Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Down. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. I'm ready for Welcome everybody to the Irving City Council work session for Thursday, December 11th, 2025. It's uh 107 and we'll call the meeting to order. The first item on the agenda, Chennet, do we have any residents that would like to speak? Yes, sir. Okay, then that takes us to the city operations update. Chris, >> thank you, mayor. Good afternoon, mayor and council. We have two different operations updates. First, we'll have April come up with last month on ICTN, and then after that, we'll have an Irving Golf Club update. April, >> thank you, Chris. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. April Riley, director of communications. Pleased to present to you last month on ICTN for November. Your ICTN team produced 32 videos in the month of November. >> We're actively collecting stories, memories, photographs of the big state signs, and we want people to be able to know why that sign matters so much to our community. It's like being in a dream, you know, and every corner you turn, you want to get woke up, but you don't get woke up. You got to make it out your own dream. >> We're right across the street from Heritage Park. I am so honored. I don't think I could have dreamed of a better location. >> And there's a reason why he's in this costume. >> Yeah. So, Tigger is a obviously a little cutie pie. Um, and that's our special come and adopt a cutie pie at the shelter. Hello, Charlie. >> It's actually one of the oldest shows. It's where like we get clue from. We get a lot of murder mysteries from. We have a lot of incredible sculpture this year. A lot of beautiful ceramic work. We have drawings, paintings, print making, a lot. What a better event to come together as organizations team up, build skill, but certainly celebrate what what makes us different. >> I'm just so thankful to the community. The Irving community has continued to support our students. >> I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients. >> It's exciting. It's not too far from home. I'm going to be coming here all the time. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Stay up todate by subscribing to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/the city of Irving. >> Thank you. Good afternoon, Joe. >> Good afternoon, sir. >> Good afternoon, mayor, council, and staff. Joe Moses Parks and Recreation. It's time again for our annual golf course update. Just going to do a brief background, a little bit about the contract of the course. The initial management agreement was approved by the council in 2019 and was awarded to Elite Golf Management. The course reopened in August of 2019 under a new name, the Irving Golf Club. Um the initial three-year term ended in September of 2022. This first of the first of two two-year renewals started in September of 2022. And the last two-year renewal we're currently under now and that ends in September of 2026. So we'll be starting the process here for renewing that contract um going out for bid again for management of the golf course. Just talk a little bit about what we completed in uh 2425. The big thing was the cart path replacement back in March of 2025. The cart paths are 6 foot wide with reinforced steel. The previous cart paths did not have steel. And if you were out there at the course, you can see uh the cause what happens when you don't put steel and concrete. Um also with the new car path design by the tea boxes and the greens, we allowed we expanded the cart paths to 12t to allow for carts to pass by. So they don't have to go off the the trail onto the course to pass by. So, and then um the replace we replaced over three miles of car paths and the project came in at just a little over $1.7 million. This is the layout of some of those cart paths and you can see the areas where it widens so that car paths can park and other car pass other carts can get by. Here's some pictures of the finished product. some more areas that were as they were completed and just an overall view of the course and you can see the condition of the course and the greens as they are. And here's what everybody's wanting to see. Um the number of rounds for 2425, we've exceeded 50,000 rounds for the first time. We brought in over $2.2 $2 million in golf revenue, over $500,000 in food and beverage for a total of two over $2.7 million in revenue, and we were able to put $242,000 into the golf fund. >> Awesome. >> Here are a couple of comments that we received offline. The most impressive one is the one from Avid Golfer, um, which is a golf magazine that we do not advertise in, but we were recognized as, um, the top, probably the best overall value course in the whole metroplex. Open it up for any questions, >> questions, comments. >> David, >> since it's golf, I guess I better comment. >> But great job, John. This is a a a great job all around from the city on getting this done and it is what avid golfer said. It's one of the best deals and this is a great value for our citizens who are golfers out there. It's probably the top deal in the metroplex. >> Thank you, sir. >> Al. >> Yeah. Thanks, Mayor. Hey, Joe. Yes. Have the barrel hogs. We be able to keep them out of there or they still a little bit of a nuisance? Yeah, I'm going to knock on wood as I say that, but our our the management company does a great job of containing them. Um, a big part of it is what they're looking for is food. And so, particularly in our greens, they they have a program to try to keep the grubs and things out of the greens. And if so, if they're not there, the hogs aren't interested in it. So, that, you know, they're they're looking for food. So, we just got to make sure that they don't have a food source in our greens and um stay active and try to keep them off the course. >> Yep. Great job, Joe. They're doing amazing out there and people are excited about it. Was well worth the dollars and the investment. Uh I know a lot of people were concerned about spending the money to get it to bring it back, but it's come back strong and it's productive and people are excited about it. So kudos to your staff and the staff that we have managing it. They're doing a great job. >> Yes, sir. We have a great contractor out there. Thank you. Okay, we're going to go to item number four. I know we have some people here from the Convention and Visitors Bureau, so we'll go ahead and uh try to accommodate them. >> Good afternoon, Mora. >> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council. I'll let Fernando drive here. Just uh thank you for the opportunity. Mora Gast, executive director of the city's convention of visitors bureau here to present our semianual update maybe. Uh just a reminder about what makes tourism so important to our community. It brings new money in daily with very little impact on our infrastructure. Introduces prospective residents and businesses. Supports our cultural attractions and amenities. And because of the spending by visitors and the property taxes they support keeps our resident taxes lower by $750 per household annually. I'm going to touch on just the outlook of the visitor economy right now. Then how Irving and our organization is performing. I have a little bit of a FIFA update, but as y'all know, that's just a every day is a new story. And then a little bit on America 250 next year. And then just looking forward in the work that is to come. So for right now with our visitor economy, um demand remains resilient in places, but there is a lot of uncertainty particularly as we look at business demand um and group demand. So that's really the business demand is what drives our hotels particularly Mondays through Thursdays at really strong solid rates. Uh brings demographics into town with high dollar uh company credit cards, budgets, all those good things. Uh groups that are important midweek as well as on the weekend and um which is always our soft spot here in Irving. So we're starting to see that continue to remain soft as the economy has just been kind of vulnerable right now. So, uh, travel spending across the country is up a little bit. Uh, air travel is up a little bit, but that's also an odd reflection because it's compared to October last year when there was such a falloff because of Hurricane Milton. Uh, hotel demand contracted for a fifth consecutive month. So, obviously, that's something we're watching closely, especially as hotel supply continues to grow. This is kind of where the big pieces of the story are beyond the business travel. Um the markets just really off in international visitors to the US. Uh this compares the performance data to 2019. So going back to that last precoid year. Um but you can see where the projections are where um the markets have really dropped off drivers and roadblocks uh on the leisure front. So that's our discretionary traveler and there is some income growth. There are folks with solid balance sheets. Tax cut extensions have been helping, but the tariff effects on prices and uh traveler sentiment is one of the issues and that continually softening labor market. On the business front, the tax cut extensions compounded though by the tariff effects and now the immigration restrictions. And then on the international front, there has been pent-up demand. There are huge series of events coming to the US and particularly to this region next year. Um there's a lot of new product but the strength of the dollar is an issue. Traveler sentiment uh in certain countries is an issue and now uh new travel restrictions that the uh government federal government is considering. So our priorities and concerns on a national level, there is a $50 billion travel trade deficit, a huge swing since 2014. uh long visa wait times, outdated infrastructure, and then growing concerns about how welcoming America is. But there is a real opportunity here. And so, US Travel, which is our primary trade association, as well as Brand USA, which serves as the country's tourism office, are doing their best to unlock these doors. Uh the challenges of the sentiment toward the US has plummeted and that's adding to the challenges. Earlier this year, the funding for Brand USA was cut by the administration, but just in the last few weeks, um legislation has been filed to fund it. Once again, um as you're probably all aware, the US air traffic control system has been basically the way it is since before the internet, and it's really not prepared for what's coming with the World Cup, America 250, and then the 2028 Olympics in LA. So, those are priorities on the federal front. As for Irving, Mondays and Thursdays have continued to slow down for our hotels. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are now starting to slip. So, you have your uh you can see on the chart that's on the left the fall off of certainly government travel, but also corporate travel in the orange and then on the right is the Irving specific data for the most current week. So you can see that overall softening. Again, um occupancy over the year. Again, the year is starting to perform kind of steadily, but we're just not where we used to be. Um the short-term vacation rentals is a piece that comes up every month. It's a very, very small portion of what takes place in Irving, but it's still important to recognize where it fits. Um to look at then our sales and marketing performance. Um, this is the part where we spend our time in our organization talking to strangers. Our roomight pipeline is pretty strong. We feel pretty good about it. Um, that itty50 is one of those um, great acronyms in our business in the year for the year. And that's really how most of Irving and all of its hotels operate. The majority of our business is going to be booked within the fiscal year or the calendar year. uh it it may not even have been considered six months ago, but it's going to bubble up and then it's going to get booked. And that's kind of both the strength and the challenge of having such a a market that's so dominated by corporate travel. Recent bookings, we had a huge booking land uh at with Michaelels in August. Uh it started out as a one hotel only meeting and then since they were going to have all those people together, it became a much bigger corporate meeting. We had the National Watermelon Association here. Who knew? Um, the reflex sympathetic distrophe syndrome association. I tell you all that we have there are associations for everything and we have the benefit of it. Sally Beauty based in Denton but had their meetings here. Big 12 Conference bands were in Irving. Julie Green Ministries which actually was at the um pavilion at the Toyota Music Factory was a great event for us. The American College of Veterinary Dermatology. Yes, we want your dogs to have good skin too. And then upcoming we have the Cottonball Media will be back in town uh over between Christmas and New Year's. Minnesota Vikings will be here this weekend. We don't want to give them an overly welcome welcoming but will be nice. Uh HD Supply was here. It was actually overflow from a large event at the Gaylord. So that was a great opportunity for us or will be a great opportunity. Tito's Vodka, Mary Maids, the National Catholic Bioeththics Center. This is a group that's been with us several times. uh National Systems Contractors Association. Taking a look at our primarily digital campaigns, our stations campaign, which uh positions Irving to uh folks in the metroplex primarily to stay and play here in Irving, generated over 82,000 hotel referrals. DFW is the entertainment hub. So, that's where we take advantage of events happening elsewhere in the metroplex. and we talk about saying stay staying and playing in Irving while you take advantage of those other things. Seasonal campaigns, so fall campaigns, which are just finishing getting ready to run our uh winter campaigns about n uh 195,000 clicks. Micro and evergreen campaigns, these are constantly going uh 129,000 clicks and our Expedia campaign. And this is one of the few where we can actually track um more than just clicks and we can see through to um the room nights that were actually purchased in the value of those based on the rates. So generated 73,000 almost 73,000 room nights generating a little bit over 9 and a quart million in direct hotel revenue. So great return on our investment there. Our blogs really continue to be the way we engage repeat visitors. Um, our top five blogs in the last year were five ways to have fun at Lake Carolyn, five standout fall events, Irving's Lucky Charm, diving into the delightful world of Pomevin's famous black eyed peas, Texas Barbecue meets Wagu at Coffee Barbecue, and Discover Romance on the Water. So, generated a little bit over 76,000 page views with those. Our website traffic and engagement continues to be really, really steady. We did have a fall-off in April. It actually turned out to be a technical issue with something changing on INS something something something but that's the falloff uh in April. Um but otherwise doing really well on that front and this is I think one of the most important uh charts to share and this tracks the number of people that come through our website that are redirected elsewhere in Irving um to other businesses, other restaurants, other hotels, other activities going on. And I think you can see that we're able to direct people all over the city, uh, which is really, really important um, for all of our businesses, big and small. Red Bull Fluke Togg, I know I put a piece in your read file a couple of weeks ago about this, but this was a return event after 13 years. We have the ability to do a lot more uh, creepy stalker data tracking now than we did uh, 13 years ago. Um, Placer AI uh determined that there were approximately 22,000 attendees at the event, 5% of whom stayed in one of our hotels, 15% stopped at an Irving restaurant before, 24% stopped at an Irving restaurant after. Citywide hotel occupancy that weekend was up almost two and a quarter%. Great activity on our digital campaigns to support the event. So with the convention center uh rising revenues was great year financially. It also was met with rising expenses the cost of operating. Ours is a very labor intensive business but it's also a very expensive business particularly on the food side. Um again a really strong pipeline still very short-term in the year for the year kind of bookings but we've got um prospects are are we've engaged since we are holding dates as a courtesy tentative is we've sent out a contract definite we've sent out a contract we've gotten a signed contract back and we've gotten a deposit back. So that's the pace it's not horribly far off of our normal pace. uh our dark dates in the past year. So um we finished the year with 183 events uh just about 256,000 attendees generated 9.9 million in gross income allowed us to uh we invested 1.9 million into capital projects in the building. But most importantly and for the first and quite possibly last time in our history um the building operated completely in the black. It not only returned the 1.395 million subsidy um we put into the building every year, but it returned that plus another $700,000. All of which goes directly back into capital improvements for the building. That transfer is part of what you'll see on your budget adjustments later today. Not a whole lot of spare dates as you can see on the calendar that we left out there uh hanging if you will this past year. We had an event on New Year's Day, ordinarily a soft time. We've got that event coming back this year. Weebcon happened to fall on Easter weekend and we booked Frightfest onto Memorial Day weekend this year, uh, the year that just concluded, as well as for next year. So, really helping us drive demand on some key dates that would have otherwise made for really in both cases two very soft weeks. Convention center bookings to date. So, uh, from infinitity, from the beginning of time, we've booked 3,500 or contracted 3,500 events. Uh, we've lost 3,800. So, that's a case where, um, we bid or tried to secure business, but it didn't book for whatever reason. We didn't have their dates available, whatever it might be. Uh, and in the year-to- date, we have contracted 116 events thus far. Bookings of note recently we had Careflight, we had AX 29 North America, Firsttime Group called Mining Disrupt, uh Expo Contraista, the Great American Franchise Expo, USA Judo was back, Digital Summit, and underway today, moving in today is the Bodybuilding National Physique Competition Nationals. Uh coming up, Hilty will be back. Uh they start moving in the first week of January, and it's a great event. takes up the whole building and kicks our our calendar year off really really well. We've got a robotics competition coming. Texas Prime Meet, which is a gymnastics event that's been with us since, I believe, the first year we opened. The Family First Life Conference, a return of the World Oddities Expo, uh GPX 2026 is a really, really important one. It's a businessto business one, rather small in attendance, but uh whenever I see this one on the calendar, it kind of makes me catch my breath. It's the event we had to shut down in the middle of when CO shut everything down 5 years ago. So, they're back. They're stronger than ever and and we're grateful for that. And then the dry cleaning and laundry expo West will be with us in the next couple months. I talk about it all the time, but we budget a subsidy every year for the convention center to subsidize its operations. Um, anything we do better than budget is reinvested into capital improvements. You can see the co years there required a lot more subsidy and that was even operating at half staff. Uh last year it needed a teeny tiny little bit of subsidy but as I mentioned it needed none this past year and in fact returned more than uh more than that back into the capital improvement fund. Now for FIFA first time in North America since 1994. When they were here in 1994, the VIPs were at what was then the Four Seasons. There were people walking around with briefcases literally full of cash, uh, handcuffed to their arms, surrounded by, uh, security. So, it was a little different time then. Uh, this is going to be a 39 tournament in three countries and 16 venues. We have 11 of those venues here in the States. It will be the largest World Cup in history. 48 teams playing 104 total matches. They've split the markets into three regions, Eastern, Central, and Western, with the goal of trying to keep the majority of the group stage matches in one region in order to make travel easier from match to match. The draw was last Friday. We have nine matches that are going to be at Dallas Stadium, or as we like to call it, the Far West Irving Stadium. Uh the first game is the Ne Netherlands versus Japan. The big game in that first round is England versus Croatia. It's probably the biggest match of the first round and we have that here in this market. Uh they're both top 10 teams with really really big followings and followings that should travel. June 21, Argentina. We've got two games with Argentina in this market. Lionel Messi's uh final farewell tour. So those are going to be high demand. We have Japan here with two games in this market. So likely but not a given both Japan and Argentino will stay in Dallas Fort Worth um from the beginning. So the teams are now selecting their hotels and this should be finalized by the end of January. So they they get to put their dibs on the base camps they want to be in and top ranking teams get first right of refusal and once they've picked the next ranking team gets a pick and they go through that. Here in Irving we have a couple of tier one FIFA blocks at the Ritz. We will have VIPs and officials. Some of this group will be is contracted at more than 30 days. So that group will not generate any hotel taxes because it's a 30 plus day stay. But there will be some in this block that will be just in and out based on game days. So that's a good thing. Omni loss Kcolinus will likely have uh sponsors and possibly some other VIPs. Most of those groups will now be should be under 30 days. So again, a positive for us from a hotel tax revenue standpoint. Weston DFW likely the same mix of sponsors and pro possibly officials. There are no base camps in Irving, so there will be no team hotel in Irving. And then we have nine hotels participating in what's being called the official fan block. It's run through a company called crew fairs. Uh all of those stays are likely going to be a day or two or three before and after a match. Uh so we got hotels kind of all over the city that are participating in that mix. Um some with really lofty goals as term as far as rate goes, but if they get those rates that's good for all of us. So moving from FIFA on to American 250. So next summer marks uh the 250th birthday of America. Uh US Travel and Longwoods International have surveyed uh the country and of those people who are somewhat or very aware of the fact that next year does mark the 250th birthday of the country. Uh half of them plan to visit historical sites or landmarks. 50 46 plan percent plan to visit museums or cultural attractions and 42% plan to attend America 250 events. So, so what this says for us is that during the summer, which is ordinarily a very soft time, there will be a lot of people traveling and traveling to places they may not ordinarily go. The challenge for us in Dallas Fort Worth to make the best of this particular singular event that's only going to happen once is that the day before we have a game uh FIFA game at uh in July 3rd at the stadium in Arlington and July 5th there is a game in Houston. So, there's going to be some dynamics impacting our America 250 travelers with both hotel availability for the fourth uh as well as what kind of rates may be driven on the fourth. So, that's just going to be one of those dynamics that we're we're going to continue to work through. You'll see us doing what digital campaigns we can to push people into Irving for that event, but recognizing we're bumpered. Um we may have some challenges in terms of room availability. So now on to the road to resilience which is what we have been focusing on I feel like since the beginning of time but particularly since co kind of turned everything upside down. Um the board continues to look for ways to take ownership of whatever opportunities are on our hor horizon and to move the destination forward. Um the priorities that came out of our current strategic plan, the biggest one is has been to maximize our stability and growth, particularly our financial stability. Uh we've been working on rebuilding all of our reserve funds. The only one that's not there yet is our technology fund. We held off in this budget on fully funding it just because we were concerned from a uh economy standpoint with this current year as to how uh hotel tax revenues were going to come in. And then we just wanted to be very conservative. We primarily target the CVB's resources on weekend transient uh and then on groups whether they are weekday or weekend. Those are the groups we can influence that have uh time or discretion to travel and those are the people we're trying to reach. Um how we got here. I know some of you have been here a long time and some of you have been here for a short time at least sitting around this table. But in getting to building the convention center and what has become the Toyota Music Factory, this started with a strategic planning process that said with Irving and our hotels, we are built for business, which is wonderful. That business traveler is a really wonderful demographic as long as the market and the economy strong. But because we're so dependent on that, whenever the market cycles down, and it does every seven or eight years, we're very, very vulnerable. So we looked for ways to create demand that could be sustained in softmarket times as well as year round. Our hotels had a challenge because there were very limited entertainment options for their guests. And then lifestyle amenities had become a critical priority for corporate site selectors. Our goal from the get-go is to take advantage of our setting that were built for business and built for grown-ups. And while that might not be sexy, it comes with a lovely demographic attached to it in terms of spending other people's money. We wanted to make sure that what we delivered was placemaking and distinctive and it needed to be rightsized for Irving. We needed to recognize our core users priorities and their expectations particularly our corporate customers and we needed to move the needles the marketplace needed moved which is primarily on weekends. Uh, and part of that too is to shore up a lot of the commercial office leases that were coming open. And we were competing for those office tenants with markets like I'm not even going to mention them with markets north of here that were newer and shinier and had some things we didn't have. Even though their location may not have been as convenient, they had newer and shinier. So, we needed to look at what ways we could uh capitalize on what we did have. We have moved the needles. When we first opened the convention center, weekend occupancy in Irving was a little over 57 and a half percent. Today it's at almost it's at 72 and a.5%. Uh average daily rate is driven has risen and revenue per available room which is our hotel year's kind of primary oper operating um priority has risen from 42 to $88. So we have been able to move some of those needles. We want to continue to grow hotel tax revenues, but there's very few calendars we have access to where we can generate demand, and these have very limited availability. I showed you that uh convention center calendar earlier with not a whole lot of dark days left to fill. We already prioritized group bookings and how that building gets booked. So, we've we've kind of hit the point of there's only so much more business we can plug in or, you know, rearrange to maximize. We do have access to 10 days a month from the Weston, but that's two years and out. And as that window gets tighter, we get less control of those rooms as part of our room block agreement. Capacity is also finite. So the 50,000 square foot exhibit hall of the convention center is the largest single space and that can do 5,000 people for a kind of theater seating or a whole lot of people if it's Comic-Con, but that looks really different. Our outdoor event sites that have been put to great use, Levy Event Plaza and Heritage Park also have limited capacity and parking. And then the city's other assets are prioritized for all the right reasons for resident and resident groups use particularly with our parks and rec venues and the arts center. So 2026 and beyond our strategic planning, uh we completed earlier this year a round of resident sentiment surveys had over a thousand participants. We're working on finalizing that report uh and have the final report due by the year end. Um all of you thankfully uh helped us participate in our stakeholder interviews and focus groups. So we're going to take that data and add into it the resident sentiment surveys and kind of put all those things together for the board's um kind of determination. We have a hotel risk assessment survey underway. So, we have a company looking at our hotels kind of more from a financial risk standpoint. Which of our properties may be at risk of their flags being lowered and therefore what impact that might have on those corridors where they are and what therefore might be at risk. And then a hotel development forecast which is also underway. When we start to get this into uh a more digestible shape, then we'll bring in client input to see what kinds of things have appeal to our clients and therefore the kinds of things that they would want to support. They would uh send events, meetings, and events here to take take on. So, the board will go into its planning retreat in April and talk about what does our visitor future look like? What do our visitors or prospective future residents want? What do our residents and corporate residents want? what risks are in play to our current product and and that's that's that hotel risk assessment. What other things are happening around us that are going to have impact and how do we make sure Irving is best positioned to benefit from what tourism makes possible for our residents quality of life. In order to significantly significantly grow revenues, we're going to need a significant demand generator. Ideally, something that can pay for itself. If it's not something that can pay for itself, then we're going to have to look to the legislature for some for some legislation that might allow us to do some other things, whether that's a qualified hotel project or an Irving project financing zone. Uh we have debt on the convention center uh scheduled through 2039. Uh maybe it's something that can be refinanced. It just was refinanced, so I'm not sure when the soonest that could happen is. Or it can wait until after that. Um, time really flies fast. 2039 seems like forever from now, but I know it'll be here um before we know it. And as the board goes through this process, uh, that's kind of what we'll use to formulate the strategic plan we adopt to go forward. You've seen this data before. We actually are in the in process of just starting to update our economic impact study. This last one was done just coming out of COVID for 2022. There's that $757 generated in tax revenues per household that I mentioned earlier. It's hard to think that Irving sees four and a quarter million visitors a day, excuse me, a year and that there's 33,000 strangers here every day. But I think when we go out to eat in our restaurants, particularly during the week, if you're in almost any of our restaurants at lunch or dinner during the week and look around, you're going to see a room that's heavily dominated by travelers. They just don't look like tourists. Our success is your success through uh when you take down down the budget that we use to operate the sales and marketing effort we do. Every dollar we spend generates $45 from visitors, generates $124 on hotel stays, generates $88 in restaurant spending, generates $88 in industry payroll. Um, our Expedity campaign, that's the one I mentioned earlier, generates $141 for every dollar we spend in that campaign. Um, our BISDP program where we incent or provide rebates to groups, we get $74 back for every dollar we put into that. Our stations campaign generates $60 in potential economic value from every dollar we put into that. And with that, I'd be happy to take any questions. >> Questions? David. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mara, for that presentation. A few things. July 4th is going to be big. It's already big in Irving because we do such a great job. And maybe there's a question for Joe Moses, but uh are we ready for this year? >> I'll look to Chris. >> Oh, yeah. We're going to have bigger fireworks. >> I've given the direction to Joe to go even bigger and better. So, Joe, And just as Joe was walking up, I'm I'm joking, but it's true. I said during last year's fireworks, I said, "Joe, I wanted car alarms going off." And he succeeded. And I have a video of car alarms going off. >> Yes, we're preparing already. Um have everything lined up, uh working diligently with everybody, especially PD just with all the anticipation of the World Cup, not knowing how that's going to impact us. That's kind of our the biggest concern that we have right now. just want to make sure we're staying close with them and working with them and how that's going to impact uh because they have a large presence at the event, especially with this year being the 250th celebration. We just want to make sure that we have enough people to cover everything, but we should be good. >> All right. Yes, sir. Great. And then Mara, uh kind of questions on do do you get any data uh when people are coming to the convention center or if they're taking DART or if they're taking different modes of transportation? Sometimes we do capture that on surveys if they're accessing internet in the building. Sometimes that's a question that pops up, but we typically don't get much on that. We know we have some workforce that does, some of our convention center staff does utilize it. Um, but it's more the large scale public events, so the comicons, the anime events that kind of have a farther local reach that generate it. >> Okay. And then, uh, finally, just getting people around during the World Cup. Are we doing anything for signage to get to, you know, our music factory and and really helping people who probably a lot of foreign >> We have we have had a lot a working group with a lot of questions about um what's going to be the best way to communicate and how. Um we're going to wait and see who lands in what hotels to kind of let that anchor some of it, but we have spent time with some of the hotels with Toyota Music Factory staff with Los Kolina Association talking about things we could do to attract people. We've talked about some popup uh photo op kinds of things we might deliver around Irving to engage people. Um but just kind of waiting needed to get through the draw to see what was going to land at least game-wise here or match-wise here and then we'll know better by the end of January what teams are where and what groups are where and and where messaging might be best coordinated. But absolutely. >> Great. Thank you. And I think the other piece of that councilman is just also um not unlike the Olympics with very strict requirements or or the Super Bowl with very strict requirements about when you can and can't use the name. Um we're going to have to work our way around that for the super matching party or things like that where we may not be able to call it something official, but we'll look for a way to legally not get in trouble calling it what we need to call it to get people's attention. Thank you, >> Al. >> Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Um Mora, um I guess it was last uh I'm not sure if it was uh Monday or No, it wasn't. It was last Friday. Joe Champa representing our chamber Irving Losas and myself representing mine. One of our major players is Coca-Cola and I saw the names of the other uh companies. We've got some major players here in Irving. Coca-Cola. Um the cuz we met the new lady that's going to be head of the US because the fellow that runs it now is going to be going south from Mexico south, but they're still here. Same with Avocados of Mexico. The same with Mission Food. So, I'm wondering how we can get something going here. And I'm not sure how we do that, but I think you have some thoughts. Um, because what I think Joe will also say this that we saw no presence of us. We were up at the I think it's the COSM COSM up in um the Colony, Frisco, Plano, Dallas. Um, and I didn't see us. I didn't see Fort Worth. I didn't see a lot of other locations. So, I'm wondering how do we get something that is very much us because we have some of the major players that are going to be putting a lot of money in FIFA. >> Yep. >> And so, >> and I think that's part of it. So, the companies that are allowed to claim that relationship with FIFA, we want to be able to ride on to their coattails if at all possible and work with them to deliver what we can deliver. But for example, if Toyota is not a FIFA sponsor, then Toyota isn't going to have a FIFA watch party. They may have a really large international match watch party, but they won't be able to have a branded FIFA watch party. So, we are going to look at those things. Um, that is kind of part of now now that we know what's happened with the draw and know what's going to happen here. I can tell you why Fort Worth wasn't there because they were at Billy Bob's having a draw party there. So, um, but yeah, we will be continuing to watch. This is kind of going to take its time to shake out. So, by the end of January, we will know what teams are staying in Irving regardless if they're playing at Dallas Stadium or not. There may be teams that choose to stay in the Metroplex because of the airport convenience to get in and out of other matches. So, there's a lot of moving pieces beyond the teams that will play here. And it's possible that teams that play here in at the Dallas Stadium won't opt to stay here. You know, if they've only got one game here, but other games in other places, they may choose to stay there. What I thought was interesting is AT&T Stadium is now going to be the Dallas stadium and it's all a play on quote unquote Dallas >> which just makes it really clear to me that we've need to tap into our strength which are the Coca-Cas of the world and there going to be other big players that are here and we need to grab them before they get grabbed. I mean, I know there's going to be limitations because FIFA is already doing it, but there >> there's been a lot of commitments already made through the Dallas Sports Commission that, you know, we will work our way around and through as well. We do have access to the media room. Um, we are co-hosting with our partners around the Metroplex a media event um sometime during that, so we will have at least some level of media access, but that's going to be crazy chaotic. Um, I know they had the ticket uh lottery starting today and the holding price for a ticket was starting at $11,000. So, we're we're not buying any tickets at this point. >> Something that I I that really kind of reached out to me was if you recall during our infrastructure summit, we had Mexico ambassador and the representative of the Canadian as well as here. They're going to be big players coming in. If you notice during the I guess I want to call it the peace world cup whatever was going on but there were only three senior people two presidents our president the president of Mexico and the uh the head of the Canadian the premier and so we've got those players here in Irving and so again I'm thinking that we need to leverage what we kind of started Mayor with the summit. And so now we're talking about, you know, we're going to be doing our summit next August. And uh I know we're thinking this way, but there's some things that we can kind I'm going to be really um I guess mercenary on this. If we're not grabbing what we have, we're going to be kind of be observer. And I I just don't like that idea. >> Yeah, I I I understand what you're saying. I think there there going to be a finite number of things that we can control in that dynamic. We're going to take a run at everything we can. Beth Bowman and I from the chamber have had just kind of some conversations about, you know, FIFA is a window next summer. Um how we make how we how we deliver on its promise in that window is kind of driven by the matches themselves. But the bigger opportunity is how do we take advantage of those people that are here and continue connecting the dots back to Irving after they leave. That's that's where the the long play is is what can we do while they're here that um convinces them we're worth coming back to. >> The big challenge is the dollars involved. I think they're wanting what a million dollars a game for a suite. Then you got to pay for the food and the booze >> and the parking >> and the parking. So those are the kind of dollars that that are out there to if you want to play in the game and you know entertain and bring people in and and represented. So you'll have you'll have you know of course Arlington and some of those they'll have plenty of those opportunities to to be whining and dining and bringing in the their sponsors and stuff with with tickets and things of that nature. it it's kind of tough to get into that game with what we've set aside on some of these things, but um it it's going to be an amazing amazing the whole process is just unfolding more. I think that one of the things that gets lost in the shuffle a lot of times and both you and Beth do this is when you look at the economic impact and that that the that both your organization and and the uh chamber is when you start looking at the dollars invested and the return on those I mean 33,000 people a day in in in coming into our city. I mean those are huge numbers when you stop and think about how how do we tap into that for meals to your point Al of tapping into what what's available there and I think probably if we really drill down these a good share of these are are business travelers that is because of our business which goes back to what I am always harping on and that is we really need to make sure that we fill these office buildings and that we may take some short deals But having those office buildings full and bringing their people in fill the hotels which feeds the restaurants and even I mean these numbers are amazing when you really step back and look at them to think about that many people coming into our city on a daily basis >> and mayor that that restaurant opportunity you've got for let's say 15 hotels but 10 of them don't have rest 15 75 hotels 80 hotels 15 of them have restaurants the others don't right >> so for the majority of the time those guests are here. They're having to eat somewhere else. So, I think that, you know, we should put together something that just kind of lays out these two or three points about the dollar invested and what we get back for it and the dollar and the number of people that are coming in and the jobs are created and stuff because sometimes when we start looking at doing major things within the city, people that live within their single family home don't see the big picture of the fact that if we don't feed these animals, then the cost of operating the city is going to fall back on them. And when you see in order to keep 600 restaurants going in this city, there's no way it would happen without this business traveler or without the business businesses that we have. And and if you look at I I keep an a pretty good eye, not as good as Brett, but we uh get returns every month on the sales tax numbers that are coming in. And there was only one city last month that did more in sales tax than we did as a city. and we're at for the year we're up about 9% when and I think there's only one other city in the area that's over 9%. So those numbers those sales tax numbers are coming from our restaurants they're coming from those those things that the business travelers is bringing in while the residents use the grocery stores and things of that nature. But these this is where the dollars come from uh that really make this thing home. So, I think at some point we should put together a brochure that kind of explains the investment we're making. When I say were, I mean the convention and visitors bureau dollars, the hot tax and the dollars that we're putting into economic development so that we can see the return because when you put those numbers together with your numbers, I mean, that's really where a good share of our of our able ability and our aability to do the projects that we do in the city of Irving. And even though we think our taxes go up, and they do, uh, we're still in in better shape than a lot of we didn't have to raise ours. We didn't have to limit the some of our employees to no raises. We didn't have to cut back on on on our colas like other cities have. So, uh, at the end of the day, these are the things that make that happen. So, I'd like to see that. If you got you got Why don't you and Beth get together and put something together that we can, you know, utilize? Uh Al, you're always good at it and David, you're always good at it at passing them out uh in different settings so people understand really where the money is coming from. Al, >> yeah, let me um Mayor, if you you'll give me leave on this. Uh Chris Wallace is here and he heads up the North Texas Commission. Chris, you want to shed a little light on this because Or did you leave already? >> No, he's back there. >> He's here. >> Are you there? >> Because I think you've got some good perspective on what we're talking about. >> Uh in terms of FIFA, are you talking about >> Yeah. So, uh Mea and Beth are both uh the councilman, the mayor are engaged in our new DFW International Collective. Uh it's an organization part of the commission that's been meeting for just over a year to really look at international development for the region, the 13count region. Uh increasing foreign direct investment. Uh what is the international brand of this region? I think Jerry Jones at the press conference for the World Cup in Arlington probably said it the best is that we didn't get the final game because people in the world stage on the world stage they may know New Jersey, New York, they may know LA, but they may have heard of Texas. They may have heard of our international brand of Dallas worldwide, but they associate three things. where a famous president was shot, where a famous TV show was filmed, >> or where America's football team plays. That's it. And so there's much more than that, right? There's the headquarters of headquarters. Losing is within Irving. There's uh so much in this region from an economic development, economic competitiveness standpoint. So we're trying to capitalize on that and we're using the World Cup as kind of a catalyst. So out uh Councilman to your point on the companies who are here that are spending millions of dollars to the mayor's point to sponsor and there's others coming particularly for the one semi-final game that we have in the region in Arlington. So many site selectors others are coming in for that game. So how do we capitalize while they're here? Not necessarily at the stadium but other venues that we could have a non-sanctioned to Morris Point. FIFA is very keeping that very tight controlled but how can we uh really showcase the region so we're doing a couple things one the media center we have in the region uh in Dallas really feeding them a lot of economic data a concier type service for businesses for reporters who want to contact business uh we're working with the governor's office of economic development his folks on what Houston and Dallas can be doing together to showcase Texas when those decision makers are in the North Texas area and when they're in Houston. So, there's more to come. Uh we've got liaison to each of those task forces that the governor has just recently appointed in the last 60 days or so. So, uh we're trying to gather what that looks like now that we know as of last Friday who the teams are. So, we'll know who our audience is. Uh and um so, you know, more you know, certainly more to come, but that's That's where we are today. Y >> Okay, Mo, I appreciate you and Beth being out on the front line on this as well. I know Beth, you got connections with the governor, so keep us in tune with what he's what he's thinking on this as well. So, any other questions, Amora? Thank you. We uh we next have the Irving Fire Relief and Retirement Fund quarterly third uh 2025 performance and comprehensive pension obligation bond impact update. >> Good afternoon. >> Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. David Florence, the chairman of the >> Is that better? Yes. >> Yes. Uh David Florence, chairman of the Irving Fire Pension, I want to provide y'all with an update on the dollars that were spent through the pension obligation bonds and just have a few more bullet points in here to discuss. So, just a brief history. I know we have some new council members. Before 2019, the alarm bell started ringing on our pension. um we were underfunded and our actuary came to us and said we're going to run out of money in 25 years. So our unfunded liability was about 103 million the ADC which wasn't technically being paid on the agreements we had but it should have been a total of 39% and we were paying about 26%. move forward after the we worked with uh city management and with council. We came up with kind of a comprehensive plan to shore up the fund. Our now our unfunded liability is 25.8 million and we got our amortization down to 23 years and it's currently less than 20 years. Right now our fund health is over 90% funded. Um, it says top tier in Texas. I would say if you did a holistic comparison with the assumptions that other funds are using and ours, we would be potentially number one or two. Um, our current fund performance, we're at 8% on a 10-year return and we have about 304 million assets under management as of today. Um the pension obligation pond successes. We're saving about 15 million in city input dollars and we've made $23 million on the $80 million that was granted to us since 2021. Um if you look at this graph, you can see this inflection point right here. That's when uh the alarm bells really started uh ringing loudly. And um then you can see after the obligation bonds were put in place right there at 21, we've had some steady and consistent growth. Our net earnings through June of 2025 are 23.2 2 million just on the bond dollars. And most recently in Q3 of this year, we made $5.1 million just on those pinch obligation bond gains. Um we were able there's a lot of things that happen when um you're not underfunded. you can change your the structure of your portfolio to be a little more aggressive because when you're underfunded, the downside kills you way more than the upside helps you. So, since then, we've been able to restructure our portfolio and that's allowed us to capture those gains since we made those changes. Um, we have a great risk management strategy. It allows us more flexibility during volatile times and now we're optimized to get more than 7% returns and our rate of return right now is set at 7%. Um just a few highlights. So, pre- pension obligation bond. Um, there was one year where the city rate increased to 26 and that was just a kind of a a short-term protective mechanism because we were so underfunded. And um now we have an agreement where there's some shared risk between the fire fund members and the city. And so we share in those gains. So if we peg it at 26% each side pays 13. But since we've been outpacing our returns, it's down to 7 12.76% for both the member and then the city. So, some key wins are the 38 million in total impact from that $80 million in bond money. Um what this means is is a stronger fire pension, lower taxes, and then we have the ability to have sustainable growth moving forward. Um a few recommendations um just continue to proceed with the POB contract and if we continue on the path we are on um potentially coming back to the table at some point and trying to eliminate that that second tier. Um, any questions? >> Questions. Chris, uh, you and your team and the pension team. Really appreciate, uh, you all working so good together and and working through this. I know we had a few little hiccups. we had to change a charter and a few other things and move some stuff around. But I think at the end of the day, uh what I'm excited about is the fact that I'm not sitting up here talking about or being read about in the papers because my pension funds upside down. Uh, I appreciate the fact that you all came together and we were able to put together and be on top of the the ladder, be there where we need to be and make sure that the the employees are taken care of and and we're and we're able to um help both our side and of the dollars that the city puts in and your side of the dollars that each and every one of you put in. And I I I'm really proud of how you all worked together and made this happen and and excited about the fact that you now have some wiggle room to to uh even make this more productive than it is. >> Yeah, I could spend three or four days giving presentations on the workflow that's happened since we started this process. Um, and it's hard to express the difficulty to get to this place unless you go to pension conferences and you see many of our neighbors um never did solve this problem and now they're in a a catastrophic situation. So, I'm so glad that y'all are willing to engage and um our our firefighter benefits through that contract are now secure almost to infinity because that starts in 2021. add 25 years to the end the contract and at that point we'll be 100% funded. So, um it's it's fantastic news. >> Al yeah, Mayor, I'm really glad you you you started off the real I think crux of the relationship cuz I remember it very well sitting on the board with you guys. I really want to give you Chris a kudo and I usually don't do a lot of that with you. >> Thank you. And I got to give you this one because uh you know I remember discussions and where we were at risk all of us um losing our AAA bond rating. So everybody got sober very quick the fire side, but really you reached out. And one thing I do appreciate though and respect about you and your team is you know how to work the numbers and the and the bonds and that came together cuz now uh even with the um the relationship uh with the collective bargaining and so thank you chief also for making those comments because at the end of the day we're in this same boat together but there's a contract that's been come together so that it's very clear the relationship I just want to tell you that it's really nice to be able to see it happening. So, thank you both. >> Chris, >> thank you, Mayor. Thank you, David. Thank you, David, for coming in and providing the update. That is great news. It was a long uh productive conversation and I appreciate your willingness, your board's willingness to walk through what we went through and to see the good results here. and mayor and council. This is the results that you're seeing just from the fire pension. We also through our POBS were able to help buy down our TMRS and our SBP. The total savings for the city was over $125 million over a 25-y year period. In addition to that, specifically related to the fire pension, we are setting aside a a risk mitigation fund to help ensure that if for some reason we have a down uh market that we have dollars available as a city to be able to invest into the funds just in case. I believe that it's either this year, Brad, I'm looking at you, it's either this year or was it last year that we finished the dollars that were being put into that fund. So we are now fully funded in that risk mitigation fund. >> So it is fully funded now and those dollars are available just in case we have a significant market downturn and we don't find ourselves in the situation again. What I really do appreciate about this particular relationship and the contract that we are able to get with the uh firefighters and the fire pension uh board itself is that uh it is managing and splitting the risk and we through this contract do not anticipate finding ourselves in the same situation again. So we not only fix the problem we found the solution that will avoid that problem in the future. >> Thank you. Just a few final comments. I had a meeting with our consultant yesterday and year to date, which the year's not over. We're at 13.76% returns, which may not look like your 401k, but when you have to look at the risk profile of a pension, that's our rate is at 7%. So, that's great. And then he he wanted me to note as a just a good picture, we started the year with 278 million. We had 42.7 million in contributions. We paid out 50.7 million in benefits and we're already at 307 million before the year's over. So that's like a really clear picture of being able to use risk to our advantage through those pension obligation bonds and continue to grow the fund. So thank y'all. >> Thank you. Okay. Uh we have some people here for some executive session items. So KO, would you just read us into the executive session? >> Yes, sir. Be happy to do that. The time is 209. The Irving City Council will convene into a closed executive session to receive legal advice and to discuss economic development and real estate negotiations pursuant to open meetings act sections 551071 51 Tonight is our annual parade and tree lighting event uh here at Heritage Park. >> People lining the streets and having a great time and it's wonderful to see all the kids out there. I always enjoy the opportunity to be the grand marshal as the mayor and it it's very exciting because the kids they'll wave and they you know I'm very fortunate to have a nice car to drive so they like the carry Christmas and they'll talk about that but then they'll say are you Santa Claus and I'll say no he's coming the theme this year is unwrap the magic we're at almost 70 entries but it also showcases some of our public safety folks city personnel. >> I got to ride on the city council float out and this is the first year that I had my grandson with me and so he had he had a wonderful time uh seeing everybody in the crowd and wishing them happy holidays too. So it's a great family event for my family too. >> Also we want people to wander over to experience Main Street because that's part of the event tonight. >> We are setting up Main Street kind of adjacent to the holidays at Heritage Parade and True Lighting. wanting to activate Main Street while our Heritage Park festivities are going on. We've got a vendor market happening here on Main Street, some free face painting, free hot chocolate, and a few other activities for the family. >> The tree lighting will take place as soon as uh the parade is done and we've cleared the path. So, we give everybody a chance to come over here and get their spot and then we will fully decorate Heritage Park. >> Light the tree. Light the tree. Merry Christmas. >> We'll conclude the night with a drone show. We do have almost 200 drones this year, so we've gone up in that. >> Even a 70-year-old kid like me gets excited about this. It's great to see the park lit up, the food trucks available, and uh everybody's just having a wonderful time. >> I didn't notice how many people would be here and like how many I guess organizations or spec es especially like um the charity organizations that we had in Irving. So, this is like really eye opening and very beautiful for me. Irving's such a diverse community. This is a great chance for everybody to come together. >> We can all kind of get in touch with like where we're from and get to know like other people and kind of what we're about. >> I want Christmas. >> It's that Christmas Hallmark feeling right here in Irving, which is such a large town, but on a night like this, it feels like such a small town. So, I think kind of capitalizing on the magic of the holidays here in South Irving is always fun for the community. The Irvin Archives and Museum is hosting its annual celebration of Irving's birthday on December 19th from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. This year to mark the restoration project of the big state sign, you can enjoy a free root beer float while supplies last. Get up to 30% off on everything in a museum store. Santa may be busy getting ready for the holidays, but he's making time to stop by here at the gazebo at Heritage Park for photos. Grab a free picture with Santa and enjoy a cookie decorating activity with friends and family. Then take a stroll to the children's entrepreneur market for lastminute holiday gifts and other seasonal goodies. The Irving Symphonic Band presents their annual holiday concert, Holidays in Sound. The seasonal marment gets underway at 3 p.m. on December 21st in Carpenter Hall. Adding to the fun, guests are encouraged to arrive early for small group ensemble performances in the lobby. Happy holidays and welcome to ICTN's Pets of the Week. Here with Trey Buckner from Urban Animal Services and Babe in this great outfit for the holidays. Tell me about Babe. >> Babe is a year and 8-month old dog. We've had her about 8 months. She does really well with other dogs. She has no food aggression, no dog aggression, no people aggression. She's just a very lovable dog. Uh she's a big lap dog. Um although she's a little bit bigger. Um she weighs about 53 lb. She loves to be around people, loves to be around the family. Babe is just a phenomenal dog. I love her. >> And Babe would like nothing more than to go home for the holidays. And that's the name of a current adoption special running through December. Tell me about that. >> Um so our home for the holidays is a promotion that we're doing. Uh all adoptions will be $50 for our dogs and cats and then um some of our extended stays animals that have been here for longer than 90 days. And it's approaching we're running just so that we can get the animals into their forever homes for the holidays and that runs throughout the month of December. And another promotion going on right now and I really think this is a great way to honor the dogs in your home or maybe the dogs that you've had. It's the comfort and joy drive and it's all about bringing donations to the Irving Animal Care campus. Some What are some of the things you're looking for? >> We're looking for dog treats, um, dog toys. Uh, we've gotten quite a few blankets and towels. We're very appreciative for everything we've been given. But yeah, we definitely use dog toys and dog treats. Just toys and dog treats just so we can help the animal enrichment and just making sure the animals get that extra care. >> And what difference does it make? What impact does it make when you're able to give an animal like Babe a nice new toy or some extra treats around the holidays? >> It does wonders for her. Um we use those treats when we're doing her basic training as far as like sit, shake, lay down. Um and then it also keeps her mentally um strong and it's just something that the dogs light up and they go crazy when they get the toys. >> And the cats do too, right? >> Yeah. Yeah, cats as well. Yeah, definitely the cats as well. cat treats, catnips, anything of that nature will definitely help them out. >> So, a lot of ways to help. I've seen in years past offices have gotten together as kind of a team building activity and collected donations and brought them in. So, a lot of ways to help through the comfort and joy drive, the home for the holidays adoption special or give this lovable, happy, enthusiastic dog babe, a home. Thanks so much, Trey. >> Thank you. >> And you can find the animal care campus at 4140 Valley View Lane. You can also check out the websites you see on the screen for more adoptable animals and to see the latest operating hours. It's the magic of Christmas and we're allowed to get swept up into stories and it kind of breaks up the monotonous feel of everyday life. The Nutcracker is about a little girl, Clara, who is at her parents like Christmas party and all her friends and family come to see her and her godfather Josamaro comes to bring her a nutcracker and she really really loves it. And she falls asleep with the doll and has some very magical dreams about, you know, candy canes and sugar plum. She gets swept into this world where the Nutcracker comes to life and she has to create new meanings and new bonds and she's thrust into this world of this beautiful land of sweets and snow and all of a sudden rats and mice and the rat king are after her and it's just her imagination. I've watched the Nutcracker since I was about like 5 years old every year. And especially Momentum um gives Clara such like a big uh role and opportunity to not only just dance and everything, but to act. Some other productions don't like allow her to dance as much, but I'm so thankful that I'm able to dance a lot and show off different aspects. I give her a little bit of sass, like a little bit. I made a part up where I get the nutcracker and I start like uh throwing it at my brother. I think it's really funny. It's very important to come see shows like these because um there's so many artists that are like developing and a lot of and the Nutcracker especially supports um all ages and you get to see dancers just like become like from a polishel to like a principal dancer and it's incredibly amazing. >> Throughout the 15 years that I've been here so many highs and lows and so many of the lows have been like oh my gosh can we even continue? But we have pushed on and we have only been able to push on through our community supporting us. There was a point in my time that I was a dancer and 10 years ago I unfortunately broke my foot and it took me out like completely and it derailed my life and 10 years later I'm back directing the Nutcracker where my family is from in Irving. And it's just it's such a special story for such an important reason. Um, you know, especially in this day and age, you need that creativity. You need that imagination. This is a magical season and it's a magical story and it's really a privilege that I get to dance with these people that I've known my entire life and make the story come to life. There's something sweet baking at the West Irving Library. >> Today we're having one of our edible educations for the kids. These are roughly around kids aged 8 to 12. And we'll be cooking some mini pumpkin pies. It is my favorite pie. >> The class begins by showing the kids how to turn on the oven. >> And then we're going to be cutting out the little mini crusts for the pies. >> You almost got it. Look at that. >> So, French fries aren't made in France. >> Like, seriously. >> Bringing over the loop. >> They're only called French fries because of the way they're cut. After the crust are ready, the kids work together to make the pie filling. >> Okay, we're going to do one tablespoon. We're going to take all of it out. We want all 15 oz. And now we mix it all together. >> Once the mix is done, they pour it into their crust. >> Have any of y'all ever cooked before? >> I know how to make a burger and a sandwich, but that's about it. >> Oh, wow. That's better than I knew when I was your age. >> When I was a kid, I didn't have any opportunities like this, and I really wish I did growing up. It would have given me some exposure to cooking and some confidence at a young age that I'm really glad that the kids at our library have. >> And then it's ready to bake in the oven. >> In they go. >> It's very exciting and it teaches kids how to cook. >> I thought it was fun and satisfying. >> I never really cook at home cuz my siblings are always using the kitchen. >> I just like cooking and baking. >> I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients. >> After 30 minutes, the pies are done baking and the kids pumpkin spice things up with a taste. >> It tasted like like cinnamon, but it was also very sweet. >> It tasted super good. This doughicious class creates an appetite for cooking that can lead to children wanting to learn more about recipes or other books about baking, which furthers their interest in all the library has to offer. >> Like comics and books. >> Get to find my newest books that I want to read. >> Why do you like to read? >> Because I want to learn new things. >> And luckily for the community, Irving Public Libraries make learning something new easy as pie. A free holiday lights display offers a leisurely stroll through one of the jewels of Irving Heritage District, Centennial Park. The park is decorated with 100,000 lights on fences, trees, and on the bridge, and walkways are lit on each side to keep pathways visible for visitors after dark. Enjoy the glow the entire month of December. Candlelight concerts bring the magic of a live multiensory musical experience to awe inspiring locations like the Irving Art Center. Experience Christmas carols backed by a string band under the gentle glow of candlelight. Make sure you arrive early for the 6:30 or 8:45 performance on December 26th. Need a relaxing break from all the holiday activities? You can access some special urban archives and museum exhibits from the comfort of home. Go online and see apron strings which highlights design and function with each apron making a unique artistic statement and India Alla art which brings together the colorful tapestry of art and life in India. Your ICTN team produced 32 videos in the month of November. We're actively collecting stories, memories, photographs of the big state signs and we want people to be able to know why that sign matters so much to our community. >> It's like being in a dream, you know, and every corner you turn, you want to get woke up, but you don't get woke up. You got to make it out your own dream. >> We're right across the street from Heritage Park. I am so honored. I don't think I could have dreamed of a better location. And there's a reason why he's in this costume. >> Yeah. So, Tigger is a obviously a little cutie pie. Um, and that's our special. Come and adopt a cutie pie at the shelter. >> Crosby. >> Hello, Charlie. >> It's actually one of the oldest shows. It's where like we get Clue from. We get a lot of murder mysteries from. >> We have a lot of incredible sculpture this year. A lot of beautiful ceramic work. We have drawings, paintings, print making, a lot. >> What a better event to come together as organizations team up, build skill, but certainly celebrate what what makes us different. >> I'm just so thankful to the community. The urban community has continued to support our students. >> I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients. It's exciting. It's not too far from home. I'm going to be coming here all the time. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Stay up todate by subscribing to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/the city of Irving. In advance of Irving's state of the city, it is time to go motoring with the mayor. >> We're going to do something fun. I love to drive around the city. I mean, that's one of the things that the staff always gets nervous cuz all of a sudden I'm supposed to be somewhere and they'll say, "Where have you been?" >> I can't wait to see where he takes me. I I do know this. No one has seen more of the city than he has. This is kind of like the gateway to the downtown, but we did the mural here, and if you want to walk over there, you can be the eye in Irving and get a picture taken. We've worked really hard to redo this and narrow it down to two lanes so that we can slow down the traffic for the businesses that are along here. And we've worked with a lot of the businesses through here and tried to keep the old downtown feel with the light fixtures that we've put in, but yet still keep the integrity like Porter's Army Navy Frost Bank is going to be rebuilding and moving into this facility down here. This is kind of a banking hub here. It's really kind of interesting. come and take you down. Glory house just did a mural back here which is kind of cool. Playing off the history of the downtown area. >> People need to remember that this is kind of where it started. >> We have a lot of events here. Now the water tower is the original water tower from back in the day and this is the original location of where it was when Irving was first founded. This building here was the first library. This is a phase of homes that we built. We tore down some stuff and rebuilt this area. So, this was phase one of homes that we built. The stores are busy. The parking lots are full. It's worked out really well. As I told you earlier, you and I could be in the car all day long, which is what you don't want to do. >> The conversation continues at the Irving Convention Center during State of the City on January 15th. Tickets are available through the Irving Lascalina's Chamber of Commerce. The energy is up before the sun's up >> as people line up where prices are down. >> Finding a good place where the price point is on point. Hopefully we got good things in there. >> People wrapped around the building for the grand opening of Joe V's Smart Shop on State Highway 183 in Irving. >> It's exciting. It's not too far from home. >> I'm going to be coming here all the time. 3 2 1 >> At 700 a.m. the first shoppers move inside and start to fill their carts. >> I told you I was getting a plate off. I'm like, this is the first thing I'm coming for. >> We needed one of these. Glad that we finally got one. >> The produce proved popular. And we also spotted a fresh sushi station and a lot of other items catching attention. It's all hctic and looks very argonite. >> Joe V's is part of the HB family. In a day before the crowds, we learned more about this chain's concept from a man who knows. >> So, you are the Joe V. >> I am. >> As we toured the store, he told me the idea came together 15 years ago. And this store in Irving represents how the brand has evolved. >> What we found is that fresh is a big part of our business. And so, we've expanded our produce departments. We expanded our bakeries and meat department. We have offerings here that we didn't have before when we first started. >> What we want to offer the community is the lowest prices in the industry. And so when you come in here, the thing that you can always count on is that we've done our homework so that you don't have to. Prices of groceries are more important today than they've ever been. So having selection and opportunity to see something different, I think it's great. >> And speaking of different, and now this is something I've heard a lot about. >> Yeah. So, this is our bundle boxes. And the one that I'll draw your attention to is this one here. This is the most favorite. It's called the five nights box. Five nights means that for every night of the week, you have a different protein that you can put in the center of your plate. And you do that all for $20. >> The unique finds do not stop there. >> This is Smokeoky John's banana pudding. It's actually our grandmother's recipe. We literally have someone over a double boiler making the pudding fresh every day. >> Jo is the only grocery chain to carry it. And this location will be a special focus. >> Especially excited about Irving because Irving will be our joies. It's the closest one to our restaurant and to our houses. My brother is a Irving resident. >> During a grand opening celebration with Irving Leaders, company reps had some surprises. >> It was a huge surprise. >> $10,000 for both Irving Cares and the Irving Schools Foundation. >> They want to be invested. So, they've asked me to apply for additional grant funding. They've asked for volunteer opportunities. So, they are going to be a really great neighbor to us. >> I'm happy for the money. What I'm really happy about is another retail establishment that is really works to keep their prices low for our residents in the city >> along with the big checks and little prices. The HB team is sharing an update on what's happening here. A full-size HB is under construction in Irving. In summer of 26, we will be opening at 635 in Olympus and it's going to be a fantastic store. It's about 116,000 square ft of great ATV products that everybody has been looking forward to. >> But on this day, all of the focus is on the new Jo Smart Shop. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Which one did you get? >> Chocolate chip. It's a great success story for South Irving, but really all of Irving as we've learned through working with the Jovi and HB team. They will pull customers not only right here in our local community, but from a 25 mile radius, which is really exciting. >> A positive economic impact and lot to check out with this store now open. >> Hope to see you soon. Thomas Gandandy for City Source. Tonight is our annual parade and treelighting event uh here at Heritage Park. >> People lining the streets and having a great time. It's wonderful to see all the kids out there. >> I always enjoy the opportunity to be the grand marshal as the mayor and it it's very exciting because the kids they'll wave and they you know I'm very fortunate to have a nice car to drive so they like the car. Merry Christmas. and they'll talk about that, but then they'll say, "Are you Santa Claus?" And I'll say, "No, he's coming." >> The theme this year is unwrap the magic. We're at almost 70 entries, but it also showcases some of our public safety folks, city personnel. >> I got to ride on the city council float out, and this is the first year that I had my grandson with me. And so, he had he had a wonderful time uh seeing everybody in the crowd and wishing them happy holidays, too. So, it's a great family event for my family, too. Also, we want people to wander over to experience Main Street because that's part of the event tonight. >> We are setting up Main Street kind of adjacent to the holidays at Heritage Parade and tree lighting. Wanting to activate Main Street while our Heritage Park festivities are going on. We've got a vendor market happening here on Main Street. Some free face painting, free hot chocolate, and a few other activities for the family. So hurry now. >> The tree lighting will take place as soon as uh the parade is done and we've cleared the path. So we give everybody a chance to come over here and get their spot and then we will fully decorate Heritage Park. >> Light the tree. Merry Christmas. >> We'll conclude the night with a drone show. We do have almost 200 drones this year, so we've gone up in that. Even a 70-year-old kid like me gets excited about this. >> It's great to see the park lit up, the food trucks available, and everybody's just having a wonderful time. >> I didn't notice how many people would be here and like how many I guess organizations or especially like um the charity organizations that we had in Irving. So, this is like really eye opening and very beautiful for me. >> Irving is such a diverse community. This is a great chance for everybody to come together. we can all kind of get in touch with like where we're from and get to know like other people and kind of what we're about. >> It's that Christmas Hallmark feeling right here in Irving, which is such a large town, but on a night like this, it feels like such a small town. So, I think kind of capitalizing on the magic of the holidays here in South Irving is always fun for the community. The Iran Archives and Museum is hosting its annual celebration of Irving's birthday on December 19th from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. This year, to mark the restoration project of the Big State sign, you can enjoy a free root beer float while supplies last. Get up to 30% off on everything in a museum store. Santa may be busy getting ready for the holidays, but he's making time to stop by here at the gazebo at Heritage Park for photos. Grab a free picture with Santa and enjoy a cookie decorating activity with friends and family. Then take a stroll to the children's entrepreneur market for lastminute holiday gifts and other seasonal goodies. The Irving Symphonic Band presents their annual holiday concert, Holidays in Sound. The seasonal marment gets underway at 3 p.m. on December 21st in Carpenter Hall. Adding to the fun, guests are encouraged to arrive early for small group ensemble performances in the lobby. Happy holidays and welcome to ICTN's pets of the week. Here with Trey Buckner from Irving Animal Services and Babe in this great outfit for the holidays. Tell me about Babe. >> Babe is a year and 8-month old dog. We've had her about 8 months. She does really well with other dogs. She has no food aggression, no dog aggression, no people aggression. She's just a very lovable dog. Uh she's a big lap dog. Yeah. Um although she's a little bit bigger. Um she weighs about 53 lbs. She loves to be around people, loves to be around the family. Babe is just a phenomenal dog. I love her. >> And Babe would like nothing more than to go home for the holidays. And that's the name of a current adoption special running through December. Tell me about that. >> Um so our home for the holidays is a promotion that we're doing. Uh all adoptions will be $50 for our dogs and cats. And then um some of our extended stays, animals that have been here for longer than 90 days, they're going to be actually $25. And it's a program we're running just so that we can get the animals into their forever homes for the holidays. >> And that runs throughout the month of December. And another promotion going on right now. And I really think this is a great way to honor the dogs in your home or maybe the dogs that you've had. It's the comfort and joy drive. It's all about bringing donations to the Irving Animal Care campus. Some What are some of the things you're looking for? >> We're looking for dog treats, um, dog toys. Uh, we've gotten quite a few blankets and towels. We're very appreciative for everything we've been given. But yeah, we definitely use dog toys and dog treats just so we can help the animal enrichment and just making sure the animals get that extra care. >> And what difference does it make? What impact does it make when you're able to give an animal like Babe a nice new toy or some extra treats around the holidays? >> It does wonders for her. Um we use those treats when we're doing her basic training as far as like sit, shake, lay down. Um and then it also keeps her mentally um strong and it's just something that the dogs light up and they go crazy when they get the toys. >> And the cats do too, right? >> Yeah. Yeah, cats as well. Yeah, definitely the cats as well. cat treats, catnips, anything of that nature will definitely help them out. >> So, a lot of ways to help. I've seen in years past offices have gotten together as kind of a team building activity and collected donations and brought them in. So, a lot of ways to help through the comfort and joy drive, the home for the holidays adoption special or give this lovable, happy, enthusiastic dog babe, a home. Thanks so much, Trey. >> Thank you. >> And you can find the animal care campus at 4140 Valley View Lane. You can also check out the websites you see on the screen for more adoptable animals and to see the latest operating hours. It's the magic of Christmas and we're allowed to get swept up into stories and it kind of breaks up the monotonous feel of everyday life. The Nutcracker is about a little girl, Clara, who is at her parents like Christmas party and all her friends and family come to see her and her godfather Josamaro comes to bring her a nutcracker and she really really loves it. And she falls asleep with the doll and has some very magical dreams about, you know, candy canes and sugar plum. She gets swept into this world where the Nutcracker comes to life and she has to create new meanings and new bonds and she's thrust into this world of this beautiful land of sweets and snow and all of a sudden rats and mice and the rat king are after her and it's just her imagination. I've watched the Nutcracker since I was about like 5 years old every year. And especially Momentum um gives Clara such like a big uh role and opportunity to not only just dance and everything, but to act some other productions don't like allow her to dance as much, but I'm so thankful that I'm able to dance a lot and show off different aspects. I give her a little bit of sass, like a little bit. I made a part up where I get the nutcracker and I start like uh throwing it at my brother. I think it's really funny. It's very important to come see shows like these because um there's so many artists that are like developing and a lot of and the Nutcracker especially supports a um all ages and you get to see dancers just like become like from a polish Chanel to like a principal dancer and it's incredibly amazing. Throughout the 15 years that I've been here, so many highs and lows, and so many of the lows have been like, "Oh my gosh, can we even continue?" But we have pushed on and we have only been able to push on through our community supporting us. There was a point in my time that I was a dancer and 10 years ago I unfortunately broke my foot and it took me out like completely and it derailed my life and 10 years later I'm back directing the Nutcracker where my family is from in Irving and it's just it's such a special story for such an important reason. Um you know especially in this day and age you need that creativity you need that imagination. This is a magical season and it's a magical story and it's really a privilege that I get to dance with these people that I've known my entire life and make the story come to life. There's something sweet baking at the West Irving Library. Today we're having one of our edible educations for the kids. These are roughly around kids aged 8 to 12 and we'll be cooking some mini pumpkin pies. It is my favorite pie. >> The class begins by showing the kids how to turn on the oven. >> And then we're going to be cutting out the little mini crusts for the pies. >> You almost got it. Look at that. >> So, French fries aren't made in France. >> Like, serious. >> Bringing over the little >> They're only called French fries because of the way they're cut. >> After the crust are ready, the kids work together to make the pie filling. >> Okay, we're going to do one tablespoon. We're going to take all of it out. We want all 15 oz. And now we mix it all together. >> Once the mix is done, they pour it into their crust. >> Have any of y'all ever cooked before? >> I know how to make a burger and a sandwich, but that's above it. >> Oh, wow. That's better than I knew when I was your age. >> When I was a kid, I didn't have any opportunities like this, and I really wish I did growing up. It would have given me some exposure to cooking and some confidence at a young age that I'm really glad that the kids at our library have. >> And then it's ready to bake in the oven. >> In they go. It's very exciting and it teaches kids how to cook. >> I thought it was fun and satisfying. >> I never really cook at home cuz my siblings are always using the kitchen. >> I just like cooking and baking. I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients. >> After 30 minutes, the pies are done baking and the kids pumpkin spice things up with a taste. It tasted like like cinnamon, but it was also very sweet. >> It tasted super good. >> This delicious class creates an appetite for cooking that can lead to children wanting to learn more about recipes or other books about baking, which furthers their interest in all the library has to offer, >> like comics and books. >> Get to find my newest books that I want to read. >> Why do you like to read? >> Because I want to learn new things. And luckily for the community, Irving Public Libraries make learning something new easy as pie. >> A free holiday lights display offers a leisurely stroll through one of the jewels of Irving Heritage District Centennial Park. The park is decorated with 100,000 lights on fences, trees, and on the bridge, and walkways are lit on each side to keep pathways visible for visitors after dark. Enjoy the glow the entire month of December. Candlelight concerts bring the magic of a live multi-ensory musical experience to all inspiring locations like the Irving Arts Center. Experience Christmas carols backed by a string band under the gentle glow of candle light. Make sure you arrive early for the 6:30 or 8:45 performance on December 26th. Need a relaxing break from all the holiday activities? You can access some special Urban Archives and museum exhibits from the comfort of home. Go online and see apron strings which highlights design and function with each apron making a unique artistic statement and India alla art which brings together the colorful tapestry of art and life in India. Your ICTN team produced 32 videos in the month of November. We're actively collecting stories, memories, photographs of the big state signs and we want people to be able to know why that sign matters so much to our community. >> It's like being in a dream, you know, and every corner you turn, you want to get woke up, but you don't get woke up. You got to make it out your own dream. >> We're right across the street from Heritage Park. I am so honored. I don't think I could have dreamed of a better location. And there's a reason why he's in this costume. >> Yeah. So, Tigger is a obviously a little cutie pie. Um, and that's our special come and adopt a cutie pie at the shelter. >> Crosby. >> Hello, Charlie. >> It's actually one of the oldest shows. It's where like we get Clue from. We get a lot of murder mysteries from. We have a lot of incredible sculpture this year. A lot of beautiful ceramic work. We have drawings, paintings, print making, a lot. >> What a better event to come together as organizations team up, build skill, but certainly celebrate what what makes us different. >> I'm just so thankful to the community. The Irving community has continued to support our students. >> I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients It's exciting. It's not too far from home. >> I'm going to be coming here all the time. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Stay up todate by subscribing to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/the city of Irving. >> In advance of Irving's state of the city, it is time to go motoring with the mayor. >> We're going to do something fun. I love to drive around the city. I mean, that's one of the things that the staff always gets nervous cuz all of a sudden I'm supposed to be somewhere and they'll say, "Where have you been?" >> I can't wait to see where he takes me. I I do know this. No one has seen more of the city than he has. This is kind of like the gateway to the downtown, but we did the mural here. And if you on it, walk over there, you can be the eye in Irving and get a picture taken. We've worked really hard to redo this and narrow it down to two lanes so that we can slow down the traffic for the businesses that are along here. And we've worked with a lot of the businesses through here and tried to keep the old downtown feel with the light fixtures that we've put in, but yet still keep the integrity like Porter's Army Navy Frost Bank is going to be rebuilding and moving into this facility down here. This is kind of a banking hub here. It's really kind of interesting. I'm going to take you down. Glory house just did a mural back here which is kind of cool. Playing up the history of the downtown area. >> People need to remember that this is kind of where it started. >> We have a lot of events here. Now the water tower is the original water tower from back in the day. And this is the original location of where it was when Irving was first founded. This building here was the first library. This is a phase of homes that we built. We tore down some stuff and rebuilt this area. So, this was phase one of homes that we built. The stores are busy. The parking lots are full. It's worked out really well. As I told you earlier, you and I could be in the car all day long, which is what you don't want to do. >> The conversation continues at the Irving Convention Center during State of the City on January 15th. Tickets are available through the Irving Lascalina's Chamber of Commerce. The energy is up before the sun's up >> as people line up where prices are down. >> Finding a good place where the price point is on point and hopefully we got good things in there. >> People wrapped around the building for the grand opening of Joe V's Smart Shop on State Highway 183 in Irving. >> It's exciting. It's not too far from home. >> I'm going to be coming here all the time. 3 2 1. >> At 700 a.m., the first shoppers move inside and start to fill their carts. >> I told you I was getting a sleep. I'm like, this is the first thing I'm here for. >> We needed one of these. Glad that we finally got one. >> The produce proved popular. And we also spotted a fresh sushi station and a lot of other items catching attention. It's all put together and looks very organized. >> Joe V's is part of the HB family. In a day before the crowds, we learned more about this chain's concept from a man who knows. >> So, you are the Joe V. >> I am. >> As we toured the store, he told me the idea came together 15 years ago. And this store in Irving represents how the brand has evolved. >> What we found is that fresh is a big part of our business. And so, we've expanded our produce departments. We expanded our bakeries and meat department. We have offerings here that we didn't have before when we first started. >> What we want to offer the community is the lowest prices in the industry. And so when you come in here, the thing that you can always count on is that we've done our homework so that you don't have to. >> Prices of groceries are more important today than they've ever been. So having selection and opportunity to see something different, I think it's great. >> And speaking of different, and now this is something I've heard a lot about. >> Yeah. So, this is our bundle boxes, and the one that I'll draw your attention to is this one here. This is the most favorite. It's called the Five Nights. Five Nights means that for every night of the week, you have a different protein that you can put in the center of your plate, and you do that all for $20. >> The unique finds do not stop there. >> This is Smokeoky John's banana pudding. It's actually our grandmother's recipe. We literally have someone over a double boiler making the pudding fresh every day. Jo's is the only grocery chain to carry it and this location will be a special focus. >> Especially excited about Irving because Irving will be our joys. It's the closest one to our restaurant and to our houses. My brother is a Irving resident. >> During a grand opening celebration with Irving Leaders, company reps had some surprises. >> It was a huge surprise. >> $10,000 for both Irving Cares and the Irving Schools Foundation. They want to be invested. So, they've asked me to apply for additional grant funding. They've asked for volunteer opportunities. So, they are going to be a really great neighbor to us. >> I'm happy for the money. What I'm really happy about is another retail establishment that is really works to keep their prices low for our residents in the city. >> Along with the big checks and little prices, the HB team is sharing an update on what's happening here. A full-size HB is under construction in Irving. >> In summer of 26, we will be opening at 635 in Olympus. And it's going to be a fantastic store. It's about 116,000 square ft of great ATV products that everybody has been looking forward to. >> But on this day, all of the focus is on the new Jo Smart Shop. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Which one did you get? >> The chocolate chip. It's a great success story for South Irving, but really all of Irving. As we've learned through working with the Jovi and HB team, they will pull customers not only right here in our local community, but from a 25 mile radius, which is really exciting. >> A positive economic impact and lot to check out with this store now open. >> Hope to see you soon. Thomas Gandandy for City Source. Tonight is our annual parade and treelighting event uh here at Heritage Park. >> People lining the streets and having a great time and it's wonderful to see all the kids out there. >> I always enjoy the opportunity to be the grand marshal as the mayor and it it's very exciting because the kids they'll wave and they you know I'm very fortunate to have a nice car to drive so they like the car. Merry Christmas. >> And they'll talk about that, but then they'll say, "Are you Santa Claus?" And I'll say, "No, he's coming." >> The theme this year is unwrap the magic. We're at almost 70 entries, but it also showcases some of our public safety folks, city personnel. >> I got to ride on the city council photo, and this is the first year that I had my grandson with me, and so he had he had a wonderful time uh seeing everybody in the crowd and wishing them happy holidays, too. So, it's a great family event for my family, too. Also, we want people to wander over to experience Main Street because that's part of the event tonight. >> We are setting up Main Street kind of adjacent to the holidays at Heritage Parade and tree lighting. Wanting to activate Main Street while our Heritage Park festivities are going on. We've got a vendor market happening here on Main Street. Some free face painting, free hot chocolate, and a few other activities for the family. So hurry now. >> The tree lighting will take place as soon as uh the parade is done and we've cleared the path. So we give everybody a chance to come over here and get their spot and then we will fully decorate Heritage Park. >> Light the tree. Light the tree. Merry Christmas. >> We'll conclude the night with a drone show. We do have almost 200 drones this year, so we've gone up in that. Even a 70-year-old kid like me gets excited about this. >> It's great to see the park lit up, the food trucks available, and everybody's just having a wonderful time. >> I didn't notice how many people would be here and like how many I guess organizations or spec especially like um the charity organizations that we had in Irving. So, this is like really eye opening and very beautiful for me. >> Irving is such a diverse community. This is a great chance for everybody to come together. we can all kind of get in touch with like where we're from and get to know like other people and kind of what we're about. >> It's that Christmas Hallmark feeling right here in Irving, which is such a large town, but on a night like this, it feels like such a small town. So, I think kind of capitalizing on the magic of the holidays here in South Irving is always fun for the community. The Iran Archives and Museum is hosting its annual celebration of Irving's birthday on December 19th from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. This year to mark the restoration project of the big state sign, you can enjoy a free root beer float while supplies last. Get up to 30% off on everything in a museum store. Santa may be busy getting ready for the holidays, but he's making time to stop by here at the gazebo at Heritage Park for photos. Grab a free picture with Santa and enjoy a cookie decorating activity with friends and family. Then take a stroll to the children's entrepreneur market for lastminute holiday gifts and other seasonal goodies. The Irving Symphonic Band presents their annual holiday concert, Holidays in Sound. The seasonal marment gets underway at 3 p.m. on December 21st in Carpenter Hall. Adding to the fun, guests are encouraged to arrive early for small group ensemble performances in the lobby. Happy holidays and welcome to ICTN's Pets of the Week. Here with Trey Buckner from Irving Animal Services and Babe in this great outfit for the holidays. Tell me about Babe. >> Babe is a year and 8-month old dog. We've had her about 8 months. She does really well with other dogs. She has no food aggression, no dog aggression, no people aggression. She's just a very lovable dog. Uh she's a big lap dog. Um although she's a little bit bigger. Um she weighs about 53 lbs. She loves to be around people, loves to be around the family. Babe is just a phenomenal dog. I love her. >> And Babe would like nothing more than to go home for the holidays. And that's the name of a current adoption special running through December. Tell me about that. >> Um so our home for the holidays is a promotion that we're doing. Uh, all adoptions will be $50 for our dogs and cats. And then, um, some of our extended stays, animals that have been here for longer than 90 days, they're going to be actually $25. And it's a proion we're running just so that we can get the animals into their forever homes for the holidays. >> And that runs throughout the month of December. And another promotion going on right now. And I really think this is a great way to honor the dogs in your home or maybe the dogs that you've had. It's the comfort and joy drive. and it's all about bringing donations to the Irving Animal Care campus. Some What are some of the things you're looking for? >> We're looking for dog treats, um, dog toys. Uh, we've gotten quite a few blankets and towels. We're very appreciative for everything we've been given. But yeah, we definitely use dog toys and dog treats just so we can help with the animal enrichment and just making sure the animals get that extra care. >> And what difference does it make? What impact does it make when you're able to give an animal like Babe a nice new toy or some extra treats around the holidays? >> It does wonders for her. Um we use those treats when we're doing her basic training as far as like sit, shake, lay down. Um and then it also keeps her mentally um strong and it's just something that the dogs light up and they go crazy when they get the toys. >> And the cats do too, right? >> Yeah. Yeah, cats as well. Yeah, definitely the cats as well. cat treats, catnip, anything of that nature will definitely help them out. >> So, a lot of ways