It's like a Okay, council. I think we're ready to get started. Thank you everyone for attending. I'll call our city council work session to order and immediately turn it over to our city manager Jay Chapoa. Well, good afternoon. Uh today I have a few announcements uh to make uh organizational updates more specifically and I'm going to start off by calling Danna Gordano uh to introduce our new HR director. Afternoon, mayor and council. It is an honor to introduce you to our next HR director, our newest HR director who started last Monday, Kristen Smith. She's known as an operational leader that's focused on advancing organizations using their greatest asset, our people. She'll do the same here in Fort Worth, but she's led a number of multiple projects that across the different HR areas in in industries that include aerospace, defense, healthc care, manufacturing, and of of course local government. Kristen um has been kind of joins us from city of Garland in her most recent uh employment activity where she led the human resources, civil service, risk management, and the city's full service employee healthc care facility. She's also led the the office of fair housing and human rights and served as an executive sponsor for city of Garland across several city-wide initiatives. Kristen holds a master's degree in human resources management and a bachelor's degree in business administration. She's also certified as a human resource professional and she's also a certified mediator. So, she has a number of skill sets that really attracted us to her resume, but then she did phenomenal in the actual interview process. So, she's excited to join Fort Worth and she's currently shopping for her first pair of cowboy boots. But with that, I'll let Kristen give just a a few words. Kristen, >> good afternoon, Mayor Council. One correction, I already have my cowboy boot. >> Anyway, just um very excited to be here. are looking forward to continuing the work that Diana has uh started in her tenure with um HR uh and expanding that to look for you know programs and projects that really support our organization and that are strategically aligned and uh fiscally sustainable. So looking forward to working uh and partnering with each of you. >> Thank you. >> Welcome Kristen. [Applause] Next, I'd like to um ask Dr. Suned to come up and give us an update on our CPE organizational activities. Uh and an additional update, our contract with the Marilla Group. Um actually ends on Friday of this week, next week. >> Oh, sorry. Ended last week. Yes, it ended last week. But, uh, I'd like to announce that, uh, Dr. Sed has agreed to become our full-time CPE, uh, director of the department. And so, she's joined the city as an employee. So, >> great news. >> And I'll turn it over to her. >> Okay. Well, mayor and council, excited to be here with you today with an update. As promised, we last met, I believe it was in May during executive session and we went over what the ideas were to reorg CPE. So, as you know, we were up against some hurdles. We conducted an audit from December to May. And during that audit, we found that CPE parts of it had been operating like a newsroom and because of this, the department was unable to support city needs. So, needs that needed to come from other departments. For example, we were backed up with things that needed to get done from a video standpoint or article standpoint. And it was basically clogging up our capacity. So, we looked at this from a different angle, which is how could we potentially shift the direction and the strategy of what it is that we're trying to do from a comm's perspective. Um, some elected officials, city leadership and staff were concerned about crisis communication and continuity of operations. There was no strategic or crisis communication plan for the city. And then more sense of urgency was needed. There were quite a few asks. We did a reorg of CPE. We updated the job descriptions. We created a hiring plan for CPE vacancies. Created media relations vertical. Worked on the team and morale collaboration initiatives. created a crisis comm's framework uh media relations process developed shop. So I want to pause here because CPE it was there there were a lot of pieces involved and now there are three distinct areas. So there is what you know as customer care 311 and the my worth app which is a a pretty welloiled machine. Um we have created a vertical for PIOS. So now we have um Kevin Neil serving as our senior PIO and we're currently hiring for a junior PIO. That position is expected to post today. And then we created shop. So shop is basically supposed to work almost like an agency. So we shifted from this newsroom mentality to more of an agency mentality and how can we serve the needs of departments throughout the organization. So, within this, we also built in 247 crisis communication redundancy, uh, brand guidelines. Um, if you may have noticed on your presentations and the holding screens for Forward TV, we've changed our look and feel. Um, we soft launched it with the the