requested to speak there are two speaker podiums in the chambers the podium in the back is for individuals with Mobility concerns we ask all others to step forward to the front Podium each Podium has a countdown clock located to the speaker's right that will indicate how much time is remaining when you have 30 seconds left a bell will sound and you should complete your comments before you begin your comments please state your name thank you good evening and welcome to your forward city council meeting I'll call us to order please rise for the invocation tonight's on vacation will be given by Pastor James lepine please rise and remain standing for the invocation and pledges of Allegiance pray with me Jesus when you taught your disciples to pray you told them to say our father in heaven Hallowed Be Your Name Your Kingdom Come your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven and so father tonight we pray that your will would be done that your name would be hallowed that your kingdom would come on in Fort Worth as it is in heaven Jesus we declare that you rule and Reign Over All of History over all of time and so would you come and heal the things that are broken in our city would you come and Shine the Light of your gospel in the dark places of our heart and the dark places of our city would would all of Fort Worth Thrive as we pursue you and your gospel and your kingdom coming to Earth and so would you Empower our city leaders our city officials our policemen and women our constituents everyone here tonight would you give them your spirit your love and would we pursue your kingdom come in in Fort Worth as it is in heaven we ask all these things in your powerful name amen sorry today next mayor I believe mayor Pro tem would like to do a special recognition wonderful mayor pretend Bivens yeah it is there we are I am so excited to see the scouts from probably two churches Mount Olive and Shiloh if you guys would come down and have your troop leader your scout master introduce you this troop or these two combined troops have resulted in several Eagle Scouts and Coach if you'll tell us who they are and I'll come down and join you and anybody who wants to take a picture with these fine young men just meet me in the well good evening good evening to uh mayor Parker and all the other officials here my name is Scott Master Jones we held out of Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church we also come from our destiny Baptist Church yeah we enjoy what we do and we love to come here and get some points for our citizenship or the community and with me I have or SPL in North Crowley is uh Kenneth Allen also North Crowley his brother Kendale Allen from Pasco High School Pasco High School we have a say your name okay and then we also uh have Stacy Anderson Stacy Henderson and the last but not least we have Joseph Slater Perry and he's from North Korea also baseball team we want to welcome you guys we're going to join you down there for a photo while you continue to sing whatever you want to say that's all thank you oh yeah uh thanks for all the work y'all do all the time uh I used to be a coach and nobody never said Thank you or anything so I just want to say thank you to for the work that you guys do all the time congratulations thank you thank you so much thanks for Christmas the next item will be consideration of the minutes from the June 6th June 13th June 20th and 27th meetings got a motion and a second any other discussion Council please vote motion carries Marion Council that concludes the action items the rest is public comments thank you Jeanette our first Speaker this evening is Leticia welburn followed by Richard Perez I needed to show okay how many minutes do I have okay I just want to say that I'm with Echo High stop six environmental Coalition I also live in Echo Heights uh the Coalition started with me filing a complaint with the NAACP Miss Williams answered and she and Miss Gina bird came to my home and Gina Byrne had the idea to come up with the Coalition and she worked with us to get the Coalition formed so with that said I wanted let everybody know that's listening that according to Miss Williams I know Miss bibin said that she left Echo High School Miss Williams said they have not abandoned Echo Heights so that's not true also I just want to say that of course you guys know we have over 200 Industries in our community as a result I have a trucking company behind my home can I show the pictures please now as of Thursday I can't show the pictures on the screen on Thursday I recorded my temperature in the backyard Friday Saturday and Sunday I recorded temperatures and if you look at the thermometers the temperature is uh 120 degrees tops which means that it's actually hotter than that in my backyard it's so hot in my backyard today that the uh one other thermometers actually broke can you show the other thermometer the other picture please okay and see you see one of the thermometers there and you see the trucks in back so with with that being said with all of the industrializations that you all have done in this community not only do we have the pollution we have the illnesses we have the health which we also are attending global warming now with you know if the thermometer types 120 like I said it's over 120 degrees in my backyard and Miss Martinez I was not being rude at the meeting last week it's just that when I bought my home in 1985 we checked and we was told that homes would be built in that area the city went behind the communities back and put it in terms in an industrial site Zone without any Community input and that should not be that way you know we've had miscarriages as I said we've had deaths we've had a lot of things going on that you guys are aware of now you guys see how hot it is in the community from the global warming and we also have one guy in the community that has over 100 Lots Bowie Holland now we all know that he's got to be a frequent customer so he must be getting special treatments because he's allowed to do things in the community and the community has asked for no more industry we ask for a moratorium to stop Industries spin adding and we want y'all to listen to us and respect thank you Miss Woburn our next speaker is Richard Perez followed by Jim scherbeck oh I'm Richard Perez a lifelong resident of Fort Worth with family in my present area for four generations of about 80 years I'm here to support our friends at Echo Heights to make sure that their needs are heard for concerns of current and encroaching industrial zoning that negatively impacts the air they breathe from large diesel truck exhaust the safety of their streets from these trucks the impact on their Parks noise pollution and the eyesore of the semi-truck trailers backed up into their backyards to get perspective from a historical Community surrounded by industrial zoning I want to tell you about my own environmental plight with a chemical Factory my area is near the Stockyards about half a mile south of Joe T Garcia's restaurant we're right behind the rosemarine theater in the past six years there have been two major noxious guests releases from a chemical company on Northside Drive that borders our small village type neighborhood there have been moderate releases during those years as well I've reported this to TCEQ and the City of Fort Worth environmental the gases release irritate the lungs Eyes Nose and Throat it makes us short of breath it's above and beyond the severity of what nuisance laws or ordinances call smells or odors calling it that down place the severity of these respiratory irritants impossible carcinogens the major releases of these noxious gases and even the moderate ones usually happens at night or on the weekends outside of city office hours I can only guess why there has been some mitigation of the problem when TCEQ and Fort Worth environmental does investigate and I'm sure this Chemical Company Alters their operations when they know they're being observed it's basically a cat and mouse game I've read portions of the comprehensive planned environmental sections and there's brief mention of future mobile air quality monitoring but no guarantees for it currently there are only two government air quality monitors several miles away are not real time and may not provide accurate monitoring of volatile organic compounds only particulate matter they are not effective we need local real-time air quality monitoring of the gases emitted to protect and warn our community if there is a major gas release we need due diligence goals and objectives for alerting the community during major gas releases as Frontline communities next to the industrial zoning and businesses that pollute our environment I challenge the city of Fort Worth to fix and remedy these problems and provide environmentally safe neighborhoods for Echo Heights north side and all residential areas thank you thank you Mr Perez and Richard I think you know Dr Wittenberg if he's here just to make sure you have the connection with Cody in our environmental Department thank you our next speaker is Jim schermbeck followed by Bob Willoughby and as Jim's coming to the microphone I think mayor Tim Bivens did you have something you needed go ahead yes I'd like the record to state that for the record I had a telephone conversation with Estella with the naac pig in which she told me they would be focusing on Echo Heights that is true I'll put it in writing and I want the record to State this amendment thank you mayor Tim Jim you're up and then followed by Bob Willoughby thank you uh howdy Jim schermbeck 1808 South good Latimer Dallas 75226 I'm here representing Downwinders at risk a 30 year old Environmental Group one of the most persistent and best funded in the region our appearance here along with other groups and representatives from other neighborhoods is a sign that the echo Heights matter left unresolved by this Council earlier this year is a very serious matter indeed and the fact that we're here again tonight recognizes that we're at an impasse and that there's hasn't been a very sufficient or satisfactory City response I think that's because after now attending some of these meetings I understand why and that's because I don't think Fort Worth has ever faced a challenge like this before uh in quite this way and I think it's totally unprepared to do so if you don't mind me saying so it's never dealt with the systematic racism that is baked into this City's design as it is baked into every American City's design just about you don't even have the language and your planning materials or any City materials that I can find that talks about environmental justice at all as a policy as a planning policy is a goal worthy of your commitment um you're behind the curve in this respect you at least the staff wants to treat this amendment that's going on to the echo Heights plan the yearly plan for next Tuesday as kind of a bureaucratic detail that needs to get cleared up before the end of the year that's understandable but the neighborhood can't see it that way because they cannot allow further abuse to happen while the larger 2050 plan is actually being written they want some Assurance they're not going to keep playing whack-a-mole while that draft is being written and so last Tuesday we came to what I thought was some progress I understand there's no bit no follow-up discussions that's kind of disturbing but the sense of the room in a community meeting with everybody present staff and community was that we had at least three things we could agree on that we needed some kind of freeze or moratorium on new IR IM zoning in Echo Heights that we needed enforceable new truck routes that would not bring traffic through the neighborhoods and that environmental justice should be included as a goal worthy of your commitment in this plan and every other from here on out I would urge staff in the city to begin or initiate discussions with the community toward that in and show up next Tuesday with these suggestions and you would have community support for getting this 20-23 plan passed much less to 2050 plan I believe um if not then this is going to get larger and more complicated and Messier and I don't think you want that to happen you can either lead or be led to this goal of environmental justice um we'd prefer the former rather than the latter thanks our next speaker is Bob Willoughby followed by Julie Ledford I'm going to start the video make sure the volume's up please when you do [Music] so the CCP funds we don't know where they're going they should be on the City website where every penny is going should be on the website where you can see it but it's not just want to show you one small bit of this it's a whole sea of the same kind of problem right here we have a blackout the media is not going to tell you anything about what's going on or like Rodney that's going to be coming up here in a second you're supposed to only receive 300 000 and 30 months time this is his website I thought they'd take it down if this came out on Google you can Google in Fort Worth here's this website right here he looks pretty happy I would be too these events there's no events he's only got one coming September but not one of these events you can scroll down and see a bunch of my whole page nothing check this out this is a contact number we gave this man almost a million dollars or the contact number of 555-5555 can you believe that you better believe it over here there's no volunteers you know the Manny's a chair of this she should be responsible for the money that he hadn't got and he's lost okay we should do a full investigation well here we go with the order thing aren't we well about your times on the order okay that's a ton that's sustained I think we're just trying to explain that it's actually councilmember Carlos Flores that chairs ccpd I want you to join the email list you can find out what's going on this city Maddie you don't know what you're doing okay this is terrible you shouldn't be there you're too young thank you [Music] our next speaker is Julie Ledford hi Julie and Julie will be followed by Dan Hayes sorry no disruption sorry hi Julie hi evening I'm Dr Julie Ledford and I give can we close that door please I'm gonna restart Julie's Time Dr Ledford you're up please um all of you should have a copy on the website and the bylaw proposed revisions this is also including my presentation can we please close that door all right I'm not going to read all of this because you have a copy and these are the city policies but I just want to highlight neighborhood associations that collectively represent all residents membership is open to Neighborhood residents and boundaries should not overlap with any existing registered associations um associations shall notify Community engagements about changes to boundaries and they have an Outreach plan with each household within the proposed expansion area notified of the meeting and the reason I'm coming is we have a bylaw revision suggested to open the boundaries to anyone not in including non-residents so that would mean everyone would have to be notified residents of the proposed expansion area who are in attendance at the meeting shall vote so again if we have open membership to anyone anywhere then it would be challenging to have a meeting with that population boundaries are clearly described in the bylaws this is people who permanently reside within the association boundaries and live within the limits if organizations are not in compliance they will be notified by Community engagement and other residents will be allowed to petition to have their own neighborhood association currently for the neighborhood where I reside there are proposed bylaw revisions including non-residents will be allowed to vote non-residents will be allowed to serve as office officers and then the officers vice president and president will be allowed to speak on behalf of the organizations and then a prize members of the positions that they have chosen uh currently the registration policies only allow one group per boundary area that's to prevent overlap currently there are no neighborhood associations that have open memberships that include voting rights there is one organization within our historic area but they're currently inactive and they're not on the City roster they're not listed on the register and then finally Community engagement only recognizes one group historically non-residents were allowed to uh to uh be in attendance but not voter service officers and this will set a precedent for other organizations to cease being representative of their local area I did meet with my Michelle Goot and our city manager David Cook and I requested considering allowing another organization within the limits if the bylaws are revised to include non-residents because the point is for us to have a vote in our neighborhood thank you appreciate it thank you Julie just a quick question for you for my own clarification which neighborhood association or where do you live Hanley okay thank you very much our next speaker is Dan Hayes followed by George Charles so getting something ready there we go good evening my name is Dan Hayes and I live in District 11. tonight I'm bringing part one of a progress report on East Lancaster Avenue first I wanted to talk about the public improvement district this was a Grassroots effort resulting in the establishment of the district in 2019 because of the timing the PID went from fully operational or went fully operational I should say in early 2020. the pit has two primary goals which are to improve Public Safety and Security and marketing the street for redevelopment this shows the limits of the PID which run from Riverside Drive to Loop 820. and here is how it looks as far as city council representation the portion of East Lancaster east of Loop 820 and outside the pit is in District 5. security wise there is success to report private security encounters with vagrants have been reduced to a manageable level with occasional surges QR codes on the rear windows of the patrol Vehicles linked to the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition website so we're trying to get help for those who are willing to accept it the PID also pays for eight flock license plate reading cameras among other successes those cameras were responsible for the apprehension of two men in January 2022 who shot an employee and stole merchandise from a Home Depot in North Las Vegas Nevada the north Las Vegas PD shared the license plate across the flock Network and two days later those cameras on East Lancaster alerted the PD who made the arrests here and now they're back in Nevada not all was Rosie with the PID though we still have some uncooperative business owners who don't appreciate the intrusion of security because their business model depends on nothing changing they are not part of Lancaster's future as for marketing this is going a little slower but we are seeing progress perceptions are not easily reset but the progress made has given Property Owners hope and hope is translated to Fresh coats of paint and other improvements we've also seen new businesses open including a Health Care Clinic a local hardware store and even an ice cream store and the Ruby Cary youth Library pulls in parents and kids from across the Metroplex now comes a mixed income proposal for East Lancaster that will be called Palladium City skyline you'll hear the zoning case next week which has the strong support of central meadowbrook's board and membership this will be the first new private construction within the pit in 20 years and will provide much needed housing I suspect it will be a catalyst for additional developments thank you thank you Dan our next speaker is George Childs followed by Geralyn Jackie Cox my name is George Vernon Childs I live in District 11. I'm here because of statements made in this room to the effect that this nation is being torn apart because quote there's no Unity unquote my reaction to this is twofold first the audacious experiment called the United States of America was founded on two glaringly mutually antagonistic words ordered and Liberty the turf war started at that moment and shows no sign of ceasing as examination of the docket of the United States Supreme Court will consistently show secondly I maintain the what is actually being torn apart are Concepts that are long overdue for exactly that I think that this is taking place in the amount of both issues and participants sufficiently for it to be fairly characterized as National cycle analysis by psychoanalysis I mean digging out repressed ugly facts from the past in order to prevent them from shaping the present and future in their own corrosive image in individual analysis these facts can sometimes be so ugly that consciously or unconsciously a cost-benefit decision will be reached about whether an attempt to prevent future trauma is worth the risk of causing present trauma by facing the past in personal analysis the effects this affects only the subject and at most a few dozen people close to him or her in National analysis this decision can be of vital interest to Millions but is not just a matter of scale it also means that if the decision is made by a level of government it takes on the force of law this can lead to another level of government disagreeing with what that law says another result can be individuals disagreeing with that law so strongly that they are faced with with choosing between a legal Duty and a moral duty given this is natural to yearn for there being an agreement about something and as always there will be no lack of those with comforting dare I say lulling words I suggested two questions be kept in mind when hearing those words first are they so vague as to offer nothing of substance to consider second if this is the case do the obscuring clouds as causes sometimes part long enough for the possibility of an agenda to be discovered in reference to those clouds I suggest that when united we stand divided we fall as heard in support of unity it would be prudent to inquire who are we and who or what are we going to fall to or would that be fall for thank you George our next speaker is Miss Cox followed by James McBride thank you Council I'm Jackie Cox I'm here because I went with others to the meeting in Echo Heights hoping that I would hear from the city of a plan to address our problems with air quality and environmental pollution that falls most heavily in East Fort Worth but it also spreads With the Wind to the whole city and I note that there are two air quality monitors in Fort Worth one of them is an Air Force Park and the other one is kind of down along the river uh near well but not too far from White Settlement at Henderson the one that's closest to me is the one by Forest Park and it reports today that it's a bad day I shouldn't go outside and I can kind of tell that I don't know if you can tell my from my voice but I do have COPD it's fairly severe and in this weather it's a struggle to breathe outside so when I went to the city's website this afternoon to see what the city says they're doing about air quality I was I kind of laughed because they said oh the city is aggressively pursuing air quality by using t-sec the Texas commission on Environmental Quality Air Quality monitors and I just went you know t-sac in the eyes of people who are really concerned about the environment is just a Shabby excuse for quality and the city does just flat nothing to provide us with more air quality management monitors but you do a lot in terms of development that makes our air quality worse so I'm here to remind you that there are a lot of people in Fort Worth who suffer from Bad Air we're spread all over the city it's worse in Echo Heights because they're closest to something like 12 truck Terminals and truck terminals are places that just pour out massive quantities of diesel fuel particles matter particulate matter that is particularly dangerous for the health of the residents in the area but you know what they send their trucks all over the city and send them to all of us so please pay attention we are in trouble global warming is a danger thank you our next speaker is James McBride followed by Jim DeLong Mr McBride here Jim Delong followed by Adrian Smith Adrian either good evening I'm Jim Delong it's nice to be back in here with you all missed you last month my wife says I should shoot myself in the head for thinking that but um I want to talk about something that's that's troubling to me and I've mentioned this many times the division that we have on our country we're so polarized we can't come together it's either you're over here and I'm over here and how do we come together and I titled this same tune different key I'm a musician and that's kind of a phrase that musician type people use from the beginning of time it's been Man vs Man race versus race ideology versus ideology Nation versus Nation it goes on and on that's something for thousands of years that we deal with inherent in man is the greed and need to have and take what others have this includes increased hatred Division and polarization history is replete with examples of this there's Abel and Cain Alexander the Great the Roman Empire Hitler communist Russian and then there's the Irish immigrants when they came over about the only jobs they could get was to be a policeman because of racial bias against them the same thing is happening today history is repeating itself and it's been repeating itself over and over and over again the moral fabric of our society is crumbling before our very eyes we are consciously doing this to ourselves what can we do recognize that what's happened in the past is happening to us again today it's the same tune but a different key don't fall into the same trap of those who've gone before us is it possible that we can learn from their mistakes make a quality decision to turn away from what leads to division hatred and strife these are attitudes of the heart I believe in you our city council the leaders of our city and that you have the personal fortitude and are willing for the sake of all your constituents and I emphasize all to bring people together we if we can't come together to talk about our problems the problems will never be solved and we'll just get farther and farther apart and when that happens everybody loses so I encourage you do what you can to bring our people together in unity thank you thank you Mr Delong our next speaker is Adrian Smith but I haven't seen him and then our last speaker is Tina James I was working I hadn't failed good evening my name is Tina James I reside at 5021 Cottage Street in stop six um currently coming to y'all to speak again regarding the incident or the meeting that we had on Tuesday thank you Dana for reaching out to us we appreciate it um I don't have to say anything that hasn't already been said as it relates to the situation and the life expectancy that's happening over in the Echo Heights area of Fort Worth we are asking again for you to do your due diligence in assisting Us in making our community a cleaner and better place to live a safer place to live I'm not going to talk bad to anybody I'm not going to call anybody out I think y'all have on your hearts and you understand what we're going through as a community and as family in our community um mayor pro team we'd like to thank you also for reaching out as well talking with the black with the NAACP we do look forward to working with them as well again like I said we just really wanted to clean up our community we want to make it safer for our children and their children's children to enjoy our fair and healthy safe Community to live in where they can go outside and play in their backyards without have to worry about catching any type of illnesses or sicknesses none of my children have um what's that thing that you have to do the inhaler with uh look at that so the whole Community know what that means we don't experience that uh in our family however my daughter went to the doctor the other day and the doctor told her to be careful of where she's spending her time at and so with that being said I'm going to ask our city councilwoman Miss Martinez if you could just dig in a little bit harder we don't want October the 8th to go past without being something being done for us as we've been coming to you for a long time I know that you just got in your seat and but we really want you to work hard for the community that voted you in and pay attention to what's going over in the neighborhood to make sure that what we're asking for and the changes that are needed to be done in the community are being heard and that you're willing to work with us to get those things done and so I just ask everyone to take the time and look into what's going on over in the East area Fort Worth in the Echo Heights stop six Community there's a lot of sickness and pollution over there and again we don't want any more commercial or industrial companies being put over there what's over there I'm quite sure we can't remove or relocate they're there but we are asking for y'all to take the time to go out and hold them accountable to what they're supposed to be doing in their areas like we do with city code when we're not doing we're supposed to do on our property code comes out inspect give citations we're asking to do the same thing with these companies hold them accountable for what they're doing for our community and our health thank you Miss James Council that is the last of our speakers I'll close the meeting