e e e e e e e e e e Council we may try to get started I'm not sure if everybody's in the room or not okay I think we're all here yeah we're good I'm going to call us to order welcome to your January 14th work session it's good to see everyone happy New Year we've got a full agenda so I'm gonna move right into it and turn it over to David Cook thank you Happy New Year everybody it's a new year all right first I'm going to call on assistant city manager Valerie Washington going to introduce the new staff member and talk about our recent ice snow rain event well thank you David mayor City Council Members if Sunny Saxton can start making his way up I'm really proud to introduce him and just want to give a couple of highlights before turning it over to him um Sunny has had a 30-year career highlighted by numerous impactful roles that have included 911 director Regional EOC director firefighter EMT paramedic um he holds multiple Emergency Management certifications um he has degrees from John's Hopkins University in Penn State prior to City of Fort Worth he was the executive director of the Charlottesville UVA Alber Marl thank you Alber Marl County Emergency Communication Center and I'm really proud to have Sunny introduce himself and David said while he's here he's going to also provide a brief update on the winter weather that we had last week can you repeat that John's Hopkins yes he has degrees from John Hopkins University and Penn State I can't remember which one is your masters from John's Hopkins wow okay I'll listen so drum roll please Sunny Gina Gina's retiring so this is normal for her you're going to hear lots of commentary teasing I love it I love it thank you so much U it's been so great to be here and so thank you very much also I have a special guest if I may mayor um my wife is of course everything to me to be able to do this professionally and so Brandy Saxton is here with us uh I just want to introduce her so thank you we all know we do nothing alone of course and she is my rock and my cornerstone so real quick if I may mayor and councel I would love to just give you just a few minutes update on the winter storm response uh I I've talked a little bit about how it was an ability to kind of take a slow roll into the winter season however I'm also mindful that we did have community members that were impacted by this response and what happened in the in uh the last few days so just real quick um let's see this ah there we go so just a real quick overview there's only a few slides here so uh just want to recognize some members of the team but first off the winter storm of course if you were here in the community last week you already knew we had frigid temps ice and snow 38 hours of uh below freezing and that was about a Max 8 hours continuous now that's important when we talk about the impacts not just to our community members but also our infrastructure right as how long we're actually in freezing uh ensuring health and safety was always top of mind while minimizing disruptions across our essential services so our joint emergency Operation Center was active we started planning about 5 days pre-event uh coordinating and then during the storm we moveed to what we call a level three activation with 12-hour shifts um and we have an amazing team at the office of emergency management that helps bring that together but keep in mind when I talk about the team I'm really talking about all city services so we have all Comm all of our co-workers and employees are coming together in that jeoc either virtually or physically to really help the response and so our key challenges the things that we began each meeting and we ended meeting talking about was support for our vulnerable populations which include those individuals that are experiencing homelessness are maintaining accessibility on roads and byways especially in around the hospital district and our other Mission critical operations EMS fire police stations but also I want to remind us that and you know this but responding to the everyday emergencies now an everyday is not an emergency for everyone right but from the police and fire standpoint they're protecting and so there are many times that even during these weather related events they're still responding to heart attacks Strokes car accidents Etc right and so that every day continued so it's worthy of mentioning I'm not going to read all of these but I do want to highlight some of the work of the team so when I think in terms of verticals at the office of emergency management we kind of break that up and so first I think about Safety and Security and just some amazing stats there I mean amongst everything else they also our fire teams were successfully managing five fires now they were doing a lot else too building claps and we had motor vehicle accidents in our food and hydration I have that actually called out as a yellow symbol there and that's because those operations are still continuing so I want to thank um Tara and Bethany and if you've not I'm sure you've met Tara before um can you stand or raise your hand okay so Tara has done an amazing job helping us figure out how do we Outreach in the community to provide Sheltering operations as a partnership with the other nonprofits but also as an overflow and those activities were active we had a total of 1236 guests that utilize those services and that's just amazing that is amazing amazing and I've worked with a lot of communities around the country that doesn't mean that we're all solved it doesn't mean that we're meeting everyone's needs yet but it does mean that we're getting there um and I also want to mention our Parks and Recreation Department we can't do those things without strong facilities and strong Logistics work and so we have Richard and his team of course everyone knows Richard but his team has done an amazing job in supporting us so um I won't go into all of these but I would just say that um we have some amazing teams on the communication side uh I think in terms of community engagement so I think about um the team with our public engagement but also I think about things like 911 and 311 for instance 911 answered 3,800 calls during that time period um our 311 team almost a, responses were categorized and also this is the vertical where we begin to think about how do we pay for these things so Finance is monitoring and we look at what our costs are of course on a larger event or a disaster event we would be talking about a reimbursement from state and federal government but we're not there for this one um I do want to mention in terms of transportation we think about not just how do our uh community members get to informed work but also how do our essential Personnel get into to work for the city of Fort Worth we also think about moving people from being able to get them to the hospitals and for instance if we think about our vulnerable populations they may need to transport to a shelter or two-way warming Center and those are the things that our team was working on also tpw oh my gosh wow 9800 gallons a brine pre event and throughout uh applying salt and sand and then um I want to speak for a minute about our about our Partnerships one uh new partnership for me because remember I'm new to the city is Trinity Metro they're going to talk in a minute um our gentleman are back here if you would raise your hand they're great Partners um and they helped us throughout the event move um people from place to place and get essential services so I just wanted to call them out for the amazing job um also hazardous materials we didn't have any hazardous material incidents but I think about um in this vertical we think about things like garbage and recycling we had to ask uh the community to delay Services briefly but by Saturday Cody and his team did an amazing job being able to get that clean get that back on track and also we had some bulk pickup last week right so that had to be rolled to this week and those plans are all in place so just a mention of that also our water department managed three water breaks this has all happened in three days okay I'll stop that update and move on and talk just briefly about our Public Communication and resources so our public team um was able to uh launch a website that had been there before but we we got that up and running right can you help me is that right with already up or dark oh you're dark and then you okay there you go and it did an amazing job and it was a great way to great place to see what type of weather updates and impacts we had in the community it's also uh noteworthy to talk about our joint information center or what we refer to as a j a j is where our public information officers from all different departments throughout the city really come together either physically or virtually to discuss dissemination of information across all their platforms and all their channels and they did that and they started that early on and they did that throughout the event and we were still talking on Saturday even post event so very appreciative of of the work of the team also they put together a really good video that had information about Sheltering and warming centers and this got pushed out to the media and the media played it and so that was that was really good it also had things what I'm sure we were all asked how do you protect your pipes and I even had information about that in there uh so really I can't underestimate or under speak about the uh effective collaboration that we had not just CMO and Leadership but also all of the people that I've mentioned today Fort Worth Police Department Fire Department transportation when we love press perian night shelter we already talked about Trinity Metro and then our hospitals our shelter operations really are about Community resilience and how we move forward so in closing um I would mention cold temperatures persist right we've got another cold front coming in um support continues for vulnerable populations we had uh guests last night we'll have guests tonight that are in those overflows and in our um normal private nonprofit uh shelters but our focus is really about resetting and preparing for the next one so we know it's early in the season we're evaluating our tools and processes so I'll open for questions in a second um but a safety reminder so just put my Emergency Management my 911 hat on for a minute and talk about um you know if you exercise caution when you're outside remember all those things we are solidly in the winter season now so it is going to get cold this weekend so please be ready for that and think not just about yourself and your loved ones but I'll also be thinking about our employees and our co-workers and how to keep them safe as well so I will close there just by thanking that or thanking our heroes we've got a few Heroes on the screen there and uh they're in the room as well so thank you and I'm open for questions thank you SNY questions from Council Council Williams and then Council block sure thing thank you mayor uh sunny I just want to commend you and the team um for the way that yall responded uh during this previous winter win storm I know we got the chance to be on a couple calls together to make sure that um you know the plan um you know address the needs of District six so thank you um for all that y'all did um and I know it's incredibly difficult for employees to show up um in such tough circumstances but they certainly did it as Heroes and um I'm so grateful for everything that yall did um for our community thank you so much thank you Council may may it's great to meet you face to face and I I really appreciate I really appreciate the work of Val bringing that team together to talk to you I I think that's the way you do it we get information out quick and we take it in and we adjust and so thank you thanks for being there so Allan and then to Gina so I'd just like to Simply thank you and the team for the hard work during the event and just appreciate you all immensely thank you I appreciate that Council vians the name is sunny yes ma'am Sunny is that your real name I'm I'm I'm a junior so they called me sunny when I was 6 months old I love it so thank you yeah is that the easiest question I have all day that's everybody's asking me I love it everyone's asking me about the weather forecast that's not me but I love Sunny that's a great question well there there's an inside throwback joke I just received and uh Jared I I received that in the the spirit they'll tell you about it later yeah love you back but all I can say say is you know where have you been all my life now I'm going to tell you you know we we had a problem a big freeze was that two years ago mayor okay we were running around with our heads cut off and we we had pipes burst people displaced we discovered you know one major apartment complex not only fa to the storm but there had been a fire in this apartment complex and we didn't know about it and so here we are on scene with a uh a mobile shower but the apartment complex management didn't want me on the grounds and so we just had to strong arm our way to help our people and so the idea that I hear such coordination is really just heartwarming for me because it truly does take someone like you and so David I just say sometimes you just really got to get the right guy or gu in the right seat at the right time and so you've done that with this hire and I just commend you for your expertise your execution and look forward to working with you and I say welcome to your bride have you all purchased a home yet we have not we we did a site unseen lease so we've got some time to find let me tell you something yeah uh you might want to fly back home from time to time wherever that was if you you move in District 5 I can get you to the airport in 12 minutes nobody else can do that nobody else can do that so you just just keep keep that in mind and when you look at the community called bidan don't buy there that's not in Fort Worth but you you can buy just just west of there but you know on on a very serious note I'm just very very happy with this hire and so again thank you David kudos to you and I think we are blessed with your presence thank you very much well thank thank May or if I will um thank you I just want to thank you for that and then also of course we never do anything alone so it's an amazing team of uh co-workers here at city of Fort Worth so thank you thank you sunny and to everyone else that helped during the winter storm we appreciate you very much any other questions from Council if not thank you thanks Sunny glad you're on on the team thank next I'm going to call on Dana berdoff to recognize a few folks I left my stuff up here unless you want M all right let me first call on H Chief Davis to come on up and introduce a new member of his executive oh gonna do that do that recognition first or do you want to yes let's do the do the staff hires first and then we'll we'll shift to the other piece I know thank you Chief good afternoon mayor members Council Mr cook uh it is my absolute privilege uh to be in front of you today to talk about as we continue to move the transition of Med start into the city of Fort Worth and Under the Umbrella of the Fort Worth fire department um I've been lucky enough that um I have been given the opportunity to work alongside Ashley Clement Ashley has been with the city for a long time through many City departments as you know um she brings a wealth of uh collaborative experiences across City departments which is going to be required in order to make this a success um her strong budget and finance background and understanding of the fiduciary responsibilities we have with the amount of taxpayer money that's going into supporting this project is going to be crucial in its success and I am just over the moon about how excited I am about the opportunity to have her on our team so I want to introduce her and ask that you uh help me welcome her to the Fort Worth fire department well those are big words that I now have to feel so um thank you Chief Davis I special thank you to Dana and Val and the executive team I feel incredibly honored I'm deeply appreciative of this opportunity um I do have a health a healthcare background before the city um and with the city I've been here almost 11 years in budgeting and finance so I just look forward to working with the fire department uh bringing in those critical Services of EMS and just fostering um a great environment moving forward for our community so thank you congratulations secondarily please join me I am very honored to introduce to you two members of the Fort Worth fire department and they are each here with a special recognition from me that I think warrants me uh sharing with you um the first that I'd like to share with you is battalion chief Sher hch who has uh been with the fire department uh since 1992 you guys told me 97 I'm sorry and they were classmates together coming through the academy and that's kind of that's kind of cool in my in in world that's cool because you're always known as classmates every time you see each other for the rest of your career um Sherry is uh the first female battalion chief in the history of the Fort Worth fire department which I uh was very fortunate to be standing in front of you back in 2019 I believe it was Sherry correct and uh announcing that promotion to you and today I'm standing in front of you um to tell you that after 28 years of service Sherry is retiring from the Fort Worth fire department and so it is with uh great appreciation of the city and I know I speak for mayor and counsel and I know I speak for everybody here in the room that um your graciousness towards me and helping me understand the landscape of the fire department as in your in your space helping coordinate the relationship between MedStar and other City departments um but this uh plaque of uh Award of Merit and appreciation for your years of service are um important to all of us here in the room and represent your dedication to the city so I know that we're pressed for time I'm not going to read all of it but Sher I can't thank you enough we wish [Applause] [Applause] you Sherry I know this is the last thing you wanted to do I get that but I think that it's important that you see that everybody here has an appreciation for your work and for the effort of uh as a member of the fire department and we wish you the best of health and happiness in in your retirement so please wow um thank you for that uh I never thought this time would come quick enough but it came very fast uh these 28 years have gone by extremely fast and uh I've enjoyed most mostly every minute um and and I have a deep appreciation for the city of Fort Worth and the fire department for uh allowing me to be part of the organization thank [Applause] you secondly I would like to introduce you to sher's classmate and that is Lieutenant Donna York and Donna is assigned to the fire prevention Bureau of the of the city of Fortworth and several of her colleagues are in the back of the room um approximately a year ago the U merger between MedStar and the City of Fort Worth uh was in its very infancy and planning stage as many of you were intimately involved in um and there was the need for us to work alongside MedStar to really do a deep quality assurance review on a sentinel event that had occurred within their organization and while I'm while while that needs to re remain U private the city of Fort Worth um was asked to assist MedStar in a review of that situation and so I put together a group of people that I am just going to brag to you about because they are some of the best people in the Fort Worth fire department they are some of the most um honorable and some of the most empathetic and and folks that not only would you want taking care of your your folks but there are people who you um have probably a lot of you know and would probably agree with me what sets Donna apart in this is she was kind of the glue that pulled this team together when I first got got them together and said hey I have a special project and I need you guys to do this for me they all looked at me like why is that our issue to deal with but I think now and and I think Donna can speak to this that as we put this family together it was imperative and it was important that we really understood and it was the first step in US beginning to trust each other um as we're going to provide a great service to this community so while this has got a lot of of detail to it that um again for time I'm not going to read it all I just I believe that Donna's involvement in shepherding this project in in in coordinating between the fire department and the city MedStar and this young man's family and the relationships that she helped build in order to gain the trust for us to get a good completed document so we could figure out how and what we needed to do to support the resiliency of our First Responders in in the MedStar organization moving forward I think warrants your uh your U attention and your uh understanding and that's why I've asked Donna to be here today with the support of of Dana so Donna if you wouldn't mind coming forward and I I just want to make sure that you know and I know that you I know that you really honestly believe that it was a team effort and we all know that it was but I think your teammates would tell you that at the end of the day that it was it was your relationships that helped uh to provide a very positive the final product that we can be proud of and proud of sharing with Nolan's family so I wanted to thank you for [Applause] that um as the chief said it was definitely a group effort there was an entire panel put together for this purpose um it was a very uh important and relevant mission that we were tasked with uh we could not have done it without the support of of MedStar and um fire department leadership um and it was an honor to be a part of that and um I I can see where um hopefully this U project will lend some uh assistance to not just MedStar but our own first responder groups um across all of the disciplines and uh make some meaningful changes um that we can use to assist with uh first responder mental health thank you for um recognizing me today I appreciate it thank you I appreciate it thanks all right thank you Chief and next I'd like to ask DJ harell our development services director to come up and introduce a new member of his leadership team good afternoon mayor members of council city manager cook I stand before you today to introduce you to the newest assistant director of development services uh Canon Henry here is in charge of all of our engineering functions and development services that's all new development that enters into the city um Canon Henry uh has been with the city for about 18 years he's got 25 years of combined experience in civil engineering uh he attended UTA where he got a uh Bachelor's in civil engineering and also a masters of business administration uh he's already proven himself Adept to solving complex development challenges and we're happy to have him on the [Applause] team so I would like to say personally thank you DJ Dana and my other colleagues and friends for uh just giving me the opportunity and also just giving me that little push uh I'm still kind of num still trying to get my sea legs but I can tell you with family and friends and things that encourage and push you um this is just a wonderful experience for me uh I'm blessed with my family I have my sister in the audience who's always encouraging me and it's just a it's a mind-blowing thing to be able to have this opportunity but I couldn't go a Miss without saying kudos to my my grandboys AJ and Katie who helps me uh study for my uh for my interviews and everything so uh I have to I have to call out their name my wife is watching streaming so she'll be able to let them watch so uh again DJ appreciate you thank you [Applause] congratulations okay next let me call up Diana Jano to introduce a new member of her team we've got a lot of new team members don't we we've got some great talent coming to the city of Fort Worth but mayor and Council I'm here to introduce you to Richard Jones Richard Jones is the newest assistant director for the human resources department he joins us with more than 30 years of experience in Human Resources most recently he served as the Director of Human Resources for the city of ret in prior to the city of Fort Smith in Arkansas he has um over 30 years of experience most notable positions also including the senior HR generalist with the national Governor's Association in Washington DC and assistant director of HR in Louisiana State University Health Science Center in shreport Lou Louisiana he a bachelor of Business Administration from University of Arkansas at Little Rock and a master of arts and HR from Webster University he's also a certified senior uh HR professional he'll oversee the risk and benefits divisions of HR so please join me in welcoming [Applause] Richard thank you very much I appreciate it um I'm happy to be here because I get to work for a great City where um we care about benefits and taking care of the employees and uh I wasn't necessarily looking for a job but I saw this opening come up and I really like benefits and being able to make sure that employees have what they need to take care of their families that way when they come to work they do a great job because they're being taken care of so I'm hopeful I can make a little contribution here in that area and I'm pleased to be here thank you [Applause] and I just want to close just by making a final comment Joan Hinton who is our benefits manager who's watching from City Hall I just want to thank her for allowing us to stepping up in the intrum role and allowing us to have seamless operations to benefits and the risk uh programs that we offer to our employees so thank you Joanne I I want to congratulate you it's always interesting to meet people who really like benefits because you guys are kind of different so I love I love benefits and wellness my two favorite things tell me what what what what attracted you to Fort Worth because it it really is a unique Niche and you just can't find these people just anywhere yeah so I saw the opportunity posted on LinkedIn and I thought that fits who I am and what I want to do we so gives me that opportunity to hopefully like I said make just a little bit of difference for the employees and their families now you know City Council Members can can take advantage of benefits as well the uh City manager's wife convinced me to drop mine and take the city so take care of us too and congratulations thank you yes thank you thank you very good and finally I'm going to call on Renee Tais to uh recognize some of our folks in Communications Renee cool thank you if I can have Cameron Gorman who as the manager of Fort Worth TV join us he's leading our efforts to reimagine the forward TV programming totoa stands for the Texas Association of telecommunication officers and advisers it's affiliated with natoa the national office and provides training networking opportunities and legislative advocacy for Texas based communication and telecommunication professionals working in local government and this recognition is about storytelling so I have a quick little one here um if we go back uh some three plus decades ago to a t-l conference in San Antonio a city public information manager named Gina Bivens used the occasion to showcase the state's first video Municipal programming and as that idea evolved into a Bonafide profession today totoa is the most recognized Professional Organization that supports and advocates for municipal telecommunication professionals including those involved in cable franchises Broadband policy right of-way management public educational and government Peg access television channels and so um really it's about how you tell your story as an organization and I'll I'll just say some of the the topics that were awarded um to Cameron and the team um that he made it interesting and not only interesting but then award-worthy the city of Fort wors Parks and Recreation accreditation process uh the reimagine Fort Worth 2025 comprehensive plan and then a first place notable award for profile of an individual which didn't actually end up being on human but on um the dog that retired from cold compliance and his years of service for that so uh what better way to Showcase um the award that that Cameron was able to win with his leadership then a a 50c video about them [Music] he [Applause] very good now we're going to jump to in foral reports I know everybody has missed those for at least a month so here we go we only have 20 of them ready the first informal report is on Amplified music within a city of Fort Worth Park and Richard zala is available if there any questions Richard or back uh Richard I want to start off by saying that this um IR left me asking more questions than answers it provided so it probably could have been done a little better um in the future if we're going to point to subsections sections in the city code it would be helpful to include what those say so that we didn't have to go back and any members of the public also don't have to go back it's complete and right here um in this ir and so my first question is um I appreciate that you have a custom question will you have Amplified music at your event uh my suggestion would be uh should it be specific to music or should it be amplification in general because I think um the uh using any sort of amplification device whether it's spoken word or music can be um can cause the same amount of all right speaking of amp Amplified music should I list should I list drum rolls yes um and then so I'm not clear on the process here when someone answers yes to that particular question it it triggers a a greater review of um from your sta but what are the guidelines associated with that is there a decel level um does that change if it's uh a neighborhood park versus a regional park because that's my concern if we have it's one thing to have music in Trinity Park it's another thing to have music in Kellis Park when you have homes right next to it or any sort of amplification so um are there deciel levels restricted associated with that yes the 23 chapter 23 does identify it's either by decel level or sound to reasonable person okay is defined in that matter so we'll just follow the code if if somebody does have a complaint then we would either first reach out to the event holder and try to get them to address it that way if we can't get compliance then we'll contact PD and our are there restrictions on the are do those those decimal levels do they change or alter in the park in proximity to I don't I don't believe they do but we'll verify that and just so as long as they're in alignment with the other noise um ordinances we have and and how different districts and what levels they're allowed to have adjacent to homes I think is important yeah thank you thank other questions Council yes Chris yes this is one of the ones I had asked for uh because we had an issue at sore Park and it's kind of what uh Council woman Beck was talking about inside of a neighborhood and so um somewhere between 9 and 10 o'clock at night there's infi music or speakers that's been played and you can hear them ringing throughout the neighborhood so um what is the protocol of when someone is in the park with the music and do not have a permit if if they don't have a permit then we'll contact the police department and tell them to they don't they need to cease and assist now they can gather in the park like that but it would be up to PD to make the judgement on whether it's unreasonable sound and if it's impacting the neighborhood so doing out the hour uh I believe the the for police probably is contacted first before they call Parks does the police department are they able to pull up a permit right on site we do we issue the permits out on a weekly basis of all our reservations throughout the park system so those are provided to the NPO and and the divisions plus our own staff if somebody has a problem and they're in the park then yes call 911 we get involved if they if we issue the a permit for their event it's a reservation so then we have a contact so we would just work with PD or work with event holder if we booked it but if we didn't book it call the police yeah I hear what you're saying so I think there may be something that we could do because I think I get those notifications too if it's going to be something that's H events that's happening but if if an officer and I don't know you said no but if officer 9:00 that's not an no going to that event is there a way other than looking through a email to see if that person is registered or not for the permit so I think that's kind of what the issue is sure we can we can look at that if there's a better way to get the notification out because there's events going you know it depends on the time of year there's a lot of events right so we notify a lot of people PD is one and the npos and those groups like that but we also have staff staff on duty uh on the weekend so they can go by and check them I think Parts closed at 10 right yes sir the new ordinance the curfew is 10 the park hours are 5:00 am to 10: p.m. I was trying to trip you up all right thank you Richard I I do have some input if if I may you know the like Chris said the NPO that's basically 8 to5 job and we know that the shifts change throughout each station but there should be someone that staff from Parks can coordinate with police to make sure whoever is on that night shift gets that notification again without having to look up an email and I think it'd be helpful if you kind of looked into that sure I don't have a lot of complaints you know in my district now but the more people are using Bunch Park I I anticipate it happening so I think there is a way to coord be happy to and I know that Chief noes will be willing to work with us in that any other questions for Richard thank you all right our next informal report is an auto theft update and Chief Robert Aldridge is available if there are any questions any questions for chief Aldridge no I just want to maybe just mention I I was impressed in the IR and i' heard y'all done this but the work y'all did specifically with Moritz Kia around certain vehicle models you were having issues with I thought was very proactive um and maybe just to remain Vigilant on numbers because it looks like you saw an uptick you had decreases in certain districts pretty significantly in District 3 I don't know if you're out there patrolling personally crane but but for those council districts where you've seen a huge increase um around d8 I know Chris is probably concerned of 93 increase um 60 and d65 76 increase it's just something for us to be vigilant about um how many of those were you Jess two I thought so she had a jeep that everybody wanted so yes thank you so Chief Aldridge and team thank you okay our next informal report is a forestry Hazard AB base about the forestry Hazard abatement program and again Richard Zavala is available if there any questions Council block and Council lorf yeah Richard thank you for putting this report together if you could just give a very brief synopsis and then talk about the next steps moving forward I I uh the backlog was kind of surprising uh to us and so uh if you just elaborate a little bit yes sir uh Richard zala parking recreation department and thank you Mr Block because the reason this IR is on the agenda is because of a forest recall that we had in your District it was rated a priority one it was a tree limb that was blocking a stop sign and that's pretty serious that is Priority One uh our normal response time for that is two weeks uh we are at a five Monon response time now and I'll explain that to you why but uh this is a good thing that and the second thing I would say is thank the council for the adoption of the urban forestry master plan because it specifically outlines the importance of maintaining what we have and that's a situation we're in now besides adding more trees um we we respond on a priority based system it's outlined in the report the most important things to our us are emergency and urgency those are handled in a three-hour to 24-Hour response talking about Lanes being blocked by traffic one lane that we can we can block off with barricade but we still got to get it pretty quick the next level is blocking sidewalks things that are going to create hazards those are priority ones we will not respond to any priority ones if we have any emergency urgency done first so we always go to the top crew shuts down the contractor gets reassigned and we address those we are uh in the last three years we've averaged over 4,000 uh work tickets or service requests that has grown by 70% in the last 10 years so we are con consistently tracking falling behind and having the resources to be able to address so that we can uh uh take care of those Priority One responses uh but it all is on a priority based system uh a number of improvements have been made along the way uh we've been able to map all of our things the 211 I mean 311 the call-in all that has been set up we've used technology we've worked with HR on our staffing uh as well um but the city has grown our work orders have grown and to compound things um in 2010 we eliminated a Forestry Crew and it was something that we needed to do as a city it was a it was a budget reduction that needed to occur when you look at the whole spectrum of needs and everything has grown since then one of the biggest things we did to when we eliminated that crew is we have eliminated structural pruning in the city you got to take care of your trees structural pruning is not a priority a tree on a car is a priority priority so we had to eliminate that and our work orders continue to grow and grow and grow we've augmented with contractors uh through that process so it is just one of the major many issues that we have in the city of growth and trying to keep up and defining our service levels where where we uh determine they should be so what we're going to do going forward is we're going to work closely with the lab this was my number one budget priority last year and for for whatever for reasons of a good of the city uh it couldn't get addressed because it's expensive to get here but we have a plan we're going to work with the lab I've also asked Christian and Mark if we could get a lean six quick review of the Forester program they've already got their schedule for the next few years but they're going to take a quick dive and help us through that process so you'll see this discussion again in the budget process as we identify that what I what I can tell you is Craig Fox who's a city Forester who is here this report actually began last July when I knew this uh decision package was not going to be able to get funded I said we need to start working for next year and we have the urban forestry master plan to guide us through that process so the report's pretty thick and it's because we've been working on it for some time and I have a duty to tell you that there's a gap here in services but what I have to make sure are we doing it efficiently are we streamlined as much as we can are we using the private sector as much whatever we got to do or is this and I can tell you the rubber band is tight it is very tight but we're going to do another Deep dive see if we can get a little more string or a little more work underneath that rubber band and I I'm I'm pretty confident that you'll see this again in future budget discussions and all I would you know say to the council is we're going to have a lot of budget discussions about a lot of needs and this is just going to be one of them our job is to make sure that if if the manager and the council wants to allocate more resources that you're confident in what you're investing in so Richard thank you I I the Safety and Security aspect the emergency uh you know clearly we have to take care of that I think uh along with the urban Force Master Plan and the health of our city overall we need to protect our assets and so I look forward to seeing that request coming forward thank you thank you for asking the question yeah so Richard one more question for you sorry um for these for um like understand the aesthetic pruning where does it fall because District 4 we just learned this last year about egrets and our first experience there so can you talk a little bit about yeah yeah thank you I appreciate that I appreciate that um so so yeah we're learning about the pots and pans and all that now we have a couple um pretty established neighborhoods that have a lot of trees in the uh I guess what you'd call the devil strip or um that weren't pruned and neighborhoods thought that the city was responsible so like to get some clarification on exactly who is responsible for that but where does the pruning for like eget prevention come in as far as a priority would that be like a tour three or pruning is a priority three it's the lowest priority okay and and and structural pruning is what we call it not aesthetic you know and it's it's pretty simple if I if I train a tree when the limbs are this big it's a it's a dollar job that if I don't deal with that tree for another 10 years it's a $500 ticket so structural recruiting is critical it's strategic to the urban Forest but we are not doing that because of uh resource reductions which occurred and we have to stay on the priority if I could mayor ask the city Forest to come up and specifically address what Mr is that okay of course Craig Fox we like to call him the yeah it's Craig Forester the city Fox but that's not really his name it's Craig Fox City Fox good afternoon Craig Fox City Forester typically with the structural printing for things like eits would fall into a priority too your area there's a lot of Live Oaks um that Basswood Park Glenn area that we've experienced similar to what we've seen in Southwest Fort Worth it's really a case by case treeby tree basis if there's other needs other hazards that exist but if it's strictly for something like eaget nesting um that work typically Falls within a priority too okay is there anything in those cases since we can see that you know the backlog and uh it's probably not going to get to the priority two or the threes anytime soon is there anything that some of the established HOAs or pids can even do um like do things on their own and be reimbursed uh through the city and maybe they can get it done at the same cost or what can they do to I guess really take care of themselves or work together with the city absolutely so groups like that can reach out to us for printing permit it's free essentially what it is is a review process to make sure that City resources are being managed by responsible group so a certified arur so the HOA can work with with us get that permit we make sure it's a responsible organization doing the prining and then identify the work that needs to be done and often times they can utilize our same contractor they may be able to to do a price break for them um but there's a lot of competition amongst those groups so they can shop around and get get better rates usually okay I'll get you off with uh I'll get with you offline about Park Glenn specifically yes and Richard want me to point out we don't reimburse those situations that's an HOA expend a homeowner expense okay gotcha thanks thank you any other questions Carlos I you have one yes thank you mayor U I guess I can ask if Craig Craig in priority U listing where does uh lifting the tree canopies come when you're talking about uh you know sidewalks public right of ways thank you Council mayor Flores those often times occasionally those will be urgent if they're extremely low or if the sidewalk is along an arterial uh route that's used for lots of school kids going to school if they have to step out into the street more often those would fall somewhere either a party one or a party two okay and then a follow-up question uh in terms of responsibility if if there is an issue with say a tree planted in the public right away that impedes line of sight view of incoming traffic um what what does the city do what's the response does tpw go out there identify it take care of it or does tpw uh evaluate and then call uh you know urban forestry to take care of it those requests come to us and each each instance is evaluated um and then given a prioritization so we're typically the ones that are abating those situations okay so someone reports it on the my for worth app it will get routed to you correct um right okay got it thank you thank you any other questions thank you both all right uh I'm going to take the next three if you don't mind they're all about Community Development block grants the first one is the 2019 2020 annual action plan and amendments the next informal report is on cdbg multifam rental Rehabilitation and a notice of funding availability and then the third informal report is on the community development block grant disaster recovery program proposal action plan and Amendment all those three will be Casey best is available if you have any questions Council rebec does I just uh Casey while you're walking up here my questions uh pretty uh straightforward on the mitigation funds what type of projects would um would be considered or what what are projects are we funding under this mitigation yeah so mitigation that is the one activity um that's part of the cdbg disaster recovery grant that doesn't have to be tied to the um ice storm so the point of that is to implement things that would prevent like if there is a type of weather event that you have um things in place to help mitigate any issues and so as part of that what we are proposing to do is to put generators at community centers who would typically serve as um warming shelters so that would be what the funds would be spent for and we will use the money um the estimate is that it cost about a million dollars per location including all of the infrastructure and the equipment and so we will spend that money until it runs out thank you any other questions for Casey gu Macy Casey on the annual action plan for the use of the cares act on the Presbyterian night shelter the homelessness prevention and special need support can you give me a little bit more on what that program is going to be and is it emergency services or is it housing it will be um the support services so more of um so not necessarily housing but if someone comes in correct exactly yes Gina Casey we we learned a lot you know during Co and we moved a lot of money around I just call it co money but what I'd like to know is you know are there any lessons learned from those exercises that David LED with the number of C s around the the city are there any needs that were identified that you could not incorporate you know in this package and if that's something that you have to answer later I'm fine but we had some very good vigorous discussions as as David kind ATT test to sure um I wouldn't say that there is anything that's unfunded that we need to have funded now we do have a number of different funding opportunities that are going to be coming available um our cdbg Public Service Agency contracts that will be opening tomorrow um so we don't feel like at this time um as it relates to the co grant that there are things that went unfunded I'll just mention one thing to you and it's not a recommendation in any way but it's an example of things that can catch you by surprise one thing we learned is that there were very few manufacturers of mask for children and I think the only one we found was in North Richland Hills and so I'm not recommending that but you just need to know that there are some things that come at the last minute and it has us unprepared and so I would just say that you might want to visit with a David closely and the other acms Who Remain to talk about what those findings were because it's those types of things that catch you off guard and leave you flat footed and then we learned that we don't ever need to buy any more hand sanitizer again I mean there the the uh the Buddhist temple started making their own and they're still giving it away I don't know what the life expectancy but I just think those conversations would be helpful not to reli co but to just see what types of events and issues come when we are unprepared for any type of event such as that yes certainly we can do that we're going to hope it's a Once in a-lifetime event but I know the um Emergency Operations Center they've been good about doing after Action reviews and certainly that's something that we can review to see our what lessons learns we can take from the neighborhood services on the grant side else thank you Casey stay close by the next informal report is an update on the neighborhood conservation plan and housing affordability strategy Casey well do you want to do an overview but specifically will you do an overview on adus and how this plays into this and well you know I think people immediately associate adus with short-term rentals and so if you can address that as well that'd be helpful sure I can but before I get started I do want to say that we also believe in celebrating Christmas throughout the year so if anybody did not get the Christmas gift that they wanted we do have copies of this report available for you it is riveting riveting reading so we do have those available our staff is here um as it relates to the plan so it is a Five-Year Plan um as it relates to the adus accessory dwelling units um that is an item one of the things I just want to copy out by saying this plan provided 41 strategies 17 on the neighbor hood side 24 on the housing side it's the menu of options that are available to assist the city on um improving our neighborhoods and also addressing housing challenges they don't by any means commit or obligate the city to implement any of these items and so I do want to stress that um as it relates to the accessory dwelling units this is an one of the options that are included in the plan it's not intended that we would move forward with that recommendation without um very serious thought and discussion as part of that there are three different things hurdles that we would have to go through before we even get to a point where we can recommend adus as an option um the first one is that we were going to do a middle um middle missing middle housing study and that would be done in collaboration with the development services department um that would also be in conjunction you all may recall last year we received a $5 million Pro housing Grant and so that study would be um part of that Pro housing Grant study so first is to do the study to determine is there a need for accessory dwelling units um the second component is to review whatever recommendations there are as it relates to accessory dwelling units is how does that fit within the city's unified development code um is that something that would work with what we already have in place or not um the third piece is we would want to um go through this recommendation with the community and so the idea is that we would have a um air Board of community leaders that would include developers um neighborhood leaders I know there are a number here in the audience that have um definitely have some concerns and opinions about accessory DW dwelling units and so we would want to take their feedback in and so once we have all three of those components then we would be in a place where we could make a recommendation as to whether we even feel like accessory dwelling units is something that fits for um Fort Worth and is needed um in the event that we do go down the road and we do want to recommend accessory dwelling units we do want to clarify that we would only pursue that option as the means of addressing long-term housing needs we would not be pursuing it for short-term lodging needs and so with that being said um and as part of long-term housing needs any type of accessory dwelling units would fall under our zoning code and would have to be enforced by Cod our co- compliance Department um and so that that's what I want to say um to kind of allay some of the concerns as it relates to accessory dwelling units we're not going to move run forward with that it is something that we would be very thoughtful in pursuing um and then to be frank um we are in a rebuilding phase at the neighborhood services department we have had some um changes in leadership at the top and so I don't anticipate that we even have the capacity to pursue that option um in the immediate future any other questions for Casey I just mention along the lines of many the policy decisions that the city may look at there's no reason to do that until we know what they do this legislative session importantly how we Advocate around affordable housing this will be a predominant topic so as long as we're working with Teresa and the legislative team I'm not taking a position on any of the bills I just know there's plenty filed so we can kind of navigate that together as a city through the legislative committee thank you thank you next in for our report is on no water incidents involving Code Compliance and Neighborhood Services Brian doy and Casey best are available if there any question and Chris harder you want out Council lar so I don't have any questions I just appreciate the information because it's pretty eye opening you know those locations that don't have water it would be interesting to find out why they don't um I see that many of them were uh cited uh you certainly never want to make a bad situation worse by by finding folks um so I guess it just be be good to know like what those situations behind that were um and if those city services were offered especially in those areas where they might not want to come forward and highlight themselves so maybe if you do want to talk to that for a second yeah uh Brian doery director of cocon plant uh we did look into the calls uh and a lot of them were squatting instances okay um a significant amount and that's what it was so it really wasn't someone who was in genuine need of it it was really they were breaking the law so got it okay thank you so much no problem all right again don't go far Brian next one is on Code Compliance commercial property fines Brian's available if there's any questions yes so um I appreciate the information on this one um obviously we have we have an issue in District for I'm sure other areas with vacant commercial property and the owner just not taking care of it at all and I'm I'd assume that for them it's a cost of doing business for just letting the city maintain their property for them and getting a fine for it like okay they'd rather pay that then hire a contractor to maintain the property um CVS seems to be one of the biggest offenders I think we see those empty buildings all over the place and the lack of uh care to take care of them um so one of the things I noticed here is a fine for violation of an ordinance that governs fire safety zoning or public health and sanitation um can't exceed $2,000 so what i' would like to know and get information on is the list of locations that have been finded the amount and the disposition of those those cases if you will um because what we're seeing in a lot of these vacant uh properties is a lot of homeless setting up camps there um and then it does become a public health and sanitation issue with what goes on there since there is not a working bathroom um and of course fire safety especially this time of year where we see fires being set to keep warm and property catchers on fire and it doesn't really affect them they just move on to the next spot um so I see no reason why we can't start really finding these irresponsible commercial property owners the max amount um and I'd like to know what our courts are actually or municipal courts are actually finding them and if they're actually paying them uh because I think if we and I'd like to know how often we can actually uh find them uh so if we start hitting them in the pocketbook where it matters maybe they'll actually start paying attention to what's going on take care and maintain their properties so it doesn't drag the rest of the area down so no we can definitely get a list of that um and yeah it's every 24 hours we we can issue a citation on on those violations um so theoretically if they're not taking care of it I mean we could find them $2,000 every 24 hours the $2,000 is going to be set up with the court and it's not a scenario where we can dictate that when we issue the citation okay um but we can't advise where we have habitual offenders and whatnot to be like okay this is something you all need to be aware of and make a priority and anything that goes throughout the case keep us in the loop and everything like that which was uh something we were sort of working towards anyways just with citations in general okay what is y'all's definition of Habitual is it if they don't take care of it within a certain amount of time or how uh repeated violating so it we're past that point where it's hey Mr Smith I know you have a doughnut shop but you know you you can't have these things uh after you have that talk and then every month it's the same violations that's what I'm talking about habitual same thing whether it's illegal dumping or if they're having you know homeless Camp there uh it's I look at it as as more than one occurrence in 6 months everybody's going to look at it a little bit differently but every person that has their they know they're habitual violators and that's what we need to we need to ramp up enforcement on that end because yeah it's if they you're you're 100% right if they were processing it as a cost of business then that we not being effective at all so right okay awesome thank you very much I'll get with you offline with for more information Brian along the same questioning that that Charlie had there was a very significant fire on North Main over the break and it's my understanding you'd have to go back and look at maybe um adjacent land owners that felt like they complained over and over again about the particular building that was adjacent actually did catch fire worried about vagrancy um maybe we work with legal what is the way we can you know really pay more attention to some of those properties especially if you're landowner that's really ignoring or the building is actually falling in I actually mentioned lean today that we're at the point now we need to probably demo the building because it's a serious safety concern and that one in particular put firefighters lives at risk so I'm up for all ideas on how best you think we could give you a better system um especially if it's a property that's repetitive in nature definitely definitely and that's that's a sentiment I've spoke with many of you about as far as this commercial enforcement and that is something that we're making it a a a priority and sort of an action plan going forward okay thank you very much we appreciate it one more for Brian I think officer initiated versus citizen initiated code complaints Brian I want to thank you for sharing your vision with me in terms of how Code Compliance can function uh historically I have seen that department engage more in what I call Selective enforcement than proactive enforcement uh specifically if you have a house and your your address is 4410 Ry and you get a complaint filed against you for your grasping a a foot too high a code officer would write you up but they'd pass by your neighbor two or Three Doors Down who had grass 4T high and so you I just want to see Cod compliance officers be better stewards of the communities that they you know that they're assigned to and I think by now they all know that there are GPS trackers in their cars and when I first came on board one had claimed to have met me somewhere well I was there but the officer wasn't and your predecessor was able to share with them that there was a Tracker in their car and so I I wish you luck in working with this department and turning it around now I am going to wear my code compliance shirt before I leave Council because I have I have two as a matter of fact because a gain weight that a loss weight but I'm going to wear those because they are you know they're very intimidating as as you've noted and I appreciate that and for my Council peers who have not seen the Code Compliance uniform I won't tell you what Brian said they look like but you need to ask him and know that I totally agree with him and I'm just excited about your the way you're approaching things and again I wish you well and thank you for this report thank you thank you thank you Brian thank you next informal report moving to libraries the library fiscal year 2024 performance measures update and madori Clark is available if there any questions all right next and foral report is on mobile Vending unit operations in Fort Worth and Wendy Turpin is available if there are any questions on a roll now next informal report is a monthly report on the release of area from ejs by Petition of landowner and Resident you're good okay never mind go ahead Chris no that was one before you need to go back yeah you want the vendor mobile vendor mobile vending unit operations yes I'm sorry cuz I think asked about that one and this is the question uh uh a couple of uh vendors uh came to me that they go through the whole process of being get their permitting been allowed to be a vendor on uh their mobile and then there's other people who just come out and set up such as like at the dream park that has not went through the vendor process not licensed and basically taking customers so what what what protocols do we have at when that happens um Wendy tpin assistant director of Environmental Services when it comes to permitting a mobile vending unit tarant County Public Health is um within the tarant county limits are the permites so the mobile vendor would be contact tarant County to get the permit any vendor that does not have a permit um a complaint can be called into consumer health um environmental services at uh 817 392 7255 for those audience members um and we will investigate that if it is a in a park we absolutely work in conjunction with the superintendent over those parks to get that information um out to them so that they can monitor it themselves and then also they call on the police department um if it's outside of a park The Code Compliance Department depending on the zoning they'll address it too so there's many ways they can always call um 39212 34 also and that information regarding that illegal vendor will get to the appropriate individual do they have to uh be permanent to come to the park or they if they have that permanent they could just go to the park without requested so if they have a valid permit they also have to have permission from the park yes there is a registration process and um and they would need to work with the parks department and they can reach out to them I believe the phone number is in the IR so I I can't remember that to Rattle it off for you but um yes you would have to register with the park also and get permission from them too and are we actively going out to check proactively unfortunately the Environmental Services Department is not I would have to defer to the parks department to see what their process with I honestly don't know it thank you it it would simply be on a vendor it's on a complaint basis we respond to that okay and we'll call the same number that she yes okay yeah they they get a per they'll get the food permit from the county if they want to sell in a park then we're going to issue a permit it's $300 for a food truck and $150 for a push card is that a yearly uh fee is that a yearly fee yes okay and so they'll come in they'll have that permit and then but if someone else comes in and doesn't have a permit they're just going to have to report to us and then we'll follow up okay thank you uh Richard or Wendy uh mayor I have a question go ahead Carlos okay all right uh Wendy I know you're aware of this um related to some series of emails you and I had been trading regarding reports of mobile food vendors operating without permits and and the difficulty in enforcement especially when it comes after hours I know that uh through some uh special scheduling and details Code Compliance has been able to make uh some inroads into enforcement in that regard can you kind of give me a quick update and to those uh efforts are they ongoing or have we seen a cessation of that kind of activity with uh mobile food vendors operating without permits um it is a seasonal process when it comes to Mobile Food vendors operating without permits as the weather gets very chilly um they tend to to reduce um there is a routine plan where we work with the uh the police department um and set up um task force uh opportunities for us and those will begin again um in the in the spring and we'll have those kind of throughout they have taken a break recently because of the transition of most of the Mobile Food investigations and permitting going to tarant County um in the last 18 months it's mostly on a complaint basis unless we're asked to do a special detail um which is what we did in your area okay great thanks Wendy keep me updated please okay thank you guys all right next is the monthly report on the release of area from ejs and DJ harell is available if there any questions all right the next in foral report is the September 2024 sales tax revenue update Christian Simmons is available any questions house Beck yeah Chan um I'm I'm actually as we look at the top five performing Industries on the back page thank you for including that uh what I notice is that um Electric utilities seems to be creeping up in percentage um and so my question is and you can send this to me via email um is electric is electric utilities standard in the top five in other cities large cities in Te in Texas as well so I'd just like to know where we compare on that um to decide if I'm concerned about what we're paying utilities or not sure yes we can we'll look into that and send it out to the council okay thank you sure any other questions for me okay thank you next is sidewalk waivers and again DJ harell is available if there any questions all right next is moving a million master moving a million Master Transportation plan status update and Kelly Porter is available if there's any questions next Parks and Recreation director recruitment process yes I love a summary on it okay and Leela oh no Diana is available if there are any questions yeah so I'll provide a quick update on the uh hiring process this process began in November of 2024 and Jess is leading the effort as the assistant city manager in addition to Mark McDaniel the job posted on November 4th it closed on December 9th we had about 30 candidates that sought uh opportunities for this particular position that was narrowed down to seven candidates through a semi-finalist round and now we're at five candidates that will be interviewed and available for um the final interviews uh this Friday at City Hall in the mezzanine there'll also be an afternoon meet and greet for stakeholders that were targeted for the invitation to participate in that process we're hoping to close this out pretty quick Richard gave us plenty of notice on his uh intent to retire uh moving through this process be less than 3 months before we have an ideal candidate for the to serve in the director position thank you di I just want to convin you all on this process um it was um very thorough and I appreciate yall and Richard thank you so much for your many years of service God bless you man thank all right the next inal report is are the results for incentive agreements reviewed during fiscal year 2024 and Robert Sterns is available if there any questions Council rebec yeah thanks Robert what I noticed as I was going through this that um we tend to hit the metrics that we um that we set out for each one of these um as we're moving through the process so good job on your team for picking projects that not only meet U the metrics that they said they would but in what looks like are surpassing many of those the one area that seems to be of concern and I think will be no surprise is the um one metric that we're not meeting and that's the wbe metric so what um what are we doing to uh to to bring that up or or to to help these industries or these new businesses meet that thank you Council mck yes that is uh as we have noted uh many times that is an ongoing concern for us the ability for firms to meet the uh business Equity requirements as you notice in the uh in the IR uh there was a policy change back in 2019 uh were removed from a mwbe policy or mwbe requirement to a business secretary requirement uh and that change in policy really tightened up the uh requirements as it relates to the percentages that they have to meet uh and the penalty for not doing so so many of the agreements prior to that policy change provided things like a good faith effort in some agreements uh they provided lower percentages uh or lower penalties for not hitting the mwb requirement so when we Chang that uh I think that helped to strengthen that policy and so you'll see uh in the IR the we're starting to get those companies that are reporting under that new policy uh and we pointed out Crescent in particular because their requirement was uh just over 27 million and they spent 28 million with the business Equity Firm so we think as time moves forward we'll see more of those deals that are hitting that uh some of the older deals again those happened when the construction period ended so you're really not going to change that over time you know if they hit it they hit it if they did they didn't so we're just going to continue to report those numbers but I think as we every year that we kind of go through these uh we we want to sit down with Christina Brooks and her Department we talk about the results uh and and talk about different ways that we get engage uh their Department earlier in the process uh and how we can better get them engaged with some of the uh minority fenders and contractors that are out there so again how do we engage with the minority Chambers Etc so it is kind of an ongoing discussion about how we uh can change and engage uh earlier on in that process to ensure that the general contractors know about the firms and can engage them in the construction thank you Robert next informal report is an update on the Citywide classific ific ation and compensation study and Di gordano is available if there any questions yes just overview please di all right I'll provide a quick overview um during the budget process that we were entered as we were preparing for fiscal year 25 there was lots of conversation around kind of injury wage rate and just our pay structure and our pay plan and so this comp comprehensive compensation study will be conducted on all of our Citywide job classifications there's over 500 classifications spread across um exempt non-exempt it and executive classifications in addition to the uh pay grades and pay structure we've already engaged the uh resources of seagull Consulting to look at our our pay structure they are currently in Project initiation a lot of the activity here is kind of just planning all of the activities associated with it as well as the communication plan that will go out to employees in addition to that we'll look at the classification analysis which will be the next phase that's looking at our pay structure our pay plan our job classifications in addition to just our career ladders and job families and all of the cousin jobs that are associated with each other um following that will be uh a market review that will take place and we've got about 140 to 160 job classifications that we compare to we look at both public and private data pay data to make sure that we maintain Market competitiveness and then following we'll look at just recommendations that are presented from The Firm but we engage individual employees so we're looking at their not just job descriptions but their actual work out in the uh operations that they perform day in and day out so there's a lot of movement a lot of activities we'll have final recommendations that'll be presented to the CMO team to make some final decisions and then communication strategies with Fort Worth lab the CMO team and the human resources department as well as all of the department directors that will be impacted by any changes that may be forthcoming we do appreciate mayoring Council support this was a huge budget item um that was uh implemented for fiscal year 25 and we're excited to get this done likewise this was a really big deal last budget so thank you for your leadership on this I know we're a little over a year away from um any findings but I look forward to that and thank you'all for all that y'all do thank you and now the final the last informal report but not least youth golf fees and access at City golf courses that was one I requested yes Dave Lewis is available if there are any questions Dave we talked about this before but just please give a sumary good afternoon mayor and Council Dave Lewis deputy director Park and Recreation Department I'm happy to share some information that was in the informal report um as a special Revenue fund it's important for the golf fund to always be on the same level as the market rates what that enables us to do is then provide some pretty deep discounts to allow youth gol youth golf with additional accessibility um I was in front of most of you with the uh fee increases that we experienced this year but we were able to maintain the rates on on our youth golf the annual passes um discounted 90% over the the normal rate and then the daily fees are anywhere between 30 and 40% that obviously helps uh provide additional access to our courses we do also have some really great partners that we work with um J Holland from the first of Fort Worth this year we've had a partnership with them going back to the first part of uh this Millennium um and so that's been a really successful program they do junior golf leagues junior golf clinics summer camps and then they are also in some for worth IST schools to provide programming they've served almost 40,000 youth last year so doing a really great job out in the community as well as we work with some of the isds to provide additional programming um at Rockwood at uh con Valley and then we're looking forward to really ramping up the programs at mebrook as well when that course reopens in the summer so happy to answer any questions you have about our youth golf opportunities awesome thank you um I know we talked offline um the reason I had brought this up and we talked about this was really to ensure that um you know the the council mayor and Council and the city continue to do our part to ensure that um we're providing opportunities for our kids to engage in positive experiences outside of uh school time um and this one is in particular important because game uh golf is an incredible game um and it provides an immense um amount of value to our kiddos if they can access it it's not a cheap game either um and so um that was something that was really of interest for me to make sure that especially our kiddos in district 6 have access to golf we have an incredible course down the street that District 3 and district 6 benefit from um due to its proximity in Valley and just wanted to make sure we're doing everything that we could I know first te is an amazing program we've had the opportunity to speak um um and partner with their um program to speak to kiddos about the importance of golf and just encourage them to stick with the game um and I would love to explore other ways that we can work together to continue to expand access $10 um is reasonable and also golf is not something you learn in one day a month and so if we're talking one day a week right $40 for a family that's making impossible choices between food housing Etc that might become cost prohibitive so I'd love to see how my office can do more to sponsor you know even more scholarships and then maybe a broader conversation around the next budget cycle if there's ways that we can um increase access especially for those who have um Financial who come from households that are financially um you know just strapped and can't make that investment but the kids want to yeah yeah look forward to those conversations one of the reasons we chose the first te as as really the leader of Youth golf is they spend a lot of time on social emotional learning and life lessons even outside of the game of golf something that we're also trying to stress in our after school sports program as well so we're we're uh looking forward to more growth as well and at first he is willing to take on more I would support that so uh they do fabulous work and I'm I'm just incredibly grateful for uh the blessing that they um bring to our kids and our community yeah appreciate it thank you mayor that concludes my report I don't believe it okay Council we're going to roll through any questions on memberships boards commissions or questions or just comments on upcoming zoning cases nope yep there you go council member Bens just is this the time to talk about my plans to continue a Cas that would be fine yes ma'am I'm going to continue the Wood Haven case I don't know the number and I don't really need to hear comments this evening what we've done we emailed every person who signed up and let them know that we're going to continue this case okay and I met with the developer this morning and gave him advice so how to better do outre each on Zing okay thank you any other yes councilor Williams yes thank you mayor um I have one similar to Mayor proin viven I don't know the number but it's in Como I continued it last um um zoning meeting that we had um and we'll be prepared to move forward we've met with uh the applicant as well as the neighborhood um and so we'll be ready thank you Jared anyone else okay assuming there's no questions on the upcoming MNC log then we'll move into our first presentation which is a trinity Metro update I believe Jess mcer is going to kick things off and we're also joined today by Rich andreski the president CEO of Trinity Metro mayor and Council thank you so much we are excited to welcome welcome rich andresy with Trinity Metro to give you an update um he's going to give you an update over of the system overall and then also talk about um the Tex rail extension project that we've been working on with them for quite some time but we are very excited to continue working with Trinity Metro on all that the city has to offer and we welcome him today thank you Rich Jess thank you so much it's a real pleasure to be with you we're going to start out with a quick 60-second video so I think we have that on Q [Music] wow who said wow I like that that was that was exactly the reaction I was hoping for okay so it is a pleasure always to be in front of you it's a a point of privilege I just want to acknowledge a few colleagues in the audience today we've got Greg Jordan Rebecca Montgomery Chad Edwards and our newest team member Anette linderos our new Chief strategy officer um we are um embarking on a really New Vision for Trinity Metro and I I want to start by thanking this city council and mayor uh and City staff for the support that you show us um I I can't tell you we don't take it for granted um we're well aware that they're going way back in history there was maybe some distance between us and really proud of the fact that we have um what I think is over very much a tighter relationship and better communication so thank you and just MC akan I could name lots of people but Jess thank you for your leadership so um the story we're going to share right now is a story that I think is tempered a little bit I'll start by saying a lot of reason for optimism but I do want to temper that optimism with a a little bit of perspective on the headwinds ahead of us um we are definitely a multimodal agency we're growing fast as you saw we need to be in my humble opinion a top 10 system to meet the top 10 vision of our city right we're we're soon to be a top 10 city and whether it's uh any City really in America that's thriving and growing has a robust Transit infrastructure to support it and so we're you know rethinking everything starting with our mission it's really not about Transportation it's about connecting our citizens and our visitors connecting people to life and Innovation is is top of mind for us Innovation is absolutely essential to what we do and so it's not about necessarily more funding all the time it's about how do we do more with the funding that we have ridership uh continues to grow um certainly right now not only are we growing at the 15 to 20% rate what we're seeing now is a full recovery so a full recovery in the riders that were lost during covid um what what is happening though is that those Riders are different than they used to be so whereas a TR line to Dallas used to be a major component of the ridership that's ebbed somewhat but we've seen grow growth and on demand and certainly Tex rails knocking the lights out um the Riders uh who do we serve the Riders are are really everyone here in our community um I think sometimes we have a I say we in a in a very Global sense we have a maybe a stereotype of who the traditional Transit Rider is and I would just have you um think about that these are folks from every facet and every Walk of Life here in our city and in our County and we have that data to back that up what we've seen is two things we've seen the Riders ship getting younger over time and we've seen the average household incomes and demographics changing so uh increasingly a more diverse mix of of households using using Trinity Metro and the winter storm that we just experienced um we do need to keep in mind that uh we we provide lots of essential Services um we did not miss a beat during this winter storm I'm really proud of that fact um thank you to the partnership of the city and um a really hardworking team that gets the job done so what does innovation look like for us Innovation is not about necessarily technology I think sometimes when we hear the word Innovation we might think automation we might think uh computers and mobile mobile apps Innovation for us is about rethinking how we provide service how do we make service more relevant how do we make it more enticing to people who may not be on the system today and one of the ways we're doing that is through this re reinvention of the network we're calling it the Metro System um you know all about Orange Line you saw that thank you for your support on Orange Line uh we are in the process of working through the Blue Line soon to launch um Andy Taft is in the room appreciate Andy's partnership Bob Jameson and others who are working very closely with us on that uh soon to come and we haven't figured this out yet would love your input on the future network I just want to compliment your orange line launch I know that yall did that in house if I'm right maybe with some external help but I was very impressed it was really well executed the only problem was the sun which you can't control that but you even had umbrellas ready for people in the heat so it was really well done so I can't wait to see what you do with the blue line I hope you make Andy Taff dress up in some kind of theme yeah we we would all like to see that wouldn't we um so thank you mayor um yeah the orange line has been well received yes it was done in house and um really it's experiential right when when you when you go to places that provide great uh Hospitality it's really about more than more than the the transportation right it's the experience and um and so people rave reviews lots of social great earned media and one of the things that I wanted to mention at the start and I didn't was that every photo in this presentation you'll see one common theme and that is lots of people so the other sort of counterveiling sort of idea is that um maybe our system isn't heavily utilized and what we're seeing is really uh increasingly more crowded Vehicles people are seeking out the service and using it and we're really I love love these photos um especially on Thursday Friday Saturdays uh we routinely see these these kind of crowds okay mentioned headwinds um I'm going to start with the numbers so triny Metro established 1983 half penny sales tax we are heavily reliant on that half penny now level setting no transit system in America or the World perhaps with the exception of Hong Kong um generates a net uh cash flow so we're no different but we are heavily relying on that half penny and as we've done more with the resources we have we've gotten ahead of our skis a little bit we're we're spending and relying more increasingly on those Federal formula funds that's a headwind we have to be aware of um if we could change that today what we would do is bring those operating dollars back into local resources and so we're going to be working on that um I think that's a really u a key thing for us but but the other the other Factor here is that that purple bar at the top of that second column our dollars that can be and should be used for Capital maintenance replacement of vehicles um upgrades to facilities and as we've increasingly relied on those dollars we have few fewer dollars for those upgrades so that's a strategic risk for turning Metro going forward what what it also tells you though is that the growth that we've experienced through the addition of of Tex rail the addition of on demand we are now really fully committing every last dollar that we have to services and that's a strategic risk for us as we grow as a city now questions I we get quite often are but why aren't we able to sustain ourselves through our locally generated revenues meaning fairs and thirdparty Partnerships and what I would tell you is that we do quite generate quite an enormous return for this our local economy we generate over $700 million a year in economic impact and we didn't do this by a rule of thumb we went out and we did Bottoms Up analysis of the investment that we wake and the jobs that we support and so when we think about that economic impact I'd like really to to have you think about how do we unlock more Economic Opportunity for our city um I you know we have you know Robert Allen and the work that he's doing um I really believe that we have a a large part to play in helping us attract and retain businesses and talent here in Fort Worth now directly we currently support 3,700 jobs but we could be doing a lot more and when you think about economic impact I would perhaps suggest that we're leaving um economic value on the table by not investing more so one case study and I I always like to draw on Fort Worth examples but if you would just humor me uh the city of Grapevine has uh really leaned into Tex Rail and taken advantage of the graine Main Street Station and we have data that shows that The Closer you are to the that rail station the greater the business impact is so in this slide you'll see Citywide they saw a 23% growth in sales tax receipts but if you were in a FIV minute radius of that train station you saw 38% increase in business impacts um so these are the kinds of examples that we would like to lead with when we have the conversation about growth and investment now right here in our own backyard of course we have this incredible Innovation District taking shape this is the photo out my window over at Grove Street and it's not lost on us that Central Station is really at the heart of that Innovation District so we're in the early stages of thinking about and brainstorming about what that Innovation District could look like with its Transit Center and so very early nothing nothing to share just quite yet but the ability to go from this Innovation District to DFW Airport to the Medical District to uh Dallas will be critically important in in terms of realizing the full potential of that of that Vision so we do a lot of benchmarking we're benchmarking constantly we Benchmark against peer cities and and aspirational peer cities and what we realize is that we are um currently about spending about half of what our peer cities are spending on their transportation infrastructure again why does that matter we do things differently we don't have to follow the mold but we do know that people are investing for a good reason and that is the transit systems are providing an economic lubricant basically unlocking value and we're in the process of understanding our market we've done a lot of great research to date polling focus groups other other interviews um you know one in three households here one in three people use Trinity Metro every year this was an eye opener for me um I didn't know exactly what to expect but this is in any given year 300,000 unique residents in our city are using Trinity Metro we asked what the top policy concerns were and consistently we heard traffic and Mobility um that was across all districts in Council council districts here in the city and um interestingly it also resonated throughout the county so it wasn't not a unique unique to Fort Worth and we asked folks directly okay you've expressed expressed an interest and a a desire um are you willing to put your money where your mouth is so to speak to invest more in our transit system and 77% said they they favor public investment so as I wind down here I would just sort of paint a a picture for you of of the immediate risk and opportunities facing our city with respect to its transit system we have a a new Administration in Congress we'll have to see what the policy priorities are in Washington we need to keep note and stay close to that uh we have population growth and congestion that's going to continue to be a factor and frankly it's a tax on on business congestion is a tax we're we're currently over dependent on that single Revenue source and I I just think we want to be mindful of that and of course these other opportunities around Economic Development um are ahead of us proud to say that this team that we have at triny Metro is um been working hard to deliver the Tex rail extension we received some good news on Friday I think you may have all seen the headlines uh a $25 million Federal raise Grant um that is now in hand so that $295 million program and I'll just paint the picture very briefly it consists of a two two- mile extension to the Medical District Four brand new trains and a rail yard expansion um now as of Friday we have 270 million of 209 yes thank thank you thank thank you councilman Williams um if all goes well and fingers cross we're going to be asking for your help and support um we could be could be in a position to break ground at the end of this year and as we think about opportunities going forward um you know you know councilman crane you know this well uh the growth on the west side is abundant and we think about that growth how do we ensure that we're connecting and remain making sure that part of the city is very easily connected to um the the current city and so we're in conversations with UTA this is just an example and the reason I put it up here is it's really a tangible immediate example but we have examples throughout the city uh Charlton State other places uh and South Fort Worth Alliance that really deserve better Transit and so how do we serve these areas that's a question to be determined but um certainly we're up to the challenge and so in closing I would say that we have a busy year ahead the year is really going to get off U briskly here with uh mayor your Urban rail committee report coming up we have uh Trinity Metro bikes come uh launching soon uh our blue line sometime this spring our strategic action plan which will paint the picture for the next five years for us and again fingers cross on that text rail extension I could go on I want to respect your time I could talk for hours about all the good things happening at Trinity Metro we're really aoud of where we are today and I want to give a final shout out to councilman Crane and councilman Nettles for your support on the board I think that has really um been an asset to triny Metro uh thank you for your leadership and mayor thank you and Council thank you for inviting me today thank you Rich great presentation I'll go around the table Council M Lor thank you for the information it's greatly appreciated um I'm glad you mentioned you know rethinking service and becoming you know more relevant um you know I know we have specifically one line in uh District 4 um that sadly we don't see full uh it's constantly hear it from from from residents I see it myself um we do see it empty all the time and unfortunately those who do seem to use it really just coming up to to make some money panhandling which we see quite a bit there too um now what I am seeing which I think is reassuring is I'm seeing a lot more zip Zone vehicles in and around the area so I guess my question would be um at what point do we look at routes and the cost of maintaining those routes and if there's other areas that need additional resources maybe diverting those resources like the bus lines for example and replacing uh and pushing more zip Zone in the areas that aren't really as reliant on the bus line so if you have any information there especially if it's like cost per mile of each uh because I think that's certainly going to help with some of the the cost and challenges that we're going to face especially as things get more and more expensive um and to what we can take to you know our residents to let them know like hey we this is what Trinity Metro is looking at um I've gotten some uh some feedback or some uh emails answered from Rebecca which you have an absolute rockar uh there um and you're growing your team with the Rockstar so congratulations on that looking forward to seeing what you guys do um but I know it's not always good news it's not always you know sunshine and kittens so what would you say to that as far as like what we're looking at to doing in those areas where it's not as heavy heavily utilized without saying hey we're I certainly don't want to take public transportation away so I want to make sure that's clear but I just want to redirect funds or redirect resources so do you have any input on that and what I can take back to the residents and let them know this is a such a fantastic question councilman lorf it's um something that I'm I I'm very quick to say let's let's not just keep doing what we've always done if there's a better way to deliver let's let's do that and so over the the last two years we've eliminated over five bu at least five bus routes to date um the Dash being the most notable um if it's not working we're not going to keep doing it uh so that's number one um in terms of network I think there's an evolution of the system going on that's fairly substantial here right we're seeing declines in T and in fix route bus but we're seeing these enormous gains in on demand on demand works really well in certain markets and I think in your District as you pointed out it's it's um it's the right mode for the the right area the challenge with on demand as a sort of in other parts of the city is that it it is is one of more pricey services so a fixed route passenger trip costs us about $8 a trip and it's about $35 a trip for on demand um so um in terms of scaling um one of the challenges we Face currently is uh growing U there's a certain level of service you have to provide to guarantee a pickup time and so as we grow on demand we have to figure out how to fund those kinds of programs and I do think in the future there's going to be automation that's going to come to to Bear right I think in the future we we will see cost efficiency through automation we're we're ways away from that at this point so for the time being um and my CFO Greg Jordan brought this up today we just have to be careful at the at the moment and how we pivot it's a very it's a sort of a very deliberate and I I know you're a deliberate person um in how we transition to this new you know this new model um really really happy with the gains that we've seen I'm just not sure at this point whether we can replace most of our system with on demand I do think in the future we're going to have if you if you go out 10 years I think we'll have half the number of bus routes and maybe twice as much on demand service but again we're going to have to we're going to have to have that funding conversation about how we do that yep is that fair okay yep just one this way it's easier for me anybody else Jared Michael okay um I wrote something down the other day an experience I had that I thought was noteworthy to bring up today and I want to share that with you just to um you know encourage what y'all do um you know recently I was um speaking with a member of my church um who's been working really hard to uh rebuild stability in his life um he's been um juggling employment and um housing challenges and I was struck um by his determination and resilience and his faith and um every day he walks two miles and this call we had was him calling me while walking in the snow two miles um to um get to the nearest bus stop not far from UTA West um to c a route all the way to his job in Alliance um when I asked if he was planning to save for a car um his answer surprised me because naturally I'm thinking you know okay we're going to get your housing in order then we're going to get you a car and then you're going to be able to make it in north Texas and he said uh his top priority was housing and car wasn't really a big deal for him um because he knew that he could count on triny Metro and um that was um just it it reminded me of why we do what we do um that you know Transit is vital and it's it's not just for convenience which it is um but it's also a Lifeline for working people who are resilient and Scrappy and working really hard to um move themselves and their family to a space of blessing and flourishing um and so reliable trans Transit is a is a bridge to opportunity to jobs to education to connection um with others um and it's a reminder why we must continue to invest and um improve these systems for those who count on um a a thriving transit system and I know that you all and uh Cog as well have some legislative priorities around um you know the importance of regional transit the importance of rail the importance of um investing in public transit um and I just want you to know that um in a very real real and tangible and experiential way um I deeply am appreciative of what youall do um for our community and um there's still more work to be done obviously but I'm I'm grateful for this Council and council member netos and council member crane of finding another meeting to add to their calendars but one that's certainly important to the vibrancy of our city thank you so much for that and I just would point out $111,000 a year is what it cost to own a car so this is about housing affordability this is about income right higher incomes for folks that can redirect those resources to other needs councelor Hill okay I have three questions the first since we're on the slide um so fiscal year 20 21 and 23 are not on here is the ridership change fiscal year 19 to 24 does that include those numbers even though they're not displayed on the screen yes so what what what I'm showing here is the is the actual number for the year shown right so uh we have that data I just for rev didn't include it y okay if you don't mind sending that out I think that' be helpful okay and then then um will you talk through the federal formula I mean as you mentioned you have really just one Revenue stream um the fair ship isn't very much the other 8 million but I'm curious to understand the federal formula grants does That Vary year to year or is that a set number depending on ridership can you walk me through that sure uh yeah the federal program formula dollars are um exactly that a formula based on population ridership and other statistics those dollars come to the DFW region and then are are split based on number of factors between Dart triny Metro and dcta the uh Denton system um those more or less are are fairly consistent year-to year the big unknown right now is we do think there will be substantial changes coming um in the next few years and so what it I'm not sure what that might look like I think we're all we we we would all be speculating it is a it is a risk though if those dollars go away um that will directly impact service and lastly on slide 14 when we talk about the $67 million of reduced congestion cost can you correlate that to actual cars on the road um yeah so the economists that worked on this study for us um uh had waiting and criteria for how those are are calculated I wouldn't wouldn't be able to sort of get into that math here but we'd be happy to make those documents available to you yeah Gina and then Carlos Richard I want to thank you for the presentation and thank you I noticed the first slide you showed was in District 5 in Trinity lakes and that's a location that needs to be there I don't know how many of the new council members you've met with but I think it would serve you greatly if you talked about that half cent and compare it to the full penny in Dallas it means a lot and what happens when people see the uh gross you know layout I guess I don't want to say gross but the impressive layout of what DART provides they never really comprehend that difference in funding and so it's not that you're going to change anybody's minds but I think if you have a conversation detailing what we rely on and how creative you have to be I think it'll serve everybody well I want to acknowledge our mayor who used to be the youngest mayor of a big city here but you know when when you when you came up with the idea along with new council members of putting council members on the board that was like oh we've never done that I was shocked and there are Old-Timers who were just really afraid but change is good and I can tell you that the input that council members have by serving on that board benefits this entire Council and for those of you who don't know I used to chair the board and we had to struggle back then of getting people who were not what we call Transit dependent not just the bus rider and so you may see empty buses at different locations but remember they came from somewhere else and if you're looking at what we used to call route number two I think it may be still called route number two on Lancaster is it still two did you change that's the 89 Kamp Buy's number two okay yeah if if you look at that that that route uh there are Council me members who would complain that they saw the spur just empty not realizing it came all the way from near almost to uh Lockheed people Las Vegas Trail people and so I think it's important that you really grasp the importance and the disparity of funding but you we choose to fund The Crime Control District tax and but for that you know transportation in Fort Worth would have the full Penny but I salute the team and we continue to get uh leaders who are better and better and meeting the moment of the day and I have every bit of confidence that you'll continue to get there I have never seen such diversity on any kind of slide from Transportation it was always Transit dependent y'all can figure that out and so thank you for reaching others and making Transit cool and those are my remarks thank you Gina Council M Flores and then counc M Beck uh thanks mayor uh thank you for the presentation Richard um just a couple of comments uh as far as public investment and Transit uh you know I'm a supporter uh we have to be smart about it you heard that uh when we first started uh with you you know the leadership position uh we can have a more extended discussion about it but I I wanted to bring up uh the need to continuing conversations with potential Transit Regional Partners right Dart has that in abundance we don't and I do know the state of affairs with uh certain municipalities but I think we need to kind of continue having that because traffic just keeps getting more and more dense and more challenging to navigate now with that said I wanted to talk about a specific item uh that I had a conversation with Reed lantham about and this impacts uh airport workers specifically uh and hearing uh council member Lor's comments about you know not seeing a whole lot of people uh ride uh Tex rail uh don't don't disagree with that necessarily but one particular demographic that I do see are airport folks and that depends if you're on the train early or on the train late right uh I received a number of complaints from them that they were impacted when Trinity Metro decided to trim off some of those earlier hour um uh you know ride schedules okay and so in my mind you know who rides you know uh you know text rail who rides uh commuter rail well there are passengers they commuters and so specifically I'm talking about these commuters right I think council member uh Williams also uh referred to it many of them don't have cars so you know I've had a few conversations with some that have been impacted by that but I'd like to hear your thoughts councilman Flores that's the essential question and um I think I would welcome that time with you to think through those opportunities when we talk about changing how we deliver service it very much affects people individually in the case of Tex rail what we found was the number one complaint if there if I could call it that is that the lack of midday service um frequent midday service dissuaded people from using that uh so if you were going for an airplane if you had shift work at the airport and you had a midday shift or a midday flight you were less likely to use the train and so we did a sort of a numbers evaluation on the ridership of the Late Night Train trains and look at the market opportunity of the midday and it was one of those circumstances where um we thought we could do more and serve more people with the resources we had um we're we're well aware that there are a number of people who um no longer have that option uh in the late night hours the second thing it did though and this is important um it there was a no maintenance window overnight so when the track Crews uh signal Crews had to go out and perform a repair uh more often they would have to do it under traffic and so what this shift and schedule has done is it added frequency to the midday and opened up a maintenance window overnight for reliability and so um yeah it's not these conversations are hard um I think going back to councilman LS dorf's um comment too about about uh the north side you know North North Fort Worth I think we have a very big conversation I think that we want to have about the future of our Transit System and and who benefits and how do we serve the most people um and do more with the resources and of course if we want to provide more service um it's certainly an option but we're we're um at this point still in the reallocation phase of of growth is that helpful yeah it is okay those conversations and uh you know admittingly Great Vine is a bright spot right um they anticipated the uh the transit Orient development and built up to it and they're beneficiaries of the ridership so kudos to them thank you counc back great thank you um just of note we grow at about 20,000 people per year the average parking spot is about 9 by9 ft so that equates to 37 Acres a year year that we would need to dedicate to parking if every single one of those people moved in with a car that's 37 Acres that we lose annually not to mention the cost of construction um particularly in the central city um or quite frankly around the city to um surface Lots versus going up it's about $10,000 um a parking spot going up and that is about uh double to triple if you go down into the ground so the economic impact of having to build parking um just parking not the cars not the congestion that Macy brought up and the cost of gas for idling and the time for moving Goods that people are paying um so it's really imperative that we focus on that for just on a land use reason alone and I I bring that up um because it's an economic development issue and it's an air quality issue and so when we when we talk about this 20,000 people I think the on demand works really well today but what does it look like in five years in 10 years and 20 years when the level of service on our already um congested arterials goes from a c to an F because we have um added so many people but we can't expand those lanes and in already built areas um so for me that's Transit so that's my segue into our Tex rail Medical District expansion uh to date uh TCU medical school has just come on board UT Southwestern is expanding Baylor Scott and White is expanding Texas Health Resources is expanding and Cook Children's is expanding there's only one major facility in our Medical District that I did not list as um expanding so the need for this particular project is imperative not just for Transit but for the health of our community um I'm excited to hear that we're $270 270 million in that's still a pretty significant Gap and I know when I first got elected we did some acrobatics and we worked with Cog and we were able to secure enough funding to to fund the construction of this and then skyrocketing prices um in 2026 opening date has turned into I don't know so what are we doing to deliver that I heard four um rail cars or four Trains being purchased a new Rail Yard being constructed and then obviously the line itself and so what I my concern is that we're 25 million off and we're holding until we find that $25 million but the cost of construction is only going to go up on what is the most expensive two miles of rail in in the network um so are we are there discussions about staging that construction so for example can you build the line and not buy the four rail cars so that we at least have that in place as we start moving forward it it's something that weighs thank you for the question it's something that weighs on my mind um couple things the good news or we're sort of to bring Clarity to this is we can't begin construction till the fall because we're in final design right now so even if we had the money in hand so at this point the funding is not holding us back just yet uh we are mindful of those additional increasing costs we we believe we've escalated the costs to year of construction so but fingers crossed until you bid the project um Michael mors has been very helpful um matter of fact uh the Council of governments found the funding for the four new trains so that's fully funded by the region um as to the the remainder um there are four or five ideas that we have I don't know that I want to express them here at this um Podium but we we have a couple of PS available to us including additional funding of from the federal government so stay tuned probably a midyear update might be helpful yeah thank you any other questions yeah please Michael uh thanks again for for this um what I'll say is Mayor you may remember you asked me I think four different times to serve on this board and I said no three and then the fourth I finally yeah finally said yes and I I'm excited because I do think that relations are different than they've ever been before between trendy Metro and this and this body um I'm excited too because I'm there with your tenure and what I see is uh the leadership that you're giving to the organization um you continually look for for innovative ways of you as you've said to make this work and I know you have some ideas that we've talked about to make up that Gap and I'm sure you'll share that with councilwoman Beck to get that project done it is very important for her District for the city of Fort Worth overall um and and what I'll say uh to you is keep that attitude and keep uh wanting to work together um I know you've looked at some initiatives as we talk about this this really is about attracting Choice Riders to the system we have the people that need the system and we know that and we'll continue to service them but it really is getting people to understand that it's easier to get on triny metro to go to Dallas for a show or whatever it is you're doing get to the airport and get back home safely um and that's what I think what I've seen there is that will start to attract other districts or other parts that may say well I don't I want to stay in my car but once they realize that there is a system that works for them overall and of course that's expanding the system that's looking at new ways that's all all across the board so I appreciate your leadership there um and continuing to work with us as we figure this out as the as the region grows so thank you means a lot coming from you thank you Mike and I want to add to that uh because I will tell you when we got on Council there was a discussion of what Transit was going to look like and so when you came online you brought new innovative ideas and we appreciate that um I've seen Trinity Metro at uh through the Stockyards at the um the rodeo that's getting ready to happen and uh you provide safety and um even grave vine when you talk about Economic Development and what we can do here uh at the the main station uh cuz if you have enrolled the uh the text rail or wherever uh to gravine and had dinner you got to take your wife Jared you know you love your wife you children I'm telling you it's a it's a great da day and so creating that here in Fort work will also not only just take Riders out of Fort wor but will bring Riders to forward and so I appreciate your leadership on that as well well down the tnp um Lancaster uh hopefully when we get that going we're closer today than we was two years ago and with Prime Time coming to the Dallas Cowboys Jared Jones are you watching uh we can get people halfway to the stadium not all the way but at least halfway um so but I I do want to appreciate I'm like uh Michael crane uh actually sitting in the meetings and there are people who come in and maybe have concerns and complaints but your staff make sure those complaints and concerns are met within a great time uh the communication piece what you're doing on the media what you do on on Facebook is bringing people to Transit I also like the fact that you said today is that we're trying to figure out how not to ask for for more money but to use the money that we have effectively which allows you at some point to ask for more money and so I I I appreciate that uh I appreciate serving with you and also those that don't know I appreciate having the same birthday with you we have a birthday coming upday Chris happy birthday and so thank you for coming today and thank you for your leadership thank you thank you so much coun this is um more so well I'll be remiss if I didn't say something no shade to Great Vine but I'm so for worth I like spending my money in for words so I'll ride the train to go see grab but I'm gonna spin my money here um but I think she probably will she probably will um I think it would be helpful I know um we kind of got off of the rhythm of getting Trinity Metro to present cuz Rich was uh new and settling in rightfully so um but I think it' be good to maybe have a few of these a year it was informative and instructive for me on what's going on and how we can help I'd be happy to serve as an alternate too in case you know her to here first in case C crane gets some fatigue that's helpful Jared Thank you Rich go back a few slides um a few things and Jared's point about having Rich come back I know that we're going to be pretty close to releasing our Urban rail discussion committee work and that'll be another opportunity to co-present with a few folks of the city and with Rich um keep going backwards so one thing you and I have talked about a little bit you didn't present it today understandably you got lots on the slides but about the double track for TR and your real vision for that I think that's worth mentioning here because I appreciate that you're taking a a legacy system with maybe an older technology um and and older trains and really thinking about what the future of TR should be for Fort Worth and going into Dallas so mayor I um yeah I did leave TR off um so we are in we have a project to double track a portion of TI and upgrade service that program those program costs are in increasing quite rapidly and we are in the process of sort of evaluating that program uh we're in conversations with Michael mors about how to how to fund and advance that work and with dart too correct and with dart and dart's been a great partner on this but there there's some static there on the board side which we won't get into yeah um I guess the big question for us is I I I frankly we are struggling with how to do all all the above we've we've got the Tex ra extension to the Medical District we've got another double track segment on TR we have new locomotives coming we're talking about overhauling the fleet there um we're getting rapidly to a point where we're not sure we can keep all of these projects on course and so we're not saying we're not doing the project quite yet but we're we're we're I do have concerns now if if we have to make tradeoffs right now at the moment I do feel like the Tex rail extension is very you know very much next up in terms of opportunity for our city um that's just my my opinion I'm certainly open to to feedback I do think the regional service between Dallas and Fort Worth and Beyond perhaps ought to be considered a regional asset with a different funding model yeah um it's it's you know the city city resources really in in my opinion need to be really invested here in our city and and uh if you look to other examples in the state like the Galveston Ferry system um there is a state role in in funding those Galveston feries um TR is our ferry system right we're moving we're moving people from one point in the region to another point in the region it's not across a water body but it's it's um you know at least that's and I and that's the reason I brought it up you know I think it's a without going down a rabbit Trail it's really interesting oftentimes as someone that really is pro Transit and believes in the vision long term for a growing metro area and and I've said publicly many times over I feel I feel like we're very fortunate because we're not saddled with large Legacy systems that are billions of dollars and unfunded maintenance um but TR is one of those things to your point about connection the region in a system that we could really improve and and make the real case about Regional Transit and I know that Michael Morris and the Cog is looking at this too with not with dart and us and also DTA so I think it's just something for us to bring back for this body and I your voice is important in that there's been such a dog fight over highspeed rail that we've all talked about no reason to go into that today Elizabeth doesn't want to talk about it um um but long term you know we we are going to be the largest metro area in the country I mean that is mind-blowing to all of us and I want us to be thinking about that Vision long term for the years that we're on this Council and I I think that you have an important role to play both at the state level and the federal level about how you've rethought a really small but Nimble uh Transit Agency and meeting the needs of a growing city that is also pretty large and and geographic area over 350 square miles to meet the needs of District Four to District 9 to District 5 everybody has something they want um the last comment is maybe around um Tod and the way we're enhancing those efforts there's a few that have already been mentioned today specifically around Lancaster Avenue um you've got the Marquee project at try lakes that John Gina loves to brag on and should the importance of the texal extension into the medical district and the importance for that particular project around to I can just imagine the explosive growth there that can happen um so it's just a balancing act and I I know that City staff is intimately involved but I just want to make sure this council is also lending our voice to that so that you don't ever get community backlash for something that really should be celebrated and be a true Economic Development Advantage for the city of Fort Worth so we can talk more about that I think we're meeting this week so we can keep brainstorming thank you so much I would look forward to that opportunity okay great and congratulations on Anette landero so we look forward to working with her in this capacity also yeah yeah it was a huge win for us and we're proud to have her join the team certainly thank you Council I think that's it we can move to next presentation thank you Rich appreciate it you do so next presentation is uh presentation on fiscal year 2024 Financial close out David Cook okay good afternoon everybody we're switching from transit to finance how's that sound all right I heard that so it's this time of year that I come up here and I talk about that when we get to this time of year Reggie and I want to tell you a couple things we want to be able to tell you that we collected more Revenue than we thought we would that we spent less money than we budgeted and that we contributed to the fund balance of the city to put us in better Financial shape that's what we want to do every year I'm not going to be able to tell you all those things this year it's still a good new story but this is that time of year that we look back on fisc year 24 tell you how we actually did and what the plans going forward will look like so we're going to talk about 24 fiscal uh performance we're going to talk about the unassigned fund balance and then we are going to have some available funds for capital projects going forward and then we'll mention some of the gaps that we might have on the horizon so you've seen this diagram before and this is our way of thinking about about local government Finance on one hand we do modeling and forecasting and that's looking into the future you make a bunch of assumptions based on history based on data you know and that helps us inform what we think the future might look like every year we put a budget together it's still based on a number of assumptions right and then we put a one your annual budget together and we still talk about Capital over multiple years what we're talking about today is that area called fiscal reporting we have the actual numbers from last year we're able to tell you what we missed what we hit and in some ways what did we learn so that we can be better at forecasting modeling and budgeting so we're at that fiscal reporting part of the diagram here is the UN audited yearend financials and I want to walk us through some of these numbers the first line there is the beginning fund balance and so it's a little over $36 million the revenue number shows that we missed the revenue number by about $1 million everybody see that part so we thought we would collect more money in fiscal year 24 than we actually did we literally have hundreds of different Revenue sources but I want to focus on two of them the two largest revenue sources we missed by 188 mlion ion doar property tax by six and sales tax by 12 now I think everybody knew we were going to miss the sales taxes we talked about the budget we had a fairly aggressive growth Revenue in there but we missed on the property tax too but it's it's six million and when you think about a billion dollar budget this about 1% so we missed Revenue by about 1% but our two largest revenue streams property tax and sales tax we missed by 18 the good news is going to the next line is we did spend less money than we budgeted and that number was by 40 million right so we didn't collect all the revenue we thought by about 11 but we did spend less money that we had budgeted and the com combination of that means we're 29 million to the good from one year to the next right so we ended 24 and this is again all general fund we ended the year 29 to The Good the next line down shows you the additional income we're going to have from interest earnings and I'm going spend more time talking about interest income in a few slides but this is a positive slide to tell you one we ended the year 29 to the good what I call Net operations so net operations Revenue expense we're 29 to the good and the other good news is we have 29 million and some change from interest income that's available now the other number I just want you to focus on is the then ending fund balance projected un audited actuals at the bottom is 332 million you'll see that a number of times and I'll show you why that's important along the way before we go to interest income though I I thought I'd give you a little history on uh what I call Net operations How We Do Revenue wise How We Do expenditures over time because it can be different year to year and I think the last couple of years we have both come we have come at this time Reggie and I and we've said we have collected more Revenue than we thought and we spent much uh less money than we thought so we had big numbers in the net operations but I want to take us back to fiscal year 20 that's covid does everybody remember that and if you remember we started fiscal year 20 and there was nothing wrong in the country right it was everybody still going to school everybody was still going to work nothing was shut down it wasn't until we shut down the economy in March of 2020 and we had to take a bunch of actions in 2020 right when you go back to that period of time um and I'll tell you on the revenue side we miss revenues by 16 million that year and if the federal government hadn't given us $23 million that we used in the expenditure side we would have been underwater that year right because we missed on the revenue side we missed on the expenditure we had expenditures in motion it wasn't except for the money we got from the federal government in cares that we ended that year 13 million to the good but that's was that was with $23 million from the federal government so not every year is Rosy not every year is we show up with $40 million which is what we've done the last three when you look at the last three years 21 22 and 23 we've had net operations that were at least 40 million in each of those years another new thing that you see and it's only really been the last two fiscal years is we've had interest income and that's because interest rates went up the last couple years right which allowed us to generate more income than we normally would interest rates now might be coming down so we might be going back to the old days on interest income all that just to remind us that these Trends come and go the interest income sometimes might be there that's beneficial but it also can go away as interest rates will change so let's talk about interest in income for fiscal year 24 the Top Line there just shows you what interest income totally looks like we take out expenditures from the interest income to pay for debt management and that's costs in I think I get it right in finance in the lab and in the attorney's office so some of interest income pays for costs for what we call our debt management program so net we're have 29.7 million available we're recommending that we take 5 million of that to put in the risk management fund because the risk management fund has paid out a lot of what do we call those things claims yeah claims for so we'll have a deficit other than putting more money back into the risk fund because of the claims we've paid out but even after that we'll have 20 4.7 million and I'll tally this up in a few slides to tell you what's available uh for spending and if you look at just the history of interest income it really is a phenomenum of the last couple years because if you go back to 20 21 and 22 we show you the average interest rate in there nobody's making any money off of those interest rates but we have made money over the last two years and that's what has generated some of this money that we've been able to allocate to capital projects now as we talk on the next uh couple slides whoops let me go back I'm also going to try to translate government Accounting Standards vocabulary to English okay because we're going to talk about committed assigned unassigned there's probably a couple other words in there some of us think they mean the same thing but they don't right and so right here I want you to focus on the unassigned what we call the fund balance because we kind of back into this number and it's based off of the size of the budget and what our goal is is in fund uh the percent of fund balance and if you remember in our policy we want the fund balance to be a minimum of two months or 16.67% with the goal of getting to 25% or three months of the general fund operations does that make sense we in the last fiscal year we at 21 and a half% we want to try to grow that fund balance so we're targeting 22% for the fund balance we take the budget from the um general fund for 25 we apply the 22% to that and so the unassigned fund balance to hit that number is the 232 578 642 everybody got that so the goal being 22% and with our net operations we can increase the fund balance we are only recommending that we go up a half a percent and what we're trying to do is balance a number of things we want the fund balance to grow yes and we want to ultimately get to 25 and a half% or 25% that's what the goal's been we're also going to show you though that we have a great number of needs on the capital side right from the bond programs and the inflation of those costs that we can't use all the fund balance just to grow the fund balance we're going to need some of that money for capital projects so it is a balance what should the fund balance go up to and how much should we keep available to meet capital project needs this is what it's looked like over time and so again fisc year 23 we went to 21 a. half% uh for year end fisc year 24 we're recommending going to 22 and part of the reason of trying to go up year-over-year even though in this case it's only a half a percent is that is a positive sign a posit positive message to the rating agencies they're looking at our Trend and our ability to grow the fund balance year over-ear so here is what it looks like from a financial standpoint and I'll so they're at the bottom you see the 332 million that's the total fund balance on there you see the UN signed that we just talked about at 22% it's 232 578 642 now let me jump back to the top the nonspendable that's the inventory that gets carried over at the end of a year into the following year and again it's just inventory so it's uh I guess what we call non-cash allocation I'm going to talk about a minute on the previously committed now committed is an actual action of the council to commit a fund balance for a future person future purpose let me try get for a future purpose all right then every year we have rollovers that's also a commitment from a financial standpoint and that as we have contracts that we awarded in fiscal year 24 that will carry over into fiscal year 25 and that have been obligated into the next fiscal year so we roll over money from 24 to 25 to finish those commitments in the next fiscal year those are usually contracts that have to be in place they carry over into the next fiscal year and so there are commitments in that uh from that standpoint and then we have assignments and so if if you're not in the unassigned if you haven't been previously committed or committed as part of a rollover then you have these assignments that we're going to talk about we haven't taken action on the assignments does that make sense but we're going to talk about from a financial standpoint what that looks like so these are what we've previously committed so these are Comm commitments and this is where you'll see the juneth museum that we had a conversation about earlier we also have a commitment with the state of Texas uh this is a interesting situation the state at two periods of time I believe gave us too much sales tax money that wasn't supposed to be ours and so we have repayment agreements with the state of Texas that we still have to pay out over time at no interest so that's a good thing we still owe 11 a half M 11.5 million we pay about 1.5 million a year and the agreements go through 2032 so I think we still have eight years Reggie I get that right we still have eight years on those agreements we pay about 1.5 million year but it's a commitment and we have set aside that money to pay back the state of Texas I mentioned the juneth museum and then we have the rollovers from one fiscal year to the next so that leaves the 64 million that are what would be assignments and this is how we're recommending we use that $ 64.4 million some of that money that's in the fund balance is from the sale of the library downtown and we think that money should be set aside for Library purposes whether it's the um um the money that's still needed to what's what's the word I'm looking for downtown branch downtown branch thank you for the downtown Branch uh so 99.4 million is what is remaining from the sale of the downtown library we also had money that was in the 23 or excuse me the 24 budget set aside for MedStar it wasn't a contract so it's not treated as a rollover but we are recommending that we assign that amount of money that was in the prior year budget that wasn't spent to carry over and be assigned as a transition funding for MedStar I mentioned the five million for the risk fund for the claims that have been paid and plan to be paid into the future and that leaves us with the final three rows that you see there we still didn't commit all the interest income that we had from fiscal year 23 we have the net interest income from fiscal year 24 and then we have what is left over essentially that 7.69 that's what's left over from all the other numbers and so that leaves if you look at the final three numbers that we will have $47 million available for C capital projects that was the good news let me say that again we have $47 million available for capital projects and what we've identified here are simply the gaps that we see at this point in time of the 14 18 and 22 Bond programs there's still a 2014 project in there mcart and mcferson uh and that number equals about 108 million we are not going to try to solve the $18 million problem today right and we're not asking you to allocate or assign today that $47 million what we're saying is we have it available there'll be a time that we will come back and talk about how do we want to allocate or recommend the use of that $47 million but just know that we've identified also that we have a number of projects that have a gap financing to finish those projects before I jump into the debt capacity I just wanted to hit again a couple highlights because I don't want to lose sight that there really is good news when you have $47 million available to spend and that $47 million comes from the net operations of the prior fiscal year even though we missed the revenue side we still had an increase to the fund balance from net operations and we have the interest income because of higher interest rates it also allows us to grow the fund balance even though it's by by just a half a percent we're trending in the right direction on fund balance but part of the reason of not growing the fund balance by even a larger amount is we've got some big needs on the capital project side that has some Gap funding yes hey David I I all great projects I don't want to make an assumption though at one point there was a small gap for fire station 16 I see another fire station on there but I think we've already addressed the fire station okay just want to make sure thank you the fire if you remember we used interest income from the prior year to address I think we've got all the fire stations covered yeah and we've done a couple road projects and intersections I believe with some of the prior money but we still have money available for these projects here David could you clarify one thing for me for the 232 million and unassigned Reserves is that earning any kind of Interest or is it yes so any funds that are sitting in any account is earning interest yeah and again as you've seen as in if interest rates are higher than normal we're going to generate some income off it we don't budget as an ongoing Revenue though interest income because it can come and go and we as a practice and I think as a policy have said we are going to use interest income to hit one-time needs capital projects for example we also at this time give you a quick update on the debt capacity again this is just for your information and is uh I'll point you to there's three columns on the bottom of this slide you've seen the first two columns one was last April you saw the middle column in August and what we're sharing with you is an updated forecast and I want I'll spend some time here and that's the what is December even though we're in January now but this is a revised forecast of debt capacity and I want to highlight a couple things one it's based on revised property tax numbers and a new property tax base so we didn't miss the property tax revenue number by much but it's $6 million lower than what we thought it would look like in August and April does that make sense so the base number is lower so that's one difference a second difference is the tax note program we are going to recommend a change and it's going from 124 to 155 that's mainly to accommodate the ambulance replacement as part of the medar transition to the city so we're going to increase the tax notes right so we're going to use part of our debt capacity in the tax note area to fund some of the ambulant ambulance replacement as part of metstar that's two of the changes three we're looking at Revis should we revise the long-term projection on what will happen with the assessed value in the tax base and grow it at 3% as opposed to 4% and again we can play with this again later but we've said not sure with what's going to happen with the attor appraisal district what the re appraisal caps are going to look like and so we've just adjusted this down that's being more conservative right that changes the available available capacity for future Bond program by the amount you see there we're not making any decisions today we're just using current information to look at again our forecast and the modeling into the future and the column on the far right has been adjusted for those three things a lower base not by much but it's still impacts the total number an increased amount of the tax notes being used for ambulance replacement and then finally a 3% forecast instead of a 4% forecast we'll also show you what that looks like uh graphically in the uh deck capacity chart if you look at the orange bars or existing debt the blue bars that you see in there is what's remaining from the 22 referendum the green amount is the that capacity that was shown in that third column uh and again based on the different forecasts you just see where those lines cut across based on uh whether we're looking at 1 two 3 4% and again if you look at the 3% which is the yellow line that's what allows us to cover all the green bars that you see along the way with that there is an item on today's agenda that kind of closes out the year and I think it also commits the 5 million for the risk fund is that in there yes uh we will be back on February 18th when we come in and do the what we call the official annual comprehensive financial report presentation and then in future Council meetings will be the allocation of that $47 million which is available for capital projects uh and we'll talk about as those projects come in how we allocate again that 47 million to to meet the needs of uh capital projects from prior Bond programs and with that I'll be glad to answer any questions questions for David Cook does it change your decision on asking him questions if I were to share with you this is his last Finance presentation a city manager yeah there we go you all hit a button now you didn't even start it the way you used to is finan is fun finan is fun no Jokes Aside David thank you for the presentation very helpful other questions Council okay thank you thank you okay I think we have two more next up is Valerie Washington to discuss the Emergency Medical Services collective bargaining update thank you David mayor and councel um yes we're here to talk about the EMS colletive bargaining agreement and before we get started in the presentation just wanted to add a little bit of context um before we get started um one this is really part of the work done by the EMS ad hoc committee um who started meeting in 23 wrapped up their work in 24 and provided recommendations on EMS to us in May of 24 um part of those recommendations of course were to bring EMS into the city of Fort Worth um but a part of that was to create a civil service service structure as we're bringing in EMS operations into the city of Fort Worth and so today part of our presentation is walking through the collective bargaining agreement that's been developed to offer Civil Service protections to the EMTs paramedics and excuse me telecommunicators that are moving to the city of Fort Worth um also before I start at your places we've provided some talking points and a copy of the proposed agreement um we will reach out and set up time while one onone if you want to go through the mechanics of the agreement or any details um before this is placed on the January 28th work session for approval I also want to share um and call out this was a collaborative effort between City of Fort Worth and local 440 I had the privilege of serving as the lead negotiator negotiator on our bargaining team that consisted of di GI odoro um Holly Moyer Leela peoples Dana bergd Mark McDaniel um Chris trout Chief Davis and his Command Staff and I do have to call special attention out to the bargaining team who put in a lot of time and effort um but specifically to Chris trout and the city attorney's office who really served as the master drafter of our documents he really laid out the initial framework for us to follow um and I commend him and the entire team on the work um as we've gotten to this point um to come to you for approval um this is only one piece of the EMS transition so so we'll be back over the next couple of months providing updates on that process um which is set to conclude on July 1st of 20125 when they're part of the city of Fort Worth um as we talk about this too I want to say the employees of MedStar have been of course top of Mind through this conversation um and making sure they were educated kept in the loop invited to attend bargaining sessions um ask questions um and know that they have some peace in mind that we're bringing all of those positions over into the city of Fort Worth um so I think through this process we've really tried to provide peace of mind to that Workforce um and as I said we took a really collaborative approach we didn't have a lot of time we wanted to get this done in a timely manner we kind of did a mix of regular bargaining with interest based bargaining um and really came to the table with a collaborative Spirit we used committees um and really tried to make sure that the work was being understood by everyone was who was at the table and putting the agreement together before I get started too I want to um call special attention to the local 440 they're here in the room and it was under the leadership at the Time Michael Glenn it's now transferred to Zach schaer um we also had Skylar answorth Morgan Hicks and Sherman detrich um who were critical to this process and I have uh the bargaining team also in addition to the the main team we had a huge support team that consisted of it Fort Worth lab Finance HR um that really helped us and provided guidance as we went through this process and they're here as we have questions that may come up um they'll be able to dig in and help with that so to kick off we're going to give you just a quick overview of the bargaining presentation some of the key principles we used in developing the umou provisions covered and then the fiscal impact so it's important to call out some of the key principles that we used um again when you're merging two workforces together um and I applaud Chief Davis and his Command Staff for being really aware of what that may entail and some of the sensitivities from the two work cultures coming together and so making sure that we were creating an agreement that fostered a welcoming and positive work environment for the MedStar folks coming on board of the city we wanted to of course offer competitive wages when we're bargaining any labor agreement we want to make sure that we're competitive and market-based um we wanted to establish as we were moving EMS into the city of Fort Worth under a civil service structure a clear rank structure um that provided for promotional opportunities within um the organization and of course as we've mentioned throughout the whole EMS transition our focus is on providing P patient Centric Care um and customer service to users of the system um and then lastly we also wanted to create a process for current MedStar employees to transition into the city of Fort Worth and into a civil service structure um without the need to reapply for positions or to take a civil service exam there will be those requirements in place for new employees but again we wanted to create a bridge pathway for those current employees um because we want them to encourage them to come into our organization on this slide is just a really quick overview of theou um it's a pretty short term it's July 1st through September 3rd 30th um one of the reasons for that is we have a fire collective bargaining agreement this mou is becoming part of that collective bargaining agreement and so now the mo EMS um bargaining will be aligned in the future with um fire collective bargaining negotiations um so setting this mou term helps um align those two agreements and so they can become one moving forward we have a cost of contract of 54.4 million that sounds like a big number um when you isolate it but we're talking about salaries benefits um salaries and benefits that were part of the MedStar budget and coming over into ours um that's over a two-year period um and we can again mayor and Council as we spend the next couple of weeks really walking through this agreement with you we can dig into the pay plan and the other benefit related items theou at the direction of the EMS ad hoc committee covers EMTs paramedics and also telecommunicators um we did spend some time bargaining we weren't sure about the telecommunicator group at first if they fit into the Civil Service structure or not um but after really advising with the EMS ad hoc committee um Mark mcdanel our team um and our especially our HR experts um we did we did align U the telecommunicators to be part of that civil service agreement other Provisions that are in the bargaining agreement include paid time off including vacation holiday pay incentives it lays out Promotional and hiring processes um and then also calls out appointed rank positions and then it's important to note that our charge was to put together the EMS CBA agreement we went a little bit outside of Scope when we had this opportunity with our leadership team in the local 440 to address two other items um those items were Healthcare language updates if you may remember the local 440 provides health care for the firefighters um we use this opportunity since EMS will be folded into that group to just make some changes to that agreement um offering better Clarity in how the subsidy piece from the city of Fort Worth would work in the future and then we added on a last chance agreement and this was really um I think a partnership and conversations with Zach Deana Chief Davis and really making sure that we're providing wraparound services to any of our firefighters that may get into a situation where they're dealing with alcohol or substance abuse it allows the chief um HR and the local to really try a different approach to those employees we have invested a lot of time money and training into them and it offers a route for them to go into dependency train or dependency counseling um through a partnership that we have with the local 440 um where they help cover the cost of that um of any medical treatments that may be needed just a couple of key dates um the a the in August of 23 is when the ad hoc EMS committee was created by mayor Parker and we got their final recommendations in May of 2024 by June of 2024 we had convened our bargaining team um and had a bargaining schedule and started um really hot and heavy and bargaining and trying to create this agreement with the local 440 to cover em s um the agreement was ratified by local 440s membership which is key they've already brought it to their membership um who approved it so that's why we're at the step here to get the final approval from mayor and councel and we plan on bringing an MNC to you on January 28th to approve that agreement the effective date of theou is July 1st which aligns with the transition of of EMS into the city of Fort Worth so some of this we mentioned um and again it was important to the EMS ad hoc committee to create a civil service process for the EMS um employees that were coming over the EMTs paramedics and telecommunicators um that took a lot of time in making sure we were understanding 143 we work closely with Chris trout and the attorney's office um and setting up and making sure we were defining the roles correctly because we had our dual R firefighters which were our traditional firefighters and we created a single R firefighter position that would cover the EMS workers coming over the EMTs and paramedics and then additionally we worked on the telecommunicators um and have a path for them to also come over to the city um as civil service employees the scope of the bargaining agreement since we had the fire collective bargaining um agreement in place we thought we would start with anou that again we could align with the fire CBA so again Chris trout really started from Ground Zero um and started drafting provisions and structure for us to get to this point of having a full agreement um we created job classifications again we Define that single Ro versus dual Ro firefighters um and spent a lot of times talking about the telecommunicators one of the things that we want to call out when I said we wanted to create a real clear rank structure and create promotional opportunities um one of the things that we discovered with MedStar is they had a lot of different positions and levels we worked closely with the local and de and our team to really condense that and make sure that we had a clear rank structure um on the EMS paramedic side and then also for the telecommunicators and making sure that we had progression and steps and again a clearly defined promotional process so everyone knows how to move in between those ranks part of the bargaining agreement does lay out the qualifications U minimum qualifications for time and rank um and other items so it's really really clear what you have to do if you want to move up in the organization and try those roles um quickly just on the cost of the contract I already said it's about 54.4 million over a two-year period um this includes wages pension Medicare um Step increases there's some dollars in there for incentive pays for um uh education um if you have a um I don't know why I'm drawing a blank if you speak a foreign language um thank you bilingual thank you Mark um bilingual pay and we really tried to make sure that we aligned the EMS team coming in with some of the incentives we already had in the fire department um I think Chief Davis at every single session talked about the importance of again making sure we were creating a welcoming culture um and people weren't coming in feeling like they were a second class or a different type of employee um that really making that warm welcoming environment um where they can see some parity in between the different roles was important to us I P on here this does not include all overtime costs there are some built-in overtime with some of the hourly rates um but there are some overtime costs that are not included in here and I have a note on this slide we know with the transition of EMS into the city of Fort Worth we're going to need to spend some time making sure we understand of the funding and long-term funding needs that come along with that so we'll be back before yall um in the ne in the coming months with Mark McDaniel and others um to really talk through what that long-term funding strategy needs to look like um we're spending a lot of time now preparing for the member cities who are waiting um to know what their financial allocation is going to be for fiscal year 26 um we're spending a lot of Team working with Reggie Zeno and Tony Russo um again on just brainstorming on what are those long-term Financial Funding options that we need to be maybe looking at as a city um to be able to provide EMS Services which is a critical and important service for a city to offer the cost of contract to includes some of the Baseline service levels that were important to the EMS ad hoc committee and those included reducing the unit hour utilization um from 67 to a 0.5 um which really ties to the workload of the EMTs and paramedics at a 67 utilization rate they are out on the street really burning from call to call not a lot of time to do patient paperwork take a breather um and really working with our team and the Fitch team setting our service levels at a 0.50 utilization is really an industry standard it really creates a nice balance and will allow our EMTs and paramedics to really come to do their jobs and do it in the best way possible we also have an 8 minute travel time in there 90% of the time for Priority One calls know it was important to everyone in this room that we were looking at ways to reduce response times um and provide better service and so you're getting that um as we keep talking through this transition and then it also includes a tiered ALS BLS so Advanced life support basic life support and that really will help Define um how the chief staffs the department um with the good mix of EMTs and paramedics the other thing we wanted to show on here is that to achieve all of these metrics um to get to the service levels that we want to see as a city um we are require are adding about 75 additional staff um most of these would be in e in EMTs um and we're also adding nine ambulances so as we are walking through this transition um city of Fort Worth is having to shore up um and really add in some extra resources to make sure we're meeting the service levels that y'all are demanding um and that is adding 75 new positions and night ambulances um I noted on here that they're working 12-hour shifts I Know Chief Davis is working with that group and the local um I believe they'll stay at 12 hour shifts but the chief may want to have some flexibility with that piece sorry sorry sorry I think I'm frozen here okay okay um really the last thing I want to cover is employee Outreach and education um this again has been a full court press by the entire bargaining team um but special credit to di Holly Leela um sharica with public engagement Renee tus really making sure that we created a platform so we could keep in touch with the MedStar employees again we understand as anyone would in a transition or a job change you can feel anxious you're not sure you want to get information um we set up a SharePoint site and have been regularly sharing information there um we've held Town Hall meetings where we'll provide an opportunity for the MedStar team to talk with leadership the chief um ask Diana questions and then we've also set up small group meetings I tease the chat I call him fire tease the chief I call him fireside chats or some way where the chief is sitting down in smaller groups with employees he's met Folks at Panera for coffee um he's really going above and beyond to make himself available to meet with employees who have questions about the transition and to give them um reassurances that everything's going to be good and that we're excited to have them come and join our Workforce we also invited MedStar employees to attend our bargaining sessions we encouraged that um and many of them took us up on that they did attend bargaining sessions um they were very interested of course in the conversation asked a lot of questions and then lastly we set up a committee structure when we were bargaining um if there were topics that it were easier to take into a small committee setting um for example if we need the chief and Dr Jarvis to work on credentialing we could set up a small committee um and have them do their work and report back to the bargaining team as we were forming those committees we did invite MedStar Personnel to um participate so they participated with the city and the local 440 through that process um and we we don't plan on letting up we know now that we have an agreement um we need to do a lot more education make sure everyone understands civil service and the protections that are coming along with this agreement um and what to expect in the future and then our next steps on January 28th we have an MNC on the agenda to approve the agreement um really February through June we're going to be continuing to provide information working on programming for payroll system um and making sure the agreement terms are ready to implement and are in place by July 1st of 2025 and with that we can take questions and again I have the bargaining team with me and um our support team so I have a a whole team pure of people that can answer questions if you have them and thank you yeah um I'm glad that you included a bullet point on payroll in this particular presentation um will if we haven't fixed the previous payroll issues with the fire department before how are we going to have them fixed for these new employees and let me also say that having that bringing on these new employees it is imperative because while here at the city of Fort Worth we may have become accustomed to payroll being inaccurate um that is certainly not the case for other institutions and the last thing that I want to see is a bunch of EMS are Med we incorporate MedStar and then they start having payroll issues because if I'm them I'm leaving yeah no that's fair um and I'll let Mark jump in here in a moment that that is on our radar we're working with a vendor to assist us with that um being really aware of the other payroll um items that the team is working from um Mark if you want to jump in and provide some more background I first of all on the payroll project we've come a long way in the last six months tremendous amount of progress being made uh both on the fire and the police side um currently MedStar employees are paid through a third party service ADP and so we're going to continue that uh we've got to make some change because of all the changes in Pay moving to the new uh system that uh Val just articulated so we're working with ADP to do that we'll find out soon enough if they're capable but uh things are going well on that end um but so 80 so we're going to bring them over and ADP is going to continue to pay them while they're City of Fort Worth employees we're g the city of Fort Worth's going to hire ADP to to to do that in the interim yes in the interim so for about how long do we think that'll well so here the issue is that if we were to start integrating all these 500 400 uh mear employees now into the projects that are already underway it would set those projects back because there's not enough resources from our vendor to do all three at the same time and so we don't want to slow the other two uh down and we want to get those completed and we will start the EMS employees as a third project basically we're already tracking police and fire as two separate projects because they're at different stages um and then the EMS will be a third um I would expect um you know that process will take several months I we don't have an estimate um yet we've got a proposal in terms of uh cost but um it'll be equally as large in terms of uh the scope but we'll have lessons learned from the first two and I think it it'll it'll go much easier that way and I would add on we meet regularly weekly um as an EMS exec team with a lot of different stakeholders at the table including Holly and Diana and Leela and they keep that um the importance of making sure we're working closely with ADP and getting the payroll piece um they keep that front of mind um every week as we're meeting so we can provide regular updates on how that process is going um but it's definitely I know top of Mark's mind mine Deion and the HR team to make sure that we get that piece right yeah we also the payroll project meets weekly as well Carlos uh thank you mayor this question is either for Valerie or Mark if you're still up there uh in as far as EMS billing is concerned you know that's going to be uh something we have to look at that will uh mean success going forward right if we get that right so what what will that billing structure look like if we're going to go with a third party so as far as the EMS building um for ambulance transports we are using a company called emmc um I'm looking to Tony and others I think I said that correctly um they're the vendor that MedStar is currently using um we determine that through the transition we would continue working with emmc um to determine again if they're if they really meet our needs the city of Fort Worth to serve as the vendor um we thought through the transition process it would be best to stay consistent with that vendor at least through the transition um and then we may have some opportunities if we would like to exercise them to do an RFP process to really take a bigger look at that EMS billing um Reggie Zeno Tony Russo Kate Perry again we meet weekly um and we have a committee that's focusing specifically on the EMS billing contracts and other contracts for EMS Services um so again I think that team is interfaced with em emmc I think we're in a good spot through the transition but it is something that Reggie and team Chief Davis Mark and I are watching closely because of course that billing vendor is the meat and potatoes to EMS and bringing in that transport Revenue so we're watching that relationship closely great thank you Valerie look forward to hearing more updates any other questions from Council no thank thank you very much right we appreciate the support thank you thank you the batteries dead Council our last presentation for work session will be um homeless homeless strategies update with various City staff looks like Martin MC Daniel is going to kick things off for us thank you thank thank you mayor and councel so just a a few uh little comments here to set this up so uh you recall that it was back um really about with as a discussion around budget we we heard from all the council members that homelessness and issues surrounding homelessness was a priority for not just you know a few of you but all of you and so uh right about the time also that we were seeing some um reorganization Neighborhood Services uh we thought it was appropriate to pull Neighborhood Services into the CMO um and so we did that with the creation of the intergo relations group Group which is headed up by Bethany uh and then Tara came over with chrisy on on her staff to um really begin a process where it's it's really a reset on our homeless um initiatives and looking at how we spend our money what are the real issues that we're dealing with um and you know what does homelessness mean to all of you and so uh that's why they they uh met with all of you individually as well as our stakeholders in a number of of other people to really kind of uh put their ear to the ground because our strategies that we've been uh working with have have been around a long time and we wanted to really examine are you are they working or they not working what do we need to do next um the other reason why um see if I can advance this seems to be the trick today okay so so so as we look at this slide this is another reason why we wanted to house the uh homelessness efforts out of the city manager's office you can see all the different department here that are represented so it's not just neighborhood services that was involved uh you see police Municipal Court Parks and Recreation code Etc and so the collaboration that needs to take place we just felt like there needs to be a higher level focus on the organ from the organization down uh to include and and coordinate better amongst all these these have been terrific Partners which you're going to hear from Bethany uh but I we're we're learning things that we didn't really know and there and there wasn't folks weren't talking to each other about services that were necessarily being provided and so now they are under uh Bethany's leadership and and involvement of terara and her team so uh that's my set up Bethany and uh you take it from here good afternoon mayor council City man manager um Bethany Warner intergovernmental relations manager uh Tara Perez uh directions H manager Clos to that microphone it's been quiet all day thank you all right we've got a dense agenda for you guys and we're excited to be up here talking to you about a lot of the information we've put together over the past few months this uh is a combination of some requests we've received from you some timely information we just needed to share and some set up for some things we're doing in the future so with that we'll start with um Tara covering some um data points okay okay this is just looking at changes in the homeless population in Fort Worth over time just a few key things one is homelessness is at a lower level now um than it was in 2007 as you can see there was a big Plateau um we had a sudden decrease this was around in um 2122 this was around the eviction moratorium and lots of federal emergency rental assistance we have a huge Spike as the eviction moratorium expires and as Federal rental assistance expires and now we have a um returning to about preco level so every year there is a count um we actually have one coming up in on January 23rd but this is the results from our last year point in time count um so the big headline was an overall a 12% decrease in homelessness and we saw in different categories decreases I will point out the decrease we had a 33% decrease in family homelessness from 23 to 24 and that is almost solely attributed to um partnership home worked very well with our housing authorities in using some vouchers and the state because they used them so quickly the state gave them 350 more and so that is why we had such a big uh decrease and so with those new resources of rental assistance we see the decrease in homelessness this is in contrast to the National Trend this report was released late in uh December um but these are our national numbers so nationally we saw increases in all of the different um subpopulations of homelessness except for veterans so while is locally we had decreases nationally increases this is just a quick look at the percentage of population that's homeless in our um Big Texas cities want to spend a minute on this so we're going to be talking more about unsheltered homelessness in this presentation but the gray part is unsheltered homelessness so whenever this is high this is what our community members see um community members for the large part do not see the sheltered homelessness and as you can see our shelter capacity has remained relatively the same for the last 17 years that's the orange okay so if shelters get full people are unsheltered and that's when we see these large increases in unsheltered homelessness so going back to that snapshot point in time count last January um these were the shelters that were open then some things have changed since then um Center for transforming lives no longer has a shelter and when we love was temporary at Broadway Baptist when Salvation Army was having construction and so um that now it's Salvation Army but those are just some changes so this is looking at bed counts so how many emergency shelter beds were there available for families and how many were full so as you can see we've broken it down by shelter we have very high utilization at Center for transforming lives and Presbyterian night shelter which is our biggest family shelter and then we had some room at um Broadway Baptist gym which was where when we love was and also at Union Gospel Mission and we'll speak a little more to that in a second when we look at adult beds we also break them down by program and by shelter again how many beds were available that one night and how many were filled as you can see a lot of the programs at Presbyterian night shelter both their program beds and their overnight beds were basically at 100% capacity so these are what we call low barrier beds um very accessible to the community you can also see we have um some beds that were physically available but not available for us to be able to use on a certain tonight and um I'm at this time I'd like to ask Dr Charles Wolford who is the um chief executive officer at Union Gospel Mission to speak a little bit to this and also to share with us some news and so um Dr Wilford if you could join us now thank you good afternoon Council and mayor mayor thank you for the call over the holidays I appreciate apprciate your uh encouragement during the holidays but Union Gospel Mission as we've looked at some of the opportunities that we have particularly as it relates to our capacity we' realized our utilization numbers have not returned back to preo numbers and so as an effort to look at what we're doing to impact that number we realize that we have to create some strategies that would allow us to increase our bed count by 300 and that is our goal over this next year over 2025 is to increase our bed count by 300 and so we think that as a partner with um all of our shelters we're going to increase that we know that this this is a capacity opportunity for us that will also impact the number of unsheltered individuals that are on the street so we use the point in time count which was 967 people that that were on the streets last year and so we wanted to Endeavor to challenge ourselves as an organization to reduce some of those barriers that we currently have and so we're certainly excited to be in partnership with the city with all of our neighboring Partners to uh be able to take in more of our neighbors so we're excited to be able to do that and I'll take any questions that you may ask thank you Dr wford Macy thank you so much for doing that I'm very excited about that how are you good thanks for being here today will you talk about the the difference between Union Gospel and what sets you apart um and then what the barriers are that you're going to be taking down to access those beds yeah great question see um the difference is um our program beds with our barriers we have particularly not taken animals that's been one of the barriers that we've seen and so we're addressing that policy particularly as relates to strategies that we can take individuals and our neighbors that may have a pet we realize that our pets are often times uh our children or our family members so we're going to reduce that barrier but in addition to that we have not taken individuals who've had significant uh criminal backgrounds and so we're introducing new policies procedures we have a centralized intake process that's going to talk through that with diversion and also some assessments that will allow us to reduce use some of those barrias to take our neighbors in so we believe that we're going to be somewhat in the line with how um Presbyterian is doing some of that work to increase our numbers but also a sharing with Presbyterian we'll take some more families we open we've opened up more family beds as well thank you any other questions Dr Walford thank you very much appreciate it thank you Dr Walford thank you and I just wanted to say again a huge thanks um we have a great working relationship with Presbyterian night shelter who's always flexible and um are very excited with our conversations with Union Gospel Mission the only thing better than 300 shelter beds is not having to pay for 300 shelter beds and so to be able to have a partner coming to the table to expand capacity to um be able to take a big dent out of unsheltered homelessness without um the need for sources from the city is incredible and so we really appreciate that all right thank you Tara so now we're going to move into some information that we pulled together um over recent months of really starting to look at the resources the city has invested in homelessness Citywide and so the slide that Mark showed at the beginning of all of the different departments we're looking at we really wanted to take a a better look at what that looks like and um and and where that puts the city in the conversation so a lot of you have seen this image of what is the homeless system across our Continuum of Care and it's a it's a good reminder that the city isn't we aren't the homeless system but we're a really important part of the homeless system and I want to give a shout out to Lauren King from partnership home for being here today and supporting our presentation but to show what that looks like everywhere I've circled in Orange are places where the city plays a role in the homeless system so we're all over the place we're we're a really important partner in the efforts there are many non- City sources of funding for homelessness in Fort Worth you've got you know Federal and types of vouchers State funding private funding we've got a lot of philanthropy at play and then specific funding for subgroups so City dollars are by no means the only uh Investments at play but we did want to take a more specific look at what are those City Investments so we started by looking at what are the city investments in staff across the organization and um we're looking at about 36 total staff that are dedicating all or part of their time to efforts related to homelessness um I'll caveat this by saying you know we did not capture every minute spent on homelessness across the organization police is a great example we pul we looked at Hope for this chart but we didn't get you know every NPO that certainly spends a lot of time there we didn't capture every front desk employee at a library that might encounter someone in need so this is more focused on staff that have a very dedicated effort related to enforcement to Camp cleanup to programs to um navigating funds so you'll what's also interesting here is you'll see the bulk of that um staff count is going to be in PD environmental services and code which are all going to be in the arena of enforcement so whenever we back out from staff and look at dollars um we decided to try to take a look at what did the city spend on efforts related to homelessness just in FY 24 and not just that we spent as general funds but that we directed as federal and state path through funds that came through our organization and um that came out to about $10.4 million in fy2 24 um with the bulk being in directions home but the rest spread across several departments all the way down to small programs like municipal court and their Court uh Community Court program and Parks zooming in in that 6.3 for directions home um you you've all probably seen version of the slide before here's a breakdown on the directions home efforts um these are all uh contracts that are with different organizations for different Services we're not a direct provider of services but we contract for those Services um and the the previous slide looking at that 10.4 million that was not on Capital this is what we're looking at when we're thinking about capital and the homeless uh housing pipeline we also showed this presentation at the uh this slide at the the December nqrc meeting um where we looked at an update on psh projects so you can see a reminder of um City total investment um to the tune of about $31 million on different efforts projects you've got a few that are um single site so that's going to be your journey home Crowley Road and New Leaf Camp buoy where those that's that entire project is psh and then some uh projects that have set aside so what we mean when we say set aside is this whole project is not psh it is an affordable housing project that has some psh units in it and the same for homeless families um yall are familiar with casad DEA suenos which is 100% for homeless families and then Tobias place has a homeless family set aside component when looking where our different p uh psh projects sit on uh in the city of Fort Worth they are um in several districts spread out and within different communities kind of integrating that effort um and and deconcentrating it all right next we're going to go into Camp cleanup costs this was another uh Council request so looking forward to presenting some new information here some of this will be things you know but a reminder about how the camp cleanup process works on private property uh this is a bit of a flow chart that I think not only shows that there's several steps in the process but also that there's several departments involved in the process so there's a high degree of of interde departmental coordination to pull off these efforts and we have an amazing several teams across departments that work really hard to streamline this as much as possible but there are several steps in the process um everything from logging the complaint issuing notice to the property owner scheduling that cleanup and then making sure that everyone is safe along the way when uh that camp is reported on public property it does reduce the process by several steps because it's our property so we don't have to coordinate with the property owner in the same way one and Bethany I know you and I have talked about this in other meetings specific to private property owners where are we on maybe updating our ordinance to allow that to be a more expedited process so the latest we have hot off the processess from law as of a couple days ago is right now we have a um a 10 days prior notice uh before the city May abbate a nuisance that ordinance was adopted in 1997 and was presumably at the time drafted and leaned on a health and safety code That Was Then changed in 1999 that reduced that notice day period from 10 days to 7 days so our ordinance predates some state law at 10 days and state law moved their 10 days from to seven days so law feels very confident that we could also move our 10 days to seven days in alignment with that state law so that was the first thing we wanted to look at um we're still having some conversations if there's other ways to expedite the process but that one felt like a pretty clear element I think it's also important to note that the 10 days is for for the property owner to Abate the um the trash essentially and and the the things that are left behind that's that you it's not 10 days for someone to be removed for trespassing okay thank you for that upate appreciate it so some of the questions we were asked about camps is uh are people reporting more camps are there more camps are we cleaning more are we spending more and you're going to see that the answer is yes to all of the of so we started with the my Fort Worth um app reporting which is where all of our requests start even if they don't start in the app that is where we start them if we get them in another method and um overall just you know shout out to the my for worth app folks they've seen tremendous growth overall and people reporting issues to the my Fort Worth app but um the homeless Camp reporting share of total reports has increased over time as well uh to now it's in fy2 24 it was about 8.6% of all reports were about homeless camps some of them of course are gonna go ahead Sor sorry U is that 50,000 unique uh that's not 50,000 unique camps is it or 60,000 this is the total number of reports just total so if one person or 30 people reported the same one no no no the the numbers on the bar chart are for the number of reports to find for that regardless of the incident it's not homelessness it's just the number of reports to the app and that's the percentage that pertain to homelessness yes the bars are all reports of any type the orange line is homeless Camp reports uh and yes but some of them are duplicate um reports um oftentimes you get more than one report on the same so then we also wanted to look at what were actual camps cleaned up because a report doesn't necessarily mean a camp uh so in uh FY 23 to FY 24 you see an increase in number of camps cleaned and tons of wastes collected by a high percentage uh I think some thing I want to mention here is as part of this process with code and environmental services and PD we also um reworked our formula for how we're calculating cost to be sure we're capturing everything it had been a couple years since they looked at things like salaries and cost of equipment and what is our formula for understanding how much we're spending so we uh re worked with those departments to revamp that to bring us to the a new cost breakdown of camp cleanups and in different kinds of scenarios so you have your public property that's not on a park uh not in a city park which is in blue you have your parred property which is in Gray and then orange is private property these are a couple lines pulled from our code of ordinances that speak to um what mayor was mentioning earlier which is our 10day waiting period but also how we um assess the the cost to the property owner so when we we clean a camp on private property we just um the expenses incurred is what we build them plus a plus a small fee so we're uh we do the work we run it through our formula okay this is the the cost back to you so to kind of help visualize what that might look like we worked with Environmental Services to give some examples of what might be a small a medium and a large campsite and uh approximately what the cost might be for those different different campsites um if they were on private property what we might be assessing to that property owner we also wanted to note that as of December there were some additional directed efforts happening in the East Lancaster area and we wanted to recap that for you all um hope PD Environmental Services did a tremendous partnership to do an additional enforcement and cleanup details beyond their regular um weekly cleanups in the area and then Sim multaneously um Tara directions home worked with Union Gospel Mission Presbyterian night shelter to um open at least 80 additional shelter beds so that there could be some ideally some flow into the shelters and then uh hope work towards some additional enforcement efforts continuing the following month to address uh displacement into neighboring communities and other issues and then um we're continuing to to work this with them to see what additional might next steps need to be happening and what we've learned from that process if if I may Bethany I just want to thank the the staff for quickly jumping on this council member Hill had a a a visit at pns was horrified of what she saw had particular visits with pns staff and I think all in all my comments would be the following we're inconsistent in other areas of the city and as I told you and Tara um on the phone that right now I think it's was on average seven days correct we would check in clean up turn over people would come back every seven days and set up camp and stay there for the whole week we would never allow that on any the streets we live on yet we had allowed our neighbors on East Lancaster to live like that um I recognize how hard every single Department had to work and also to really thank organizations like UGM and others for stepping up because the good thing is in Fort Worth we have shelter beds for everyone we were moving their camps so this is a longer term issue but it unfortunately it gotten so bad on East Lancaster Corridor that it was impacting the nonprofits that actually serve the homeless because they no longer felt safe to walk through Park their vehicles drug use fires being set Etc so I I just think it was reflective of all of these different departments working together really swiftly and then as you mentioned already working longterm what our Solutions should be and creating more consistent policies across the entire city of Fort Worth we shouldn't treat District 8 and east Lancaster any different than we do D3 or D5 or whever else so long-term work to be done council member viven I took a picture yesterday about 3:30 p.m. while having a late lunch at the Dixie House you we try to support Dixie house that's in D5 just uh east of 820 and if you could imagine a hotel made staff making a bed getting ready for a guest that's what we saw out the window across the street and Sam said that guy is making his bed like it's I mean it it it became so normal for him and you go beyond wondering what gets people to that point where that becomes home for them but the only thing I could do was write my NPO and I knew he was still on the clock but it just made me very I felt helpless and so I'm really encouraged to see this coordination and it has the propensity to be a a SWAT team or an Urgent Care team if we shape it that way and so we we really do have to make sure for police fire all these other people who are out and about know that this is a priority and one last comment I'll share years ago when we closed out a marshall grain feed store on Lancaster I asked police to start taking their breakes there because the homeless were taking it over they stopped when kale cleaner's clo same thing I'm asking cops take your breakes there right there at the corner of K cleaners and they stopped and so we have to be mobile enough to address a need and figure out some kind of way to incorporate that as some sort of policy and that way it doesn't take a new idea every five years to be repeated so those are my comments and hats off to these two Dynamic ladies and thank you Macy for sharing what what moved you council member nles yeah thank you mayor U and I I'll just add to I appreciate the uh information you guys provided today uh Tara and I was in a meeting just a couple of weeks ago with uh a res I'm not a resident but a a property owner uh on beach in Lancaster and uh how uh her office has been affected by she's losing business uh because of the homeless situation and we was trying to battle how we help her economically cuz her her roof has been messed up they're climbing on top of her roof and and how we uh secure her building so there's a lot of effort in needs to happen not just in the small quarter by pns and UGM but all across Lancaster well said anyone else okay thank you Bethany keep going all right now we're going to move into an update from Tara on the high impact pilot program I know we shared some of this information with you all back um at the end of the year but we wanted to cover it here as well okay thank you and we actually have um several members of the high impact team here if they could just stand briefly um these are folks that are working with the high impact program Teresa and Leah go ahead and stand up too thank you guys and we also have some folks from downtown ambassadors who have been very helpful for us in launching this program so Tom and Paul we thank you too for being here and for all your support with the program so just a reminder this is a 17-month pilot we started in May and the goal is to reduce unsheltered homelessness um particularly where it intersects with severe mental illness in seven target areas in the city so um the criteria for referrals is that someone's unsheltered in one of those seven areas either that they've been unsheltered there a very very long time or are suspected of having severe mental illness and our goal is to provide act services for 80 clients 40 through funding from the city through housing and then 40 through H housing in other programs we're going to measure our success by the number of people that accept housing and the number of people that remain in housing with those highlevel psychiatric and medical services in place so what our first six months looks like is um we developed a referral list of almost 100 70% of these referrals are from our npos um they are on the ground they know the area better than anyone and so they were able to really hone in on the people that really needed these services so our goal was uh working with MH are who we contract with to hire up and train the team and then begin engaging clients and housing them so this is just a look um the first six months was just through October 1st and so the team was able to house 30 clients um out of 80 and so we're well on our way to meeting our goal um a couple things that make this team unique one is just um this is reserved um for people again who are longtime unsheltered homelessness and or have severe mental illness so we keep the client to case manager ratio low so it's about 10 to one because it's very intensive psychiatric medical Case Management Services um there's 247 availability and it also has a recovery orientation um which means they're repeatedly engaging with clients to offer resources for those that are ready um to do something to address either substance use issues and or mental health issues and so like one of the things that's exciting is we've been able to house 30 clients which is great and we have at least seven who have pursued already um that Mental Health Resources or substance use resources we also find that for someone exiting rehab um it is really encouraging and helpful for them to have a safe apartment to exit to with a group of people who are there on hand to support them and help them with continued medication management that is much more helpful than the prospect of edit uh of exiting recap to go back to the street so looking at some results um our median client age sorry was 55 we keep track of when housing is offered how many people accept that so far we're looking at an over 90% success rate the thing that stood out to me as the most jarring um is that we also kept track on what is the median number of times people had to be asked so a question of I have rental assistance and services would you like that rental assistance and services and the median number of times that the ACT team had to ask these clients was one before acceptance obviously there are outliers there's one lady and the magic number I think was 16 or 17 requests right but she's now in housing but I think this just speaks to in this population not just general homeless but those with severe mental illness long time unsheltered averaging seven and a half years unsheltered people are accepting housing when it's offered Tera if I may I don't necessarily have to put an act team member on the spot but we could do that if somebody wants to speak to this I'm curious about the way that individuals are trained and be able to interact with someone to get that kind of success rate from an individual who previously probably has refused services or not wanted to come in and if you want to provide that Insight or if someone else wants to provide it either way is fine we started off strong um before the the official team was in place um there's directions home had some psh case manager team and lead and so um Teresa and Leah um from MHMR I don't know if either one of you want to speak to that but they just have deep experience and being able to talk with people and get them to engage in housing for some of them building relationship is important for others as soon as you offer a prospect of um housing and services and support to help them the answer is yes so I can get you some more information though on the particular kind of training that's fine them afterwards that would be fine thank you so coun be did you have something I'm sorry my question was very similar um knowing that um the homeless folks have been on average seven and a half years my guess is they have interacted with some sort of of person that offered services in those seven and a half years and so really how we're getting these people to a yes okay part of this um I can speak to you it's the intensity um because when our system is spread very thin someone might ask um are you interested in housing but then that person needs to get identification and if that person doesn't follow up a lot of times they fall through the cracks with the ACT team being this team that's very focused on a relatively small group of people that doesn't happen so they're like okay we will take you so it's a much more handson and handholding approach um for the most vulnerable okay okay so in looking at stakeholder input um our process was just meeting and talking with lots of folks looking at local data and um out of that developing some strategies and actions so we met with almost 300 stakeholders um in the last four months we had four major categories of folks that we really wanted to talk with and deeply understand what they were seeing and what they were wanting to see so obviously we had um folks in the city particularly city council police and a lot of other departments uh Community folks this is our folks at Fort Worth ISD for example their main job is not homelessness but they interact with our system frequently as well as churches uh those with lived experience of homelessness that's some of our most valuable information is talking with people who have been homeless and then also our homeless system providers out of that we have several themes um I'll just lift up a couple there was a huge emphasis on unsheltered homelessness in the feedback we received from the city quadrant and from the community quadrant un we heard over and over again unsheltered homelessness is the very very visible homelessness that really impacts neighborhoods and businesses and so that huge emphasis on what are we doing about unsheltered homelessness and what more can we do also concerns around mental health we very high in in our feedback um you know we heard a lot about camps and that process and how we might improve that another um theme that we heard repeatedly was the need to do better about communicating positive stories of successes um and so that's something we're definitely going to work on uh one of the strengths we repeatedly heard um throughout a wide variety of stakeholders is that one thing that makes Fort Worth unique is just the high level of collaboration the high level of collaboration between the city and partnership home and City and partnership home and service providers just this willingness to come to the table and to problem solve together is something that kind of sets us apart okay so the reason you know Tara and me for some of them but largely Tara met with nearly 300 people over the course of four months is to really as Mark was saying to start us off really get an understanding of what people are seeing and feeling and hearing and wanting to see us focus our resources on that may be different than a few years ago you saw in the chart from the beginning that that great line of unsheltered homelessness is different than a few years ago and so people are seeing different things and having different needs and concerns because of it and we need to be thinking about reacting differently and we wanted to get that stakeholder input to help us understand what should our strategies be particularly as it uh pertains to our funding the directions home that's 6.3 million and how it is being utilized and additional action items that are going to take us forward into 2025 and and some next steps on that I we met with each of you and I appreciate all of you taking the time to meet with Tara And I but I know at each of our meetings um I started by saying you know directions home has a certain pot of money and uh it was last rfpd in 2020 and we've been on renewals well as we saw from the charts in the beginning things are different now than they were in 2020 and we need to be sure that we're being Nimble and we're um changing our strategies as we go um but a lot of the same strategies still work so we I put we put this on here is compassionate enforcement because we do feel like that has been the city of Fort Worth strategy that's not a new term compassionate enforcement balancing compassion enforcement that idea is not brand new and we think there's still a lot of room to lean in on that but how we're looking at it I think has some room to be realigned especially with the focus on unsheltered homelessness is that is at the top of everyone's list when we're talking about it so when we're talking about balancing compassion and enforcement and again enforcement being something that the C city has a unique role in that the rest of the homeless system doesn't because our Police Department is with us and we have code and environmental services so we have a unique role on enhancing enforcement to mitigate the ne negative impacts that um of unsheltered homelessness that are experienced by neighborhoods and business districts and pairing that Outreach with it while also um ensuring that we're connecting unsheltered individuals with the services and programs that are supporting quicker exits to homelessness and increasing that shelter flow and trying to ensure that when we're putting our efforts out there we're finding a balance of both so we make uh real change so uh to we took that concept that focus on unsheltered homelessness and those thoughts into some um proposed concepts for um how we want would be interested in funding directions home and FY 26 which would be to prioritize the entire RFP around reducing and mitigating impacts of unsheltered homelessness and that means um in programs that might hit unsheltered homelessness a little bit having them say this needs to be a focus on unsheltered homelessness or on programs that may not touch unsheltered homelessness at all rethinking that and potentially redirecting those funds into areas that are going to significantly impact that population so I'll have Tara uh take you through a look at what those proposed changes are okay so this is what we're looking at one we carved out and set aside the high impact pilot it is still in the pilot stage and so um we're not intending for that to be part of the RFP at this time so um and these were hard decisions that were really based not on agency performance and not based on um the value of the programs to the overall system but just increasingly thinking about how can the city get the most impact from our funding in the homeless system particularly on the unsheltered right how do we use our dollars to decrease unsheltered in the biggest way and so these are our recommendations um we are recommending that there are three programs that we currently fund we are recommending these dollars be redirected um to unsheltered focused program as Bethany mentioned there are four programs now um that we're recommending have a priority for the unsheltered and so for example critical Document Services that helps people with identification and document their homelessness we're recommending they solely serve um those folks that are living unsheltered and be integrated with Outreach to be able to quickly um be able to provide those resources so part of this is trying to get some Equity it's much easier to serve it's still difficult but it's much easier to serve people in a shelter bed where you know exactly where they are and it's relatively easy to follow up with them versus trying to find people who are constantly on the move there are two categories we're recommending increases one is our direct client service fund this just helps a lot of people move quickly through our system and we're recommending prioritizing the unsheltered and then we're recommending expanding Street Outreach we heard about this in a lot of our meetings and also the Hope team has increased from four officers to eight officers and so we would like to match that so they have increased Outreach support so this is just what some of the impacts would be though so if we chose to redirect this funding um we currently have two agencies that are providing the rapid rehousing this is not rental assistance okay this is just case management we have a data position and mental health I will note on this this uh we're going to be integrating this mental health program with the high impact pilot and so these services will be able to continue just under the offices of the High IMPACT Program what this allows us to do is to quickly get people through the system um we had stories even today about families that um were able to be reunified with their families just because they stopped by the city funded um cold weather overflow shelter and when we love and and DRC help connect them to family members in another state so quickly getting out of our system and then also really leaning into Outreach how can we have more folks on the ground that are working with our unsheltered every day so uh in addition to some funding recommendations we've also come up with um quite a few action items some of these things already in process some of them new and wanted to I've got a longer list coming but wanted to be sure to pull out a panhandling and Street charity campaign because I know this has been something that's been on the minds of several council members um there's it's one of those things that maybe we've tried an effort for in the past and it's time to rethink it revamp it and enter it with some new energy so we've pulled together a cross- departmental group that includes the police department environmental services code tpw to pull together a a multi-prong communication appro approach that would have consistent uh messaging regular Communications oh I'm sorry forg to mention the comm's department of course they're helping us with this uh a Consolidated web resources for the information how to direct people to what we do want them to do and why we might not want them to take certain actions and help educate folks on that and then to include a signage C uh component I put an example here of something that the camp buoy district has worked with us on so we want to take what uh existing efforts have been out there and not um potentially not use exactly that for example um we wouldn't want a QR code on the side of the road because that might encourage some dangerous activities but to um build off the the efforts that they've put forward and try to um use the com existing complaint and citation data to inform where we might put these signs and and track some complaints citations web visits see what um results we can get out of that so um I know I'm talking about this in a bit of a mushy way it's a little mushy at the moment we've got a lot of departments working together on it but we're really encouraged by everyone coming together um to think about how we can do a really strong approach towards this effort um I know many council members have uh put together efforts within their districts and we want to come alongside folster that in a Citywide manner uh the next two slides are some additional next steps I um won't read through every single one of these but I'd like to to highlight a few which of course starting with the top one which is just aligning us more across departmentally um the fourth one which is the uh the chamber has an homeless task force they've been working on a small business toolkit and a partnership home and directions home have been working with them on that we're going to continue to do so we're excited to partner with them on on that work um on the the next slide you'll see some additional elements that we're working on um including uh We've shared seever this with several of you we're excited about the rebuild of the interface in the my for worth app to help people understand where their Camp complaint is in the process give them a bit more information so that they have less frustration about not knowing what's going on um and then ultimately ending with that final one being uh create a city of Fort Worth homeless strategies plan that would focus on aligning and enhancing City actions in the support of the COC strategic work plan which is just a longer way of us saying we'd like to pull together what is the city's plan what is our strategic plan yes we w we love that that there's a a COC strategic work plan we know we're important part of that but what is our plan holistically at the city of Fort Worth around our resources our staff the many uh things we're already doing and really align that to be a stronger support both in the system but then get more out of what resources the city is putting forward um so those are additional next steps and then uh we also wanted to share with you that gonna gonna have a little name change uh so directions home got its name uh I believe in 2008 as part of a report under uh mayor Moncrief it's been a great name that's served it well but it is a bit confusing these days it sounds like a nonprofit people think we provide services and it maybe doesn't reflect that Homeless strategies at the city of Fort Worth Encompass a lot of things outside of just Housing Services and programs as we try to be a more Collective effort across the city uh we'd like to call ourselves homeless strategies because that's what feel like is more appropriate to the work being done very bureaucratic and straightforward I like it um and then uh so homeless strategies has some next steps um which you saw on the previous slides of some targeted dates for different efforts we have going January 23rd 2025 is the point in time count if you'd like to volunteer we'd love to have you out there I'll be participating in my first pit count this year I'm looking forward to it um we target putting the RFP out maybe January February but definitely open to feedback and then um in October 2025 is when those revised programming makeup would uh start after that funding goes through thank you Bethany Council M bet Council M Martinez um I just have one question and um at the at the beginning of the presentation you talked about our numbers in homelessness and how they've decreased in contrary to what we've seen on the national Trend and um I know that there wasn't one Silver Bullet but um what are maybe the top three things that you can attribute to Fort Worth success in seeing a decrease in the number of homelessness as opposed to rest of the nation I do think that there was a pretty close tie because if you look at the overall decrease from um from 24 to 23 it's about 400 and due to the work of partnership home and and moving some previous vouchers they were awarded 350 vouchers so they were able to house 350 additional people and that was mainly families um because they had a very good working relationship with some previous resources so we've seen that again that our system is very strong and uses data and Partnerships to be able to use resources and then we get more resources and we use those and we house more people speaking of housing you had the chart of all of the permanent support of housing in the pipeline uh do you know how many of those units are already on online versus what we're waiting for so on let me there a lot of slides guys yeah um uh the cadilla suenos is already open okay the rest are not is that correct the rest are not so do we anticipate that um we will continue to Trend downward knowing that we still have these permanent Supportive Housing units online sorry one more time was the question yeah do we anticipate that we'll continue to to have see that positive decline in homelessness knowing that we still have about 120 unit of permanent support of housing to come online because none of this none of this will be online at the time of the pit count right none of this will but maybe next year's pit count yes we we do think we're going to see some decreases um we are working very hard with our partners to secure rental assistance um to make sure we see those deep decreases that we have um with previous projects Council Martinez just thank you ladies for very thorough report and you know it gives me hope that we're doing the right things to reduce homelessness in our uh city um but I took a picture hold on my questions are more um to try to get a better understanding of those partic those who have been served through the high impact program um so I don't know I'm just for me I'm just assuming it's more men than women is that correct or is it pretty even it was pretty it's been pretty even okay um and is substance abuse almost always an issue it is a frequent issue okay um do a majority have a criminal record and if so is that a barrier to getting them into housing I don't know about that one thing is um we do we do check because that can be limiting on the landlord landlord side of things um but we have a unique partnership with partnership home um this p has giving us the opportunity not just to like have an act team but also to Pilot some other things one of which is called Master leasing um which is where a nonprofit is able to Le to lease um apartment units and then have the tenant come in as an occupant and so that has helped mitigate some of the issues we would have faced with a tenant directly seeking an apartment thank you and thank you un gospel if you're still here for looking at those those policies that um creating barriers for people getting into those beds I've got a question for you go ahead Gina again I'm happy about the coordination but I'm I'm losing my thought because I jumped in front of Macy and you're doing all this stuff I don't know what I was going to say you go and go and it'll come back to me in a minute um one I want to commend you both on this is a tremendous amount of work um and also want to call out Cody Mark Val for your work in December I mean y'all immediately answered the call when we send that picture around and said this is unacceptable this is not a third world country this is the city of Fort Worth um I do want to challenge this Council after seeing this presentation and looking at the amount of money we're spending $31 million in housing alone I don't know what we're spending on prevention and diversion and I'd love to get that number to better understand what we can do to fill in that Gap um going back to the camping issue I want to challenge the the council to look at the balance between compassion and tolerance um it's a human dignity issue it's a public safety issue um it's a public health issue frankly and I think it's a direct reflection on how we look at the city of Fort Worth our values and our cultures and we can do better and we owe our citizens better um and that was my takeaway from my walk through Presbyterian night shelter in December I was horrified um but kudos to our staff are responding quickly and let's figure out a solution between all of us on what we can do to address the camping issue I'd love to see a no tolerance ordinance and we just need to figure out what we can do to make sure these people have the resources that they need um lastly the recommendations on the directions home rename and the funding reallocation I'm in full support of that um I had a list of questions really more just kind of digging in on the numbers and what we can do to reallocate funds and y'all came up with a solution and I'm really pleased so thank you so much for not just providing a very thorough presentation but a presentation that provided Solutions thank you now B yeah sure those Michael the coordination just really makes me real happy I need to know what does it take to get District 5 and parts of District 11 on that list that you showed because I can promise you there's a skip over when you leave downtown in the district but the years ago Dallas was giving out uh bus tickets to send people to Handley I don't know if you guys remember that Carlos might but they actually did and yeah not long ago and we have people in Handley here who are hanging out on the streets we have people in mebrook who are hanging out actually two spots in District 11 so yeah lucky to have that we we need to get on that on on your radar and so let your people know you just because you get to what you think the end is on Lancaster when you continue East you will see more so that's what I want you to know thank you Michael Yes uh again thanks for this presentation I want to Echo something that council member Hill said I I I believe once I mean again all these efforts of housing people great we need to continue to do that we're always going to have that issue and problem but I feel like when someone's uh at this point we've already lost and we can get them rapidly we have everything that we can do but I'd like to see more and there's only was a couple of mentions about prevention efforts and really really digging into that you know we have people going to the food banks so we have again I'm not the expert here y'all are but what you bring back to us I like the renaming of homeless strategies and looking at this holistically that we know if we can prevent them from ever becoming homeless it's going to cost the taxpayers a lot less so I'd love to see that as part of your re what you're reorganizing and doing of how we look at that and what organizations we have tons of Partners out there churches everything else I don't feel like there's a whole catalog of sorts where we can go and how people are pointed what that looks like but I think that also might help our citizen residents know what's going on that we are making making lots of efforts we have lots of nonprofits lots of Partners we can't do this alone so that would be really helpful to see as this moves forward thank you'all thank you thank you Michael who I miss Charlie and then Jared say me yeah well Tara thank you uh Bethany thank you you I certainly do not envy you Terry you have I think an impossible job I mean an issue that is spoke about in the Bible that we're going to face and we'll face this for the next hundred 500 no one will ever solve this but certainly commend you on the work you're doing to at least uh hope alleviate a lot of the issues that we see in Fort Worth um I absolutely um want to Echo uh Macy's comments as far as enforcement because I completely believe in The Compassion piece and it sounds like those who are offered uh Services who are accepting them that's great um I think a lot of the frustration that we're seeing uh and our residents are seeing is with those who completely refuse everything and I completely understand from a legal standpoint we can't force them into that however I do believe we do need to enforce uh the the ordinances that we have on the books especially whenever it comes to Camping um I think we need to look at private property especially from a commercial standpoint a little bit differently and find a way legally to treat it differently as well because yes it's private property but it's public facing it's an everyone's space it's commercial property um I'd like to see if there's a way we can treat that a little bit differently especially when it comes to the 7-Day requirement um and going back to the commercial the vacant commercial too um so i' just like to be able to see the city and power to to take action make sure our police can take action uh quicker as well especially for a lot of these repeat offenders you know that we have the campers we go out there we tell them hey you can't be here do you have commission no it eventually gets cleaned up to the tune of $6 million or I'm sorry3 million they just go somewhere else and we just keep chasing the the same camps around so what point are we going to hold them accountable and I understand we need our partners in tant County to do their part too I mean we don't have rooms in our jails for uh for for nonviolent felons so we certainly aren't going to have room in our jails for individuals who decide to keep camping um which keeps going further to uh their zero accountability and they're like well nothing's going to happen to me we need to make sure we hold our courts accountable our municipal courts they know that they could just it's a revolving door there's zero accountability they could just keep getting away with whatever they want so I Believe In The Compassion piece absolutely but I think we as a city do better on the enforcement piece and if that means changing some of our policies uh police or whoever it is I think we certainly need to explore that more too because we're frustrated with the same people that we're seeing the same camps uh and nothing from it I think we need to have a much longer conversation on permanent support of housing what that looks like some of those barriers uh some of the requirements um I especially if we're going to be using taxpayer dollars for that um what are some of the requirements of those who are taking advantage of those programs um um a lot of different questions uh that we can certainly talk about in more detail I know we're going to have a homeless Summit next month in District 4 so certainly looking forward to getting more input there um because I think the residents have a lot of questions I think we all do um but I think this has been super helpful and I appreciate it thank you thank you who did I miss Jared if you huh oh okay uh can you go back to that slide of where you had the uh reallocations of funds uh thank you guys for um uh this slide um a question about this slide um I believe it was the critical Document Services piece uh at that 150,000 how many people will you be able to service just if you if you don't know it right now but I think and the reason why I asked that question I I'm glad that you have that there because I think it's important that we have enough dollars to support and how I appreciate how you reallocated dollars to other areas the question is do we still need those dollars in the ones that we reallocated to uh because I'm hearing the question about uh there's no tolerance and serious actions uh but I think there's a lot of things that we can do as a council Number One support affordable housing all over the city of for worth and not just in the urban developments also to uh have a housing bond that I asked for about a year ago when we get ready to do our bond cycle to uh increase a housing bond that also supports uh the city of forward also providing measures to uh be a um uh some of the uh resources that we did uh for other apartment complexes uh we was able to add dollars that took away such as uh the issue that maybe you UGM had about the criminal piece maybe providing security uh maybe resources that allow um organizations to take on the homeless population uh with other pieces such as criminals such as uh substance use uh divver the Diversion Center uh because as uh councilman uh Charlie said our uh homel I mean our jails can't take no more uh people coming into them we're already putting people in for marijuana less than 4 ounces non-criminal people and people are dying in the jail so we surely don't want to just have this no uh tolerance and picking people up and taking them I don't know to some uh secret location to get them off of um Landcaster but I think that we should have we should continue to be compassionate I think we should continue to add more resources to your department and not have you reallocate resources to try to do something different but I appreciate the slide that you put you presented today and I'm going to continue to support the effort that you guys are doing and hopefully that this Council can add more dollars to fix the problem and not just have a sense of no tolerance did I get everybody yes please Jared thank you mayor um thank You' all for very thorough presentation and thank you for presenting at the nqrc and balancing it with this presentation um I'm also just really grateful for um your approach um and as always to this work and for um this stof for approach as we continue to go forward I'm so just tremendously grateful for what y'all are doing on such a difficult topic and a um a tough experience um for our neighbors who are um struggling um in the the muddiness the muck and mire of the struggle of everyday life um so thank you um couple questions um one related to the signs um I I I've loved that idea and shout out to Kent buy pit and council member crane for that we loved it so much so that our Council Office is using our own dollars out of our office to try to invest in doing the same thing at particular um intersections that see um panhandling quite a bit and it doesn't necessarily um to the sign's point actually help be a help to people who are um experiencing the muddiness of life and so I'm interested I I always thought we should expand this because it was a great idea but I also recognize the fiscal constraints on doing that so that's why we went into our Council Office budget I would really like this Council um to look at you know maybe there's locations that council members have all across the city that could benefit from this and I would be um supportive of us seeing how we can come together to do that um so just take that for what it is and I would love to see us do that um the other thing is um to the renaming um I I definitely understand the need for it and um what I'm about to say is not necessarily A critique not at all a critique um it's more so something that I've been grappling with um and so it's a request um of y'all to help me um you know I know that language is uh sometimes um maybe even often Limited and sometimes inadequate for um all the things that we're trying to describe and one of the things that I've been grappling with is that our situation is not our identity um because people are experiencing homelessness doesn't make them their identity homeless and I believe it's my belief that God sees us is concerned about us in the everyday struggle of life and and sees us beyond our situation and doesn't associate our um situation with who we are and who God sees us as and so to that point there's a number of linguistical kind of terms that we use um on around this topic and I am guilty of this at times and struggling with that and so while I understand the approach sometimes I struggle with homeless as an example of that of describing people's situation as who they are and I don't necessarily know with that understanding of homeless strategy necessarily speaks to what we're actually trying to um speak to and so I don't know if it's homelessness strategies or um y'all said unhoused and unsheltered y'all used that that was the first time I had ever heard it because I'm not necessarily an expert at this but I'm I'm supportive of the cause and so the request is can we get a list of the terms that yall used on this presentation that were obviously well thought out and very thoughtful of the lived experience of people facing this circumstance and caning provide it to me so that I can speak more thoughtfully and to the Dignity of the people that we're serving and then also a request I know y'all are really excited about it and I am too I don't know if homelessness strategies addresses that from your expertise but it's something I think of as a legate person and yall are the expert so would love to hear your feedback on that so uh for for this we we were trying to Encompass less maybe the individual and more like the the entire concept of uh what we might be dealing with um across the breath of the city whether it's enforcement or housing program or other kinds of efforts and we looked to other major cities to see what they named their units similarly and kind of looked at that similar language some used homeless in the name and some used homelessness um I but we're I think we're open to considerations on it we the the main goal was to move away from something that very much sounded like a nonprofit in a service agency and was confusing for folks when Tara entered the room I'm with directions home they that didn't mean much to them so just something that says I'm with the city and I speak on behalf of a large amount of strategies and work that we're doing around a certain issue so I think we can we can noodle on it yeah thank youall one more question yeah Charlie so uh to your point um as far as pain handling goes in the signs you know we're we're doing the same thing in District 4 and I've been talking to tpw about it uh actually the expense for even designing one was pretty expensive so I took the liberty of Designing one myself right and um I even came up with a sign to identify High fental use areas uh because I think if the residents in those particular areas knew that there's a good chance of their dollars they're just give give to that that pain Handler is going to go to fentel then now I'm talking to a fire and police about that strategy and what that does to local businesses um but perhaps David there might be a chance in some of those funds you're were talking about to allocate each office um some funds for those signs because we're willing to use our office funds for that too um because we don't have any pids or HOAs that have the money to be able to do that so it's got to come from somewhere um and I think it's something that we can easily track because what we're going to do in District Four is we're going to take the top 10 spots that are reported via my Fort Worth app uh put those signs there we know that from past experience with the qod it doesn't actually generate any income but at least generate the awareness and then from there we can determine in a year or not if it's actually having any impact but at least we're shown the residents we trying something so I I hopefully we can all get on board and do something and see if it actually helps in other districts Renee has all the money we need for sign oh god um just a few things to to close Carl making sure you don't have anything no he's good Carlos broke his leg y'all that's why he's remote today so I thought I was going to Carlos I didn't do it to you but I was going to play the Christmas Vacation Clark roswald falling through the attic today at the beginning of the meeting but I decided to spare you the indignity um thanks no problem so a few things that have already been noted by several council members I do think as y'all have put together so succinctly in this presentation that money does really speak to where our priorities are as a city and I think there are ways for all of the different maybe viewpoints across this table to come together and this is maybe one of these issues we really need to work together so some of the best information right now maybe because there's so much Focus um on California's homelessness policies but according to the Hoover Institute since 2019 the state of California has spent $24 billion on homelessness and they've gone from 30,000 to 181,000 homeless people that is not to pick on the state of California because I think Texas has to look in the mirror absolutely as well but this will be a topic this session and I know the legislature doesn't really know what they think about homelessness and we need to have a voice at the table I just want us to ask the right questions so around budget and this is I love what we're doing with the pilot and I think the answer is probably yes this makes sense but quick back of the napkin math is that we're probably spending based on the 17 months 80 people just over $20,000 per person to put them into Services questions around how long the housing lasts for um what happens to them after that year all those are just questions I think we need to answer as a council especially if we're going to we're going to go to voters potentially in 2026 and ask for money in a housing bond this issue will tank that proposition if we don't get it right and so let's we've got the right people at the table I'm infinitely grateful for our nonprofit Partners not one of us around the table can can hold a hold a candle to the some of the people that are here in the audience that have been doing this for decades we're very fortunate the one request I have around the RFP you're going to do into the spring is a few things don't do it slowly I think the timeline's decent if you release it in the spring and it's implemented in October but just keeping the council up to date coming back to us probably in the next two to three months on updates around what that strategy looks like probably when the RFB is released but also do a comprehensive look at what we're spending across the city of Fort Worth in philanthropy in federal dollars through partnership home the city of Fort Worth anything Taran county is putting in all of that should be um included and how we're grappling with this issue and I think otherwise I think we're on a really really good path and I hope that City staff feels supported because I'm sure many of these departments this is not the only thing they do and this when we ask for things like we did in December you're dragging them away from some other jobs and we recognize that as a as a governing body so we're with you in the trenches to get this right lastly is no Council budget should have to pay for signs so please don't do that please ask tpw and these folks right here to help understand what that costs comprehensively across the city Fort Worth and it sounds like all of you are interested in that so maybe we can standardize the model and make sure each of you are consulted in what areas those should be put into place because I think to your point and Council MC cran can speak to this that has been really effective on the camp buy Corridor so with that thank you both very much great presentation today any future agenda items Council we have like 10 minutes till Council starts yes Council back 10 minutes worth the IRS okay so first I'd like um an inventory of our parks by type of facility and the p and the type the amount of investment we're putting into each type of facility so U neighborhood park versus Regional Park swimming pool Recreation Center that type of thing um I'd like to get a better understanding of our forth Nature Center and how the fees are structured and what it cost us to operate that annually um I'd like a street striping update we invested in that several years ago I want to know where we are and particularly I'd like to know if that material is holding up the way that we thought it would um I would like an update on the Entertainment District study um I would like to know what the city does specific to background checks on employees that interact with children um and then I had previously asked for um the city to explore software that helps us analyze the um cost of development and the return of investment on that and I'd like to pick that one back up um and also in light of the discussion we had today um we fixed the problem when it came to vets we did not fix the problem when it came to vouchers in general and that is updating our Economic Development agreements so that um if they receive funding from the city of Fort Worth that they cannot um choose not to accept the vouchers housing vouchers for um for our homeless and then in light of what we've seen happen in um in La those horrific fires and the one thing that we've heard over and over again is they didn't have the water they needed to fight those fires I'd like to know what our City's water planning and I mean big water for the future of um as we start to add on major developments to the West into the North and what we're doing to ensure that um not only do we have safe drinking water but that we can put out any uh potential fires I have two I'd like a report on next door and I don't see William Johnson and are the chief here so I'm going to rely on somebody to let them know for those of you who don't know next door was brought to us by the Fort Worth Police Department but next door gives the impression that we as council members can see all of our districts and we cannot next door has turned into a a session it's been that for years and I need to know if they can't control the boundaries well it is you know and a lot of stuff is not true and so I I need to know have police gained the capability Aldridge to edit next door to have disclaimers on next door and so you know that's one and I want to follow up on the the report I need for the relationship between uh the school resource police officers and the npos of np's rock you know they rule the community they do the best they can but time those students leave the campus and engage in whatever they do from time to time the SRO stand down that has to stop and so that's really important to me they've been doing it for years so thank you so really quick um we all know that people shooting Firearms is a huge issue across the city New Year's Eve was like a war zone in my neighborhood so I'd like to request I are on on a comprehensive plan to decrease the shooting of firearms within City Limits anybody else on this yes I have one um I want to request of the uh police Towers um how many how many we have on on hand and how many are deployed and where they are deployed in the city of for work you talking about the ones that are mobile and a because I need several in my district okay anyone else around the table okay with that Council we're adjourned