budget presentations. Um, but the swoosh and all those things that you've been seeing over the years, we decided that we needed a little bit of a brand refresh to get to really reflect where the city is today. And hopefully you've you've noticed that here in the last few weeks. So things that are still in the works, uh, professional development program, developing city strategic and crisis comm's plan, establishing KPIs, and working on message and communication training. So this is the new org chart that I just discussed with you. The three distinct areas, customer care, public information, and shop. So we have in the last five months reclassified six positions, added two positions. We promoted four people from within the organization to manager positions as you know promoted Sharon to assistant director. And I do want to just take a moment to thank Bethany Warner who was instrumental in helping me get to this point. We really thought that we would need six months to a year to get all this done and we did it in five months and she's a huge part of that. So big thank you to Bethany for helping. Um, so I wanted to talk a little bit about SHOP because this is new and officially off the ground as of October. And there are three distinct areas within SHOP. Fort Worth TV, editorial, and community engagement. And so some of these functions I think you are pretty familiar with by this point. Fort Worth TV handles the video editing, photography, public meeting broadcasts, live streams, public access channel programming. The city has two public access channels. So, programming that, getting that fully functional, that is this team's responsibility. Editorial, which takes care of city news, roundup, social media, graphics, web design, translation comms campaigns media buying, um, and then community engagement, which is neighborhood relationship management, meeting support, next door events, volunteer services. So, wanted to make sure you saw kind of how these three areas fit into shop in a clear way. I think it's fair to say that Fort Worth is on its way to becoming a world-class city, is one of the largest cities in the United States and an economic anchor for the region, all while maintaining a small town feel. So, everyone who's from Fort Worth knows that this is a big city with a small town feel. And to me, as a Fort Worth person, that means that I can get in touch with another human being and it doesn't take the weight of the world to get there. But our brand and communication needs to reflect that. So, I'm going to quickly take you through what our Brie brand has looked like over the past couple of months. Our lead creative designer, um, he took time, his own personal time to go around the city and take photos. And from these photos, he pulled colors that he felt were symbolic of our city. And from that, we have developed a color palette that we feel is more modern and helps bring our communication into a better light. Um, it softens our tones. So, if you'll remember, we had very stark blues and reds and blacks, and this soft softens our tone a little bit and helps with our communication. You've probably noticed that the swoosh is gone. As I said earlier, we have instead decided to move forward with a vector map. And this is a very subtle vector map that goes behind our creative. So, you'll see it at the bottom there. Um, it is a vector map of the city and we've integrated that into our creative, so there is no more swoosh, so to speak. Um, our website has changed as well. Uh, when you visit the website, it's just a softer touch to it. Uh, the fonts are changing. Um, the colors have shifted on the homepage. Uh, we've created a welcome slate on the carousel with the new pallet and creative. Um, our social media graphics and our campaigns can also be in a I think in a more presentable way. And so, we piloted a little bit with the small business development program. and we put together a whole comm's toolkit around that. Um it's still in the works, but I wanted you all to at least be able to see the shift um in creative and from the visual aspect of what we were displaying public facing and what people are seeing today forward TV. Um this affects the council meetings like the one that we're sitting in right now. And this team has also rebranded. Their focus was on the logo, graphics, lower thirds, which are the graphics that go across the bottom and other design elements. So, we had a very 80s look Fort Worth TV logo. Um, it's now a very modern, clean Fort Worth TV. Our city council meetings, the slate was a little busy. And as you may have seen when you walked in, the slate is cleaner. So, folks who are watching from their homes or on their computers, it's just a more aesthetically pleasing visual. The lower thirds are more in line with what we've discussed. So, instead of the swoosh with this gradient background, it's a nice clean vector map that clearly shows what you're watching. And that's the rebrand portion of the program. Um, but we're really excited about it and really proud of this team for helping push us forward into what I think is just a more aesthetically pleasing look and feel for the city. Um, ongoing projects. We have team morale and collaboration has been a big part of this effort. Um in July we held a department retreat. Lab helped us with a brief SWAT analysis. We talked about our strategy, goals, vision, KPIs as a team, as an entire department. Uh we're 50 people strong and that's because we take on quite a bit uh for the city and really I think the team is doing a phenomenal job. They just needed to be reoriented in certain places and they've really shown their their talent and kind of the quality professional u talent that we have here. So, next steps, we'll be finalizing the strategic and crisis comm's plan for the city and our metrics for success. And coming up, there are um some positions that we'll be hiring for. So, there's a multimedia specialist that we will be hiring a public information officer. Um so, the multimedia specialist, that position has posted. It's currently open. The PIO position should post later today. And the shop AD position, our goal is to have that posted by the end of the month. Our goal is to have all these positions in place by the end of this calendar year. One thing we'll be working on with Sunny's team, Chief Garcia, and Chief Hill, um will be the tabletop exercise going into FIFA World Cup because there's quite a bit um that we need to prepare for as a city. And so with all the pieces intact, we'll definitely keep you all posted on that. Um and then some council members had expressed interest in message and media comms training. Um, so there's still some training left to be done with city council members, city leadership and staff. >> With that, happy mayor. >> I just want to mention one of the since she was working through this as a as part of a contract and all these changes were coming about and they're actually I see them as being very positive. our our response to uh getting communication information, all the information that was put together and for instance all the budget meetings, how all that was was taken care of worked seamlessly through the whole process and and one of the things that I that I saw is of the existing staff and how they uh they were ready for a change. they were ready for um more clear communication on their work, more specifically outline what they were doing. And I just kept getting feedback from the staff as a whole of how well um how well everything was going and how encouraged they were and how excited they were for the overall program. So, as as we went forward, as you may know, Sana's from Fort Worth, and uh I thought it would be hard to find somebody that kind of put all this together and was putting it out that would better for the position. And so, I talked to her. She kind of gave me the stiff arm for a little while and then finally came around and and uh agreed to to step in as an employee. So, I'm excited about that. >> Welcome, Santa. Great job today. We appreciate you. I've enjoyed working with you and your team. You're doing a great job. And I agree, Bethy's pretty great. Appreciate you. >> Mayor, I have a couple of questions. >> Yes, Council Nettles. >> Okay. I had a couple questions. I wasn't prepared because I didn't see on the agenda for this presentation, but I do want to ask um how do we plan to support each council office as it relates to uh media? >> It's a great question. Um, so we will be treating council like a department and similar to how we treat other departments and helping them with media inquiries and helping you get talking points together. Um, we'll be available to you for all of that. >> Okay. And then the second question I have for you is um what are we what are we doing to promote our online engagement? You mentioned the different um visual, but like the Facebook, YouTube, how are we trying to get people to watch and engage? So, I know uh a couple years ago people were coming in live on Facebook and ask questions and they never are responded to. So, is that something we're looking to start or manage or anything like that? >> Yeah, it's a great question. We social media is it's definitely a beast to tackle. Yeah. And our goal is to when if we are providing Facebook live for example like we are streaming council meetings for example. Um and so we we were trying to figure this out with the attorney's office because we don't have currently have the manpower to respond to comments during like a 3 four hour council meeting in real time. Um but we are still providing the capacity for people to comment on our Facebook and social media pages and we do have staff dedicated to responding to those comments. Um, so that is very much still a part of the strategy is making sure that we are up to date and current on social media strategy and posting and responding to people who are trying to talk to us through social media. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Hey son, I just want to say thanks. Congratulations. Um, the communication has always been an issue. Uh, and I remember Mayor Parker when we were staffers eight plus years ago having this conversation about we have some good stories to tell. We don't do it the right way. So, I'm glad we've had this evolution of this position and what you've seen in the six months that you've been here is already worlds above where it stood before. So, congratulations on that and congratulations and thanks for uh being a part of the team. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions from staff? I mean from council. >> Yes, council Nettles. >> Uh Jay, was this an appointment position or did we uh do a uh a search for this position? >> I just I just appointed her. >> Okay. Any other questions from council? No. Jay, keep going. Thank you. >> All right. Next, I'd uh like to have Dana Burgdoff come up and uh to kick off our United Way campaign. >> I'm sorry. >> Heartwalk. >> The Heartwalk >> and then we'll get to United Way. >> Yes. To recognize recognize Ela Pierce for American Heartwalk. I skipped. >> All right. Thank you, Mayor and Council. I'm excited to actually get to report on two of our employee fundraisers that we do each year. And I'll start with the Heartwalk. So we participate in the Tarant County Heartwalk supporting the American Heart Association. And I want to give a special thanks to Ellen Pierce who's our health education specialist and prominent cheerleader uh for the Heartwalk. What I'm showing you here is a photo, a drone photo of the City of Fort Worth employees uh who participated. And you'll see that we flooded the Clear Fork Plaza in purple. And a special thank you to Jason McGregor from the CPE team who did a special design for our Heartwalk t-shirts this year. Um, also want to call out Randy Aosta who's in the heartshaped uh costume there right in front from Code Compliance. So, special thank you to Randy for wearing that very hot costume uh during the walk. Um, but I'll also want to show off a little bit that we had several goals that we were trying to meet. We were wanted to get more than 26 teams and we ended up with 33 teams. We wanted to get more than 411 walkers and we ended up with 587 walkers and we wanted to get more than $20,000 and we got over $25,000 raised. So kudos to everyone uh who helped us raise those dollars. We ended up placing fourth out of 75 total teams. In fact, we raised more than Texas Health Resources. So big big kudos to our team. I do want to call uh on our if we have any coaches here who might want to stand. Ellen Pierce, if you would stand and wave your hand. Ellen's a big the cheerleader. Thank you. Any Heartwalk coaches here in the audience, please stand and be recognized. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, big big deal. Big deal. But I also want to especially call out, is Patricia Garcia here? Okay, Patricia. Oh, no. Leave the presentation up. There we go. Okay. So because number one highest fundraising team Patricia Garcia Jay's fund Jay's heartbeats led by Patricia Garcia highest fundraising walker Patricia Garcia. So thank you Patricia for that. So yeah, so Patricia's number one. And the other late breaking news that Ellen shared with me just today is that the Tarant County American Heart Association is going to name us as the number one in employee impact because of the number of heart walkers that we have as well as the CPR resources that we have here in our Heartwalk site here at our at our city hall. So thank you all very much for your efforts. Very much appreciated. So thank you. All right, >> Dana's going to roll into the next. >> All right, so rolling on to the next. So, our second employee fundraiser that we do each year is with the United Way of Tarant County. And so, we just kicked that off yesterday. So, it's roughly a one-mon fundraiser, started yesterday. Um, we sent uh emails out to all of our city employees. So, hopefully all of your district directors also receive that email. Everybody gets their own uh personal user ID and password so that they can go online and choose whether they'd like to contribute. They can also write in a nonprofit if they'd like to specify someone that they'd like to donate to. Um but very important, we'd love to have mayor and council members participate with us in the United Way campaign. It'll run through uh Friday. I believe it's November 21st. And um we will also have again our second annual spooktacular on Thursday, October 30th. All of our city departments should have booths down in the city hall lobby and down in the terrace level and outside in the back parking lot. Um Mr. DJ Herell uh got soaked in the dunk tank. Um and so people paid good money um to dunk Mr. Herell. And um some of us have been approached this year about being dunked and so some of us might volunteer >> to get dunked in the tank. So we'll see. >> I might volunteer. >> It's a It conflicts with the Texas Municipal League. So I don't know, Jess. I don't know. Our hair, you know, I just don't know if we're going to be able to do it. So we'll see. But uh we do encourage you. It's a fun time. The folks get dressed up. But more