to help. I've seen in years past offices have gotten together as kind of a team building activity and collected donations and brought them in. So, a lot of ways to help through the comfort and joy drive, the home for the holidays adoption special or give this lovable, happy, enthusiastic dog, babe, a home. Thanks so much, Trey. >> Thank you. >> And you can find the animal care campus at 4140 Valley View Lane. You can also check out the websites you see on the screen for more adoptable animals and to see the latest operating hours. It's the magic of Christmas and we're allowed to get swept up into stories and it kind of breaks up the monotonous feel of everyday life. The Nutcracker is about a little girl, Clara, who is at her parents like Christmas party and all her friends and family come to see her and her godfather Josaro comes to bring her a nutcracker and she really really loves it. And she falls asleep with the doll and has some very magical dreams about, you know, candy canes and sugar plum. She gets swept into this world where the nutcracker comes to life and she has to create new meanings and new bonds and she's thrust into this world of this beautiful land of sweets and snow and all of a sudden rats and mice and the rat king are after her and it's just her imagination. I've watched the Nutcracker since I was about like 5 years old every year. And especially Momentum um gives Clara such like a big uh role and opportunity to not only just dance and everything, but to act some other productions don't like allow her to dance as much. But I'm so thankful that I'm able to dance a lot and show off different aspects. I give her a little bit of sass. Like a little bit. I made a part up where I get the nutcracker and I start like uh throwing it at my brother. I think it's really funny. It's very important to come see shows like these because um there's so many artists that are like developing and a lot of and the Nutcracker especially supports a um all ages and you get to see dancers just like become like from a polish Chanel to like a principal dancer and it's incredibly amazing. Throughout the 15 years that I've been here, so many highs and lows and so many of the lows have been like, "Oh my gosh, can we even continue?" But we have pushed on and we have only been able to push on through our community supporting us. There was a point in my time that I was a dancer and 10 years ago I unfortunately broke my foot and it took me out like completely and it derailed my life and 10 years later I'm back directing the Nutcracker where my family is from in Irving and it's just it's such a special story for such an important reason. Um you know especially in this day and age you need that creativity you need that imagination. This is a magical season and it's a magical story and it's really a privilege that I get to dance with these people that I've known my entire life and make the story come to life. >> There's something sweet baking at the West Irving Library. >> Today we're having one of our edible educations for the kids. These are roughly around kids aged 8 to 12 and we'll be cooking some mini pumpkin pies. It is my favorite pie. >> The class begins by showing the kids how to turn on the oven. >> And then we're going to be cutting out the little mini crusts for the pies. >> You almost got it. Look at that. >> So, French fries aren't made in France. Like, serious. >> They're bringing over the little They're only called French fries because of the way they're cut. >> After the crust are ready, the kids work together to make the pie filling. >> Okay, we're going to take one tablespoon and we're going to take all of it out. We want all 15 oz. And now we mix it all together. Once the mix is done, they pour it into their crust. >> Have any of y'all ever cooked before? >> I know how to make a burger and a sandwich, but that's about it. >> Oh, wow. That's better than I knew when I was. >> When I was a kid, I didn't have any opportunities like this, and I really wish I did growing up. It would have given me some exposure to cooking and some confidence at a young age that I'm really glad that the kids at our library have. >> And then it's ready to bake in the oven. >> In they go. It's very exciting and it teaches kids how to cook. >> I thought it was fun and satisfying. >> I never really cook at home cuz my siblings are always using the kitchen. >> I just like cooking and baking. I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients. >> After 30 minutes, the pies are done baking and the kids pumpkin spice things up with a taste. It tasted like like cinnamon, but it was also very sweet. >> It tasted super good. >> This delicious class creates an appetite for cooking that can lead to children wanting to learn more about recipes or other books about baking, which furthers their interest in all the library has to offer, >> like comics and books. >> Get to find my newest books that I want to read. >> Why do you like to read? >> Because I want to learn new things. And luckily for the community, Irving Public Libraries make learning something new easy as pie. A free holiday lights display offers a leisurely stroll through one of the jewels of Irving Heritage District, Centennial Park. The park is decorated with 100,000 lights on fences, trees, and on the bridge, and walkways are lit on each side to keep pathways visible for visitors after dark. Enjoy the glow the entire month of December. Candlelight concerts bring the magic of a live multi-ensory musical experience to all inspiring locations like the Irving Arts Center. Experience Christmas carols backed by a string band under the gentle glow of candle light. Make sure you arrive early for the 6:30 or 8:45 performance on December 26th. Need a relaxing break from all the holiday activities? You can access some special urban archives and museum exhibits from the comfort of home. Go online and see apron strings which highlights design and function with each apron making a unique artistic statement and India alla art which brings together the colorful tapestry of art and life in India. Your ICTN team produced 32 videos in the month of November. We're actively collecting stories, memories, photographs of the big state signs and we want people to be able to know why that sign matters so much to our community. >> It's like being in a dream, you know, and every corner you turn, you want to get woke up, but you don't get woke up. You got to make it out your own dream. >> We're right across the street from Heritage Park. I am so honored. I don't think I could have dreamed of a better location. And there's a reason why he's in this costume. >> Yeah. So, Tigger is a obviously a little cutie pie. Um, and that's our special. Come and adopt a cutie pie at the shelter. >> Crosby. >> Hello, Charlie. >> It's actually one of the oldest shows. It's where like we get Clue from. We get a lot of murder mysteries from. We have a lot of incredible sculpture this year. A lot of beautiful ceramic work. We have drawings, paintings, print making, a lot. >> What a better event to come together as organizations team up, build skill, but certainly celebrate what what makes us different. >> I'm just so thankful to the community. The Urban community has continued to support our students. >> I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients It's exciting. It's not too far from home. I'm going to be coming here all the time. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Stay uptodate by subscribing to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/the city of Irving. In advance of Irving's state of the city, it is time to go motoring with the mayor. >> We're going to do something fun. I love to drive around the city. I mean, that's one of the things that the staff always gets nervous cuz all of a sudden I'm supposed to be somewhere and they'll say, "Where have you been?" >> I can't wait to see where he takes me. I I do know this. No one has seen more of the city than he has. This is kind of like the gateway to the downtown, but we did the mural here. And if you want to walk over there, you can be the eye in Irving and get a picture taken. We've worked really hard to redo this and narrow it down to two lanes so that we can slow down the traffic for the businesses that are along here. And we've worked with a lot of the businesses through here and tried to keep the old downtown feel with the light fixtures that we've put in, but yet still keep the integrity like Porter's Army Navy Frost Bank is going to be rebuilding and moving into this facility down here. This is kind of a banking hub here. It's really kind of interesting. I'm going to take you down. Glory house just did a mural back here which is kind of cool. Playing off the history of the downtown area. >> People need to remember that this is kind of where it started. >> We have a lot of events here. Now the water tower is the original water tower from back in the day and this is the original location of where it was when Irving was first founded. This building here was the first library. This is a phase of homes that we built. We tore down some stuff and rebuilt this area. So, this was phase one of homes that we built. The stores are busy. The parking lots are full. It's worked out really well. As I told you earlier, you and I could be in the car all day long, which is what you don't want to do. >> The conversation continues at the Irving Convention Center during State of the City on January 15th. Tickets are available through the Irving Lascalina's Chamber of Commerce. The energy is up before the sun's up >> as people line up where prices are down. >> Finding a good place where the price point is on point and hopefully we got good things in there. >> People wrapped around the building for the grand opening of Joe V's Smart Shop on State Highway 183 in Irving. >> It's exciting. It's not too far from home. I'm going to be coming here all the time. 3 2 1. >> At 700 a.m., the first shoppers move inside and start to fill their carts. >> I told you I was getting a place. I'm like, this is the first thing I'm coming for. >> We needed one of these. Glad that we finally got one. >> The produce proved popular. And we also spotted a fresh sushi station and a lot of other items catching attention. It's all hctic and looks very argonite. >> Joe V's is part of the HB family. In a day before the crowds, we learned more about this chain's concept from a man who knows. >> So, you are the Joe V. >> I am. >> As we toured the store, he told me the idea came together 15 years ago. And this store in Irving represents how the brand has evolved. >> What we found is that fresh is a big part of our business. And so, we've expanded our produce departments. We expanded our bakeries and meat department. We have offerings here that we didn't have before when we first started. >> What we want to offer the community is the lowest prices in the industry. And so when you come in here, the thing that you can always count on is that we've done our homework so that you don't have to. Prices of groceries are more important today than they've ever been. So having selection and opportunity to see something different, I think it's great. >> And speaking of different, and now this is something I've heard a lot about. >> Yeah. So, this is our bundle boxes. And the one that I'll draw your attention to is this one here. This is the most favorite. It's called the five nights box. Five nights means that for every night of the week, you have a different protein that you can put in the center of your plate. And you do that all for $20. >> The unique finds do not stop there. >> This is Smokeoky John's banana pudding. It's actually our grandmother's recipe. We literally have someone over a double boiler making the pudding fresh every day. >> Jo is the only grocery chain to carry it. And this location will be a special focus. >> Especially excited about Irving because Irving will be our joies. It's the closest one to our restaurant and to our houses. My brother is a Irving resident. >> During a grand opening celebration with Irving Leaders, company reps had some surprises. >> It was a huge surprise. >> $10,000 for both Irving Cares and the Irving Schools Foundation. >> They want to be invested. So, they've asked me to apply for additional grant funding. They've asked for volunteer opportunities. So, they are going to be a really great neighbor to us. >> I'm happy for the money. What I'm really happy about is another retail establishment that is really works to keep their prices low for our residents in the city. >> Along with the big checks and little prices, the HB team is sharing an update on what's happening here. A full-size HB is under construction in Irving. In summer of 26, we will be opening at 635 in Olympus and it's going to be a fantastic store. It's about 116,000 square ft of great ATV products that everybody has been looking forward to. >> But on this day, all of the focus is on the new Jo Smart Shop. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Which one did you get? The >> chocolate chip. It's a great success story for South Irving, but really all of Irving as we've learned through working with the Jovi and HB team. They will pull customers not only right here in our local community, but from a 25 mile radius, which is really exciting. >> A positive economic impact and lot to check out with this store now open. >> Hope to see you soon. Thomas Gandandy for City Source. Tonight is our annual parade and treelighting event uh here at Heritage Park. >> People lining the streets and having a great time. It's wonderful to see all the kids out there. >> I always enjoy the opportunity to be the grand marshal as the mayor and it it's very exciting because the kids they'll wave and they you know I'm very fortunate to have a nice car to drive so they like the car. Merry Christmas. and they'll talk about that, but then they'll say, "Are you Santa Claus?" And I'll say, "No, he's coming." >> The theme this year is unwrap the magic. We're at almost 70 entries, but it also showcases some of our public safety folks, city personnel. >> I got to ride on the city council float out, and this is the first year that I had my grandson with me, and so he had he had a wonderful time uh seeing everybody in the crowd and wishing them happy holidays, too. So, it was a great family event for my family, too. Also, we want people to wander over to experience Main Street because that's part of the event tonight. >> We are setting up Main Street kind of adjacent to the holidays at Heritage Parade and tree lighting. Wanting to activate Main Street while our Heritage Park festivities are going on. We've got a vendor market happening here on Main Street. Some free face painting, free hot chocolate, and a few other activities for the family. So hurry now. >> The tree lighting will take place as soon as uh the parade is done and we've cleared the path. So we give everybody a chance to come over here and get their spot and then we will fully decorate Heritage Park. >> Light the tree. Light the tree. Merry Christmas. >> We'll conclude the night with a drone show. We do have almost 200 drones this year, so we've gone up in that. Even a 70-year-old kid like me gets excited about this. >> It's great to see the park lit up, the food trucks available, and everybody's just having a wonderful time. >> I didn't notice how many people would be here and like how many I guess organizations or especially like um the charity organizations that we had in Irving. So, this is like really eye opening and very beautiful for me. >> Irving is such a diverse community. This is a great chance for everybody to come together. we can all kind of get in touch with like where we're from and get to know like other people and kind of what we're about. >> It's that Christmas Hallmark feeling right here in Irving, which is such a large town, but on a night like this, it feels like such a small town. So, I think kind of capitalizing on the magic of the holidays here in South Irving is always fun for the community. The Iran Archives and Museum is hosting its annual celebration of Irving's birthday on December 19th from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. This year to mark the restoration project of the big state sign, you can enjoy a free root beer float while supplies last. Get up to 30% off on everything in a museum store. Santa may be busy getting ready for the holidays, but he's making time to stop by here at the gazebo at Heritage Park for photos. Grab a free picture with Santa and enjoy a cookie decorating activity with friends and family. Then take a stroll to the children's entrepreneur market for lastminute holiday gifts and other seasonal goodies. The Irving Symphonic Band presents their annual holiday concert, Holidays in Sound. The seasonal marment gets underway at 3 p.m. on December 21st in Carpenter Hall. Adding to the fun, guests are encouraged to arrive early for small group ensemble performances in the lobby. Happy holidays and welcome to ICTN's pets of the week. Here with Trey Buckner from Irving Animal Services and Babe in this great outfit for the holidays. Tell me about Babe. >> Babe is a year and 8-month old dog. We've had her about 8 months. She does really well with other dogs. She has no food aggression, no dog aggression, no people aggression. She's just a very lovable dog. Uh she's a big lap dog. Um although she's a little bit bigger. Um she weighs about 53 lbs. She loves to be around people, loves to be around the family. Babe is just a phenomenal dog. I love her. >> And Babe would like nothing more than to go home for the holidays. And that's the name of a current adoption special running through December. Tell me about that. >> Um so our home for the holidays is a promotion that we're doing. Uh all adoptions will be $50 for our dogs and cats. And then um some of our extended stays, animals that have been here for longer than 90 days, they're going to be actually $25. And it's a program we're running just so that we can get the animals into their forever homes for the holidays. >> And that runs throughout the month of December. And another promotion going on right now. And I really think this is a great way to honor the dogs in your home or maybe the dogs that you've had. It's the comfort and joy drive. It's all about bringing donations to the Irving Animal Care campus. Some What are some of the things you're looking for? >> We're looking for dog treats, um, dog toys. Uh, we've gotten quite a few blankets and towels. We're very appreciative for everything we've been given. But yeah, we definitely use dog toys and dog treats just so we can help the animal enrichment and just making sure the animals get that extra care. >> And what difference does it make? What impact does it make when you're able to give an animal like Babe a nice new toy or some extra treats around the holidays? >> It does wonders for her. Um we use those treats when we're doing her basic training as far as like sit, shake, lay down. Um and then it also keeps her mentally um strong and it's just something that the dogs light up and they go crazy when they get the toys. >> And the cats do too, right? >> Yeah. Yeah, cats as well. Yeah, definitely the cats as well. cat treats, catnip, anything of that nature will definitely help them out. >> So, a lot of ways to help. I've seen in years past offices have gotten together as kind of a team building activity and collected donations and brought them in. So, a lot of ways to help through the comfort and joy drive, the home for the holidays adoption special or give this lovable, happy, enthusiastic dog babe, a home. Thanks so much, Trey. >> Thank you. >> And you can find the animal care campus at 4140 Valley View Lane. You can also check out the websites you see on the screen for more adoptable animals and to see the latest operating hours. It's the magic of Christmas and we're allowed to get swept up into stories and it kind of breaks up the monotonous feel of everyday life. The Nutcracker is about a little girl, Clara, who is at her parents like Christmas party and all her friends and family come to see her and her godfather Josaro comes to bring her a nutcracker and she really really loves it. And she falls asleep with the doll and has some very magical dreams about, you know, candy canes and sugar plum. She gets swept into this world where the Nutcracker comes to life and she has to create new meanings and new bonds and she's thrust into this world of this beautiful land of sweets and snow and all of a sudden rats and mice and the rat king are after her and it's just her imagination. I've watched the Nutcracker since I was about like 5 years old every year. And especially Momentum um gives Clara such like a big uh role and opportunity to not only just dance and everything, but to act some other productions don't like allow her to dance as much, but I'm so thankful that I'm able to dance a lot and show off different aspects. I give her a little bit of sass, like a little bit. I made a part up where I get the nutcracker and I start like uh throwing it at my brother. I think it's really funny. It's very important to come see shows like these because um there's so many artists that are like developing and a lot of and the Nutcracker especially supports a um all ages and you get to see dancers just like become like from a polish Chanel to like a principal dancer and it's incredibly amazing. Throughout the 15 years that I've been here, so many highs and lows, and so many of the lows have been like, "Oh my gosh, can we even continue?" But we have pushed on and we have only been able to push on through our community supporting us. There was a point in my time that I was a dancer and 10 years ago I unfortunately broke my foot and it took me out like completely and it derailed my life and 10 years later I'm back directing the Nutcracker where my family is from in Irving and it's just it's such a special story for such an important reason. Um you know especially in this day and age you need that creativity you need that imagination. This is a magical season and it's a magical story and it's really a privilege that I get to dance with these people that I've known my entire life and make the story come to life. There's something sweet baking at the West Irving Library. >> Today we're having one of our edible educations for the kids. These are roughly around kids aged 8 to 12 and we'll be cooking some mini pumpkin pies. It is my favorite pie. >> The class begins by showing the kids how to turn on the oven. >> And then we're going to be cutting out the little mini crusts for the pies. >> You almost got it. Look at that. >> So, French fries aren't made in France. >> Like, serious. >> Bringing over the little >> They're only called French fries because of the way they're cut. >> After the crust are ready, the kids work together to make the pie filling. >> Okay, we're going to do one tablespoon and we're going to take all of it out. We want all 15 oz. And now we mix it all together. >> Once the mix is done, they pour it into their crust. >> Have any of y'all ever cooked before? >> I know how to make a burger and a sandwich, but that's about it. >> Oh, wow. That's better than I knew when I was your age. >> When I was a kid, I didn't have any opportunities like this. And I really wish I did growing up. It would have given me some exposure to cooking and some confidence at a young age that I'm really glad that the kids at our library have. >> And then it's ready to bake in the oven. >> In they go. It's very exciting and it teaches kids how to cook. >> I thought it was fun and satisfying. >> I never really cook at home cuz my siblings are always using the kitchen. >> I just like cooking and baking. I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients. >> After 30 minutes, the pies are done baking and the kids pumpkin spice things up with a taste. It tasted like like cinnamon, but it was also very sweet. >> It tasted super good. >> This delicious class creates an appetite for cooking that can lead to children wanting to learn more about recipes or other books about baking, which furthers their interest in all the library has to offer. >> Like comics and books. >> Get to find my newest books that I want to read. >> Why do you like to read? >> Because I want to learn new things. And luckily for the community, Irving Public Libraries make learning something new easy as pie. A free holiday lights display offers a leisurely stroll through one of the jewels of Irving Heritage District Centennial Park. The park is decorated with 100,000 lights on fences, trees, and on the bridge, and walkways are lit on each side to keep pathways visible for visitors after dark. Enjoy the glow the entire month of December. Candlelight concerts bring the magic of a live multi-ensory musical experience to awe inspiring locations like the Irving Arts Center. Experience Christmas carols backed by a string band under the gentle glow of candle light. Make sure you arrive early for the 6:30 or 8:45 performance on December 26th. Need a relaxing break from all the holiday activities? You can access some special Urban Archives and museum exhibits from the comfort of home. Go online and see apron strings which highlights design and function with each apron making a unique artistic statement and India alla art which brings together the colorful tapestry of art and life in India. Your ICTN team produced 32 videos in the month of November. We're actively collecting stories, memories, photographs of the big state signs and we want people to be able to know why that sign matters so much to our community. >> It's like being in a dream, you know, and every corner you turn, you want to get woke up, but you don't get woke up. You got to make it out your own dream. >> We're right across the street from Heritage Park. I am so honored. I don't think I could have dreamed of a better location. And there's a reason why he's in this costume. >> Yeah. So, Tigger is a obviously a little cutie pie. Um, and that's our special come and adopt a cutie pie at the shelter. >> Crosby. >> Hello, Charlie. >> It's actually one of the oldest shows. It's where like we get Clue from. We get a lot of murder mysteries from. We have a lot of incredible sculpture this year. A lot of beautiful ceramic work. We have drawings, paintings, print making, a lot. >> What a better event to come together as organizations team up, build skill, but certainly celebrate what what makes us different. >> I'm just so thankful to the community. The urban community has continued to support our students. >> I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients It's exciting. It's not too far from home. I'm going to be coming here all the time. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Stay uptodate by subscribing to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/the city of Irving. >> In advance of Irving's state of the city, it is time to go motoring with the mayor. >> We're going to do something fun. I love to drive around the city. I mean, that's one of the things that the staff always gets nervous cuz all of a sudden I'm supposed to be somewhere and they'll say, "Where have you been?" I can't wait to see where he takes me. I I do know this. No one has seen more of the city than he has. This is kind of like the gateway to the downtown, but we did the mural here. And if you want to walk over there, you can be the eye in Irving and get a picture taken. We've worked really hard to redo this and narrow it down to two lanes so that we can slow down the traffic for the businesses that are along here. And we've worked with a lot of the businesses through here and tried to keep the old downtown feel with the light fixtures that we've put in, but yet still keep the integrity like Porter's Army Navy Frost Bank is going to be rebuilding and moving into this facility down here. This is kind of a banking hub here. It's really kind of interesting. I'm going to take you down. Glory house just just did a mural back here which is kind of cool. Playing off the history of the downtown area. >> People need to remember that this is kind of where it started. >> We have a lot of events here. Now the water tower is the original water tower from back in the day and this is the original location of where it was when Irving was first founded. This building here was the first library. This is a phase of homes that we built. We tore down some stuff and rebuilt this area. So, this was phase one of homes that we built. The stores are busy. The parking lots are full. It's worked out really well. As I told you earlier, you and I could be in the car all day long, which is what you don't want to do. >> The conversation continues at the Irving Convention Center during State of the City on January 15th. Tickets are available through the Irving Lascalenus Chamber of Commerce. The energy is up before the sun's up >> as people line up where prices are down. >> Finding a good place where the price point is on point and hopefully we got good things in there. >> People wrapped around the building for the grand opening of Joe V's Smart Shop on State Highway 183 in Irving. >> It's exciting. It's not too far from home. >> I'm going to be coming here all the time. 3 2 1. >> At 700 a.m., the first shoppers move inside and start to fill their carts. >> I told you I was getting a sleep. I'm like, this is the first thing I'm here for. >> We needed one of these. Glad that we finally got one. >> The produce proved popular. And we also spotted a fresh sushi station and a lot of other items catching attention. It's all put together and looks very organized. >> Joe V's is part of the HB family. In a day before the crowds, we learned more about this chain's concept from a man who knows. >> So, you are the Joe V. >> I am. >> As we toured the store, he told me the idea came together 15 years ago. And this store in Irving represents how the brand has evolved. >> What we found is that fresh is a big part of our business. And so, we've expanded our produce departments. We expanded our bakeries and meat department. We have offerings here that we didn't have before when we first started. >> What we want to offer the community is the lowest prices in the industry. And so when you come in here, the thing that you can always count on is that we've done our homework so that you don't have to. >> Prices of groceries are more important today than they've ever been. So having selection and opportunity to see something different, I think it's great. >> And speaking of different, and now this is something I've heard a lot about. >> Yeah. So, this is our bundle boxes. And the one that I'll draw your attention to is this one here. This is the most favorite. It's called the Five Nights. Five Nights means that for every night of the week, you have a different protein that you can put in the center of your plate. And you do that all for $20. >> The unique finds do not stop there. >> This is Smokeoky John's banana pudding. It's actually our grandmother's recipe. We literally have someone over a double boiler making the pudding fresh every day. >> Jo is the only grocery chain to carry it. And this location will be a special focus. >> Especially excited about Irving because Irving will be our joys. It's the closest one to our restaurant and to our houses. My brother is a Irving resident. >> During a grand opening celebration with Irving Leaders, company reps had some surprises. >> It was a huge surprise. >> $10,000 for both Irving Cares and the Irving Schools Foundation. >> They want to be invested. So, they've asked me to apply for additional grant funding. They've asked for volunteer opportunities. So, they are going to be a really great neighbor to us. >> I'm happy for the money. What I'm really happy about is another retail establishment that is really works to keep their prices low for our residents in the city. >> Along with the big checks and little prices, the HB team is sharing an update on what's happening here. A full-size HB is under construction in Irving. In summer of 26, we will be opening at 635 in Olympus. And it's going to be a fantastic store. It's about 116,000 square feet of great ATV products that everybody has been looking forward to. >> But on this day, all of the focus is on the new Jo Smart Shop. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Which one did you get? >> Chocolate chip. It's a great success story for South Irving, but really all of Irving. As we've learned through working with the Jovi and HB team, they will pull customers not only right here in our local community, but from a 25 mile radius, which is really exciting. >> A positive economic impact and lot to check out with this store now open. >> Hope to see you soon. Thomas Gandandy for City Source. Tonight is our annual parade and treelighting event uh here at Heritage Park. >> People lining the streets and having a great time and it's wonderful to see all the kids out there. >> I always enjoy the opportunity to be the grand marshal as the mayor and it it's very exciting because the kids they'll wave and they you know I'm very fortunate to have a nice car to drive so they like the car. Merry Christmas. >> And they'll talk about that, but then they'll say, "Are you Santa Claus?" And I'll say, "No, he's coming." >> The theme this year is unwrap the magic. We're at almost 70 entries, but it also showcases some of our public safety folks, city personnel. >> I got to ride on the city council float out, and this is the first year that I had my grandson with me, and so he had he had a wonderful time uh seeing everybody in the crowd and wishing them happy holidays, too. So, it's a great family event for my family, too. Also, we want people to wander over to experience Main Street because that's part of the event tonight. >> We are setting up Main Street kind of adjacent to the holidays at Heritage Parade and tree lighting. Wanting to activate Main Street while our Heritage Park festivities are going on. We've got a vendor market happening here on Main Street. Some free face painting, free hot chocolate, and a few other activities for the family. So now you >> tree lighting will take place as soon as uh the parade is done and we've cleared the path. So we give everybody a chance to come over here and get their spot and then we will fully decorate Heritage Park. >> Light the tree. Light the tree. Merry Christmas. >> We'll conclude the night with a drone show. We do have almost 200 drones this year. So we've gone up in that. Even a 70-year-old kid like me gets excited about this. >> It's great to see the park lit up, the food trucks available, and everybody's just having a wonderful time. >> I didn't notice how many people would be here and like how many I guess organizations or spec especially like um the charity organizations that we had in Irving. So, this is like really eye opening and very beautiful for me. >> Irving is such a diverse community. This is a great chance for everybody to come together. we can all kind of get in touch with like where we're from and get to know like other people and kind of what we're about. >> It's that Christmas Hallmark feeling right here in Irving, which is such a large town, but on a night like this, it feels like such a small town. So, I think kind of capitalizing on the magic of the holidays here in South Irving is always fun for the community. The Iran Archives and Museum is hosting its annual celebration of Irving's birthday on December 19th from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. This year to mark the restoration project of the big state sign, you can enjoy a free root beer float while supplies last. Get up to 30% off on everything in a museum store. Santa may be busy getting ready for the holidays, but he's making time to stop by here at the gazebo at Heritage Park for photos. Grab a free picture with Santa and enjoy a cookie decorating activity with friends and family. Then take a stroll to the children's entrepreneur market for lastminute holiday gifts and other seasonal goodies. The Irving Symphonic Band presents their annual holiday concert, Holidays in Sound. The seasonal marment gets underway at 3 p.m. on December 21st in Carpenter Hall. Adding to the fun, guests are encouraged to arrive early for small group ensemble performances in the lobby. Happy holidays and welcome to ICTN's Pets of the Week. Here with Trey Buckner from Urbing Animal Services and Babe in this great outfit for the holidays. Tell me about Babe. >> Babe is a year and 8-month old dog. We've had her about 8 months. She does really well with other dogs. She has no food aggression, no dog aggression, no people aggression. She's just a very lovable dog. Uh she's a big lap dog. Um although she's a little bit bigger. Um she weighs about 53 lbs. She loves to be around people, loves to be around the family. Babe is just a phenomenal dog. I love her. >> And Babe would like nothing more than to go home for the holidays. And that's the name of a current adoption special running through December. Tell me about that. >> Um so our home for the holidays is a promotion that we're doing. Uh, all adoptions will be $50 for our dogs and cats. And then, um, some of our extended stays, animals that have been here for longer than 90 days, they're going to be actually $25. And it's a proion we're running just so that we can get the animals into their forever homes for the holidays. >> And that runs throughout the month of December. And another promotion going on right now. And I really think this is a great way to honor the dogs in your home or maybe the dogs that you've had. It's the comfort and joy drive. and it's all about bringing donations to the Irving Animal Care campus. Some What are some of the things you're looking for? >> We're looking for dog treats, um, dog toys. Uh, we've gotten quite a few blankets and towels. We're very appreciative for everything we've been given. But yeah, we definitely use dog toys and dog treats just so we can help with the animal enrichment and just making sure the animals get that extra care. >> And what difference does it make? What impact does it make when you're able to give an animal like Babe a nice new toy or some extra treats around the holidays? >> It does wonders for her. Um we use those treats when we're doing her basic training as far as like sit, shake, lay down. Um and then it also keeps her mentally um strong and it's just something that the dogs light up and they go crazy when they get the toys. >> And the cats do too, right? >> Yeah. Yeah, cats as well. Yeah, definitely the cats as well. cat treats, catnips, anything of that nature will definitely help them out. >> So, a lot of ways to help. I've seen in years past offices have gotten together as kind of a team building activity and collected donations and brought them in. So, a lot of ways to help through the comfort and joy drive, the home for the holidays adoption special or give this lovable, happy, enthusiastic dog, babe, a home. Thanks so much, Trey. >> Thank you. >> And you can find the animal care campus at 4140 Valley View Lane. You can also check out the websites you see on the screen for more adoptable animals and to see the latest operating hours. It's the magic of Christmas and we're allowed to get swept up into stories and it kind of breaks up the monotonous feel of everyday life. The Nutcracker is about a little girl, Clara, who is at her parents like Christmas party and all her friends and family come to see her and her godfather Josaro comes to bring her a nutcracker and she really really loves it. And she falls asleep with the doll and has some very magical dreams about, you know, candy canes and sugar plum. She gets swept into this world where the nutcracker comes to life and she has to create new meanings and new bonds and she's thrust into this world of this beautiful land of sweets and snow and all of a sudden rats and mice and the rat king are after her and it's just her imagination. I've watched the Nutcracker since I was about like 5 years old every year. And especially Momentum um gives Clara such like a big uh role and opportunity to not only just dance and everything, but to act some other productions don't like allow her to dance as much. But I'm so thankful that I'm able to dance a lot and show off different aspects. I give her a little bit of sass, like a little bit. I made a part up where I get the nutcracker and I start like uh throwing it at my brother. I think it's really funny. It's very important to come see shows like these because um there's so many artists that are like developing and a lot of and the Nutcracker especially supports a um all ages and you get to see dancers just like become like from a polish Chanel to like a principal dancer and it's incredibly amazing. Throughout the 15 years that I've been here, so many highs and lows, and so many of the lows have been like, "Oh my gosh, can we even continue?" But we have pushed on and we have only been able to push on through our community supporting us. There was a point in my time that I was a dancer and 10 years ago I unfortunately broke my foot and it took me out like completely and it derailed my life and 10 years later I'm back directing the Nutcracker where my family is from in Irving and it's just it's such a special story for such an important reason. Um you know especially in this day and age you need that creativity you need that imagination. This is a magical season and it's a magical story and it's really a privilege that I get to dance with these people that I've known my entire life and make the story come to life. >> There's something sweet baking at the West Irving Library. >> Today we're having one of our edible educations for the kids. These are roughly around kids aged 8 to 12 and we'll be cooking some mini pumpkin pies. It is my favorite pie. >> The class begins by showing the kids how to turn on the oven. >> And then we're going to be cutting out the little mini crusts for the pies. >> You almost got it. Look at that. >> So, French fries aren't made in France. >> Like, seriously. >> Bringing over the little >> They're only called French fries because of the way they're cut. >> After the crust are ready, the kids work together to make the pie filling. >> Okay, we're going to do one tablespoon and we're going to take all of it out. We want all 15 oz. And now we mix it all together. >> Once the mix is done, they pour it into their crust. >> Have any of y'all ever cooked before? >> I know how to make a burger and a sandwich, but that's above it. >> Oh, wow. That's better than I knew when I was your age. >> When I was a kid, I didn't have any opportunities like this, and I really wish I did growing up. It would have given me some exposure to cooking and some confidence at a young age that I'm really glad that the kids at our library have. >> And then it's ready to bake in the oven. >> In they go. It's very exciting and it teaches kids how to cook. >> I thought it was fun and satisfying. >> I never really cook at home cuz my siblings are always using the kitchen. >> I just like cooking and baking. I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients. >> After 30 minutes, the pies are done baking and the kids pumpkin spice things up with a taste. It tasted like like cinnamon, but it was also very sweet. >> It tasted super good. >> This delicious class creates an appetite for cooking that can lead to children wanting to learn more about recipes or other books about baking, which furthers their interest in all the library has to offer, >> like comics and books. >> Get to find my newest books that I want to read. >> Why do you like to read? >> Because I want to learn new things. And luckily for the community, Irving Public Libraries make learning something new easy as pie. A free holiday lights display offers a leisurely stroll through one of the jewels of Irving Heritage District, Centennial Park. The park is decorated with 100,000 lights on fences, trees, and on the bridge, and walkways are lit on each side to keep pathways visible for visitors after dark. Enjoy the glow the entire month of December. Candlelight concerts bring the magic of a live multi-ensory musical experience to all inspiring locations like the Irving Arts Center. Experience Christmas carols backed by a string band under the gentle glow of candle light. Make sure you arrive early for the 6:30 or 8:45 performance on December 26th. Need a relaxing break from all the holiday activities? You can access some special urban archives and museum exhibits from the comfort of home. Go online and see apron strings which highlights design and function with each apron making a unique artistic statement and India alla art which brings together the colorful tapestry of art and life in India. Your ICTN team produced 32 videos in the month of November. We're actively collecting stories, memories, photographs of the big state signs and we want people to be able to know why that sign matters so much to our community. >> It's like being in a dream, you know, and every corner you turn, you want to get woke up, but you don't get woke up. You got to make it out your own dream. >> We're right across the street from Heritage Park. I am so honored. I don't think I could have dreamed of a better location. And there's a reason why he's in this costume. >> Yeah. So, Tigger is a obviously a little cutie pie. Um, and that's our special. Come and adopt a cutie pie at the shelter. >> Mr. Crosby. >> Hello, Charlie. >> It's actually one of the oldest shows. It's where like we get Clue from. We get a lot of murder mysteries from. We have a lot of incredible sculpture this year. A lot of beautiful ceramic work. We have drawings, paintings, print making, a lot. >> What a better event to come together as organizations team up, build skill, but certainly celebrate what what makes us different. >> I'm just so thankful to the community. The Irving community has continued to support our students. >> I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients It's exciting. It's not too far from home. I'm going to be coming here all the time. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Stay up todate by subscribing to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/the city of Irving. In advance of Irving's state of the city, it is time to go motoring with the mayor. >> We're going to do something fun. I love to drive around the city. I mean, that's one of the things that the staff always gets nervous cuz all of a sudden I'm supposed to be somewhere and they'll say, "Where have you been?" I can't wait to see where he takes me. I I do know this. No one has seen more of the city than he has. This is kind of like the gateway to the downtown, but we did the mural here. And if you want to walk over there, you can be the eye in Irving and get a picture taken. We've worked really hard to redo this and narrow it down to two lanes so that we can slow down the traffic for the businesses that are along here. And we've worked with a lot of the businesses through here and tried to keep the old downtown feel with the light fixtures that we've put in, but yet still keep the integrity like Porter's Army Navy Frost Bank is going to be rebuilding and moving into this facility down here. This is kind of a banking hub here. It's really kind of interesting. come and take you down. Glory house just just did a mural back here which is kind of cool. Playing out the history of the downtown area. >> People need to remember that this is kind of where it started. >> We have a lot of events here. Now the water tower is the original water tower from back in the day and this is the original location of where it was when Irving was first founded. This building here was the first library. This is a phase of homes that we built. We tore down some stuff and rebuilt this area. So, this was phase one of homes that we built. The stores are busy. The parking lots are full. It's worked out really well. As I told you earlier, you and I could be in the car all day long, which is what you don't want to do. >> The conversation continues at the Irving Convention Center during State of the City on January 15th. Tickets are available through the Irving Lascalinus Chamber of Commerce. The energy is up before the sun's up >> as people line up where prices are down. >> Finding a good place where the price point is on point and hopefully we got good things in there. >> People wrapped around the building for the grand opening of Joe V's Smart Shop on State Highway 183 in Irving. >> It's exciting. It's not too far from home. I'm going to be coming here all the time. 3 2 1. >> At 700 a.m., the first shoppers move inside and start to fill their carts. >> I told you I was getting a sleep potato. I'm like, this is the first thing I'm coming for. >> We needed one of these. Glad that we finally got one. >> The produce proved popular. And we also spotted a fresh sushi station and a lot of other items catching attention. It's all put together. It looks very organized. >> Joe V's is part of the HB family. In a day before the crowds, we learned more about this chain's concept from a man who knows. >> So, you are the Jo V. >> I am. >> As we toured the store, he told me the idea came together 15 years ago. And this store in Irving represents how the brand has evolved. >> What we found is that fresh is a big part of our business. And so, we've expanded our produce departments. We expanded our bakers and meat department. We have offerings here that we didn't have before when we first started. >> What we want to offer the community is the lowest prices in the industry. And so when you come in here, the thing that you can always count on is that we've done our homework so that you don't have to. Prices of groceries are more important today than they've ever been. So having selection and opportunity to see something different, I think it's great. >> And speaking of different, and now this is something I've heard a lot about. >> Yeah. So, this is our bundle boxes and the one that I'll draw your attention to is this one here. This is the most favorite. It's called the Five Nights. Five Nights means that for every night of the week, you have a different protein that you can put in your center of your plate. And you do that all for $20. >> The unique finds do not stop there. >> This is Smoky John's banana pudding. It's actually our grandmother's recipe. We literally have someone over a double boiler making the pudding fresh every day. >> Jo is the only grocery chain to carry it. And this location will be a special focus. >> Especially excited about Irving because Irving will be our joys. It's the closest one to our restaurant and to our houses. My brother is a Irving resident. >> During a grand opening celebration with Irving Leaders, company reps had some surprises. >> It was a huge surprise. >> $10,000 for both Irving Cares and the Irving Schools Foundation. >> They want to be invested. So, they've asked me to apply for additional grant funding. They've asked for volunteer opportunities. So, they are going to be a really great neighbor to us. >> I'm happy for the money. What I'm really happy about is another retail establishment that is really works to keep their prices low for our residents in the city. >> Along with the big checks and little prices, the HB team is sharing an update on what's happening here. A full-size HB is under construction in Irving. In summer of 26, we will be opening at 635 in Olympus. And it's going to be a fantastic store. It's about 116,000 square feet of great ATV products that everybody has been looking forward to. >> But on this day, all of the focus is on the new Jo Smart Shop. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Which one did you get? >> Chocolate chip. It's a great success story for South Irving, but really all of Irving as we've learned through working with the Jovi and HB team. They will pull customers not only right here in our local community, but from a 25mi radius, which is really exciting. >> A positive economic impact and lot to check out with this store now open. >> Hope to see you soon. Thomas Gandandy for City Source. Tonight is our annual parade and treelighting event uh here at Heritage Park. >> People lining the streets and having a great time and it's wonderful to see all the kids out there. >> I always enjoy the opportunity to be the grand marshal as the mayor and it it's very exciting because the kids they'll wave and they you know I'm very fortunate to have a nice car to drive so they like the car. Merry Christmas. and they'll talk about that, but then they'll say, "Are you Santa Claus?" And I'll say, "No, he's coming." >> The theme this year is unwrap the magic. We're at almost 70 entries, but it also showcases some of our public safety folks, city personnel. >> I got to ride on the city council float out, and this is the first year that I had my grandson with me. And so, he had he had a wonderful time uh seeing everybody in the crowd and wishing them happy holidays, too. So, it's a great family event for my family, too. Also, we want people to wander over to experience Main Street because that's part of the event tonight. >> We are setting up Main Street kind of adjacent to the holidays at Heritage Parade and True Lighting. Wanting to activate Main Street while our Heritage Park festivities are going on. We've got a vendor market happening here on Main Street. Some free face painting, free hot chocolate, and a few other activities for the family. So hurry now. >> The tree lighting will take place as soon as uh the parade is done and we've cleared the path. So we give everybody a chance to come over here and get their spot and then we will fully decorate Heritage Park. >> Light the tree. Light the tree. Merry Christmas. >> We'll conclude the night with a drone show. We do have almost 200 drones this year. So we've gone up in that. Even a 70-year-old kid like me gets excited about this. It's great to see the park lit up, the food trucks available, and everybody's just having a wonderful time. >> I didn't notice how many people would be here and like how many I guess organizations or spec especially like um the charity organizations that we had in Irving. So, this is like really eye opening and very beautiful for me. >> Irving is such a diverse community. This is a great chance for everybody to come together. we can all kind of get in touch with like where we're from and get to know like other people and kind of what we're about. >> It's that Christmas Hallmark feeling right here in Irving, which is such a large town, but on a night like this, it feels like such a small town. So, I think kind of capitalizing on the magic of the holidays here in South Irving is always fun for the community. The Irvan Archives and Museum is hosting its annual celebration of Irving's birthday on December 19th from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. This year to mark the restoration project of the big state sign, you can enjoy a free root beer float while supplies last. Get up to 30% off on everything in a museum store. Santa may be busy getting ready for the holidays, but he's making time to stop by here at the gazebo at Heritage Park for photos. Grab a free picture with Santa and enjoy a cookie decorating activity with friends and family. Then take a stroll to the children's entrepreneur market for lastminute holiday gifts and other seasonal goodies. The Irving Symphonic Band presents their annual holiday concert, Holidays in Sound. The seasonal marment gets underway at 3 p.m. on December 21st in Carpenter Hall. Adding to the fun, guests are encouraged to arrive early for small group ensemble performances in the lobby. Happy holidays and welcome to ICTN's Pets of the Week. Here with Trey Buckner from Urban Animal Services and Babe in this great outfit for the holidays. Tell me about Babe. >> Babe is a year and 8-month old dog. We've had her about 8 months. She does really well with other dogs. She has no food aggression, no dog aggression, no people aggression. She's just a very lovable little dog. Uh she's a big lap dog. Um although she's a little bit bigger. Um she weighs about 53 lbs. She loves to be around people, loves to be around the family. Babe is just a phenomenal dog. I love her. >> And Babe would like nothing more than to go home for the holidays. And that's the name of a current adoption special running through December. Tell me about that. >> Um so our home for the holidays is a promotion that we're doing. Uh all adoptions will be $50 for our dogs and cats. And then um some of our extended stays, animals that have been here for longer than 90 days, they're going to be actually $25. And it's approaching we're running just so that we can get the animals into their forever homes for the holidays. And that runs throughout the month of December. And another promotion going on right now. And I really think this is a great way to honor the dogs in your home or maybe the dogs that you've had. It's the comfort and joy drive. David, it's all about bringing donations to the Irving Animal Care campus. Some What are some of the things you're looking for? >> We're looking for dog treats, um, dog toys. Uh, we've gotten quite a few blankets and towels. We're very appreciative for everything we've been given. But yeah, we definitely use dog toys and dog treats just so we can help the animal enrichment and just making sure the animals get that extra care. >> And what difference does it make? What impact does it make when you're able to give an animal like babe a nice new toy or some extra treats around the holidays? >> It does wonders for her. Um we use those treats when we're doing her basic training as far as like sit, shake, lay down. Um and then it also keeps her mentally um strong and it's just something that the dogs light up and they go crazy when they get the toys. >> And the cats do too, right? >> Yeah. Yeah, cats as well. Yeah, definitely the cats as well. cat treats, catnips, anything of that nature will definitely help them out. >> So, a lot of ways to help. I've seen in years past offices have gotten together as kind of a team building activity and collected donations and brought them in. So, a lot of ways to help through the comfort and joy drive, the home for the holidays adoption special or give this lovable, happy, enthusiastic dog, babe, a home. Thanks so much, Trey. >> Thank you. >> And you can find the animal care campus at 4140 Valley View Lane. You can also check out the websites you see on the screen for more adoptable animals and to see the latest operating hours. It's the magic of Christmas and we're allowed to get swept up into stories and it kind of breaks up the monotonous feel of everyday life. The Nutcracker is about a little girl, Clara, who is at her parents' like Christmas party and all her friends and family come to see her and her godfather, Josaro, comes to bring her a nutcracker and she really, really loves it. And she falls asleep with the doll and has some very magical dreams about, you know, candy canes and sugar plum. She gets swept into this world where the nutcracker comes to life and she has to create new meanings and new bonds and she's thrust into this world of this beautiful land of sweets and snow and all of a sudden rats and mice and the rat king are after her and it's just her imagination. I've watched the Nutcracker since I was about like 5 years old every year. And especially Momentum um gives Clara such like a big uh role and opportunity to not only just dance and everything, but to act some other productions don't like allow her to dance as much. But I'm so thankful that I'm able to dance a lot and show off different aspects. I give her a little bit of sass. Like a little bit. I made a part up where I get the nutcracker and I start like uh throwing it at my brother. I think it's really funny. It's very important to come see shows like these because um there's so many artists that are like developing and a lot of and the Nutcracker especially supports a um all ages and you get to see dancers just like become like from a polishel to like a principal dancer and it's incredibly amazing. >> Throughout the 15 years that I've been here so many highs and lows and so many of the lows have been like oh my gosh can we even continue? But we have pushed on and we have only been able to push on through our community supporting us. There was a point in my time that I was a dancer and 10 years ago I unfortunately broke my foot and it took me out like completely and it derailed my life and 10 years later I'm back directing the Nutcracker where my family is from in Irving and it's just it's such a special story for such an important reason. Um, you know, especially in this day and age, you need that creativity, you need that imagination. This is a magical season and it's a magical story and it's really a privilege that I get to dance with these people that I've known my entire life and make the story come to life. There's something sweet baking at the West Irving Library. >> Today we're having one of our edible educations for the kids. These are roughly around kids aged 8 to 12. And we'll be cooking some mini pumpkin pies. It is my favorite pie. >> The class begins by showing the kids how to turn on the oven. >> And then we're going to be cutting out the little mini crusts for the pies. >> You almost got it. Look at that. >> So, French fries aren't made in France. >> Like serious. >> They're bringing over the little >> They're only called French fries because of the way they're cut. After the crust are ready, the kids work together to make the pie filling. >> Okay, we're going to take one tablespoon and we're going to take all of it out. We want all 15 oz. And now we mix it all together. >> Once the mix is done, they pour it into their crust. >> Have any of y'all ever cooked before? >> I know how to make a burger and a sandwich, but that's about it. >> Oh wow, that's better than I knew when I was when I was a kid. I didn't have any opportunities like this, and I really wish I did growing up. It would have given me some exposure to cooking and some confidence at a young age that I'm really glad that the kids at our library have. >> And then it's ready to bake in the oven. >> In they go. >> It's very exciting and it teaches kids how to cook. >> I thought it was fun and satisfying. >> I never really cook at home cuz my siblings are always using the kitchen. >> I just like cooking and baking. I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients. >> After 30 minutes, the pies are done baking and the kids pumpkin spice things up with a taste. >> It tasted like like cinnamon, but it was also very sweet. >> It tasted super good. This doughlicious class creates an appetite for cooking that can lead to children wanting to learn more about recipes or other books about baking, which furthers their interest in all the library has to offer. >> Like comics and books. >> Get to find my newest books that I want to read. >> Why do you like to read? >> Because I want to learn new things. >> And luckily for the community, Irving Public Libraries make learning something new easy as pie. A free holiday lights display offers a leisurely stroll through one of the jewels of Irving Heritage District Centennial Park. The park is decorated with 100,000 lights on fences, trees, and on the bridge, and walkways are lit on each side to keep pathways visible for visitors after dark. Enjoy the glow the entire month of December. Candlelight concerts bring the magic of a live multiensory musical experience to awe inspiring locations like the Irving Arts Center. Experience Christmas carols backed by a string band under the gentle glow of candle light. Make sure you arrive early for the 6:30 or 8:45 performance on December 26th. Need a relaxing break from all the holiday activities? You can access some special urban archives and museum exhibits from the comfort of home. Go online and see apron strings which highlights design and function with each apron making a unique artistic statement and India alla art which brings together the colorful tapestry of art and life in India. Your ICTN team produced 32 videos in the month of November. >> We're actively collecting stories, memories, photographs of the big state signs. And we want people to be able to know why that sign matters so much to our community. >> It's like being in a dream, you know, and every corner you turn, you want to get woke up. But you don't get woke up. You got to make it out your own dream. We're right across the street from Heritage Park. I am so honored. I don't think I could have dreamed of a better location. >> And there's a reason why he's in this costume. >> Yeah. So, Tigger is a obviously a little cutie pie. Um, and that's our special come and adopt a cutie pie at the shelter. >> Crosby. >> Hello, Charlie. >> It's actually one of the oldest shows. It's where like we get Clue from. We get a lot of murder mysteries from. >> We have a lot of incredible sculpture this year. A lot of beautiful ceramic work. We have drawings, paintings, print making, a lot. >> What a better event to come together as organizations team up, build skill, but certainly celebrate what what makes us different. >> I'm just so thankful to the community. The Irving community has continued to support our students. >> I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients. >> It's exciting. It's not too far from home. I'm going to be coming here all the time. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Stay up todate by subscribing to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/the cityofring. In advance of Irving's state of the city, it is time to go motoring with the mayor. >> We're going to do something fun. I love to drive around the city. I mean, that's one of the things that the staff always gets nervous cuz all of a sudden I'm supposed to be somewhere and they'll say, "Where have you been?" >> I can't wait to see where he takes me. I I do know this. No one has seen more of the city than he has. This is kind of like the gateway to the downtown, but we did the mural here. And if you want it, walk over there, you can be the eye in Irving and get a picture taken. We've worked really hard to redo this and narrow it down to two lanes so that we can slow down the traffic for the businesses that are along here. And we've worked with a lot of the businesses through here and tried to keep the old downtown feel with the light fixtures that we've put in, but yet still keep the integrity like Porter's Army Navy. Frost Bank is going to be rebuilding and moving into this facility down here. This is kind of a banking hub here. It's really kind of interesting. I'm going to take you down. Glory House just did a mural back here, which is kind of cool. Playing off the history of the downtown area. >> People need to remember that this is kind of where it started. We have a lot of events here. Now, the water tower is the original water tower from back in the day, and this is the original location of where it was when Irving was first founded. This building here was the first library. This is a phase of homes that we built. We tore down some stuff and rebuilt this area. So, this was phase one of homes that we built. The stores are busy. The parking lots are full. It's worked out really well. As I told you earlier, you and I could be in the car all day long, which is what you don't want to do. >> The conversation continues at the Irving Convention Center during State of the City on January 15th. Tickets are available through the Irving Lascalina's Chamber of Commerce. The energy is up before the sun's up >> as people line up where prices are down. finding a good place where the price point is on point. So hopefully we got good things in there. >> People wrapped around the building for the grand opening of Joe V's Smart Shop on State Highway 183 in Irving. >> It's exciting. It's not too far from home. I'm going to be coming here all the time. >> 3 2 1 >> At 700 a.m. the first shoppers move inside and start to fill their carts. I told you I was getting a sleep plate off. I'm like, this is the first thing I'm here for. >> We needed one of these. Glad that we finally got one. >> The produce proved popular and we also spotted a fresh sushi station and a lot of other items catching attention. >> It's all put together. It looks very organized. >> Joe V's is part of the HB family. In a day before the crowds, we learned more about this chain's concept from a man who knows. >> So, you are the Jo? >> I am. As we toured the store, he told me the idea came together 15 years ago. And this store in Irving represents how the brand has evolved. What we found is that fresh is a big part of our business. And so we've expanded our produce departments. We expanded our bakeries and meat department. We have offerings here that we didn't have before when we first started. >> What we want to offer the community is the lowest prices in the industry. And so when you come in here, the thing that you can always count on is that we've done our homework so that you don't have to. Prices of groceries are more important today than they've ever been. So having selection and opportunity to see something different, I think it's great. >> And speaking of different, and now this is something I've heard a lot about. >> Yeah. So this is our bundle boxes. And the one that I'll draw your attention to is this one here. This is the most favorite. It's called the Five Nights. Five Nights for every night of the week, you have a different protein that you can put in your center of your plate. And you do that all for $20. >> The unique finds do not stop there. >> This is Smokeoky John's banana pudding. It's actually our grandmother's recipe. We literally have someone over a double boiler making the pudding uh fresh every day. >> Jo is the only grocery chain to carry it and this location will be a special focus. >> Especially excited about Irving because Irving will be our joys. It's the closest one to our restaurant and to our houses. My brother is a Irving resident. >> During a grand opening celebration with Irving leaders, company reps had some surprises. It was a huge surprise. >> $10,000 for both Irving Cares and the Irving Schools Foundation. >> They want to be invested. So, they've asked me to apply for additional grant funding. They've asked for volunteer opportunities. So, they are going to be a really great neighbor to us. >> I'm happy for the money. What I'm really happy about is another retail establishment that is really works to keep their prices low for our residents in the city. Along with the big checks and little prices, the HB team is sharing an update on what's happening here. A full-size HB is under construction in Irving. >> In summer of 26, we will be opening at 6:35 in Olympus, and it's going to be a fantastic store. It's about 116,000 square ft of great ATV products that everybody has been looking forward to. But on this day, all of the focus is on the new Jo Smart Shop. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Which one did you get? >> It's a great success story for South Irving, but really all of Irving, as we've learned through working with the Jovi and HB team, they will pull customers not only right here in our local community, but from a 25 mile radius, which is really exciting. A positive economic impact and a lot to check out with this store now open. >> Hope to see you soon. >> Thomas Gandandy for City Source. Tonight is our annual parade and tree lighting event uh here at Heritage Park. >> People lining the streets and having a great time. It's wonderful to see all the kids out there. I always enjoy the opportunity to be the grand marshall as the mayor and it it's very exciting because the kids they'll wave and they you know I'm very fortunate that to have a nice car to drive so they like the carry Christmas and they'll talk about that but then they'll say are you Santa Claus and I'll say no he's coming the theme this year is unwrap the magic we're at almost 70 entries but it also showcases some of our public safety folks city personnel. >> I got to ride on the city council float out and this is the first year that I had my grandson with me and so he had he had a wonderful time uh seeing everybody in the crowd and wishing them happy holidays too. So it's a great family event for my family too. >> Also we want people to wander over to experience Main Street cuz that's part of the event tonight. >> We are setting up Main Street kind of adjacent to the holidays at Heritage Parade and True Lighting. wanting to activate Main Street while our Heritage Park festivities are going on. We've got a vendor market happening here on Main Street, some free face painting, free hot chocolate, and a few other activities for the family. >> The tree lighting will take place as soon as uh the parade is done and we've cleared the path. So, we give everybody a chance to come over here and get their spot and then we will fully decorate Heritage Park. >> Light the tree. Light the tree. Merry Christmas. >> We'll conclude the night with a drone show. We do have almost 200 drones this year. So, we've gone up in that. >> Even a 70-year-old kid like me gets excited about this. >> It's great to see the park lit up, the food trucks available, and uh everybody's just having a wonderful time. >> I didn't notice how many people would be here and like how many I guess organizations or spec es especially like um the charity organizations that we had in Irving. So, this is like really eye opening and very beautiful for me. Irving's such a diverse community. This is a great chance for everybody to come together. >> We can all kind of get in touch with like where we're from and get to know like other people and kind of what we're about. >> I want Christmas. >> It's that Christmas Hallmark feeling right here in Irving, which is such a large town, but on a night like this, it feels like such a small town. So, I think kind of capitalizing on the magic of the holidays here in South Irving is always fun for the community. The Iran Archives and Museum is hosting its annual celebration of Irving's birthday on December 19th from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. This year, to mark the restoration project of the Big State sign, you can enjoy a free root beer float while supplies last. Get up to 30% off on everything in a museum store. Santa may be busy getting ready for the holidays, but he's making time to stop by here at the gazebo at Heritage Park for photos. Grab a free picture with Santa and enjoy a cookie decorating activity with friends and family. Then take a stroll to the children's entrepreneur market for lastminute holiday gifts and other seasonal goodies. The Irving Symphonic Band presents their annual holiday concert, Holidays in Sound. The seasonal marment gets underway at 3 p.m. on December 21st in Carpenter Hall. Adding to the fun, guests are encouraged to arrive early for small group ensemble performances in the lobby. Happy holidays and welcome to ICTN's Pets of the Week. Here with Trey Buckner from Urbing Animal Services and Babe in this great outfit for the holidays. Tell me about Babe. >> Babe is a year and 8-month old dog. We've had her about 8 months. She does really well with other dogs. She has no food aggression, no dog aggression, no people aggression. She's just a very lovable dog. Uh she's a big lap dog. Um although she's a little bit bigger. Um she weighs about 53 lbs. She loves to be around people, loves to be around the family. Babe is just a phenomenal dog. I love her. >> And Babe would like nothing more than to go home for the holidays. And that's the name of a current adoption special running through December. Tell me about that. >> Um so our home for the holidays is a promotion that we're doing. Uh, all adoptions will be $50 for our dogs and cats. And then, um, some of our extended stays, animals that have been here for longer than 90 days, they're going to be actually $25. And it's approaching we're running just so that we can get the animals into their forever homes for the holidays. And that runs throughout the month of December. And another promotion going on right now. And I really think this is a great way to honor the dogs in your home or maybe the dogs that you've had. It's the comfort and joy drive. It's all about bringing donations to the Irving Animal Care campus. Some What are some of the things you're looking for? >> We're looking for dog treats, um, dog toys. Uh, we've gotten quite a few blankets and towels. We're very appreciative for everything we've been given. But yeah, we definitely use dog toys and dog treats just so we can help the animal enrichment and just making sure the animals get that extra care. >> And what difference does it make? What impact does it make when you're able to give an animal like babe a nice new toy or some extra treats around the holidays? >> It does wonders for her. Um we use those treats when we're doing her basic training as far as like sit, shake, lay down. Um and then it also keeps her mentally um strong and it's just something that the dogs light up and they go crazy when they get the toys. >> And the cats do too, right? >> Yeah. Yeah, cats as well. Yeah, definitely the cats as well. cat treats, catnips, anything of that nature will definitely help them out. >> So, a lot of ways to help. I've seen in years past offices have gotten together as kind of a team building activity and collected donations and brought them in. So, a lot of ways to help through the comfort and joy drive, the home for the holidays adoption special or give this lovable, happy, enthusiastic dog babe, a home. Thanks so much, Trey. >> Thank you. >> And you can find the animal care campus at 4140 Valley View Lane. You can also check out the websites you see on the screen for more adoptable animals and to see the latest operating hours. It's the magic of Christmas and we're allowed to get swept up into stories and it kind of breaks up the monotonous feel of everyday life. The Nutcracker is about a little girl, Clara, who is at her parents like Christmas party and all her friends and family come to see her and her godfather Josaro comes to bring her a nutcracker and she really really loves it. And she falls asleep with the doll and has some very magical dreams about, you know, candy canes and sugar plum. She gets swept into this world where the Nutcracker comes to life and she has to create new meanings and new bonds and she's thrust into this world of this beautiful land of sweets and snow and all of a sudden rats and mice and the rat king are after her and it's just her imagination. I've watched the Nutcracker since I was about like 5 years old every year. And especially Momentum um gives Clara such like a big uh role and opportunity to not only just dance and everything, but to act some other productions don't like allow her to dance as much, but I'm so thankful that I'm able to dance a lot and show off different aspects. I give her a little bit of sass, like a little bit. I made a part up where I get the nutcracker and I start like uh throwing it at my brother. I think it's really funny. It's very important to come see shows like these because um there's so many artists that are like developing and a lot of and the Nutcracker especially supports a um all ages and you get to see dancers just like become like from a polish Chanel to like a principal dancer and it's incredibly amazing. Throughout the 15 years that I've been here, so many highs and lows and so many of the lows have been like, "Oh my gosh, can we even continue?" But we have pushed on and we have only been able to push on through our community supporting us. There was a point in my time that I was a dancer and 10 years ago I unfortunately broke my foot and it took me out like completely and it derailed my life and 10 years later I'm back directing the Nutcracker where my family is from in Irving and it's just it's such a special story for such an important reason. Um you know especially in this day and age you need that creativity you need that imagination. This is a magical season and it's a magical story and it's really a privilege that I get to dance with these people that I've known my entire life and make the story come to life. There's something sweet baking at the West Irving Library. >> Today we're having one of our edible educations for the kids. These are roughly around kids aged 8 to 12 and we'll be cooking some mini pumpkin pies. It is my favorite pie. >> The class begins by showing the kids how to turn on the oven. >> And then we're going to be cutting out the little mini crusts for the pies. >> You almost got it. Look at that. >> So, French fries aren't made in France. Like, serious. >> Bringing over the little >> They're only called French fries because of the way they're cut. >> After the crust are ready, the kids work together to make the pie filling. >> Okay, we're going to do one tablespoon and we're going to take all of it out. We want all 15 oz. And now we mix it all together. >> Once the mix is done, they pour it into their crust. >> Have any of y'all ever cooked before? >> I know how to make a burger and a sandwich, but that's about it. >> Oh, wow. That's better than I knew when I was. >> When I was a kid, I didn't have any opportunities like this. And I really wish I did growing up. It would have given me some exposure to cooking and some confidence at a young age that I'm really glad that the kids at our library have. And then it's ready to bake in the oven. >> In they go. It's very exciting and it teaches kids how to cook. >> I thought it was fun and satisfying. >> I never really cook at home cuz my siblings are always using the kitchen. >> I just like cooking and baking. I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients. >> After 30 minutes, the pies are done baking and the kids pumpkin spice things up with a taste. It tasted like like cinnamon, but it was also very sweet. >> It tasted super good. >> This delicious class creates an appetite for cooking that can lead to children wanting to learn more about recipes or other books about baking, which furthers their interest in all the library has to offer, >> like comics and books. >> Get to find my newest books that I want to read. >> Why do you like to read? >> Because I want to learn new things. And luckily for the community, Irving Public Libraries make learning something new easy as pie. A free holiday lights display offers a leisurely stroll through one of the jewels of Irving Heritage District Centennial Park. The park is decorated with 100,000 lights on fences, trees, and on the bridge, and walkways are lit on each side to keep pathways visible for visitors after dark. Enjoy the glow the entire month of December. Candlelight concerts bring the magic of a live multiensory musical experience to awe inspiring locations like the Irving Arts Center. Experience Christmas carols backed by a string band under the gentle glow of candle light. Make sure you arrive early for the 6:30 or 8:45 performance on December 26th. Need a relaxing break from all the holiday activities? You can access some special Urban Archives and museum exhibits from the comfort of home. Go online and see apron strings which highlights design and function with each apron making a unique artistic statement and India alla art which brings together the colorful tapestry of art and life in India. Your ICTN team produced 32 videos in the month of November. We're actively collecting stories, memories, photographs of the big state signs and we want people to be able to know why that sign matters so much to our community. >> It's like being in a dream, you know, and every corner you turn, you want to get woke up, but you don't get woke up. You got to make it out your own dream. >> We're right across the street from Heritage Park. I am so honored. I don't think I could have dreamed of a better location. And there's a reason why he's in this costume. >> Yeah. So, Tigger is a obviously a little cutie pie. Um, and that's our special come and adopt a cutie pie at the shelter. >> Crosby. >> Hello, Charlie. >> It's actually one of the oldest shows. It's where like we get Clue from. We get a lot of murder mysteries from. >> We have a lot of incredible sculpture this year. A lot of beautiful ceramic work. We have drawings, paintings, print making, a lot. >> What a better event to come together as organizations team up, build skill, but certainly celebrate what what makes us different. >> I'm just so thankful to the community. The Irving community has continued to support our students. >> I like to bake because it's fun. We get to do stuff and put a lot of ingredients It's exciting. It's not too far from home. >> I'm going to be coming here all the time. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Stay uptodate by subscribing to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/the city of Irving. >> In advance of Irving's state of the city, it is time to go motoring with the mayor. >> We're going to do something fun. I love to drive around the city. I mean, that's one of the things that the staff always gets nervous cuz all of a sudden I'm supposed to be somewhere and they'll say, "Where have you been?" I can't wait to see where he takes me. I I do know this. No one has seen more of the city than he has. This is kind of like the gateway to the downtown, but we did the mural here. And if you want to walk over there, you can be the eye in Irving and get a picture taken. We've worked really hard to redo this and narrow it down to two lanes so that we can slow down the traffic for the businesses that are along here. And we've worked with a lot of the businesses through here and tried to keep the old downtown feel with the light fixtures that we've put in, but yet still keep the integrity like Porter's Army Navy Frost Bank is going to be rebuilding and moving into this facility down here. This is kind of a banking hub here. It's really kind of interesting. I'm going to take you down. Glory house just just did a mural back here which is kind of cool. Playing off the history of the downtown area. >> People need to remember that this is kind of where it started. >> We have a lot of events here. Now the water tower is the original water tower from back in the day and this is the original location of where it was when Irving was first founded. This building here was the first library. This is a phase of homes that we built. We tore down some stuff and rebuilt this area. So, this was phase one of homes that we built. The stores are busy. The parking lots are full. It's worked out really well. As I told you earlier, you and I could be in the car all day long, which is what you don't want to do. >> The conversation continues at the Irving Convention Center during State of the City on January 15th. Tickets are available through the Irving Lascalenus Chamber of Commerce. The energy is up before the sun's up >> as people line up where prices are down. >> Finding a good place where the price point is on point and hopefully we got good things in there. >> People wrapped around the building for the grand opening of Joe V's Smart Shop on State Highway 183 in Irving. >> It's exciting. It's not too far from home. I'm going to be coming here all the time. 3 2 1 >> at 7 a.m. >> I've already done so, so you're good. >> So, am I on the air yet? >> I'm sorry. We could have behind you. They should know >> what's next on the agenda. >> The the the um what am I doing? Review of the regular agenda. >> So, if we don't ask any cap questions, we'll move along real fast here. >> I got questions. >> Okay. Well, I got answers for executive session. >> Okay. Okay, we're back on the air. We're going to go ahead and go through the regular agenda. Items number two and three are minutes from Thursday, Octo or November 6th regular meeting and council meeting. Item number four is providing a budget adjustment number eight to the 204 20 25 fiscal year budget. Item number five is ordinance amending number 2025-1167 providing a budget adjustment number one to the 2025 2026 fiscal year budget resol uh items number six is approving the purchase from single source provider uh Striker Sales LLC in the amount of uh 3,648,564 $463 for emergency medical uh equipment and uh service plan. Item number seven is approving a retroactive agreement with Momentous Technologies in the total estimated amount of $115,499.97 for facility and resource scheduling software. Item number eight is agreement with Mcklloyanne Falls to define the process for for substantial completion project acceptance, warranty, commencement and payment of retaining on the phase based for construction of the fleet maintenance facility construction project. Item number nine is a resolution approving addendum number one to the professional services agreement between the city of Irving and Half Associate Associates in the amount of $365,297.50 for additional services for the development of the heritage master plan drainage. Item number 10 is approving addendum number three to the professional services agreement between the city of Irving and Frieza Nichols in the amount of $4 million $50,000 for additional services for the West Irving Creek channel improvement project for phase C from Fifth Street to Rogers. We talked about that this morning. Item number 11 is approval uh approving a preservation agreement with with SMG for the use uh of the Irving Convention Center to host the city of Irving's infrastructure summit in August of 26 for an estimated amount of 95,000. Item number 12 is a resolution approving a construction service agreement between Lockwood Anderson and Nunham Inc. in the amount of $634,640 provide residential project representative service during construction for the Princeton booster pump station expansion. Item number 13 is approving addendum number three to the engineering service agreement between Black & Beach Corporation and the estimated amount of 687,635 for additional engineering uh construction administrative service at the Princeton uh booster pump station expansion. Item 14 is approving a soul source renew uh Tri-C software systems uh central square T technologies company in a total estimated amount of $176,250 and uh 59 cents for the annual renewal of the turbine public safety system software maintenance. Item number 15 is approving a soul source purchase in the amount of 7,261,93.93 cents with EF Johnson for Atlas system and Associated Hardware. Items 16 through 36 are the bids. Are there any questions on the bids? Uh 16 >> 16 is approving an inclement weather shelter program agreement between the city of Irving and life change housing associated in the amount not to exceed $100,000 for the city of Irving inclement inclement weather shelter program. >> Thank you. Al despect senior manager of housing and redevelopment. So, this is for the award of our inclement weather shelter um agreement. Um again, for background, you approved $100,000 to be included in this year's budget. We provided a framework in October and went out for an RFP. Um that RFP was open from October 13th to November 3rd. Um the funding again is $100,000 from the general fund. It will award uh be available for eligible expenses incurred from November 1st through March 31st of uh 2026. It'll be provided on a reimbursement basis and it will be an annual contract which will include up to four one-year renewal options. Eligible costs will tie back to our uh the program key elements. Um, so items such as facilities costs, operations, supplies, food, staffing, health and safety, and administrative costs up to 10%. We received one response to our RFP and are awarding Life Change Housing Associates. Um, just to talk a little bit about what they will be doing with the funding and how they run their program. So when they open the shelter, um their opening criteria is that it has to be forecasted at 32° or 35 if there's any precipitation in the air. They notify their clients and volunteers through a text message list that they have at least 6 hours prior to opening um and which is typically 5:00 p.m. that evening. And then it will um close uh when the temperature is forecasted to rise above 32 degrees, which is typically by 10:00 a.m. the following day on when it's closed. The shelter can be open for multiple days in a row if the weather events um are below 32 degrees. This shelter will be for single adults only. They will um have if any families with children do um present themselves, they will assist them with hotel stays, which are also reimburseable. um through the program or through the agreement. If any unaccompanied youth um present themselves at the shelter, they will work with other agencies um through Dallas County to get them uh housed for the night. Um services that Life Change provides is their shelter accommodates up to 85 individuals. They will have transportation. They have a partnership with Cleanup USA to uh with designated spots for pickup and drop off. They will have pet kennels, um meals, both dinner and breakfast. And again, if they're open for consecutive days, they will also be providing lunch, laundry services, as well as um shower facilities and other hygiene kits, security to provide safety for uh clients staying in the shelter, and um if when open for consecutive days, they'll have the opportunity to provide some housing focused case management. And then they'll be working and partnering with other agencies um uh throughout the community to help provide some other opportunities such as trying to reach housing, employment opportunities, etc. Um obligations included in the agreement is that the organization again provides um shelter program services. They're maintaining a clean and safe shelter. Uh they will enter their participant information into HMIS, collaborate with other service providers, provide community outreach and education, and then submit monthly and program and reports to the city. As a city, we are responsible for providing that funding up to $100,000. We'll assist them in the development um of any reporting measures that are needed and then monitor their program compliance, reimbursements, and program evaluation. Uh, regarding the reporting requirements, as I mentioned, there are monthly reports where they'll provide the total number of those served, the summary of the services provided, the amount of total funds spent, line item reports of the expenditures by category, and then any performance metrics. Um, some of those will be tied to, for example, in their uh proposal some um uh demographics on those clients served. And then end of year program would be a cumulative report of those monthly reports to uh at the end of the program. And then an HMIS data quality report showing that all the clients that have been reported to have been served have been entered into HMIS and that the data is complete and accurate. That's it. Happy to answer your questions. >> Yeah, I just got some clarifying questions. Um so um on the monthly reporting when is the first required say this is approved today when will be the first required monthly report would it be the 1st of December or be the 1st of January? >> No it be in January. >> Okay. >> Yeah that question was asked to me since um Okay. And then the other one was on the program evaluation. Help me understand what do you mean by that? How do you evaluate the program? not the not the not the requirements of the grant. I assume you're evaluating the actual program itself. >> I assume that's what you're >> talking that's more so towards how things are working with our agreement. Um since we'll have annual renewal terms, are there things we might need to add to the agreement for the next renewal? Things that might not make sense. This is our first year. So, um evaluating, you know, are they serving who they're supposed to serve per our agreement? um what are maybe other outcomes they want to track that or we want to track going forward that type of evaluation. >> Okay. Yes. >> Understanding this is usually a one night to two night. There's it's an emergency service provided. So just ensuring they're doing that. >> Right. And and I just want to make sure that you're evaluating actually what you're asking them to do. Absolutely. >> Not actually evaluating the whole program itself. Uh and part of the evaluation um that uh you talked about the services provided would be like um housing focused case management and uh so I I me personally I think the first year of this we already do housing case management through the day center and to me if you then want to require or have that as part of the inclement weather shelter to do that I don't think you're going to create too much of an issue between the housing case management that's done at the day center and then you you know want housing case management done at the inment weather shelter when it's open I I don't think that need to be in this agreement >> uh these are services that they propose that they're providing so this was not from it's part of their program that they run so we as to how they run their program right so >> and I understand that but see but that's based on last year there was no case management uh in the city from the day center, but now there is. So, what I'm saying is they probably put that in there because that's what they were doing because there was no case management at all u through the day center. But now that we got day center case management, I don't we don't they don't need to be trying to do case management also at the Glint weather shelter >> because they would end up referring them to the day center and >> I can clarify that's just how that's what they put in their proposal as to what they will be doing and I did not >> it's not our program per se of how they run it but that's how they described how they run their program but I can clarify what that process. >> So you don't have no problem if that's not in noted it would only occur when there's consecutive days that they're open because it is such an emergency service about getting people in at 5:00 p.m. if they're closing the next day. There's not an opportunity provi to provide housing case man housing focused case management. It's only provided if they're open for consecutive days. If that's not these are this is a list of what they've said that they will provide if they end up not providing it. >> It won't count against them. No. >> Okay. that that's that's what I was trying to make sure of that it won't count against them in the valuation and in other words you said on your um agreement this is the service you're going to provide but yet when you did your report you provided none of that service that I want to make sure that don't don't count >> it would not count against them I think that would be a point of discussion of talking how did the program go this year what were some of the obstacles that you faced um are there things that we need to tweak what can be expected for the next year are you changing anything for the next your regarding your policies, procedures and such. So, um we tried to make the um our the framework of our funding to be broad, not to dictate too much except that we want to ensure that shelter services are provided and hopefully additional supportive services to clients accessing that. >> Okay, good. And one last simple question on the reimbursement. Uh um so they turn in their report and say they are asking for reimbursement for $40,000. Basically, how long does it usually take for that reimbursement to actually get to >> I believe we put in um we have up to 30 days of complete paperwork. >> Yeah. Yeah. And the reason I asked that question because that question was asked to me uh you know was it just a one time at the end of the program they get one reimbursement. >> They are able to submit monthly reimbursements. So as we go through the um term of the ag term of the that the shelter's open they can submit monthly and we would pay. >> Okay. >> On a monthly basis. Yep. Ala um if I remember correctly in the the discussion that we had on this that u the annual um renewal is not automatic. It's based upon the evaluation by our staff meaning your operation as to they have met the not only the obligations but the objectives of what our RFP and what they responded to and so that's the contract. The second part of that is should they not complete that also does not obligate us to automatically give them a second year. So, I'm not going to question how you'd get that get to that point or not get to it. But the point is that it is not going to be obligatory to go to a second and third and fourth year so that the criteria of how we're going to judge it every year, meaning your staff, there's got to be lock tight. Okay? And I think that's what Dennis was trying to get to to some level. Um the second part of it is I'm curious why four years and not three or five. >> We to answer your first question, no it is not automatic. It's upon mutual agreement. So if the city does not agree to renew it, it's not automatic. Um we >> stop right there. Okay. How are you going to make a decision to go forward or not? I mean there's got to be the criteria. Do you have a template that you've developed or going to develop based upon the RFP? I mean, I'm trying to get to how you evaluate that decision >> if they met their obligations of the agreement um and it's going well. I I I would not see a reason why we would not go forward. Staff would recommend a renewal. It would have to come every renewal would have to come to council. So, at the end of the day, it's under council consideration for that renewal. Um but staff would put together our recommendation based on their performance of meeting the obligations of the agreement. >> Okay. Okay. Well, you got to where I wanted to get you. Okay. So, then you're going to be able to sign on the dotted line to us to recommend yes or no. Yes. Right. >> Okay. But now, why four versus three or five? >> We went back and forth on three and four. Um, I think we were trying to get >> I think four was in the in the contract template that we sent out with the RFP. There was some discussion to change it to three. I said four is what we said in the template. Let's stick with four. So, >> okay, >> there's no magic other than we wanted an opportunity for multiple renewals without having to reissue an RFP. And in addition to that, it helps whenever if they do, even though there is not an automatic um renewal, it helps an agency that we're contracted with to be able to go after additional funding knowing that there's um they have this agreement in place to be able to go after additional funding for >> this is another form of mission creep. So now I'm going to give you one more input. >> Assume you don't agree after one year. So what's our options at that point? Do we reissue? Well, obviously you're going to say to them either that correct it within so many days or whatever they you feel that you don't go forward with them. If you don't and decide that they did not make the obligation, then how fast are we going to turn this around? Because at the end of the day, we're making a commitment much broader than this organization. It's very basic what we're doing with 100,000. So, >> if it was the decision uh to not renew, then we would reissue an RFP since we already have an RFP framework in place. Um we could bring that back if council wanted to have any input on that for changes. Otherwise, I would reissue the RFP to go forward so we could quickly get another um agreement in place for the following year. >> Okay. Fine. >> Now, you're on record, so I'm good. >> I'm on the record. Thank you. Thank you, >> Abdul. Thank you, mayor. Um, this $100,000 which we approved is going to be from the general funds in our budget for the coming years. >> Yes sir. >> Every year. >> Yes sir. >> So in some year we may end up in using all or maybe some part of it or in some years we may not be depending on the weather. Right? This is only for the inclement weather shelters. >> Correct. Just like with other POS, if they're not fully utilized, it would go to our fund balance. So if there is more than um few organizations or more than one organization who happen to provide the inclement weather shelters if it turn out to be more than 100,000 in total we're not obligated to that right if it is amount more than 100,000 >> I I right now with this approving this agreement we are it would we would not go back out for an RFP to provide funds to any other organization unless we canceled the agreement and went out for a new RFP. If there were any cost savings from an agreement, they would flow back into the general fund and it would be per your discretion as to how that those funds are spent out of out of the fund going forward for the general fund. >> So this program is only for one organization, >> correct? >> They won the bid. We only had we opened up the RFP only one organization responded. >> But this time there may be only one organization. What about next year? Say for example if it is more than >> we would not with this current agreement because we have four one-year renewal options. It would we would not be going out for a new allocation of the award of the funds unless council decided not to renew the contract. At that point in time, we would then go out for an RFP for a new to award the funds to a different organization. >> Got it. Thank you. >> So, okay. I think we're Is everybody okay? >> Well, we'll find out tonight. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Uh item number 37 is an ordinance. >> Mayor, just real quick on 17, uh about how much do we do in credit card transactions a year, >> dollars and transactions? A lot. >> I'll do my best here. This we do, we're an interesting city. We have I say that because this particular contract does not have the uh big fish on it. Doesn't have uh water customer or water online payments. Doesn't have parks. Doesn't have libraries. So, this is sort of the uh everybody else contract. Uh but uh I I don't have that data with me. I can tell you that we do an extraordinary number of credit card transactions, but we also still process a lot of cash. So, I don't think it's quite as dominating on one side or the other. It's it's we still do a lot of cash. >> We'll get you that number for this. >> We have that number actually >> contract and then we'll get you a number for the overall credit card transactions for this. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, we it's it's amazing how many people stand in line out here for with the cash. They're usually four or five deep. Okay. Any other questions on the bids? Item number 37 is an ordinance to establish uh con conservation conservation and reuse credits, excuse me, against water and wastewater impact fees. providing for application of credits, providing a servability clause, and providing an effective an effective date. All we talked about that this morning as well. So, zoning cases. >> Good afternoon. >> Good afternoon. I'll get through these quickly as I can. We only have about eight or so. another five minutes. I could have said good evening. >> All right. First case is one that you saw from October 23. Um it's 1629 Glen Valley Drive. It's a request to uh for an SP2 for a larger carport in their rear yard. So that they want variances to the side setback and the maximum size of a carport. Uh PNC recommended approval. you had four letters of support and again it was postponed from the 23rd. So as a reminder um this is a larger carport. It's about uh 730 square ft and it is built on the property line. It was postponed from the October meeting with discussions about is there a way that they could make it smaller in order to comply and not need the variances. Um after the applicant talked with uh both the planning and the inspections department, he decided he wanted to proceed with it as built. Um so the request is the original request uh for the garage at 730 feet where minimum should be 400 and for zero set uh zero foot setback where it should be a three-foot setback and just pictures the subject property and this you can kind of see the carport in the rear and I'll be happy to answer any questions. So, wasn't the whole deal on this that we were going to try to cut a foot or two off so it didn't drain on the yard next door? >> Yeah, there was I believe he has a a gutter, but the the discussion from the the October meeting was to see if he could bring it down and not need any variances as well. >> Okay, thank you. Oh, I'm sorry, Mark. >> Yeah, it's a Right. So, he's seeking a 730 square foot proposed. That's quite a bit larger. 82.5% variance. So that's a really large variance. And then we talked about yeah that he was going to have gutters on there. So the 3 ft didn't matter. But it's not just a matter of drainage onto the adjoining property. It's also just a matter of having a buffer between the end of the carport and the property line. So um yeah, I'm not going to support the case. >> It's almost twice as big, isn't it? 400 to 7. >> Yeah, I'm sure I'm surprising everybody. Okay, next one. >> So, the next case is uh the 400 West Irving Boulevard. This is the Long John Silvers who was proposing to uh redevelop their site. Um they were not meeting the regulations of the Heritage District and they uh had postponed it in order to relook to see if they could meet the regulations. Um they decided they could not and they chose to withdraw the case. So, uh, the action tonight would be to accept their withdrawal. >> Okay, it's easy. >> So, I got a question, though. >> So, they're going to draw the case. Did they indicate what they're planning on doing? They're just not going to build it or just going to what? An indication of any >> Yeah, they didn't indicate what they're doing. I maybe they're just going to keep operating the company or the the store as it is. Yeah. I don't think they're planning on going anywhere. They just wanted to build their prototype. >> Yeah. Next case is 362 airport freeway. Uh they're requesting >> just a question on Long John Silver. >> Last time we they asked to postpone because of some entrance or some zoning uh variance request and we asked them to modify and bring it back. So now >> they chose not to do any modifications. >> That's not good. >> They chose to withdraw instead. >> Yeah. You know, at least they should have, you know, the idea of taking that building down and making a new building was a good idea for for for that location. And um unless we know what they're going to do, they don't know that needs a faceelift that location, not that that restaurant, right? So, um we just have to wait and see or we know anything. >> I think they're going to continue to operate it operate the the restaurant as it is today. I don't think they plan to go anywhere. Um maybe they're just going back and rethinking, you know, if they can meet our standards. I don't know. >> Okay, thank you. >> Okay, next one. >> Uh the next case, this is the back part of Irving Mall, 3602 West Airport Freeway. Uh it's an SP2 for CC for outside motorcycle training. PNC recommended approval 8 to1 and no letters of opposition or support. Uh so they've actually been doing this for a while and as we had some discussions uh it was determined that it probably would be appropriate for them to just make it official and uh get this locked in. Um this is a site it's owned by the mall itself. Um of course the mall or Dillards and and Macy's and and the theater some of them own their own properties. Um but this is a parcel that is owned by the mall ownership. Uh so it is just in this back corner. Uh so here's their site plan. They put cones out. They will be outside or they are outside of all of the uh driveways. They will not be encroaching on any drainage or any circulation. You do have a memo that the owner gave us yesterday, just some some descriptions about how they operate their business, uh their hours and that type of thing. Um, so that's what this request is is just to allow them to continue to operate the motorcycle training um, in this part of the mall. They do have a a classroom inside the mall and so this is just accessory to that classroom use. Oh, and there is the request also includes a uh storage container and I think they keep some of their motorcycles in here. They keep their cones. Uh so there's nothing outside of the container, but the container would be on the site and I'll be happy to answer any questions. Mark. >> Yes. I watched the PNZ meeting and I heard Commissioner Denny's comments and he was he made good points about and what are the aspirations that the city has for the mall. Did do we want to like um want to see it improved or are we, you know, content with uh the way it's been in operation? As as it's been said, this has been going on for what 10 years or so. Um I I would suspect that most malls don't have motorcycle practice in the parking lots of them. um we do, but um and so um it's been going on for a while. I'm not necessarily opposed to the case, but I I did want to like um say that um I I thought his comments were were they were well taken that um um are we going to like actually push for improvements in the area for the mall um by by continuing this operation? It's not that we're not doing that. I think that we're kind of a ways off from actually seeing something like that happen. So, I'm not really opposed to the case, but um but I I I just wanted to say that there there is a merit to what Commissioner Denny had to say. >> I think there's going to be some interesting times here in a couple years when all these crossover agreements run out because that based upon them not having the crossover agreements, the mall's got to use that for parking. They can't use the other. So, there's going to be some real changes that happen once these crossover agreements come into play. >> Well, I want someone to comment on the storage unit. I mean, the storage unit is in the middle of the parking lot there. And I know there was some discussion at the P&Z about um having, you know, fencing around it, but that that would be odd. I mean, um I I think there was a comment about the Walmart has to have fencing around their units, but that's in the back of the property. So, um, but again, it's it's it's odd. It's sitting right there in the middle of the parking lot. >> So, back on the field. >> Yeah. I I can actually hop in on that point. I It was several years ago now, but I actually went through this motorcycle school. So, uh, >> so when I saw it pop up, >> you're going to recuse yourself. >> Yeah. I I can well I don't know if I need to have to do that but uh yeah I I mean I was very impressed with their operation. That storage unit is kind of it is in the it looks like it's in the middle based on this drawing but it's actually kind of uh off in the very back corner of the of the property. It wasn't really it didn't even interfere with the ring road around the mall. Um and they do just store their their motorcycles and their equipment in it. Um, now I mean it was it was a policeman who who taught our course. I thought it was very wellrun. Um, but uh but just to to address your concern, it's not it's not exactly in the middle of the parking lot, but Yeah. Yeah. But I So much better. >> Yeah. I uh I'll support this. Um but yeah, it was a fun school. Highly recommend if anyone else wants to go get a motorcycle license. It's a lot of fun. >> Okay. Off off the motorcycle onto the >> All right. on to aircrafts. Um 3615 block. This is a request. Um it's in the SP2 for freeway in the highway highway 161 overlay. They already have variances to allow parking uh between the building and 161. They want to add aircraft engine assembly, disassembly, and repair. Uh PNZ recommend approval 9 to zero. No opposition or support. Um this is actually going through as a zoning case because it we considered environmentally sensitive land use which in uh unified development code lingo is a heavier industrial use. So jet engines fell into that category and we felt this was appropriate. Um it is a brand new building so it was built to spec and so it is here at 161 in Northgate. So the the picture up on the upper right is new. It's so new it's not even on the aerial yet. Um there is a light manufacturing. It's a clothing manufacturing here to the west, apartments to the north, and of course 161 and light industrial in the area. This is generally their site plan. Uh north is up here. So the multif family is here, 161 is here. They will use, I believe they said, two of the current doors and most of their orientation will face to the to the west. Um, they there were several criteria. I won't go through all these. They did give some and you have in the report some of their responses to the criteria in order to be considered environmentally sensitive land use and staff was satisfied that they met those criteria. Again, just some pictures of the building and the adjacent properties. And this is uh by the way it is BP Arrow and they are they have several believe they have two or three sites already in the city and so they intend to combine all of their operations into this one building. Be happy to answer any questions. >> John, thank you. Mayor, is this is this the property we had a year or two back with the large easement cutting through it? Is that where the variances that already exist came from? Yeah, this does have um the transmission lines that go through it and that would kind of push the building up which was a problem for the parking. >> This was one of those rare hardships that came through >> because of because of those transmission lines I recall. Well, you know, I'm in support of this that uh I think the uh for the area the the use is is you know what's already there. So, Any other questions? >> Next one. >> Next one's 33 30 3322 William Brewster. It's an SP2 for R six uh to allow a front carport and a variance to the maximum driveway width inside the lot line. A PNC recommended denial 6 to zero where four letters of support and none in opposition. Uh we did do a study of any car ports in the area. So there were several not on the immediate block but in the general area that there's multiple car ports as we could find through the SP2 cases. In the yellow were also former carport blocks which was done in the '9s. There weren't a lot of carports that we found there but at the time the carport blocks would have allowed carports by right without having to go through the SP process. So here's their site plan. Uh the the proposal is a 20x 20 car port. They do want to do it 2 ft from the uh house in order to prevent any drainage issues or any uh rotting issues. Uh that would leave an 8ft setback from the front property line. Um the carport is proposed to be 6 in from the neighbor side property line. And the variance for the maximum width is it should be me to get that back. It should be 10 feet at a point 10 feet inside the property line and he wants it to be 19 feet. And so that's what the third variance is for. So it makes a little more sense when you see the pictures. So here's the it's a onecar garage. Uh they had built an expansion of a driveway and then subsequently built another expansion. And so the carport 20x20 carport would be here. um they do want to keep the existing width of the driveway and not have to expand it any further and just some neighboring properties and I'll be happy to answer any questions. >> John, >> thank you, mayor. So, if this case were to be denied tonight, obviously they haven't built the carport yet, so there's no impact on tearing it down or anything. Um, but that the 19 foot the 9 foot variance on the driveway. So, are you saying they would have to expand the inlet to match the expanded width of the driveway at the street? >> Essentially, what that would mean is to the point that like the property line is probably right here at the sidewalk at a point 10 ft back is where it should only be 10 ft wide. I mean, essentially, >> so they would have to tear up the concrete 10 ft from the sidewalk, >> right? for the 10 ft from the Yeah. >> I mean, the other alternative ideally would be to and and Dan may be have more information than this, but is to make it if you're going to have a double wide carport or double wide driveway to make the the apron be double wide, but they are here on the property line. And so that would kind of encroach onto the neighboring property. >> Okay. So, it's kind of it's either it's either shrink it back up to a point at 10 feet or make it double. >> What do you mean make it double? >> Well, to to make it Dan, that's correct. Said if if you have a double wide driveway that you would make this instead of being a 12t wide driveway, you would make it more like a a 20 foot wide driveway. >> You'd make it. Yes, sir. You'd make it wider just because you're not supposed to drive over the curb. code codes against driving over curbs. >> So would and so the >> Joselyn is saying is either do it 10 foot which is the width of the throat of the actual driveway or if you go wider is to actually improve and widen out the driveway a little bit on the north side there to so they're not so they're in so they're not in code violation >> and so and so for the resident to remain in compliance if this case were to be denied. They could tear up 10 feet of concrete on, you know, for the for those nine feet of width, but also you're saying the other way to bring them into code compliance would be to widen the mouth of the driveway. Yes. >> And would the resident >> would that be that would be on the residents because that's our right ofway. >> It's the city's rightway, but it would be their project. >> They'd be responsible for widening the driveway. Okay. >> The city doesn't go out there and widen your driveway because you want to. >> Gotcha. Okay. Thank you, >> Al. Yeah, Justin, it looks like if you look on the right side, they've already widened it or put the cement there. So, I'm wondering cuz we don't have visibility of the actual driveway where then for the walkway. So, I I don't know what it looks like, but the bottom line is it's obvious they're trying to widen it up to put more cars parking it. >> Yeah. Yeah, they're just wanting to be able to park two cars instead of one >> or like three at this point. >> But anyway, okay. Thank you. >> All right. >> All right. >> On to the next one. >> Uh so this is 400 uh 1400 Ethan Drive. Um it's already an SP2 for R six with variances to setbacks and the garage door setback and minimum lot area. They're asking to add a variance to the rear setback of 11 uh feet 2 in. PNZ recommended approval 7 to2. There was one letter in support. I'm sorry, one letter in opposition. So, this is a smaller neighborhood that again was zoned SP2. Um, and the existing SP2 allows for 15t front yard, 20 foot garage door setback, 75t lot depth, and 15t rear yard setback. They're in compliance with everything except for the rear yard setback. Instead of 15 feet, they want to go 11 feet 2 in. And that is essentially this area here. So you've got the dotted line, excuse me. And so it's the uh area just within the the dotted line. So that's what they're asking. It just be part of the I think it's a a uh seating area for the kitchen or something they want to put in that area. So this is the lot from the front. And this is the adjacent property to the south. We tried to do some calculations. It looks like they had added on uh a a patio room or something in the rear. So, they're about 15 ft back as well. And just a couple of the neighboring properties. Be happy to answer any questions. >> Questions? On to the next one. Um this case 519 Joffrey this is a request to go from R six to CO commercial office staff recommendation denial P&Z recommend recommendation was denial 9 to0 uh you do have 52% 52 plus percent o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o opposition that does trigger the supermajority because this is not a change to a residential use and therefore uh the supermajority still applies. So the supermajority requires that seven of nine votes be in favor in order to uh adopt this case. So here's the property here at Britain and Pioneer. Uh part of the the discussion we've had with the applicant. It shows as of the 2017 comp plan um it has shown it was business district and then it converted into business office when we changed the comp plan category. Uh what we found is from 1997 to 2017 it was shown as single family. So when they did the 2017 2017 plan uh there was consultant that did it and from what it appears to us and what we've explained to the applicant is that this lot um was single family before we couldn't see a reason that it was brought in as uh either business district or business office. Um I know she's had a lot of questions with that and we talked with her today about that as well. also should probably bring that up tonight. Um, but we we don't see uh we we feel that this is probably pulled in an error when they did the big citywide future land use update. It is on our list to change it. Um, and uh, you know, we just we wanted to make sure that we all kind of knew what the history was of that as well. Um, it is a large lot residential neighborhood. There was a case uh where she had requested to go to multif family last year and there was a future land use map request change for that as well and and that was denied to go to residential. >> They're trying to do >> so if there's questions tonight I'm happy to answer them but that that will come up. So, here's your opposition of the majority of the surrounding owners on Joffrey Street and a couple on Pioneer. And here's the existing home and just some of the neighboring properties. And I'll be happy to answer any questions. >> Questions? >> Next one. >> All right. 6029 Campus Circle Drive West. The request is to do an SP2 in an ML20A district in order to add commercial electrical vehicle storage and repair. A staff recommend approval. PNZ was approval 8 to zero with one abstinence uh and no opposition of support. So here's the property an existing light industrial on campus circle. And again, they are wanting to do believes they're going to be Tesla uh the kind of the larger semicommercial trucks. Uh that they say this probably mostly battery replacement, maybe some minor repair. Uh but we found we feel it was appropriate in the ML20A district where normally a uh the large diesel truck service would not be um just because of the the the lightness and the cleanliness of the commercial vehicles. So this is the site. Uh they will be using part of the building. It won't be the entire building. I believe they will be using the front if I'm correct and just some of the surrounding industrial offices. >> Happy to answer your questions. >> Questions? >> Yep. Uh thank you Jocelyn. I see the fire department made some pretty uh long notes here and that's these are all required before they move in to get their occupancy. Yeah, those will all be applied at the time of building permits. So, we'll have to work through whatever requirements fire has before they can get their CO. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> All right. On our last case is 1445 North Belt Line. Uh, this is currently an SP1 for CC for a Sonic. And so, it was a a specific site plan that showed the configuration of the building and and the drive-thru for the Sonic. U they're wanting to put another restaurant in completely demo the Sonic. Um so they want to go straight community commercial and we'll follow all the regulations of the CC district. So staff recommend approval PNC approval 9 to zero. No opposition or support. Um so here it is on uh Beltline and Pioneer. It's again, it's just an existing Sonic that has been closed. And so it'll be a Fidos Taco D to Trump Trompo. And uh again, it'll be kind of like the Sonic. They do want to do a drive-thru, but they will just scrape and start over. So there's the existing. They'll be happy to answer questions. >> Any questions? I think we're good. Right. Thank you. >> Thank you, Joelyn. And you've got people to appoint to the board. So, we'll let you all do that. And let's take item number six was which is the UDC amended tobacco related retail business. >> Well, Joselyn's making her way up. Um, mayor, the genesis of this was some concerns that were expressed by some council members regarding proximity of retail businesses that primarily sell tobacco or vaping products uh to schools, places where children gather and requested that we look at some options to prohibit the close proximity of these types of businesses to those locations. Join has a presentation of a pro proposal for council to consider. All right. So again, as Philip said, it's just to look at any potential regulations for separation distances and uh and some additional operational standards. Uh so when this request was made, I went and did a little bit of research as to what some of the concerns are. Um and found from research that a lot of the tobacco use and vaping starts in adolescence. Um and of course the marketing is very strong to the youth, especially with the disposables and the flavored ecigarettes. Um, a lot of the concern is based on the intensity of daily use for the people who are using. So, it's not the increase of users as much as how much the people who do use um are using and are vaping. And uh I also looked in and found last year there was a state uh bill that was filed similar to this that did not pass. Um but they also addressed some of the marketing strategies and the proximity issues. Um the current statutes, this current state statutes do not allow cities to ban sales or change the age limits, but cities can add additional operational factors. So that's what we'd be doing today. So the uh existing state regulations uh regulate the distribution of cigarettes and ecigarettes as part of the Texas Health and Safety Code. Again, the regulations allow cities to adopt additional standards that are compatible or more stringent that address certain issues that are not within the statutes. Um, and the state also, as everybody's clear about and understands, that it does regulate and prohibits the placement of signs within thousand feet of a church or school uh from property line to the closest point of the sign. So, that is something that we are also looking into as part of this exercise as well. So to in order address the concerns, our amendments would include adding a new section 3.23 which would add a purpose, intent and applicability sections. Um address some of the concerns possibly about illumination. A lot of these in order to um get people to see what they are, have the neon lights, have some of the brightness. Um want to make sure those if they're on during the day, they're turned off at night. Um and then the the main part of this would be to add the sales near restrictions for sales near protected uses. So it'd be prohibited with a thousand feet of a protected use. The measurement would be property to property line when they on separate properties or doortodoor if it's in different tenant spaces on the same property. And then the regulations would also um put some parameters for non-conforming status and continuation of use and making sure that any existing business can remain uh but if it's closed and cannot open again if it's closed for a certain amount of time. We'd also do some amendments to the uh land use chart into the CC community district, the community commercial district to show to differentiate the tobacco related businesses as separate from just a typical related business. So whenever we add that as a use, it has its own regulations. Um it this would be allowed only in the CC community commercial district and that is not within 1,000 ft of a protected use. And then we would add that reference to the new section 3.23. Um some existing definitions in the UDC, we do define a private school um that is a prochial school has one or more grades from kindergarten through age 12 and more than 100 students. And we also define a religious institution and the church. But that is that is only currently what we have in the UDC uh that we have to work with. So we're proposing some new definitions to define a school. So not just a private school, but any school. Uh so we have public or private elementary or secondary educational facilities again that has one or more grades from kindergarten through 12 and more than 100 students. So that should differentiate from some of the other types of uses that might be considered a school. We brought over the same definition of tobacco product from the smoking ordinance and then we brought a similar definition over and defining a a tobaccore related retail business which is separate from when you have the smoking on site. Uh so it's similar that to the alcohol where you have consumption on site versus just a retail store. So this is just addressing the retail businesses and but it also brings the same 51% rule over. So it has to be um if a retail store would be only if it has 51% of the total uh sales revenues or more. So this would not include a convenience store. It would not include um you know any other store that is primarily a variety of uses. This would have to be a u store that's intended only for this product. The notification requirements from 2023 will still apply. So whatever areas that we uh that are chosen to apply uh this regulation to we would have to make sure that we notice those correctly and any that this would apply to any property that is currently a retail use. So wherever retail is allowed by right would receive notices and the notices would go to all the property owners, the tenants and any owners of business perh business personal property all required by state law. Those postcards be mailed at least 10 days to the p the PNC public hearing would have basic information on the proposal in a a QR code to the website that would explain all of the changes. So we have a few maps to propose some of the or to show some of the application of the different areas. The first map in the darker blue are the existing school sites. This is uh public school uh public schools uh charter schools and private schools. And so that those are the dark blue that the lighter blue is the thousand foot area. So the red areas are what would be left where the uh retail sales would still be able to occur. >> Oh, just it's go back. I'm sorry. It would be the tobacco related retail business which is only those businesses that are selling 51% or more of their retail sales for tobacco products. Correct. >> Yeah. >> So anything inside the light blue would be prohibited. There would not be any other process they could go through. And we we found some up here in Cypress waters that the schools outside of the city limits, but that buffer would still apply inside the city limits. So that's the first option is schools only. The section second option would include the schools. Again, the schools are in blue. Um would add parks. So the parks are in the the darker green with the lighter green buffer. That includes a significant amount of more property. Um this is only public parks, so it would not include any private parks. Uh again the properties in red that are not in the buffer are the areas uh in the CC district that would remain but anything inside those buffers it would not um there would be no retail sales in those areas. So it greatly uh reduces the amount of properties in especially a southern and central Irving where the tobacco products could be sold. And then option three is again schools, parks, and then adds the churches, religious institutions. So you've got the deeper orange, lighter orange is the buffer. Again, that continues to reduce the amount of property that is remaining as the CC district uh where the tobacco products could be sold. >> Well, and Joselyn, if I can, you join's referring to products. I want to make sure that we're not prohibiting the sale of tobacco products. It's only businesses that primarily sell tobacco products is the ones that would be prohibited. The the thing that's instructive on these maps and the reason we showed them is because you can see as we go to from schools adding parks, adding churches, more and more of the city becomes ineligible for these types of business. And as we talked to the city attorney's office, they they may have some commentary as to the risks that an ordinance that includes whole swaths where these types of business couldn't operate. Um they may have some comments on that. Um so just to to conclude there the process would be once we get direction from the city council um then we would take that to the planning and zoning commission we would publish in the newspaper send our postcards and then go to the planning and zoning commission for their recommendation and bring it back to the city council for your consideration. I I think the thing we're asking council to consider is number one is is this type of ordinance of interest and then the second is what are the protected uses that should be where these types of businesses should be prohibited. Is it schools only? Is it schools and parks? Is it schools, parks and churches? That's the other area where we need some guidance. >> David. >> Yeah. So, so does this um if we make this a new ordinance, do existing shops become non-compliant or are they grandfathered in or how does that work? >> They're they're grandfathered in. >> Okay. >> They're legal non-conforming. >> Legal non-conforming. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, they can stay as long as they choose to stay, >> right? >> And they can sell to somebody else and someone else can operate. But if they close and go to illegal use, they can't open again and they can't expand. If if they close and go to a legal use like within a week or so, they can't come back. Correct. But if they close Yeah. for over 180 days and nothing else goes in in between, then that's the time period. >> Thank you. And I think the original uh when talking about this originally was the schools were the major uh impact what we're looking at, you know, adding parks, churches, you you can see the map. So, I think the schools for me was the number one thing and that was I was fine with that. >> Adam, >> even ones that are grandfathered in, did I read this correctly that they would still need to remove any signage that was within the limits like they were advertising or something like that? >> That's an area we're looking at. I think there's some interpretation as to what constitutes illegal signage advertising tobacco and vape products. is a state law, so it's something the police department would have to enforce. I know there's conversations and discussions about what should, you know, what the interpretation of that is and how it would be implemented. But theoretically, Adam, yes, if we identify a business that is has signage that violates the state law, that would be something that the police department would have to address. >> Thank you, Mark. >> What is the definition of a public school? So if we let's go back to the definitions. So it would be uh one or more grades and this these are proposed definitions. So we we don't have and we actually looked in tea we looked at ABC there's no definition of a school or a public school. They define private school for purposes of applying the alcohol distance. Um but our proposal for the UDC would be very similar which is the uh grades kindergarten through 12 and then at least 100 students enrolled. >> Okay. So there there's no definition of a public school that that this is referring to, >> right? That's why we're proposing to create one. >> The one the only thing that comes to mind is like you you think of usually of public schools as ISTD schools, but then charter schools are public schools as well, >> right? >> And so Okay. So without a specific definition of public schools saying I just ISTDs and I think it would cover both charter school. >> Yeah, charter schools are always considered public. >> Okay. And then um yeah, I think that the idea is like David said, schools primarily, but also places where kids would gather. So I would I'd agree with um schools and parks. Any others? I I I think schools and parks I I don't think churches probably, you know, most of the time they're with their parents if they're in church. Um, but I if if we didn't want to push it, I'd do just schools. But I could see looking at parks because there's kids playing in the parks a lot and but I think there's enough consensus to move forward with something and see what we can do. Let the legal team chew on it. And >> schools and parks. >> Yeah. >> Schools and parks. >> Schools and parks. >> Yeah. All right. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Micro transit paratransit update. Melissa, >> I didn't know they were going to >> Good evening. And you should have a copy of the PowerPoint in your binders. And if you do not or you need an extra copy before I start, uh, Stephanie does have some available as well, just in case. Uh, good evening, mayor and council and guests and staff. Melissa Baker, public works team. I'm here to update you on the microtransit and paratransit discussion. Today we'll be discussing the request for information, a timeline, and then of course if there's any questions. So the request for information staff on November 21st released a request for information for microtransit and paratransit services. Some of the bullets on here are just what the RFI incorporated, including a citywide initiative for both services. A t a turnkey project. So, we want something that's fully comprehensive, flexible, efficient, accessible, and coste effective is what our team was looking for. We also wanted interconnectivity, and that's also regional modes as well. So, not just within the city of Irving, but connections to those regional modes. We wanted to have the firm's approach and service model including their estimated costs, their software platform and integration, uh their background and references, their proposed marketing approach, how they're going to market this to the community, and then of course their reporting components. A little bit about our timeline. We released on November 21st. um they are due back uh the prop the information items December 19th. At that point um December and January the city of Irving staff will review the responses and then come back in the January February time frame for an update on the next steps and then the RF RFI process in general. I did want to say that we do constantly peek and see, you know, who's looking at the system and whatnot. And there is at this point a very strong support while while the information is not due until the 19th, I just wanted to express a very strong support of over 30 entities have already examined what we have out on the street. So, I'll take any questions at this time. >> Yeah. what I've heard that both uh Plano and uh Carolton have had meetings and they've invited the public to listen to these discussions on it and they've and actually even some of the the anti are somewhat surprised at the the services that they provide and the time frames and the cost for both paratransit and otherwise. So, I think it's going to be worth our time. I would try to push it up a little, you know, to see if we could get this in in uh uh January as much as possible so that we could we could have time to really evaluate some of the stuff that's out there and and look at it. that uh I had had several calls based on those two uh uh public meetings that they had where they had ride share and I think they had three or four different groups come in and talk to them and uh there's really getting to be quite a interest in it. Now the thing that gets lost in the shuffle and all this is the organizations that will be doing this they work with Dart. So it's not like they're competing against they're they complement they set to get up their their organization so that they can uh make things work. And so uh some of the challenges we've we've been wanting to overcome is increased ridership and more efficient and effective ridership for our paratransit uh providers. And so I think uh having those type of information will will make it a lot easier for us. any questions on the RFP or so let's go to and I wanted just everybody to be on the same page to a certain point with what uh Chris and I talked about u when we started this whole process uh we wanted to make sure that we had some type of a connection to to really talk about what our concerns were and as we've looked through we've we've we've come up with with some issues that we believe and um so from the meeting on the first page we we just basically talked about the fact that and just gave the statistics that were given by staff and by actually the statistics that were given to us by staff were actually statistics from DART as to to what their increase in uh funding was in the decline in writership. In fact, we just had our board meeting last week and we have als wrership on all modes. Uh so it's not getting better. It's getting we're still seeing a decline. Now some of that is because of weather. That's some of that's because of other things you can call but over the years we've had weather and other things and at other times as well. But we wanted to really if you look at the numbers that uh are on the back page, it's interesting that three of the five go zones that are the the most used in the whole 700 miles and 13 cities are in the city of Irving. So we have the, you know, three of the five top, so the best users, which tells me that our residents are more concerned about that last mile connection and how they can take advantage of that. Uh and that's really why we came up with the idea that we wanted a percentage back so that we could actually implement with one of these providers and see if they on a 24 on a 24-month time frame could actually improve writership because that's that's the ultimate goal is to figure out how do we improve the wrership and how do we get the numbers that we need to to make it work. So, one of the things that was concerning to us was also that two of the major bus routes that were the most of the top five bus routes, two of them were in the city of Irving. So when you look at the fact that we have two of the busiest of the top five R uh bus routes and we have three of the busiest and then you look at our numbers of four and five and 600 people using them, it it really doesn't pencil out for the type of dollars that we're putting into it. So obviously over the last couple years they there has been some things common uh happening as far as improving the wrership but obviously there's a lot that hasn't been done. So that's why we talked about, okay, if you're going to eliminate 225 and 255 and our numbers and their numbers together come between 800 and a,000 people, how are you going to what are you going to do to make sure that those 800 and a,000 people know what to do at this point? I mean, if you've built wrership and the wrership is low, you don't want to lose any of the people that are your constant riders. So, how do you get to them for them to understand if they no longer have that bus route, how are they going to use this the services? Now, Golink would be one of the ways, but but again, there's always been this challenge with people. Do they have do they know how to use the system? How do they work with it? And one of the big challenges that you also have within our area and it goes back to what we talked about earlier with people paying their water bills with cash. The major a good share of the people that ride dart every day pay cash. So you've got to give money. Now the challenge is a driver cannot give back change. So it's $3.50. >> You got to give them four bucks and you lose the 50 cents. And so there's all kinds of things that come into play with the system we have in place now that maybe we could change with with the ride share a different component and how we could, you know, actually even save people money by not by being able to work with them on how we could how we could move forward with that. So losing those two routes and losing probably a third of the riders that we have in our city that are on those two routes was hard for us to hard for any of us. Dennis brought it forward. It's hard for any of us to understand how we could do that. So, we asked that those two routes be put back in. Uh, and then that gets to what where we talked about we wanted 5% back of our what we've put into the system. This last year, uh, the numbers for this year that ended or is 113 million according to Dart's numbers. So 5% of that back would allow us over a 5-year time frame to use that 5% to hire one of the ride share groups and then build the wrership. We still want to be able to have the heavy rail and the light rail, but we want to figure out how can we do this. Now, the thing that as I talked about this and Chris and I when we prepared the letter and then we also had a meeting a couple uh just a couple days ago with with the chair and and Naen to talk about this, I said to them, do you realize that we're taking away all your headaches? Because if we the city now is responsible for those riders, if they don't get there on time, who are they going to call? They're going to call us. They're not going to call Dart. So, we're taking a lot of responsibility on and off the plate for Dallas by trying to build ridership so we can justify the dollars we're spending. So, what we wanted to hopefully do here was to let us have that 5% back to provide the ride service to build it for up to five years. Each year we would get the 5%. The next year there would be 5% available if they had increased ridership on their modes. and we had increased writership, then they could keep a percentage of that 5%. And the same the second, the third year, the fourth year, and then the fifth year. But if they didn't increase it, then that money would come back to the city that we could either use for ride share or for street projects within transportation projects within the city. So that was um where we kind of went there. And then we talked about the the uh dart to con continue to provide paratransit. That's something we kind of need to look back and forth and see what these new ride providers would provide for us and maybe that would be something that would be better for us to do as well. A lot of these things were just laid out there for us to have the discussion on it to show that we were willing to work with them, not just ask for we want 50% of our money back. We want to see if there's a way we can work together. Uh the other thing we talked about was and these are things that have come up over the over the time because as they built the silver line, one of the things they did was they threw betterments into the into the scope of things of how much they pay a city through betterments within the system. When we built the orange line, we had to provide the rightway and we had to pay for all our betterments. And because we couldn't afford to pay for all the betterments, we let three stations go. And when we built the last station, we got the money from the council of government and the developer to build that station. But the next two stations, we would like the same courtesy that has been given to all the others for DART to pay for those two stations. So that was the other thing that we um that they fully design and engineer those as well. The other thing we talked about was uh $1.5 million a year for an for an urban circulator. So what you have and this is where we talked about at great lengths and gets me so frustrated because DART will sit there and tell us that we have built into the cities $19 billion worth of development because of our rail lines. Well, I can tell you that we spent close to six billion dollars in the urban center of which Dart has not participated in any. In fact, we gave them the land through the urban center. And so, I'm saying we've got 5,000 apartment units. We've got 25 uh about 2,00 to 2500 homes if you extend up into the single family homes. We have over 4,000 square ft of class A office space. We have over 32 restaurants. We have, as you've heard today, we have a convention center that's busy all the time. We have an entertainment venue that does between 130 and 140 shows a year with with four to 8,000 people at each show. We now have the punchline that is going to have a couple hundred to 2 to 500 people a night at at the facility. And we also have all these different opportunities. 33 33 3,000 33,000 visitors that are utilizing that area and business people, but yet we have less than a couple hundred people a day that actually ride the facility. So, we hope that a circulator is something that we could just even run up along the multif family because the problem you have, you got the multif family and then you got this gate, this fence that goes on forever. People can't, they're not going to walk clear to the end and walk around it. So, we got to figure out if we ran a circulator through there, would they go to the station? Would they go eat over at the next would what is there a way? All we're trying to say is is there a way if for our $113 million that we can provide something that will put people butts in seat. And so, these are things that we we talked about the circulator. And uh the other thing we talked about, and we talked about this last time, is having fixed route bus service at all our stations. If we're going to have these stations, you've got to have some type of bus uh that that goes to all of them. You can't eliminate two or three where the buses don't even go to the station. You've got to be able to get to the station. Uh otherwise, how do you how how does it work? uh extend the times at the city on the tax increment reinvestment zone. And this kind of goes back to this whole idea about are they a partner with us or are they not a partner with us. They have not invested any dollars. Yes, they have a vehicle that runs through our city and yes, that costs money and yes, that has a value, but it's not like the schools and the county used to work with us on our tiff and actually put dollars in that we could utilize for economic development to entice, for example, uh if there's some we've got people that we we give a percentage of their sales tax back based on everything, but you know, they may do $10 million worth of sales sales tax, we give 6 million back or 4 million back. We still have 6 million. If we wouldn't have given the 10, we wouldn't even have the six. So, there's an opportunity for them to work with us on that instead of a 10year, a 15-year uh increment. And uh then one of the things that we all agreed upon was a new governance model where everybody had a seat at the table and that we reduce the percentage that Dallas controlled because as long as one city controls, nobody's going to join. Nobody's going to join an organi organization that one city controls and put all their I mean if you got $50 to invest on a on on something and you put and you you're just putting your 50 and you don't get to decide how it's invested, it's not going to work. You got to be able to have a voice and you got to be able to to do that. The other thing we talked about was on major uh debt that all 13 cities approve debt because right now you have a board that just that goes out and can app anything. You none of us sitting around this table can approve debt unless we have voter approval. The residents approve our debt. We're saying let the cities approve their debt. Prime example was the silver line. The Silver Line was a seven was a between a 780 and an $800 million project. Dallas didn't want it. So they threw a bunch of stuff at it and tried to stop it and then they said, "Well, you got to do D2." So then we stopped the the Silver Line and we spend money and energy and effort messing and looking at that. They couldn't agree between themselves where they even wanted it and then it grew to an underground and it grew to a$2 billion dollar deal. In the meantime, we hold we're a couple a year and a half or so away from building the silver line and so costs go up. Then when we do build the silver line where where it goes through Dallas, the betterments were amazing. In one instance, rather than allow DART to raise the street 11 in, they required us to buy multi-million dollar homes and put in a pump station and lower the rail line. now and then there were tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of delay claims because they wouldn't issue permits. So the at the end of the day there was there were cost upgrades. So that $800 million probably would have cost us a billion too. But it wouldn't have cost us what it cost us today, 2.2 billion. and that and so there's got to be some way where I mean it that we have some type of control over those kind of dollars just being spent because and how that's all put together. So, um, that's kind of the other thing we talked about was I was at the TRE board meeting, the TRE board meeting the other day, and they were spending dollars promoting what was going on in Fort Worth during the month of November and December and what was going on in Dallas during the month of November and December and not one ounce spent in Irving. But yet we had four or five thousand people here the other night. We opened our main street. We had people running through the all the way from the rail station to the to the plaza and we got no advertising out of it. So we're asking them to work with us and provide the opportunity like they do others that our events are advertised. So we put this letter together, sent it there. You all saw that I got we got a letter back. I got a letter back from Randall. Chris and I sat down with Randall and Naen. We went over all this stuff. We didn't agree to anything. They just we all agreed to understand what we were asking for and what they were going to go back for. In the meantime, we have Al has worked with Walt Hume who was one of the first people to really put things together for Dart. And so we have some people from the Dallas sector, former mayors and along with Walt that are willing to sit down and try to figure out how Dallas can get a better handle and how they can be a better partner and work with us to try to get some of this done. So that's kind of where we are. I think that, you know, we're getting a lot of criticism because we're the bad guys and and uh we're going to disrupt the the system and the World Cup's going to go to hell in a handbag because we don't we're going to pull out a week before the the uh event happens and so it's all going to die and it's all going to be our problem. And we got air attainment problems. You read about them today, but they're going to be worse if we're not involved in it. Well, all those things sound great, but if we're carrying if 13 cities, this includes Dallas, Dallas should have the same concerns as we do. If we're carrying the weight of 16 counties and hundreds of cities as far as air attainment and and and allocation of funds, we shouldn't be paying the whole bill. And the and what other the other thing that that's kind of got us in this got me in this fired up about this is when you look at this regional 2.0 that they're talking about and letting other people come in. So they're saying well if you want to join us and you just want bus service uh it's our cost on it is going to be X and then we'll put a little inflation or a little in uh extra in there for for the process. But people are going to be coming into the system for less than a penny. And if you buy I mean David you I mean all of us are smart enough to know if you if you own something and you buy things and you let somebody and you say there's going to be a cost to buy those buses that they want to use and you're not going to recoup that cost that fast. So somebody's going to have to pay and be responsible for the initial debt and maintenance and operation. Now you may get some of the reimbursement but you're still going to be hung out. And that brings me to the bigger question which I'm still haven't got my arms around is who is Dart and what is Dart? Who owns it? Are we partners? Are the 13 cities partners in Dart? Which means if it's worth I'll just I picked number of 10 billion. If it's worth 10 billion because it's got rightway everywhere and buildings and rail lines that they lease to people. I mean, they uh Amtrak pays Dart to be on that line. So, I mean, there's all kinds of things that go on out there. And if we've got a if we're a partner, then we should have some equity. If we're just a cash cow who's just paying and we're not gaining anything in return, then we should have the same opportunity that the others is to pick and choose our services and determine if we want it from Dart or if we want them from somebody else. So that's my whole story. That's what I've been fighting about. That's what you know the other night I got all upset because they were trying to tell me that it was because of the dart rail line that we have lost Kolinus in the urban center and the and the value of it the value of it that there's $19 billion because of everything that they've built and it's like well you don't really see the results of it because we put a rail line through there but 100 years from now it's going to that's going to be what you can put a rail line out in the middle of nowhere and if I don't and if we as a city don't put a road to it or put water and sewer to it, nobody's going to build by it. So, there's a partnership there. But if you can't even acknowledge that there's a partnership, we got a problem. So, we'll see what we get for the others. I wanted you to understand where I was coming from, where this letter came from, who we're meeting with, who we're potentially going to be meeting with to try to sit down and and and and the next thing I think is we got to we'll be getting back, city managers are meeting regularly, weekly, and then we're meeting as a group back. But we've got to get, you know, we kind of got offkilter here because we started negotiate, each city started negotiating rather than all of us sticking together. And so we need to go back which are basic principles because all 12 cities agreed from day one that we needed a change in governance. So we need to go back and put those things that we agree upon and get us back on track that these are these are no o deals that aren't done if they're not done. So okay, you listen to me for 25 minutes. That's more more than anybody should ever have to do in their life. But >> if you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to Sure. microphone. >> Thank you, mayor. So, who is the owner of the dart then? >> That's a good question. That's what I'm going to try to figure out. I haven't got an answer. >> I I had this impression that all the member cities including Dallas have a ownership. This is a though it is a autonomous body but the members has to have a say that's a basic well and that's that's I agree 100% with you I think I think we're not I don't think we're a client I think we're a member and as a member we we should have an understanding of what what we have and what the value of it is and and this this plays back to the idea that uh if we're going to at some point if we're going to bring people in and we're going to do these things, we need to be able to reduce that penny by doing by bringing people in. But if you're bringing people in and you're spending more money buying all the equipment and you're and you're paying debt and you're not covering your debt, you're we're just we're just the guy we're just the guy that we're just the cash cow that keeps paying. >> Yeah. Um my next uh question is I thought we are going to ask more than 5% but why we be happy with 5%. Is it >> I have >> just the first year or the second year or >> it's 5% for 5 years so potentially could be 25%. >> In total >> so total 25% but it is in five years. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I had a weak moment and I wanted just I wanted to not look at this thing as that we were being absent and I wanted to look at it from the perspective of we want to try to work this out but you guys got to work with us. You can't continue to take more money and provide less service, take our routes. We don't know whe going to go to those thousand people that or that 800 people or 500 people, whatever the number is. What's going to happen to them? Who's gonna I don't have an answer. And so that's that's my concern is is I'm willing to work with them, but they got to get their act together. >> Thank you. >> Bless you. Any other questions? Not that I let you have any questions, but thank you all for for let listening to my rant. I hope I mean if you if you think I'm going the wrong direction or I'm pushing too hard or not enough, you know, please just let me know and we'll see what we can do and and uh we'll try to continue to work with different groups and see what we can bring uh to the uh you know, some inside people from Dallas maybe can shake Dallas loose, the board, the council and the mayor loose a little bit and get us all on the same page. All right, 6 o'clock. We got an hour. We can go eat. Well, uh, we didn't cover the 4748. We got some appointments. >> Oh, I asked if you guys had them. >> Yeah, we got them. >> You want to talk about here? >> We thought we'd do a quick executive session. >> Oh, okay. Mayor and council, the time is 558. Irving City Council will go into a closed executive session to discuss items 47 and 48 under the personnel exception under the open meetings act um chapter 551 of the government code. the energy is up before the sun's up >> as people line up where prices are down. >> Finding a good place where the price point is on point and hopefully we got good things in there. People wrapped around the building for the grand opening of Jo's Smart Shop on State Highway 183 in Irving. >> It's exciting. It's not too far from home. I'm going to be coming here all the time. >> Three, two, one. >> At 700 a.m., the first shoppers move inside and start to fill their carts. >> I told you I was getting a sweet potato. I'm like, this is the first thing I'm coming for. We needed one of these. Glad that we finally got one. >> The produce proved popular and we also spotted a fresh sushi station and a lot of other items catching attention. >> It's all put together and looks very organized. >> Joe V's is part of the HB family. In a day before the crowds, we learned more about this chain's concept from a man who knows. >> So, you are the Jo V. >> I am. >> As we toured the store, he told me the idea came together 15 years ago. And this store in Irving represents how the brand has evolved. >> What we found is that fresh is a big part of our business. And so we've expanded our produce departments. We expanded our bakeries and meat department. We have offerings here that we didn't have before when we first started. >> What we want to offer the community is the lowest prices in the industry. And so when you come in here, the thing that you can always count on is that we've done our homework so that you don't have to. >> Prices of groceries are more important today than they've ever been. So having selection and opportunity to see something different, I think it's great. >> And speaking of different, now this is something I've heard a lot about. >> Yeah. So this is our bundle boxes. And the one that I'll draw your attention to is this one here. This is the most favorite. It's called the Five Nights. Five Nights means that for every night of the week, you have a different protein that you can put in your center of your plate. And you do that all for $20. >> The unique finds do not stop there. >> This is Smoky John's banana pudding. It's actually our grandmother's recipe. We literally have someone over a double boiler making the pudding fresh every day. >> Jo is the only grocery chain to carry it and this location will be a special focus. >> Especially excited about Irving because Irving will be our joys. It's the closest one to our restaurant and to our houses. My brother is a Irving resident. >> During a grand opening celebration with Irving leaders, company reps had some surprises. >> It was a huge surprise. $10,000 for both Irving Cares and the Irving Schools Foundation. >> They want to be invested. So, they've asked me to apply for additional grant funding. They've asked for volunteer opportunities. So, they are going to be a really great neighbor to us. >> I'm happy for the money. What I'm really happy about is another retail establishment that is really works to keep their prices low for our residents in the city. >> Along with the big checks and little prices, the HB team is sharing an update on what's happening here. A full-size HB is under construction in Irving. >> In summer of 26, we will be opening at 635 in Olympus, and it's going to be a fantastic store. It's about 116,000 square ft of great ATV products that everybody has been looking forward to. >> But on this day, all of the focus is on the new Jo Smart Shop. >> I'm excited to have it down the street from me. So, I'll definitely be coming back pretty often. >> Which one did you get? >> The chocolate chip. It's a great success story for South Irving, but really all of Irving as we've learned through working with the Jovi and HB team. They will pull customers not only right here in our local community, but from a 25mi radius, which is really exciting. >> A positive economic impact and lot to check out with this store now open. >> Hope to see you soon. Thomas Gandandy for City Source. Tonight is our annual parade and treelighting event uh here at Heritage Park. >> People lining the streets and having a great time and it's wonderful to see all the kids out there. >> I always enjoy the opportunity to be the grand marshal as the mayor and it it's very exciting because the kids they'll wave and they you know I'm very fortunate to have a nice car to drive so they like the car. Merry Christmas. >> And they'll talk about that, but then they'll say, "Are you Santa Claus?" And I'll say, "No, he's coming." >> The theme this year is unwrap the magic. We're at almost 70 entries, but it also showcases some of our public safety folks, city personnel. >> I got to ride on the city council photo, and this is the first year that I had my grandson with me, and so he had he had a wonderful time uh seeing everybody in the crowd and wishing them happy holidays, too. So, it's a great family event for my family, too. I thought we had >> um HR didn't give us a >> No, it's fine. We >> I know, but your direction was to give you a print out. We can session. I didn't do that. So, it's our hand. >> Okay. >> I shouldn't have to hold people's hands. >> We'll be all right. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat.