire need of your coordinated help. We number around 50,000. Daily, we and our children walk on intermittent sidewalks with limited lighting through perpetual trash and poorly maintained roads. We witness public nudity, drug sales, usage, sex trafficking, and prostitution, and insane disregard for driving safety and traffic measures. So much so, the city's assistant attorney recently stated he spends 75% of his time working on our neighborhood neighborhoods. Furthermore, one of the only developments in 20 years, Palladium, had their construction teams mentioned how unsafe they felt working in our neighborhood during the daytime. Now, imagine living there in the nighttime. We have residents who cannot use their yards or front rooms due to homeless incursions, perpetual celebratory gunfire, and blasting music. Last year, according to city data, District 11 had the highest number of crimes and 911 calls and one of the lowest numbers for education and household income. Couple this lack of resources with the daily trauma, and we're robbing our residents and our children from the bright and vibrant futures that they deserve. Recently, I've met with numerous city department leaders and their teams to start to build a large-scale plan for our neighborhoods. Each of them have been gracious, insightful, and tenacious. I welcome you all to join us in this fight. We have many abandoned homes boarded up or hosting homesteaded primary residences for people who don't live there. Think how many families could be housed in these abundant vacant homes. Our apartment buildings are graded as demolition only by the authorities, not fit for renovation, but somehow for living, hence the lack of investment into their improvements. We're a huge group of neighborhoods with no access to a community center while you renovate other centers. Many of us have no access to green space, parks, or recreation opportunities either. We have a plethora of commercial premises with a majority being vacant, unmaintained or below code. Recently, a code officer was assaulted at one while trying to enforce code and another burned up last week on Lancaster. While I see the Lancaster plan, I failed to see any meaningful economic development to go alongside the new street design and transit design to be the lifeblood to revitalize our neighborhoods. In closing, I love my neighbors. I'm committed to lifting them up. I offer our gratitude for all of your service, our pride in the police and code officers who fight this fight daily and our collective willpower and might to go on this journey with you all. Thank you. Thank you. Call the next speaker. Our next speaker is Chris Wood and Chris will be followed by Thomas Hamilton. How do you do? My name is Chris Wood and I'm from District 9. Last week, a Fort Worth citizen told me, "Women have no place in politics." I am convinced that women do have a place in politics. I do not believe in romantic love or marriage. I have watched too many true crime videos where innocent spouses, usually the wife, end up meeting tragic consequences for life insurance money. Romantic love leads to infidelity jealousy possessiveness, overreiance on the partner, neglect of self, unrealistic expectations heartbreak depression anxiety, and low self-esteem. I believe in team mommies and daddies to raise children. Using team mommies and daddies emphasizes collaboration, communication, and shared responsibility. Fostering a supportive environment for children. I believe toxic masculinity is to blame for many of society's issues. It leads to the following problems. Increased rates of depression and anxiety. Higher rates of substance abuse. More incidents of suicide, lower engagement in self-care activities, suppression of emotions and mental illness stigma leading to difficulty expressing vulnerability and seeking help when needed. Neglect of physical health needs, normalization of violence and aggression, contributing to higher rates of domestic violence, sexual assault, and other forms of violence. I know from personal experience because my stalker is a male. Contribution to gender inequality by limiting opportunities and expectations for men, women, and marginalized groups. Lack of empathy and compassion for others. Lack of accountability for harmful conduct as men feel entitled to certain behaviors and privileges. In conclusion, I am of the opinion that women do indeed belong in politics. Thank you for your time. Much obliged. Call the next speaker, Thomas Hamilton. Hi, Mary Prom. Council members, I live on View Street. For the last three years, I've been trying to get some type of traffic control. Uh this is a picture of 1900 Ben Avenue. This is ju just south of this location. Uh we have an increased female foot traffic going to the closest bus stop and to the closest convenience store. People are driving way too fast. I did manage to get some stop signs put in. Nobody stops at them. Every NPO that I've spoken to encourages me to come forth. I know what the rules are for speed bumps and rumble strips. We have a city park. We have a nursing home and the people that live there should be able to walk the street in safety. You know, when traffic is parked on both sides of the city street, you're going to have that one kid that gets out of mama supervision and runs out between traffic. In the age of distracted driving, not only should Tandy Hills Park have a speed bump, but every park in the city that is that has a playground close to the road should have a speed bump, some type of traffic calming. I've been trying for three years to get this into place. A lot of it is due to increased traffic because there's an increased police presence on Lancaster and Metobrook which drives the the traffic back toward our house. And um I didn't bring my glasses so this is kind of moot for me. Anyway, I've spoken with u Janette Martinez's assistant uh Rachel and I shared a video with her. I've got other videos, but I can't figure out how to send them on my phone. Um, they did a traffic study. It is warranted. They sent me a petition. I'm 65 and disabled. The lady that lives down the street was trying to help me. She had a medical event and she is still hospitalized. And uh, we should figure out a better way. it. When we when we have a code change, we put signs up and give everybody a chance to come to a hearing and speak their peace, whether they want it or they don't. We should do the same thing with these speed bumps or rumble strips or some type of traffic calming. They're a lot cheaper than paying a man-to-man police presence to be there. Anyway, examine this for me, please. We'll have somebody give you a call. I was making sure we had your phone number. Thank you. We do. Thank you, ma'am. Please call the next speaker. Our next speaker is Cindy Bowling. Cindy will be followed by Bob Willoughby. Thank you, council. It's good to see you. My name is Cindy Bowling and I am president of Central Metobrook Neighborhood Association. Where I live in Metobrook and by the East Lancaster corridor, there are property owners that do not care about our neighborhood. They are commercial owners, multif family owners, motel, and residential owners. These owners repeatedly drain our city resources because they do not care what the conditions of their property are doing to our neighborhood. I have learned that they will pay the citation fines because those fines are less than the cost of fixing up the problem. These properties are supposed auto repair shops and food marts that have repeated code violations that require months and months, sometimes a year of our code officers going to the property and issuing notice after notice and citation after citation. These are apartment complexes and motel that have daily first responders of fire and police and some sometimes several times a day. And they are residentials like the pictures of the property I have on the screen that code has been has been addressing since last year and they have made to clean it up this time. Sometimes when these cases finally make it to a courtroom, the judge doesn't require the offender to pay the full amount of the citations issued and the process starts all over again. I again refer you to the pictures. I ask you all to create a fine much like the $3 fine that we that people get on their trash bill if they overfill the cart. um except that this fine should be in the thousands of dollars. But just as automatically build on the for the $3, the fine should have a duration of at least the period of time that the offender has demanded these excess city resources. I hope that local control will enable you to do something like this quickly. Lastly, on offenders that eventually get a 125 lawsuit filed against them, I would ask if the facts that are gathered to file the lawsuit are through citizens that we the citizens are given the opportunity to speak to the court and have a say. So before the case is settled or worse nonsuited. Thank you. Thank you Cindy. And I'd like a copy of your notes if you'll send them to me. Call the next speaker. Our next speaker is Bob Willoughby. And Bob will be f followed by Carol Peters. Real quick, this is the only notice I got from the water department. This is a scam going on. $400,000 put sewer in for one house. And it's true. I met with the water department today. I've been here all day with hours with jury prayers. He agrees me 100%. They didn't go through the right procedures. Okay? They're doing it without the right procedure. They didn't notify the neighborhood association. It's got lies on his paper. It's not true. But you know as well as I do, it's so much easier to get stuff through when you don't let your opposition know. And y'all know that very well, too. When you push it through about your opposition, you get by. We were not notified. A lot of people were never The first notification we got pipes laying on the ground. That's it. And it says here they did a petition. We were noticed. That's a lie. But anyway, I left word with the director today. I said, "If you stop it now, you respect the citizens. If you don't stop it now, you don't respect us at all. I want to know what you are. Now, city manager is over the director, Mr. Chopper. This is your job. Make sure these directors do their job out there. But we know you can't do yours unless Maddie Parker okays it because your job is to please the mayor and we control the mayor, but we don't vote. We'll put the same mayor in that took away our free speech. These people think they're at a council meeting. They're not. They're at a joke here. We should be on next week's meeting with the council. We're secondass people is what we are cuz we're not allowed to be there like we were before Mattie Parker. That got taken away and these people don't say a thing about it. It's our first amendment. I'm glad she did it. It woke me up. What kind of world I'm living in? But I got a good one for you, Chopper. Last time I offered you $200 to take five questions. I give that to St. Jude Children's Hospital. I want y'all to think a minute. Those kids to that hospital give anything for one day to be normal to play with these other kids, but they ain't got that. They're terminally ill and you don't give a damn about them because you would took $200 and did the five questions if you cared about those kids. I got another one for you, Chopper. You give $10,000 to St. Jude's Children. You're making more money than you're supposed to, but we're being robbed of you right now. Take our tax dollars. Give 10,000 to St. Juice Children Hospital. Okay? Give 10,000 and what you'll get in return is you'll get 12 months of will be free. You'll be off my radar for 12 months. That's $1,000 a month for 10 months. You buy 10 months, you get two free. How's that? Huh? I'll tell you what, Chopper, you give them $10,000. You know what might happen? You might feel good. You might start becoming a human. You might even start working your way to get into heaven when you start doing that kind of stuff. But be careful. Be careful. Being good is addicting. When you start giving, it's it's a it's a disease, but a good one. The disease y'all got right now is take. And point of order. Where's the point of order, uh, Jared? But anyway, you people do nothing but take. And that's the truth. That's what they've done down there. They took away our rights here. We don't have a right to speak. We don't have the council meetings we don't supposed to have. You gave five and a half. Now I know why you gave five and a half million pitch jural. All y'all got POA money. That's why you get it. If you wouldn't have paid them off, you wouldn't got POA. You see those signs out there with POA and candidates? They're bought by the POA. And you wait till you see see my website FWI and learn about the POA, how crooked it is. And this water thing. If he stops, we're okay. If he don't, he's no good. Call the next speaker. Our next speaker is car Carol Peters. And Carol will be followed by Wesley Kirk. Cook Kirk. Sorry. Good evening. 10,000. I'd rather listen to him. Sorry, Carol. That's all right. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Carol Peters. I'm the West Metobrook Neighborhood Association President. I am also an officer of the Greater Metobrook Alliance and a member of the East Lancaster Task Force. I'm here tonight to say that East Fort Worth's lingering issues need your attention now. Thank you to Council Person Martinez and her office for recognizing the need for a timely, comprehensive approach to the economic, public safety, and property issues we face. Three years ago, in response to persistent decadesl long problems in the 3200 block of East Lancaster, the community in partnership with law enforcement, code compliance, legal, and elected officials formed the East Lancaster task force. One hot spot on the block, Eco Hotel, generated most of the police calls in the area. After building a strong case using citizengenerated evidence, police calls and arrests, and property maintenance violations, the city filed a lawsuit last year, rec requesting a temporary injunction, forcing the Eco Hotel property to clean up its act. The effort was successful. The injunction was granted. In the last quarterly task force meeting, the city legal department informed the members of the task force that the injunction had apparently been so successful at containing crime that the injunction would be lifted. To say the task force was disappointed would be an understatement. If success on paper is enough to lift an injunction on repeat offender, setting the stage for more crime, a new approach is needed. Citizens who gathered photographic evidence over many months to prove vagrancy, prostitution, drug use, drug dealing, and property violations were ha were uh risking their own safety. On many occasions, their car was attacked and they were threatened. We care too much about our neighbors for this approach to continue. East Worth is the eastern gateway to the city. Investors are taking notice. Besides the Palladium apartment complex on East Lancaster, owners of the Tandy Retirement Center property are considering building market rate town houses on Tandy Street. To continue to allow valuable real estate to teeter between its success and blight is economic malpractice. Downtown Fort Worth is the case study for redevelopment. First comes safety and security, then investment and vi vibrancy follows. We look forward to meeting with city leadership to begin the same revitalization continuum for East Fort Worth. Thank you. Thank you, Carol. Our next speaker is Wesley Kirk and Wesley will be followed by David Martinez. Hi there. Uh my name is Wesley Kirk with support for Worth Art. Uh, in 2023 during the request for proposals to redevelopment the community arts center, I met with almost every developer who wanted to submit a proposal and one of the things that I heard over and over again is how tricky it would be to make the numbers make sense without the city investing in the building. They mentioned that uh it would be an uphill battle getting private investments without uh seeing the city act as a strong leader in the effort. After all, it is city-owned land. It would be a city-owned building. but you're wanting private money to pay for it. That's just asking for misaligned priorities. Those developers who wanted badly for the building to fulfill its purpose as a public good and a building of pride in the city wanted to see the city put them their money where their mouth is and help financially back the project. Now is the perfect time to make this happen. With the bond election coming up in May 2026, we have the opportunity for the city to take a big leap forward in bringing this vital and historic building back to life by putting a bond to voters that could act as seed funding for the redevelopment of the community arts center as well as potentially creating smaller community art spaces throughout the city. I think that a perfectly reasonable and poetic amount of money would be 28 $26 million, the exact amount that was first discovered for needed repairs kickstarting this whole process. I've also heard a lot from the city about the building being financially self- sustaining. And I have one key way to make that happen. Hotel occupancy tax. Fort Worth is the largest city in Texas that does not have any of the hotel occupancy tax go towards the arts. Irving is only a fourth the size of Fort Worth, yet funds the arts four times more just through hotel occupancy tax. Considering that one in four tourists come to Fort Worth for an arts and culture event, it seems only fair that a quarter of the hotel occupancy tax goes towards the arts, further fueling the economic impact. This would allow for more stable funding for the arts. It doesn't cost anything extra out of the city budget, and it creates a positive feedback loop between the creative and tourism industries, and it could be a key to helping cover maintenance costs for the community arts center. We lost the community arts center because of 20 plus years of the city neglecting to properly fund and support a building that is foundational to Fort Worth's entire arts ecosystem. The nail in the coffin was when the city sent a signal to donors that the building that they to the of the building that they had no faith by in the building by suggesting redevelopment. Now is the time we correct past mistakes. We can start again by sending a strong signal that our city does believe in the importance of arts, that we do believe in incubating and uplifting our creative industries, that Fort Worth is indeed a worldclass city where arts and culture play a key role. Now is the time to act. Thank you. Thank you. Call the next speaker. Our next speaker is David Martinez and David will be followed by James Walker. Good evening. Okay. First of all, I wanted to thank my grandparents for uh raising me right because uh thanks to them, I was able to do a lot of things. Um uh now my youth, I wasn't always a good person. I wasn't always doing good stuff. I got in trouble. But now I'm helping out my community. Southside, Carter Park. uh also district 8 911. Uh I wanted to bring up the things that was able to do and accomplish with the neighborhood association creation. Uh we were able to uh get things going as far as uh community engagement. And then a lot of things I was going to talk to you about was um I started a seminary corridor was a project that I started doing to help economics and uh child development in and uh Carter Park and one of the things we started doing I was partnered with the Worth Heights Community Center and I was able to uh we have events uh we've had two events uh for the past two years uh fall uh fall festival and the winter festival and both of them were very successful uh at the fall festival, we have about four over 400 people that show up and uh we were able to uh fund that and have uh stuff for the kids. For the winter festival, we have about 120 this last year, but the one before that we had about 250 and we were able the kids to have about like at least four presents when they left. So, I was able to raise enough uh presents for the kids to to go out there holding the stuff uh out the out the door. So, I was I was glad we were able to do that. And then um also was participated in the uh six back to school uh programs that we had and I was donating bikes. I donated over 72 bikes uh last year and I hope to do uh 200 this year. Um one of the things that we do and also I gave over a thousand books out to the children. Uh we went to the um I went to daycarees and I started instructing them to that would help out to start children uh reading early at three years old. Uh, the other thing I want to get to before I run out of time, I want to thank you, Councilwoman uh, Hill for the Vietnam veteran uh, situated park over there. Um, my father used to live down the street and then we go there and stuff like that. So, that's great to have that in the district. Um, that's appreciated by a lot of the veteran Vietnam veterans. Um, thank you very much for that. Um, also last, I'm working on a Native American pow-wow. We haven't had one since 1996. And um I'm going to be reaching out to some of the council members, Counciloman Martinez. Uh we'd like to have it at Secio Vasquez Park. Uh if not, we'll be looking for another location over there uh by Dickiy's Arena uh in District 7. Thank you very much. God bless. Thank you. Call the next speaker, please. Our next speaker is James Walker, and James will be followed by Christopher Johnson. Good evening, council. Appreciate allowing me to uh come speak today. My name is James Walker. I'm the president of the historic Southside Neighborhood Association. I'm also a business owner and a proud resident of District 8 in the Southside area of Fort Worth. I'm here today as a representative of the Community Leadership United, a newly formed organization dedicated to strengthening our neighborhoods and ensuring a unified voice for our community. Community Leadership United was founded by the leaders of six neighborhood associations which are all currently sitting as presidents for their neighborhood associations which are as followed. Uh Historic Southside Neighborhood Association which is headed by myself, Belmont Neighborhood Association, Pastor Barry Harper, Hillside Neighborhood Association, Miss Massie, Morningside Neighborhood Association, Miss Cunningham. Pebb Neighborhood Association, Miss Brian, and Poly Heist Neighborhood Association, Mr. Christopher Walker. All of these associations represents neighborhoods located with located in a community rich in history and culture, but also facing unique challenges that require collective action. Though we come from different neighborhoods, we stand united in our goal of supporting one another, strengthening community ties, and addressing shared concerns. By working together, we can we can create a more inclusive, thriving, and sustainable future for all residents. On behalf of Community Leadership United, our mission is simple. to bring the to bridge the gap between our neighborhoods and our city leadership. We look forward to working alongside you guys to create meaningful change that benefits all of Fort Worth. Thank you for your time and we appreciate your support. Thank you. Please call the next speaker. Our next speaker is Christopher Johnson. Mr. Johnson will be followed by Adrienne Smith. Hello everyone. My name is Christopher Johnson. I'm the executive director of Community Leadership United. Community Leadership United is a board made up of dedicated community leaders from across our city who have come together with one common goal to create real and lasting positive change in our community. Our purpose is to work collectively to address the pressing issues facing our neighborhoods. By combining our knowledge, resources, and voices, we aim to identify solutions, advocate for our residents, and hold the city officials accountable to ensure followth through transparency. We believe the real process happens when the community is actively involved. That's why we are committed to not only bringing concerns to the table but also actively supporting efforts to resolve them. Our mission is to strengthen communication between city and its residents and to help build a safer, more vibrant and equitable place for everyone. We appreciate your support and involvement and as we continue working towards a better future for our city together. Again, we are community leadership united and my name is Christopher Johnson. Thank you. Please call the next speaker. Our next speaker is Adrienne Smith. I do not see it. Next speaker is Caroline Rodriguez. I think we just lost quorum. We no longer have a quorum which means we can no longer conduct city business. We do have the contact information for the other speakers who signed up. I think there are two remaining and with that this meeting is adjourned.