It's not I'm happy. Are you ready? Okay, council. I think we can get started. I will call our work session to order. Today is September 23rd, 2025, and I will turn it over to Dana Burgdoff. All right. Thank you, mayor, members of the city council. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to first call on Assistant City Manager Jess McArin to introduce our new economic development director. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. So, today is an exciting day because the Jessicas are taking over. Now, it is an absolute privilege to introduce our new economic development director, Miss Jessica Rogers, who we are affectionately calling JR for right now to try to avoid the confusion uh for our teams. And she joins us in addition to Jessica Hair at the Fort Worth EDP and Jessica Williams in law. All of which touch economic development in some way. So clearly that name is a powerhouse name. We'll just say it. Um, so Jessica joined us one week ago on Monday on September 15th and she has quickly gotten immersed into the city of Fort Worth, meeting with a lot of our staff members, meeting with some external stakeholders already and just getting familiar with what we have going on. She came to us from the city of Tombball where she served as an as an assistant city um manager and prior to that she worked for the city of Denton as the director of economic development. uh she brings extensive experience in fostering business growth, attracting new investment and enhancing community vitality. She has led some transformative projects, developed innovative incentive programs and established an economic development strategic plan and that is one of the first initiatives that we have asked her to tackle is developing a new economic development strategic plan. Jessica is excited to work with Robert Allen and his team at the Fort Worth Economic Development Partnership as we work together to develop our strategy, focusing on business recruitment and retention, workforce development, small business development, and overall creating a vibrant and diverse economy for the city of Fort Worth. She holds a master of public affairs degree from Indiana University's O'Neal School of Public and Environmental Affairs and a bachelor's degree from Texas A&M University, which I am trying not to hold against her. Jessica and her husband Scott are already proud Fort Worth residents, and she's going to tell you a little bit more about herself and her family. Right. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. First, let me say um if I haven't already, thank you so much for this incredible opportunity to serve with the city of Fort Worth. Um everyone this past month as I've been making this uh transition has been nothing but kind and welcoming. In fact, I am losing my voice because you are so kind and so welcoming and I've gotten to talk to so many people. Um, and the transition to the organization and the community has been wonderful. Um, I wanted to tell you that I'm not just excited to be in Fort Worth. I'm excited to be here right now in Fort Worth. Um, I don't need to tell you about all the amazing things that are that are going on. Um, but I do want to tell you the one thing that's exciting me the most and that is two words that I've heard frequently. balance and partnerships. Um, economic development can look very different in different communities and what it looks like in Fort Worth is really community authenticity, engagement, and that's very exciting as a professional in that space. And second, partnerships out in the community already getting to meet organizations like the economic development partnership, the chambers of commerce, all of the community organizations that are working in this space. I'm so excited to get to work with them and connect with them about their vision for Fort Worth for the future. On a personal note, I will tell you I am not a stranger to Fort Worth. I met my husband here. He lived here for 10 years. And so we spent a lot of time in Fort Worth before we relocated to Houston, of which he spent the past four years telling me that Fort Worth was the best city in Texas and that we needed to get back here as quickly as possible. So, um, I'd hate to admit it, um, as any spouse would hate to admit it, but I believe he was right, and I am very glad to be here, and I look forward to working with each of you. Welcome, Jess. [Applause] Right, on to informal reports. 25109 is the proposed 2026 council meeting schedule and changes to the council rules of procedure. And we have city secretary Janette Goodall and Dennis Mroy, senior assistant city attorney to answer any questions. Questions from council. >> I have a question. >> Nettles. >> Janette, if you can give us a uh the major changes in our calendar for this 2026 and then I have some direct questions to ask you. >> Sure. So the schedule is very similar uh to previous schedules in that we took into consideration no meeting following Monday holidays, spring break, July, all of those uh major events in the year. Um, we added uh a new feature uh for day meetings uh to change the start time to 11:00 a.m. um and to be preceded by a council work session at 9. Um there are 10 public comment meetings um which also will include an option for the city manager to include consent agenda items uh on the public comment meeting. So it will be similar to a limited council meeting. Um it we have 21 council work sessions uh 11 zoning meetings and nine day council meetings with nine uh potential work sessions. And we also included uh seven budget work sessions um so that you can prepare for those for next year and have them on your schedule. So it's very similar. Um the big difference of course is the public comment meeting adding uh the ability to take action on certain items. For those typically it would be consent agenda items that are real quick. Um and then um the day council meeting changing that time and adding a council work session. And the goal is really just to provide uh opportunities for us to help manage the length of the meetings. Uh reduce the time that it takes for uh council to act on certain things so that hopefully we can move uh agenda items through the process a little quicker by having additional council action meetings. >> Okay. Um, and so when I'm looking at this schedule here, I know we discussed it um, previously. Um, currently we actually meet four times a month on Tuesday. In this new calendar, it reveals to me that we'll only have three business meeting a month except for possibly May and November. Is that correct? >> That's correct. And sometimes it depends on what's going on in the month. if there's a holiday, etc. Um, and so by adding the additional council work or council action meetings, we did kind of reduce the actual number of weeks that may have a meeting. Again, just to give you more opportunities to schedule additional meetings, including council committee meetings, etc. Okay. >> The the goal really is to try to figure out the best way to help you all manage uh your Tuesday uh commitments, >> right? And I'm looking on here. Um I think it was discussion of trying to move public comment from just a separate meeting to add to a business meeting. But I see we did that only for one day and not for two days. So we're going to move from public comment being twice a month to public comment only being once a month. >> That's the way it's currently on the schedule. If council would like to add a public comment to the day meetings, um all I need is direction that the council would like to do that. >> Okay. >> It's similar. The numbers I know the numbers sound uh a little bit reduced, but like for 2025, I went back and looked for 2025, even though we're not through the entire year, uh we had 15 public comment meetings on your schedule. We've canled one of those so far um and held a special called meeting and two additional meeting uh public comment meetings. We reduced the amount of time that speakers were allowed because you were going to lose quorum. So um when you take that into consideration that's three meetings out of the 15 that potentially you would not have had because of quorum issues. >> Okay. So my uh my concern is I'm fine with uh public comment being added to business meetings. I think it makes a little more efficient and also it takes away our ability to lose quorum. Uh I'm not comfortable with not having public comment on a day meeting. So I propose that we should add that because if we don't then we will lose the uh public comment to once a month. When we first started as elected officials in 2021 public comment was four days a week. we moved it from four to two. Now we're going from two to one. So that's my suggestion. Also, uh with the discussion as we talk about freedoms of speech and the right to uh talk about how we feel, we need to make sure we continue to be a city that is open to hearing the concerns of our residents. And my last issue I have, well, it's not an issue, but I just got a question on it. We're going to move from two days of executive session to only one executive session a month. Is that also correct? >> We can schedule an executive session as needed uh for the day meetings. Uh I just didn't list them on there. Uh we would probably uh call those as Leanne needed them or as council needed them to discuss items. >> All right, those are my questions. I I do propose that we add public comment to the date meeting. Any other questions or comments from council? Council member Peoples. >> I just wanted to say I agree with Councilman Nettles. I think one of the things nobody likes hearing themselves talked about, but it's one of the things we signed up for when we ran for office is we absolutely need to hear from the public. So, I'm against reducing the amount of public comments meeting. I think we ought to go back to as many as possible. >> Any other questions or comments from council? Dennis, I might just ask for you to give some clarification on the recent state law that just took effect if you don't mind mentioning that specifically and the posting rules that we were also trying to work within. Thank you. >> Pardon me. Yes. So, with the change in state law that took effect on September 1st, we now have to post our agendas instead of 72 hours in advance of the start time, we have to post them in three full business days prior to the date of the meeting, which means we're now going to need to post on Wednesday for the following Tuesday, which presents logistical challenges. For example, today I've been going back and forth with Patricia on the contents of your packet for next week because we need to get that up for tomorrow. So that's the other challenge of additional meetings on the on the agenda that we're trying to balance with this shift from four to three. >> And in our discussions, it sounded like from from CMO that adding that additional consent a consent agenda at the very least could help mitigate some of that and give each of our um ACMs more time to review M andC's. >> Yes, that was a concern. Right now we have with only two business meetings per month, you end up with uh twice a month all of staff every Thursday when the deadline hits has to drop everything and get those ready so that they have them to the M andC center in time to prepare for the following agenda. So the addition of a consent agenda on that uh public comment meeting on the second week on the first week, excuse me, will uh help hopefully smooth the number of items that have to be considered and have uh kind of balance things better. >> Thank you, Dennis. Any other questions or comments from council? >> Yeah. Um, councels. >> Yeah, I don't have any concern about the uh consent the consent adding onto the calendar. My only concern is just about the limitation of public comment. >> Sure. Thank you. >> All right. >> Any other questions? Dana, on to you. >> The next IR2-0110 is on the 2025 debt plan, the rating outcomes and bond pricing results. And we have our CFO Reggie Zeno available to answer any questions. >> Questions for Reggie? >> No. >> Great work, Reggie. Thank you. >> Next is 25-011. This is the August 2025 report on ETJ releases. And we have Landre Stringfellow with development services available. Any questions for Landre? Keep rolling. Okay. Next. 25-0112. proposed amendments to the zoning ordinance to restructure the board of adjustment. And again, Leandre Stringfellow is available. >> Yeah. >> Counciloman Nettles has a few questions and then Council Peoples. Oh, >> I think Council Nettles I think was going to go first and then I'll call. Thank you. >> Yeah. I was just wanted a brief I know we mentioned this too. I just want a brief understanding of the restructure of the board of adjustments. I guess currently we have two appointees that will go to one. >> Yes sir. So we are looking at um one of the um proposals that we have put forward is to combine um basically we would be combining the two boards into one. So yes that would mean that instead of having 22 members and you all having two appointees we would go to um a board of 11 members and we would have four. So each um council person would have one appointee. We'd have four alternates and then those four alternates would um my understanding those would probably be at large. >> Each councilman will have one appointee and then it'll be four at large. >> Yes sir. Those will be the four alternates >> to make sure we continue to keep calm. >> Yes, sir. Yes, sir. >> Okay. >> Any other questions? Chris, council member >> peoples. I I understand there was some push back from the actual members on the board. Can you share some of that and what their reasoning was? >> So, some of the concerns from some of the board members um and and there were some some good reasonings. Um they were concerned that they wanted to have a little bit more input into um how we were going to be doing that restructuring. That was one of the concerns. Another concern was that based upon the number of items that we see that that could have the board being there all day. And so one of the considerations that we did share with them and that you know we're working with the city attorney's office on right now is we're going to be look going through the code to reduce um some of those items that need to come to them because some of those we see quite frequently. for example, um fence variances, fence fence special exceptions. Some of those they're approving with certain conditions. And so we're looking at the code to see where we could just simply put those conditions in the code. And in that instance, they'd be allowed under those certain conditions and it wouldn't need to come through the BOA. So, um those were the major concerns from the board. >> Any other questions from councel? Thank you Landre. The last IR we have is 25113 proposed council initiated zoning changes for properties located in the Rosemont neighborhood in council districts 9 and 11. And again, Landre's the string fellow is available for questions. >> Hey Land, hello Landre. Sorry about that. Um if you could just give us a very brief overview um of what we're doing there. And um I also before you start, thank you so much to you and your staff for getting this done. It's been a long time in the making and so I appreciate you so much and I'm glad we're finally at the end. >> Yes, council members. So, it absolutely has been a long time in the making and um one thing I would like to share with you all is um this is um a really large undertaking because it involves 1,980 parcels. Um and then also um in terms of the acreage, we're over 300 acres. And so some of the um neighborhood some of the well actually it's one large neighborhood but of course you know there are sub neighborhoods within that one neighborhood and some of the concerns was that um the existing zoning would allow some uses that was really not consistent with what the neighborhood wanted to see. So we are looking at reszoning much of that property um from B to A5. Um, in addition to that, one thing that we wanted them to understand is that just reszoning to A5 would not um, alleviate some of their concerns with stealth dorms. And so, we're also looking at conservation districts. So, the only thing that's coming forward at this time is some of that A5 zoning. And we've also looked at some of the more intense commercial uses. Um, we're putting cups on some of those commercial uses as well. And so we after, you know, this goes forward, we will also be coming back to you all with um a conservation district to um basically get more of a of a form and character that's more consistent with what you see um for the neighborhood in Rosemont. We have um a consultant and the consultant is actually working on that plan right now. So hopefully we'll be able to come forward um to you all with the conservation district probably around January. Quick question on the conservation district. After the consultant does that plan for Rosemont, um is that something that we can replicate in other areas in and around TCU to help prevent the stealth dorm? >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. Any other questions, council? If not, I believe that's the conclusion of our IRS. I'll move directly in any questions or changes regarding memberships on boards or commissions or anything on the M andC log coming up for September 30th. Okay. If not, our Triny Metro bi-annual briefing, uh, Richard Andreski, the CEO of Triny Metro, will present. Thank you, Rich, for being here. >> My My pleasure, Mayor, and good to see you, mayor and city council. Um, I was last in front of you in January, so time flies. And I thought now would be a great time to bring you up to date on all the good things happening at Trinity Metro. And if I could ask you to remember two things today from my presentation. The first being that um our agenda is really the city's agenda. Um we don't Tree Metro doesn't go about creating projects and ideas and concepts for service without working with our community partners. That starts with city hall, but it extends into our community neighborhoods. It it goes into our business community. And so our agenda in the update today you hear is a reflection of that. The second idea I would love you to remember today is that we are delivering results. Um we are resultsoriented. Um, when I was in front of you in January, we out I outlined a number of priorities that we had going into the new year. I'm pleased to report progress on in those areas. Um, if you would indulge me for a minute, um, the last few times I've been in front of city council, uh, we had a different leadership team and I think it's it's worth spending a minute or two on the new Trinity Metro leadership team. So, um, I've been with you now three years as your leader of Trinity Metro. Um, I'm joined by a really talented group of individuals, uh, both from our community who've lived here much of their life, as well as bringing in new talent. Um, Christine Black, chief of staff, has been in the business community here in Fort Worth for uh, several decades, has experience in oil and gas, pharma, and manufacturing. We are fortunate to have Annette Lendaros join the team. Exceptional person. What you may not know about Annette is Annette has 12 years with the United States Department of Transportation. So, a fantastic person that's helping us align strategy. We have Reed Lam who's new to the um role of chief operating officer and I'm pleased to say for the first time in Trinity Metro's 41-year history, we have a true COO, a COO that helps all the modes of transportation under him. He's in the room. Reed, raise your hand. Okay. Uh Greg Jordan out of uh city of Grapevine was a a former CFO there. But the key thing to remember about Greg is the deep transitoriented development experience. And the Grapevine story of transit oriented development happened with Greg's leadership. Kelly Shields, our new chief administrative officer, um, uh, 14 years with Trinity Metro, very talented, helping us build out a project management function. Believe it or not, we don't have a capital pipeline, um, as robust as maybe other organizations of our maturity. And so, we're creating a project management pipeline under Kelly's leadership. You all may know Dietra Whitmore, vice president of community services and community engagement and customer service. Dietra has her pulse and has her ear to the ground here in the community helping us align our priorities. As I said earlier, Tara Crawford, uh we brought Tara in from Jacksonville, Florida. So, um a very talented person, individual who's helping us build a service program for Trinity Metro that reflects the growing needs of our city. very data driven person, very very passionate individual who um is helping us deliver on those promises. And then just this week uh or last week, Ted Zimmerman uh joined us from St. um um St. Louis, Missouri, and he was with the B-state Development Corporation, previous experience with the Gateway Arch as well as the Walt Disney Company. Now, I have to tell you the reason I gave you those short bios is because we are having lots of success in bringing really highly qualified people into our organization to help us propel us to that next level. Um, a city of our caliber and of our size needs a first rate transit system. I mentioned last time these were um unchecked boxes. I said we we would come back to you with um meeting our commitments. Mayor, thank you for your leadership on urban rail. Pleased to see that recommendation adopted. We relaunched and rebranded our Trinity Metro Bikes program this year. Uh Trinity Metro Blue Line launched in June. More on that in a moment. Uh our strategic action plan is now um in place for the next five years and we're still working to close that funding gap on tax rail. our board of directors yesterday uh including um represented by including Michael Crane and Chris Nettles um adopted yesterday the FY26 budget and that budget I'm pleased to say maintains fairs and current services that is not common right now throughout the country. Uh many transit systems are struggling to make ends meet. Uh we too are being really efficient and hyperfocused on delivering value and making sure we're living within our means. Um the good news is that we are able to sustain current services with our our current revenue. I'll call your attention to that sales tax bar, that yellow bar. Uh a big part of our program is supported by the half penny sales tax that we collect. Um additionally, um those federal capital grants are quite essential to our both day-to-day operations and our capital growth um aspirations. Our in our race to 8 million. Um this is the year where we believe we will uh exceed our pre-COVID um ridership levels. So uh 7 days left. If you haven't taken a ride this week, uh please do. We um I'm pleased to say that the growth of our um the support for our services, the interest in our services continues to gain momentum and a lot of that is driven by our text rail program. Um, every time in front of you I I talk about Textra Rail. And the reason I talk about Texra Rail is we are reaching new markets here in our city and in our county. Um, I I've shared with you before that one in three people who live here, reside here in Fort Worth have used our rail system. So one in three on an annual basis are some are using either our Trinity Railway Express or they're using TEX rail. That's a very significant number when we think about the reach and the impact of our transit system. And that ridership is on a rocket is on a rocket upward trajectory. Um this year we expect to close the year with almost 900,000 rides on text rail. And in the very near future we expect to be serving over a million rides a year on our just on text rail alone. We also you're well aware of our rebranding and repro packaging our bus program. Uh the first two colorcoded lines are delivering impressive results. uh we are up 30% on Orange Line ridership. So if you compare the pre-rangline ridership to post Orange Line, we have seen sustained growth in ridership. It's important. It's a more attractive service. We're we're serving our community, our residents better uh through a better onboard experience, but we're also attracting visitors and and folks that maybe wouldn't normally be on a on the transit system. We're seeing that success replicated with Blue Line. We deliver Blue Line in June and in the first eight weeks of service, we've seen a 49 almost a 50% increase in rides on the Blue Line service. So, we're clearly tapping into something here in that when you deliver great service, when it's reliable, it's frequent, uh, safe, you see the public respond. And the data tells the story, but so do photos. And I think this is needs no explanation. But clearly um there are times of day where our buses do in fact look like this. So I said our agenda is a reflection of the city's agenda and our community's agenda. And we help in so many ways in our community. We help with access to health care and education. We help with business attraction and retention. We help with talent attraction retention. And literacy is one of those areas in which we think we we can play a role. So, I'm pleased to share an update on Storytime Train. If you haven't heard about Storytime Train, um you're in for a treat. Storytime Train was the idea of of Annette Landos and her team that came together with our operating department to look at what could we do to bring riders onto the system and also make it create an experience for for our families. So, I'm not going to explain anymore. I'm going to have you watch this short video. It's a 60-second video. excited to share about a new innovative campaign that we've launched to really introduce riders to transit and also help drive meaningful connection within our community. How we've done that is through Triny Metro's storytime train. We invite families to join us on Textra Rail. When they board, they will meet their storytime reader, often a well-known leader in the community. University presidents, elected officials, corporate CEOs, all have volunteered their time for storytime train. During their storytime adventure, they get the opportunity to not only listen to train related children's books, but also they learn about train safety and a little bit more about train metro. We're thrilled to support Fort Worth goals of increasing breeding capabilities in our community, but also ensuring that all of our firsttime riders know how to use our Go Pass app and feel a lot less intimidated by using their local transit system. This has been a winwin throughout the community and we are so excited by the response. Now bear with me. Not sure why it's doing that. It's a little temperamental. Um, so we were we were in Thank you. we were in uh Boston for a conference last week and this storytime train made national headlines. So Annette was on stage twice in front of an audience of thousands. Trinity Metro and Fort Worth were well represented. And so what we're hearing from other agencies around the country right now is how can they replicate what Trinity Metro is doing here in Fort Worth. We're really proud of that. So how do we augment those partnerships? Another way we're looking at is with Dr. Karen Molinar is to work with the Fort Worth ISD to increase access to transit for high schoolers. Now, you might ask, well, what's the connection to education? Well, if you're a high high school student and you want to participate in after school activities, you have to worry about catching that bus home and that bus ride home may may actually get in the way of participating in extracurricular activities. So, we have come together with Fort Worth ISD and next week um intend to sign an agreement that would allow students in our community to get access to transportation, public transportation. So, if you're participating in afterchool club, you'll now have the ability to do that and then get get home for many students that will be really a gamecher for them. So, there's so many reasons and so many ways we're we're really showing up in our community. I'll piv I'll pivot now to economic development. Um, we are in the process of recruiting for a new economic development director. I'm pleased to say that um, our city manager Jay Chapa and Robert Allen have been incredibly helpful in this conversation. Reached out early on when we were I was contemplating creating a position and they were um, very helpful and our intent here is to really work hand inhand with the city. We have lots of assets, transit assets, rail stations that right now are parking lots and we think we can do a whole lot more in those areas. Um, and we we all know what what's taking place in the near southside, for example, and our Texas A&M campus that's emerging downtown. And I think now is the time to act and create some energy around our rail stations. So, what's ahead? 2025 and 2026 are going to be a very busy time for Trinity Metro. Um we are in the process of se selecting or soliciting for a new consultant to assist us with our urban rail plan that's going to be done in close coordination with the city. Um and Jessica, thank you for all your support on that. Um we are also getting ready to serve World Cup. I'll I'll defer any comments on that because I we'll have a presentation shortly. We're in the midst of an on demand study to look at the evolution of our on demand programs and we're finalizing our funding plan for text rail to the medical district. I want to thank the city um again for all the support that you've shown us in that area, including u your commitment to help us fund and close the the remaining gap on that project. Okay. Now, where do we go from here? So, I'll wrap up by saying that we have done a lot of work in the near term to reposition Trinity Metro. I think we're finding success. I hope you agree with that. But there's a whole lot more that can and should be done for a city growing as quickly as ours. And if we look at sort of the the challenges that our community faces, there are many. One of them is traffic and congestion. When we've done polling, we've seen that residents are really just top of mind is is the congestion on our roadways. So we are embarking on a on a multi-year program here to define the future of our agency and it starts with Trinity Metro now and actually starts with Trinet Metro promise which is that we want to be safe. We want to show up as a safe, simple, and innovative agency. And I think you see that reflected in our new services. You know, our NOW program is really the five-year horizon. So, there are five primary goals that we have. One is to complete our color-coded bus network, break ground on the text rail extension, launch the Alliance Express bus service. We have not forgotten about that. Um, I can share more. um complete our urban rail plan and advance transit oriented development. We're also looking at the next 25 years. You're going to be hearing more. We will be in the community, lots of public engagement opportunity, but defining the next generation of transit for our city. So, um I introduced Ted. We were walking up to city hall and looking up at this beautiful building and thinking how aspirational this building is in terms of where we want to go as a city. And we think of ourselves in that same way. How do we want to show up? What does the future of transit look like? And we don't have to rely on the old ways of doing business because we're in many ways creating a a system in many ways from scratch. So, I'll wrap up by saying um remind you that um we are delivering, we are meeting our commitments, but we couldn't do it without your support and encouragement. Um, I can't tell you how much it means when each of you show up between the our board members, um, Councilman Michael Crane and Councilman Chris Nettles, but also each of you when we have events and you're in our communities advocating and promoting for us. That that goes a long way and I want to thank you for that. And I'll wrap up with our mission statement, which is really about connecting people to life. So, thank you very much for your time. >> Thank you, Rich. Great presentation. Council members, any questions or comments? Council member Crane. >> Hey, Rich. Rich, thank you uh again. It's an honor to serve on the board with you with the team and I've seen the team change and change for the better and the wrership going up and the investments that you're making. So, uh I you are doing the right things as we continue to have this conversation about what public transportation looks like for Fort Worth. Uh and it may not look like other cities and what other cities do and I think that's okay. But I just want to say thank you for leadership uh in the realm and and working together with all of us. Appreciate it. >> Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Mayor Rich. Thanks for the presentation. Just uh one specific question. Uh this is something you and I had talked about before, the replacement of older bus shelters or the building of new bus shelters where there were none to begin with. Uh who is the point of contact for that? >> Um so it depends on whether it's an implementation question or a a planning and resource question. Um you can always reach out to me directly. Okay. Um, what I would say is that we were the beneficiary of a a million-doll grant that we're working with the city on to support the city's, you know, I think you all know this. The city is supporting us in laying down the concrete and the curb cuts that are necessary for the bus stops. Um, and so, um, I'd be happy to follow up with you on specifics. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Thank you, callers. Anybody else? Council Beck. >> Yeah, just one quick question. Can you give me an update on where we are on the funding for the extension of tax rail and how much we have left to try to turn under rocks to find? >> Yes, we're turning over every rock, aren't we? Uh, thank you for the question. So, we have 143 So, let me back up. It's a three It's a $295 million text rail program. 65 million is for the the new trains that will support that service. That 65 million is fully funded through NCT COG. We have a $10 million uh project uh to expand the railard to support that fleet. That is currently unfunded. So, our railard expansion to support the additional trains is not yet funded. And then we have another um $220 million project to actually build the tracks and the station into the medical district. So between the railard, the 10 million unfunded with the railard, there's about another roughly 5 to 7 million currently that we're looking for. So a total of about 15 to 17 million on a on a total program of 295 million. We are doing everything we can to bring new revenue in to to close that gap. Couple of examples. We have excess property in in a few locations that we're going to be selling and we're working very closely with the two cities um not for worth to sell those properties that could bring in another 5 to10 million depending on how much we get for those properties. So I think we're we're we're we're definitely nipping at at the problem. Um top of mind for me is the $143 million that the federal government has pledged to this project. It's essential that we keep those funds in place and and and get this project going next year. Um I I really don't ever want to I I think you would all agree we don't ever want to be in a situation where um we're being asked why why aren't the funds being spent. >> How much of those funds um have been city funds? >> Uh currently we're working with city manager J Choa on on the timing. Um I believe there's a commitment of about $7.5 million currently from the city. um that's not in the current fiscal year. But the good news is that this text program is a four fiscal year pro program. So it'll it'll go all the way out to fiscal 29 if I'm not mistaken. >> Okay. Um, I would just ask that you keep the city funding top of mind, particularly as we've already set our budget for this year, but as we reconcile this time next year, couple months, um, we start reconciling this year's budget. Um, I'd ask the city to look at anything this year, how we used, um, our interest for different projects around the city. I'd like us to explore additional funding because the project is only going to go up and it's so incredibly needed. the cost of construction is only going to go up and um the medical district is really screaming for this project to be underway. Thank you. >> Any other questions? Council. Yes, Council Hall. >> So, Rich, as the resident um educator here, I'm very excited to hear about the partnership um with Fort Worth ISD. How soon can we anticipate that launch um to allow students to ride Trinity's um free of charge? like when is that going to when do we anticipate that launch? >> Yes, o October is is the hope. Um as soon as we sign theou with the with the school district um the one thing we're we're working on is the the way the student will be able to tap on tap off. >> So there's a a technical question that we're working through but but other than that we're ready to go. >> And um I guess the question is I'm sure y'all in investigated this. How much do you anticipate this will increase uh wrership? >> Well, I'll have to give back to you on the forecast. Our our our goal in in this pilot, I should have said it's a pilot this year, is to understand them the opportunity, learn from students on on how it works uh for them to see what we can do to make that that program even better. So, it it is a pilot year. We're going to collect data. We're going to understand who's using it, who's not using it, understand why they might not be using the service, and then come back with with some changes next year. >> Well, um I will encourage you as y'all kick off your pilot to make sure that you um get as much education um as you possibly can about the opportunity. So often, I would say in my experience, um parents and students don't take advantage of resources just because they don't know that the opportunity is there. And I think this is going to be a great um resource to our families in Fort Worth. So, thank you for that. >> Thank you, council member. >> Any other questions, council? >> Great work, Rich. We appreciate you and your team. Thank you. >> Thank you so much, Mayor. >> Council, our next presentation is World Cup 2026, planning overview, and I believe Diana Gerardano is going to kick things off. >> Allow me to do a short introduction. And it's my pleasure to introduce the next presentation on the world 2026 World Cup overview and planning activities and other notable events that will be occurring in Fort Worth in 2026. Led by our partners at Visit Fort Worth, this year represents a historic opportunity to showcase Fort Worth with a global spotlight. We know the soccer world uniquely inspires loyal fans and so we expect a lot of fan engagement and fanfare happening here in this city that will provide an economic uh and tourism boost for our city. At the same time, we remain committed to making sure that our residents receive core services. So, it's kind of finding that balance between international guest and then our local residents and ensuring that we have a very careful and strategic and collaborative planning methodology ahead of us. It's a true team approach. And so, some of the uh partners that are with us today are Sundance Square, Stockyards, Downtown Fort Worth, Inc., Near Southside, Trinity Metro, uh Texas Christian University, TCU, and Ctown Coliseim. So together with these partners, we are playing a vital role in making sure that we can position the city of Fort Worth for success during this once in a generation event. And so with that, here to provide more details is Visit Fort Worth's chief operating officer, Mitch Whitten, followed by Sunny and Sunny Saxon and Mike Crumb. >> Thank you, Diana. It's exciting to talk to you today about 2026 because even before we get to World Cup, we've got a blockbuster year ahead to talk to you about. Um, at Visit Fort Worth, you know, we're the parent organization for the Fort Worth Film Commission, the Here Fort Worth Music Office, the Sports Commission, and of course, the world's only twice daily cattle drive. And we're proud to be represented also by Council Members Beck and Council Member Flores. Thank you for serving on our board. Our CEO Bob Jameson is away, but we have some exciting things to report before we even get to World Cup. Visit for Worth will welcome almost 300,000 people in the first half of next year because of the sports and conventions we have uh coming. A couple of the sports events that are really made possible by our incredible team and our incredible partnership with Dicki Arena, NCAA women's basketball, Sweet 16 and Elite 8 in March. And you may not know, let's not forget the horses. 2026 is the year of the horse and Dickiy's arena will host in partnership with the city and for visit Fort Worth the FEI World Cup premier international equestrian event in April. So even again more opportunities for international and to uh welcome the world. Then also in conventions there are too many to mention specifically here are a list of some of those coming. A couple to point out, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Texas Municipal League, and over the July 4th time, Texas FFA with more than 16,000 um blue corduroy jackets all over the city over the July 4th weekend, right in the middle of World Cup. So, let's talk about World Cup. We've had a lot of questions and we thought it was time to give you an update on what we know and u because it is a once in a generation event to really showcase the city and showcase the engaged businesses here and abroad. Um today we are launching a new website fortworth.comsockcc2026. Now tourism starts with residents. So this website is not only important for our visitors but will give residents a lot of the information that we are presenting today to you. Just some of the basics. Uh the World Cup itself will run from June 11th through July 19th. Our region will host more games than any other region in North America. That's nine matches in Arlington. And if you combine that with the eight games in Houston, that's 17 total in Texas. And we know that Fort Worth is the biggest draw in Texas. So what is our plan? We will make sure visitors know that our city is the place to be. We will invite media to explore and cover all the wonderful things there are to discover in Fort Worth. In fact, voters among others have already named Fort Worth as one of the top cities to visit in 2026 with more announcements to come. Our team was just in New York last week pitching Fort Worth and we have some exciting updates to come for you in the months ahead. Another important message is that Fort Worth is open for business. We have special spaces for corporate brands and activations and are already engaged with them to bring them to Fort Worth and and as well as the regional effort. And finally on our goals, we have an opportunity to leave a legacy, not only to up our game even more than ever before in welcoming the world, but also to inspire youth at home. In the May 2026 bond election, voters may have the opportunity to invest even more in our athletic facilities right here at home, inspired by right in the middle on the eve of World Cup. In some ways, the World Cup has already begun and we will be busy with fulfilling our plan and working with you over the next year through July following these milestone dates. And again, a lot of this can be found online, but just to say the activity is well underway, and we know that the North Texas Organizing Committee has been at this for for many years, and so this is just the latest addition to that plan. This may be the most important slide of all. As Jessica alluded to earlier, collaboration is our superpower. And Diana, thank you for mentioning our partners who are here because they are really the key because the quality of their investment and the quality the city has invested in these districts and facilities means we are show ready more than ever before. Think about it. We have Sundance Square in the hospital in the heart of our downtown, the cleanest, safest downtown in America. The stockyards with which will have even more special programming, rodeos, and more to be announced. the near southside, the hub of neighborhood bars where people already gather to watch soccer. And I really want to highlight TCU. TCU is a potential base camp, one of six uh vine to host a team uh this next year. TCU was recently named by Princeton Review for 2026, top five in the country for athletic facilities, bestrun universities, and most beautiful campuses. That is a huge competitive advantage for us going into World Cup. Just to build on that a little bit more, TCU has the potential to host a base camp. What that means is a country may select TCU and we think we have one of the best facilities in the country and that will bring its fans and corporate partners and others and media attention to Fort Worth when that happens and we will find out next year. The International Broadcast Center that is going to be based in Dallas at the K Bailey Hudson Convention Center. Think about it. All the media for the World Cup in North America will be based just next door in Dallas. It's very exciting. Fort Worth is not only the biggest tourism destination in Texas, it's also a big part of the DFW story. And today we're joined also by my friend Noel Noel Lavo. Noel, thanks for being here. She is the chief marketing officer for the North Texas FIFA World Cup organizing committee. And I say that because I want to show you a brief video about how we're being featured as part of the whole pitch for DFW with this brief video. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Hey. [Music] Hey. Oh. [Music] Yeah. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] And now, Sunny and Mike are going to come up and talk about our partnership we have with the city and planning for this event. >> Thank you, Mayor and Council. Sunny Saxton, director of emergency management and communications. I'm going to get to my colleague in just a minute. He's been a great uh leader as we kick this off planning uh for city of Fort Worth. Um by the way, I love that video. There's a lot of Fort Worth in that video. So, I love that. Um I did want to thank though Mitch for all of his work and visit Fort Worth. Uh they partner us throughout this process that we've started this planning effort. Um and as you've already heard, uh we've got uh nine games that are coming up in this four-week period. Um while the matches themselves will be hosted in Arlington, uh the impact of course will be felt throughout the region including here in Fort Worth, uh this is a regional moment uh that we know requires a citywide effort. So as we plan, we are keeping uh three key perspectives in mind. Diana covered these briefly. First is the athletes and visitors. Uh we're really thinking about how they're coming here to play and watch worldclass soccer. Secondly, our residents, uh local businesses, tourism partners, uh neighborhood districts. We're excited to be part of the moment and we know that they want to come and bring in community events, business engagement, economic opportunities. And then third, uh we want to keep in mind our members of our community who may not be directly involved but want to be sure that the essential services that they depend upon remain uninterrupted throughout the event. So I'm thinking about things like transportation, public safety, and day-to-day operations that need to continue to run smoothly. So over the past year, many of our city employees have been deeply engaged in regional planning teams, working behind the scenes to ensure Fort Worth is ready. For example, we've had team members directly involved with the North Texas FIFA World Organizing Committees and their work groups. One example is our sustainability committee with staff from our environmental services team. They've been participating in those conversations. You've seen initiatives like the Lake Arlington cleanup that happened this past June come out of that planning. Um, also beyond that, our city has represented several other key working groups including transportation, aviation, health and medical, uh, even things like unsheltered populations. Really too many for me to mention today, but I do want to highlight the intelligence infusion center work group because we all know we need information. Uh, that's a critical piece of our public safety planning efforts. I'll talk about in just a second. Uh but I'm proud that one of our city uh employees is leading that group for the region. So that just shows you how we're out front and of course there's many more examples. Uh so really for us this is training camp beginning uh formation of our key city work groups. Uh we're taking a whole of organization approach to this to ensure that we're aligned and we're coordinated and ready to deliver. Uh most recently we organized and kicked off five internal city workg groupoups. Each were focused on a key area of planning and delivery. These work groups are made up of representatives from the key departments and are actively collaborating with external stakeholders and internal. Uh each work group has a clear focus from the operations to mobility and communications. Uh in just a moment I'll hand things over to my colleague director of public events uh who will walk you through the hospitality workg group. But I do just want to quickly mention some of the work engaged with these other ones. So for instance, communications and engagement work group is focused on ensuring that public information is clear, timely, and accessible. Uh they're coordinating messaging with our regional partners supporting welcoming efforts and ensuring the citywide outreach is equitable and effective. We're thinking about things like branding, also legacy efforts, so such as youth sports, small business engagement, and neighborhood pride. Our beautifification work group is focused on making sure the city looks and feels its very best both for our residents and for the thousands of visitors we expect. Their work includes enhancing public spaces like key corridors plazas gateways also streetscape improvements, seasonal plantings, and citywide cleanliness. Uh visual branding is going to be consistent and integrated throughout the city. And we're looking forward to uh visit Fort Worth and the others to help us with that. Our safety and security work group is responsible ensuring we have the right emergency protocols in place and that they're are al aligned with regional, state, and federal partners. Uh we are so fortunate to have our police and fire departments actively involved along with our hospitals and inter agency coordination. So we're thinking about crowd management, access controls, and things like that. And finally, before I hand it off for hospitality, I would mention the infrastructure work group, which is really our making sure our city's foundational systems are ready for the increased activity. So that includes transportation, mobility planning, road closures, utility coordination, and etc. So with that, I'll uh introduce Mike uh to talk a little bit more for us. >> Mayor and council, good afternoon. I'm Michael Crumb, director of the public events department. Um, I'd like to start this afternoon by putting this into some context. Uh, if you think about the size of the event that we're about to play a part in hosting, this is larger than a men's or women's final four. It is larger than a political convention. It is larger than a Super Bowl. Uh, it is arguably larger than the Olympics. The World Cup is the most watched event in the world. So, and the world's eyes are going to be on the Metroplex uh during uh June and July of this coming summer. Uh so, we have to be ready to play our part and one of the cornerstones of our effort to do that is our hospitality committee. Uh if you think about it, we've been here before. Uh so uh some of you will remember that we took the national finals rodeo, the Super Bowl of rodeo on a 100 days notice. Uh while the competition was over in Arlington, everything else was in Fort Worth. So we had to plan for the Easter Sunday of rodeo on a 100 days notice. Uh we have a little bit longer runway, but the mission is the same. uh we have now uh almost a year to plan for the Easter Sunday of sports events. And so that's what we have to do. We don't know at this point if for example TCU would be hosting France, one of the iconic teams in World Cup or if we'd be hosting Likenstein. Now we don't have anything against Likenstein. I'm sure they're good people and whatnot, but one way or the other, we got to be ready, right? And so the cornerstone of that is our hospitality committee. And what we're doing, uh, if you kind of cut to the chase, is that we are working with our private sector partners in the hospitality industry to create a world-class customer experience for our visitors to Fort Worth in June and July of next year. And remember, our visitors are not just here for soccer, football. Um, we also are running a full schedule of our usual visitor events. Uh, you'll walk on the campus at the Will Rogers Memorial Center and you will have no idea what's happening over in Arlington because we're blowing and going with our usual run of equestrian events. At the convention center, we have a handful of uh Texas-based, southwestern, regionalbased, and nationally based conventions coming into the market. Uh we have to be ready for all of those visitors, right? And so that's our that is our mission. Uh so uh the hospitality committee uh internally the work group as we call it uh is made up of representatives of public events uh communications and public engagement, code compliance, neighborhood services, parks and recreation, transportation and public works, environmental services, and the library. uh and we will be joined at the hip uh with my friend Mitch and his team at Visit Fort Worth and our partners in the hospitality industry to plan for the event. So the the uh format of that planning uh is very similar to what we experienced five years ago. uh we will start meeting on a regular basis understand what's going to be happening in our community and when it's going to be happening how many visitors we anticipate in the market and then we will be making uh plans accordingly uh a great example of that is during NFR we had to change the trash collection schedule in the stockyards because of all of the visitors that were driving through that part of the city at the time I think it was 40 to 50,000 a day over NFR weekend. So, we make those plans, we collaborate uh with our our other uh partners both internally and externally and we get ready to host the world next summer. Questions? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Council Beck. >> Yeah. Um, so I recently saw on the news where our um, folks to the east um, were really intentional about creating a a formalized committee specific to their night life. And so, um, I'm not suggesting that we need to to have something as formalized, but I think it signals a real, um, focus for that city to the east, um, on making sure they're driving people out to to get those, um, you know, to get them into our entertainment districts. And with Fort Worth having the stockyards um downtown and near Southside and West 7th with four entertainment districts, I'd like to know what we're doing to try to drive people into our city to see the museums to see if we're if we're being that formal. >> Yeah. And and not that we would ever mimic what the city who should not be named uh is doing. Uh but that is I I think Mitch described to you uh the beginnings of that where we're we're bringing all of our destinations in the city together uh so that they can u uh be prepared for the promotional plan that is going to is going to be led not solely uh addressed but led by uh the visit for Worth team. Uh, and I think that is that is the beginnings of that type of type of work. >> And it's in the summer, correct? >> June and July. >> July. Okay. Um, I will just share a a bit of information which I don't know that is particularly um it's not going to be the same situation because it's not in the winter, but I um worked at the Council of Governments during our Super Bowl. And at the time, Michael Morris had snow plows brought in from other parts of the country, and we all thought he was off his rocker for doing that because when does it ever snow or ice in um in in DFW? And it did Super Bowl weekend. So, um, my charge to you, we don't have to worry about that in June or July. Thank God. If we do, we've got bigger problems on our hands. But, um, it the charge to you is those things that seem far, you know, out of reach that just couldn't happen to us. They typic Murphy's law, they typically can and do happen. So, we might not need snow plows, but um, you know, those those one-off incidents, um, I appreciate the intentionalness of of of looking at those. Council member Beck, if I could just add, I think the with our tourism partners, we I think that's what Fort Worth does best is focus on not only attracting people here, but making sure they understand the different parts of the city. We just launched the thing called the attractions council where we've asked all the venues and entertainment partners to come together to share best practices. How are people buying tickets? What are their what are they eating? What are they where are they going and how are they getting there? So, that has been a real learning experience for us and um has been a big benefit to our partners. So, yeah. Thank you, >> Council Flores and Council Peoples. >> Uh, since you're up there, Mitch, uh, maybe you can feel this question or, you know, Sonia or Michael, uh, with the World Club, I think we all agree is a, you know, wonderful opportunity for our local businesses here in Fort Worth as well as to our neighboring cities, uh, to take advantage, you know, of all the visitation we're going to be getting in attention. So, uh, many of us on council may get questions from, you know, our small businesses and our districts. uh where should we direct them to connect so that they can actively participate and you know put themselves in the best position to do so. >> As you've heard Bob Jameson say many times, our job is to shine a light on the private sector and to make sure we connect people with local businesses and entrepreneurs. So, at the new website I just mentioned, forth.com/sockcc202026, there are links to connect with visit forworth for ongoing business as well as uh the North Texas Organizing Committee's uh business connect program. So, they can register there uh as well as connect with visit for Worth. We will also have basically a hotline for business that can connect with us um so we can make sure we're getting them to the to the right place. We're also working with and again this is just the first step and there more to come. We're working with the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Fort Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Fort Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce on programs to make sure we connect with through them with their members as well. >> And then what collaborations with transit uh entities uh and DFW airport uh will there be for the World Cup? I know these are ongoing discussions. They're certainly not, you know, fully fleshed out yet, but generally can you talk to that? And uh you know, I'm also thinking wayfinding signs >> certain areas. Well, and I can't speak to all the regional transportation connections yet, but I would say that what Rich presented on Trinity Metro um with the orange and blue lines, one connecting, you know, about a third of our hotels are located downtown, so that blue line is essential. And the orange line connects the two busiest visitor districts in the in the city really helps um in that plus rail. We wouldn't be ready for World Cup without it. And so Rich and his team have done a phenomenal job getting us ready. Then DFW airport is is busy at work with of course their construction and letting people know what's going on during World Cup next year. So we're excited about not only the communication but the connectivity because we will be one of the most connected cities in the world for World Cup. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Council Peoples. Mike did. >> So I think sometimes that when we talk about tourism, we forget the east side of Fort Worth. We really do. And so uh there's a couple of questions I wanted to ask. one you talked about the Lake Arlington cleanup in June. So I'd like to know more about that. But also in district five we have the luxury of going northeast toward the airport and so I would really like to kind of know what plans we have because we can do some indoctrination there to get people to Fort Worth. >> I think everybody already covered it. Uh mainly we were just going to say we're still planning and so more to come. We'll engage directly with the council coming up. Okay. Yeah. >> But, uh, Council Member Peoples, to your question, I remember a couple of years ago when our contract was up for renewal, we, um, some new friends from the east side said they really weren't represented on our map. And so, we have gone through a process to add more to our map. I was excited that Franklin Moss just opened a new place in the Hanley area with his his exciting um, new venue. And so, he was telling me about that. So, we are trying to keep up with the growth. And if you know if anybody um council members have something we need to add, we are open and ready to update all our information. >> Absolutely. >> So, thank you. >> Any other questions or comments from council? I >> have just a few last comments, mayor, real quick. Um just a lot of exciting stories to tell. This is the official uh poster for FIFA World Cup 26 Dallas. It was produced by Fort Worth artist Matt Cliff, who's done a lot of artwork for Leon Bridges. So, we're excited about that story. But I do have an announcement today in working with Noel and her team and our team that uh there a signature event is going to take place this year leading up to World Cup and that is the and on December the 5th there will be a draw party a watch party for the national or international event in DC. So, we will be the DFW uh regional watch party for those interested in see in being a part of the excitement with celebrities and music and activations at Billy Bobs um from 11 to 2 on December the 5th. More details to come, but this is really new information and we were excited that we were able to announce this today. A real regional focus on Fort Worth that day. But let me leave you with this. Um, our promise to you as and and back to Council Member Beck's point is that we will make sure our visitors know about Fort Worth. From our Texas-sized art collections in the cultural district to the zoo and other unexpected treasures throughout the city to the modern west of the stockyards, working with the city, that's the brand promise that our team will deliver for our visitors and our residents. It's the Texas you want. So, thank you for your time and attention today. Thank you. >> Excellent job, Mitch. Thank you. And for all your partners here today. Thank you. Thank you. Our next presentation is on economic development program agreement with Alcon and Kelly Bagot is going to lead us through. >> Good afternoon, Mayor Council. Thank you. Um Kelly Bagot, economic development coordinator. Uh the purpose of this presentation is to discuss a proposed economic development program agreement uh to support the expansion plant plans for Alcon research under consideration in Fort Worth. Now practically everybody knows uh Alcon here and just to give a little color and background uh in 2019 the iicare company separated from Novartis and became a public company a change that reshaped a number of its business units. Since then shifts in market conditions and a push for greater operational efficiency have prompted Alcon to re-evaluate where some of those units are located. Now an independent company through Alcon research. The company is conducting a site search for two product lines. One is for visco elastic surgical devices currently manufactured in Belgium. The other is unit dose pharmaceutical products produced in France. Now this search is global uh with both domestic and international sites competing for this investment as finalist. Uh this project will unfold with two developments on the existing Alcon campus at 6201 uh South Freeway. At full operation, the project is expected to deliver a minimum of 186 million capital investment with the bulk of investment being a business personal property for both product lines. Uh in terms of specific commitments broken out, here's what the company is committed to deliver. Uh for product line one uh that's a visco elastic surgical device currently in uh Belgium. We're looking at a minimum of 25 million in real property improvements by 2028 plus 60 million in BPP right after in early 2029. For product line two uh the unit dose pharma products now made in France. The commitment is a minimum of 43 million real property improvements by 2028 and another 50 million 58 million in BPP by early 2029. So altogether that's 241 new full-time jobs here in Fort Worth with an average annual salary of about 75,000. And just to put that in perspective, that will result in about a 15% increase in headcount. So this is a significant expansion. Now, let me walk you through uh how the proposed incentives are structured. Uh there is a 7-year ADPA 380 agreement capped at 6 million total. If Alcon brings over product line one from Belgium, that qualifies for a 50% grant on real property and BP M. If they bring product line two from France, that one qualifies for a 60% grant. Now, if both lines are delivered here, then each one steps up to a 70% uh grant rate. And just to be clear, uh the two product lines are independent. They aren't contingent on each other. That is to say, we would be incredibly happy if either line came into four. So, mostly to say, we want both of them. And this incentive is structured to deliver that. As with all our agreements, it's performance-based. If the company misses the minimum investment, the deal defaults. And of course, our additional requirements and penalties built in depending on negotiations. To sum everything up, here's a quick recap of the major deal points on the left side. On the right side, for the public, the proposed incentives total about 4.2 million lifetime value or roughly 3.4 million in today's dollars. That amounts to about a 1.8% participation rate from the city. We're also looking at 55 to1 private public ratio which as you'll know is a strong return. Turning to the projected city tax revenues as far as the total net new taxes for gross, we are estimating approximately 3.5 million over the term and that equates to about 2.8 million in today's dollars. After accounting for the incentives that were provided, once it term ends, the city will receive net new taxes. As a result, staff is recommending the city enter a a 7-year EDPA agreement on up to 70% of the incremental value of real and business personal property taxes for the project with formal for approval to mayor and council on September 30th. And with that, thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you. Any questions from council? Thanks, Kelly. You and your team, we appreciate you. Next update is the capital project coordination across departments and information on the cast iron pipe placement program. And looks like Lauren Priier and Chris Harter are both going to conduct this presentation. >> All right. Uh good afternoon, mayor and council. I'm going to start these this uh presentation off and as far as the agenda, what we'll do is we'll talk about how uh both TPW and water initiate projects, plan projects, how we coordinate on projects, how we fund projects, and then I'm going to give a presentation related to cast iron program just kind of an update and then the last uh bullet point there is why would we cut new payment. So I'll talk about some scenarios there. So as far as how the water department initiates projects, we have uh risk models for all of our uh horizontal pipelines. Uh when you look at the water uh risk model, it includes things like brick break history, maintenance records, age of material, uh the type of material, cast iron obviously is high priority. Uh capacity issues could those could be not only master plan initiated but also uh looking at things like reliability and redundancy. dead-end lines. We have to report our flushing to TCQ every year related to uh dead-end line flushing necessary relocations. Here I'm thinking about things like text dot projects or even the central city where we've done a lot of utility uh relocations. The sanitary sewer overflow initiative is a u agreement that we have with TCQ that obligates us to u perform large diameter sewer replacement as well as replace at least 10 miles of high-risisk sewer pipe per year. So we share these uh projects with TPW in order to coordinate for combined projects. >> So TPW develops projects based on a mix of data and community input. Um factors include pavement condition index. If the type of water line is PVC, generally those projects will be performed in our maintenance program. If it is cast iron, then those will go into either the 50/50 or bond program. We also look at the curb and gutter condition. So if you have good curb and gutter, curbon gutter can be a very expensive part of the project. Uh so if we do have good curbon gutter, we're usually looking at the maintenance program or the 50/50 program to reh rehabilitate that pavement. If our curbon gutter is failed, then that is generally only considered in the bond program to rehabilitate that street. So in summary, all bond projects have cast iron and curb and gutter in their projects. So, I'd also like you to refer to the June 6th 6th budget work session presentation for additional details on how public works uh prioritizes our projects. And like water department, we also regularly share our list of proposed projects with not just water department but development services and parks as well. So for TPW initiated projects in our maintenance program projects, our focus is 100% pavement preservation or rehabilitation. So there's minimal curb and gutter uh driveways or sidewalk work in the maintenance program projects. So for our bond pro pro program limits uh the project scopes of work will be 100% pavement reconstruction curb gutter driveways and sidewalks um as well as the water department will 100% fund their water and sewer improvement. So what we like to say is bond program projects are back of sidewalk to back of sidewalk everything brand new. We are completely recapitalizing that asset. So outside of the bond program project limits uh if water department needs to continue their work beyond our street recapitalization uh they will 100% fund the water sewer as well as street re rehabilitation uh but will not do the curb gutter driveways and sidewalks. So during our collaboration and planning uh departments maintain a shared project list for transparency and alignment. We also do a design review together at 30 60 and 90% milestones. So the early conflict resolution and design alignment allows us to reduce downstream conflicts. The tools we use are a cross departmental coordination checklist uh for consistent scope clarity. Projects are also mapped in GIS and scopes are consolidated when our priorities align to maximize our resources. So in order to streamline delivery, we'll utilize where we have overlap. Uh we'll utilize one engineering agreement and one construction contract to simplify procurement and accelerate our delivery. >> So now I'm going to talk a little bit about our cast iron uh pipe program. Uh you all have probably seen the slides many times uh related to that we have 18% of our inventory resulting in 85% of our brakes. So obviously the break rate for cast iron pipe is significantly higher than any other pipe material. of the uh 730 miles of cast iron pipe that we have in our inventory, uh 672 miles are small diameter, which means uh less than 16 inch uh pipe diameter, and about 58 miles are large diameter. And we're especially concerned about the large diameter cast iron pipe. So, we have 18 projects that are uh in design or construction right now related to large diameter cast iron pipe replacement. I will tell you that when you have one in your district, you will probably know about it uh because it is significant uh uh impact on the public. So, right now we have two in construction. One is on Westridge in council district 3, one is in downtown and council district 9. But I will tell you that we have one planned in every district except for council district 4 and council district uh 10. So uh one of the things that I think is really positive is that uh by the end of 2030 with the completion of these 18 projects when you look at the the pipe diameter size and you look at the inventory reduction you can see that for 20 in and above we should have that inventory cut down by at least 50%. So why is that important? I think you can go back and look at that uh break that we had on Kier back in 2023. that shows what the impact of a transmission main uh rupture is. So you think about it, those those transmission mains are what moves water from our pumping facilities to our storage tanks. So when you have a break there, it potentially is going to drain your storage tank and set you up for a boil water notice. So it most definitely is a system uh reliability issue. So, uh you may not know this, but we have about 130 projects that are in design in the water department right now. Uh as far as the small diameter pipe replacement, we have about 180 miles in design. Uh which would mean that we would be reducing that inventory significantly as well. So, if you look at the map of all the cast iron pipe, the majority of it is inside the loop. Council member Peoples, >> can you go back to the large diameter? There's that large, see on Lancaster, it looks like it goes from downtown and district 8 all the way through 11 and down to five. Can you tell me about that project and when you anticipate we'll get that done because that's a that looks like it would have impact multiple councils, districts. Yeah, that that project just got initiated probably I think maybe two months ago and we have it split between between two uh engineering agreements and it not only includes Vicory but also Lancaster. >> Okay. >> Yeah, that's a large project. Uh let's see here. So um yeah, I think the the idea is that I want to convey that this is a huge priority of the utility. Um it's extremely expensive. So those 18 projects that I mentioned on the cast iron transmission main projects, there's about $400 million worth of uh costs associated with that. So every year uh going back to 2021, we've been increasing our rehab and replacement budget. But as far as the transmission main projects, those are not something that we're going to be entirely cash funding. So we will be anticipating bond using bond funds to replace a lot of those transmission mains. So just uh this is just for your information. It kind of shows the inventory of cast iron pipe by council district. I mentioned that we don't have any transmission mains in council district 4 and council district 10. But you can see that uh you know council district 11 I think has the highest percentage of uh cast iron pipe of all the districts. But you can see a lot of them have significant amounts. So, uh, as far as the cast iron program, you may recall back in 2021, we had a boil water notice on the north side that was related to the Eagle Mountain plant, uh, freezing up, and that was because of the power outages that we had, extended power outages. Two days later, you may recall that we had to issue a boil water notice to the west side, and that had nothing to do with power. That had to do with all of the cast iron pipes that broke. So, we had over a 10-day period, we had 73 730 main breaks. So, to put that in perspective, this year uh has been the best year ever. And I don't even want to say this, but maybe I shouldn't, but uh we are sitting on 400 main breaks after 267 days. >> Yeah. >> 400 main breaks over 267 days. In 10 days, we did 730 main breaks. So, it just shows you how weather dependent our cast iron performance is. And even though we're doing well right now, you can have a very, very cold winter that will trigger main brakes. And you can have a very, very hot summer where the ground expands and contracts, puts pressure on those pipes, and they'll rupture. So, so much of our performance of our cast iron pipe is weather related. And you think about it, that's just a a huge risk for our utility to be under is that our performance is going to be completely uh weather related. So the last uh bullet is why would we cut new pavement? I can tell you that we certainly do not want to cut new pavement uh maintenance needs. So if if you have a a leak, if you have a break, we have to go in there and repair it. So we do not want to do that which is one reason why we try to get cast iron pipe replaced before we uh pave uh over the pavement. So the other thing is that especially redevelopment that's that's tricky in order to to coordinate that. So let's just talk about the southside. So southside went from like a residential area to medical district more commercial area. What you have is you have uh water and sewer taps set up for residential lots. As that area redevelops, those lots configurations change and potentially what you're having to do is actually remove taps and add taps in different locations. So, if you go in there and uh replace the the infrastructure ahead of the redevelopment, then those services may have to be killed and normally get killed at the main. So that would potentially uh trigger cutting new pavement as part of the redevelopment. So there is a balance between getting ahead of development and trying to coordinate with development as part of the development work. And I just mentioned that because there are a lot of circumstances where this is something that has kind of triggered us to have to go in and cut pavement. And then the last bullet um is more related to you know we've been really um kind of very very focused on cast iron since 2021 even before that but mostly since 2021. And in the past when we didn't have a project that was in the queue we would clear a street that had cast iron in it. We don't do that anymore, but I will tell you there's a lot of new pavement out there when they were cleared prior to 2021. So, I think that's the last bullet that we have and we'll be happy to take questions. >> Thank you, Chris. Questions from council? >> No. Council member Crane. >> Uh, thanks for that update. I want to say um please get Westridge done as fast as possible. Uh, >> so Camp Buoy is next and that's not going to be any fun. Yes, I know. But thank thank you'all for that and and making it and minimizing as much as possible. We still hear from it. I know the mayor still hears from folks there too as well. So, anything we can do to help and just uh alerting people as things change on that street or we get calls too that it's you know nothing's happening but I know that's that's coordination too. But do appreciate that work and app appreciate um the work in West Cliff too and getting all that sort of under control as well. Thank you. >> Council member Flores. >> Cool. question for both of you. Um the coordination for the capital projects to uh continue, you know, the 50-50 work approach funding in the past has, you know, been a concern. Uh are we we're in better shape? Yes. But, uh could you speak to that a little bit? I mean, are we substantially in better shape and we can continue to coordinate or will they be anticipated bumps in the road? >> Yeah. Well, just speaking about the 50-50 program. So, right now that's at about funded about $ three.5 million in TPW's PGO budget. Um, and water department department matches that as well. Um, so in our 5050 program, we prioritize that, you know, for for cast iron replacement as well as where we have good curbon gutter uh conditions. So, we have a lot of projects that we can use that money on. can always use more money in that category. Um, but we are using it efficiently. >> And I'll just say, I mean, so we're committed to getting 20 miles of cast iron pipe replaced a year. We've also committed to the state that we're going to replace 10 miles of sanitary sewer line. So the $3.5 million will probably uh do two or three projects. So that's a small percentage of our projects that we have. Council member Beck. >> Yeah, thank you uh Councilman Flores for bringing up the funding. So, um sometimes it's not just a funding issue, it's a capacity issue. So, say for example, if in next year's budget we said we want to commit $5 million to um the 50/50 program as opposed to 3.5 um one, could water h does water have the capacity to match that? Second is does TPW and water have the capacity to ramp up those um uh projects and do we have the manpower to handle that as well is the second question. >> Yeah. Well, so how how the 50/50 operates right now is that after that three and a half million is exhausted um water department may fund the full paving of those streets. So that would certainly go a lot longer in ways to um having more streets paved in coordination with the uh the water upgrades. Um I believe we have the capacity now in our contractors. Um and regardless, we would have to uh accelerate um our capabilities if we were to pursue more street maintenance funding in general. >> Yeah, I don't see it being a resource issue on that because think about it this way. we want to move forward with the project. Whether we're going to include the curb and gutter and the the driveways and the sidewalk, uh that just is dependent on the funding, the 50-50 funding. So, from an engineering or project management standpoint, there's really not any big huge um increase in the amount of responsibility whether we're going to do the curb and gutter or not. >> Dana, you want to add something? Yeah, I was just going to ask Lauren, do you want to speak to the street maintenance fee study and how that might relate to the funding question? >> Sure. Uh, so we are in the early stages of of looking at the street maintenance fee in terms of what that would be, what that would cost and how that would be appropriated to uh, you know, different land uses. Um, and essentially that money would be used in our maintenance program um, which is also supplemented by that 5050 Any other questions? No. Thank you all both for the presentation. Next up is use of interest earnings and city hall expenditures and Christian Simmons and Marilyn Marvin are going to conduct this. Uh oh. Marilyn, what happened? >> I twisted her arm to get this presentation. >> Man, this does not look fun. I'm sorry. >> That's okay. >> I had surgery yesterday. >> Okay. Well, thank you for being here. We appreciate it. Are you right-handed at least? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. >> Right-handed. Okay. Um, good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Marilyn Marvin, property management director, and I just have three quick slides and then Christian has the last slide on where we stand with this building from beginning to uh where we are today. So, we started um the building purchase was 69.5 million and we had an original scope that was funded with $107 million, a little over. And then we requested in uh February of 23 an additional $50 million bringing the budget for this project to 226.5 million. And I know this is a little small, so I hope um you can read it, but the original scope for this building was 900 people. And then we realized that we could empty out some buildings and bring more people over. And so it became we added an additional 700 employees. So we have about 1,600 employees now that reside in this building. And what that meant was originally we were going to remodel eight floors and then we were going to have four floors plus the mezzanine and the lobby that would be asis. We wouldn't do anything to them. But because we added 700 employees to come to the building, then we had we added floor 15 which was not originally in scope. And the four floors um 10, 11, 16, and 17 now needed to be remodeled. So we added uh or we had an addition of five floors that needed to be remodeled to the original eight. The lobby and the mezzanine had to have changes due to the council chambers change and that was because the floodway the flood plane that we had to accommodate for. So originally the council chambers was one story and it only included this room and the council chambers. It became a three-story building, which it is today. And then we added an additional 13,000 square feet to the building. So you have your executive session room, your green room, a catering kitchen. We had security space, and we moved Fort Worth TV from Old City Hall to here. That was not in the original scope. And throughout the construction of the building, we discovered several things. The lighting control system had to be totally replaced. And we had mechanical infrastructure issues with, I know y'all aren't surprised, the elevators, um, some restrooms and some staircases that increased um, were part of that $50 million request in February of 2023. Floors that were never in scope were floor 18 and 19. Um the tenant decided to do an early buyout of their lease for floor 19 and we decided to move law to floor 19. We added six offices. Um what we did is we took a couple of offices and we built a wall in between them that was done by property management staff and came out of our operational funds. And the rest of the floor for law was asis. The furniture everything was asis. um how the tenant left it. And floor 18 uh was not in scope because the tenant was going to continue to renew their lease and they decided this year about April that they were not going to renew and their lease ended August 31st of this year and they are totally out of the building. And before I let Christian talk about the next slide, do you have are there any questions? Yes, ma'am. Do >> you want to go back to that prior slide? There was a note you added. >> Oh, I'm so sorry. Thank you. I appreciate that, Dana. Um, in February when we requested the 50 million uh for this additional scope, uh, there was a slide. It was it was hard to see if you didn't pay attention, but had we built this building um from the ground up council chambers and the tower at the time in February of 23, it would have cost 391 million, which was more than the 226 that we spent on the building. >> Thank you, Dana. >> Council member Block. >> Hi, Marilyn. Thank you for the presentation. I had a question I asked you a little bit earlier that I'd like to ask openly. >> Uh so we've moved a large number of employees into this building. Can you tell us about what's happening with some of the spaces we vacated? >> Absolutely. So uh 900 Monroe and 908 Monroe, that's the Gordon Swift building and the gas building. Um Gordon Swift is completely empty. The gas building still has environmental services and sister cities in it, but they will move to Old City Hall, 200 Texas Street. Um, those two buildings along with the two service lots just to the south. So, where council used to park and where the water customers parked, those two lots and the two buildings are on the market today. And then 40 West 13th Street downtown as well um was originally property management then development services went there. That building is completely empty and there are two surface lots behind it and those are also on the market. You're welcome. Thank you, Marilyn. >> Okay, Christian. >> Good afternoon. I only have the one slide today. Um, and really I'm just here to remind you that in August we talked about interest earnings. Um, and so part of our recommendation at the time was to appropriate $2 million of that $27 million to the 18th floor finish out, but then we had some questions at the table. So we, you know, we decided we'd bring you back this presentation. You did approve the interest earnings MNC last week, but we did not do this 2 million because of these pending questions. So we sent that $2 million instead to fund balance. So at this stage since we've done that if you are interested in the recommendation to build out floor 18 at this time what we would do is appropriate the $2 million that we then sent to fund balance probably in the year end closing M andC. So that's what staff would recommend now is appropriating 2 million for onetime funding for the 18th floor. Next time we do an appropriation likely in the year end closing M andC which is usually January. So it's just a quick reminder of kind of what we what we'd said last month and kind of where we stand today. >> Thanks Christian. Council member question. Council Beck. >> Yeah. Um first of all, thank you for putting this together. I know I was the one that um created the stink about the the dollars. Um I really appreciate y'all putting this together. I know it's um a question that I get as I move about the city. How much are we how much are we going to spend on that new city hall? Um so this is incredibly helpful in um helping me wrap my brain around what we where we've been and where we want to go. And so I don't have a I'm much more comfortable now appropriating that $2 million. So again, thank you. I'm sorry I had to twist your arm to I know >> to get it. I'll >> talk to you. >> Thank y'all. >> Any other questions or comments for staff? No. Both. Thank you very much for putting this together and the rest of you and to Dana and the team that help make this transition. I know it's been a lot of work, but I think everybody is enjoying and appreciates the space. >> Okay. Okay. Just are there any concerns with us potentially moving forward in that direction from any >> No concerns on my end, council members. >> Okay. Thank you, council. That's the conclusion of our official presentations. I'll now move to request for future agenda items or reports from council members. Anyone? Council member Nettles. >> Uh yes, I have a couple of um future agenda items. uh one um the process of the cho the choosing of the food vendor for the city hall cafeteria. Uh if we can get a IR on that also um I want to ask legal uh for uh an IR or a presentation on the difference between a president's order or and a resolution uh process for the city to abide. Uh, also also with internal emails, Lynn, I want to ask about the attorney and council client privilege uh when screenshots are taken without a P um of internal emails. >> Any other future agenda items from council? No. Okay. Council meeting is adjourned.