importantly, I wanted to introduce to you uh executive director for the United Way of Tarant County, Adam Powell. very thrilled that he could be with us here today to say a few words. Mr. Powell. >> So, council and Mayor Parker, thank you for allowing me to be here. Um, I usually start these things that inundate people with data around like maternal and mortality rates and childhood literacy, but it feels superfluous to this group. You guys know that. So, I'm going to tell you a quick story that may not feel related, but I promise you it is. So, I am from Alabama. I got here as quickly as I could. And my dad was a police officer for 30 years. And my dad was a storyteller. And I mean that in two ways. One, he just told good stories. But two, they oftentimes weren't true. Story told, right? So I was about 5 years old. He comes home and he tells me he's been out hunting. And some of you have heard this story, so that'll tell you whether or not is true or not. But he had been out hunting with his friend and they come across this bear. And so my dad, you know, prided himself on being a really tough man. dropped his weapon and he's ready to fight this bear because he believes between he and his friend they can take down this 500lb grizzly. He looks up preparing for battle and now his friend who's about 40 yards away sprinting from this altercation. So he yells out to his friend and he says hey you don't you know you can't outrun a bear and those of you that have heard the story know the ending. He said I don't have to outrun the bear I just have to outrun you. So I was five years old when I heard this story and I'm pretty literal. I want to see my dad as a hero. I thought this was true. So I'm out telling all my friends and then when I got to high school and realized that this story wasn't true, I asked my dad. I said, "Why would you tell me something so asinine and have me out telling the general public this story?" And what he told me is a message that I want to leave with folks here today. He said, "I told you that story because it represents the two types of people in the world, runners and fighters." He said, "The first are runners." So if you want to modernize that to today, we know who those folks are, right? like that's really not my problem. That's those folks problem over there. Or yeah, yeah, I've got money to do this, but maybe next year, now is not a not a good time. Right? We call those folks runners. The second type characterized obviously by my father are the fighters, right? The folks that understand the bears that are in front of us, see the challenges that lie ahead of us, and are willing to put their weapons down and fight, right? Think about the bear of maternal mortality or childhood literacy or financial insecurity, right? And the list of these things go on and on. I tell you that for two reasons. One, I want to say thank you to this group for being fighters, right? Year in and year out, uh, you guys have seen the challenges that lie ahead of us as a community and are ready to fight. The second reason is our United Way campaign is specifically about fighting bears. right? All the money that we raise. So for every person that stands up and says, "I'll commit a dollar, for every person who says,"I'll commit a volunteer hour," whatever that might be, right? You're really, really bringing us closer to being a a more perfect city. So what I'll say to all of you is thank you for that. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for being fighters. Thank you for working with us, right, in this battle. We have historically and continue to see ourselves organizationally as a force multiplier, right? We're an organization that I always tell people I think we are a professional problem-solving organization, right? And for us, that means we're going to continue to double down on our work in education, uh, in health, in financial security, and community resiliency. But in addition to that, we also feel it's incumbent upon us to embrace new ideas, embrace new ways of solving old problems. So really thinking critically about what innovation looks like for us and being able to deploy that in a way that allows us to accelerate problem solving. So, if you don't remember anything else, just remember, thank you for the commitment that you guys have made and allowing us to come alongside you and fight some of the barriers that we've got that exist all across the city. And then secondarily, every dollar that is committed to United Way of Tarant County will be specifically allocated towards again fighting those bears. So, thank you guys for allowing me to be here. Thank you for your commitment and for the work that you guys do and look forward to working with you guys to be a more perfect city. Thank you. >> Thank you, Adam. Council member >> Adam, I just want to say I've had the opportunity to be in the foxhole with you fighting bears. Um, and so to all our city employees and to any of those that are listening, I think sometimes we forget everything the United Way does. It's just a deduction on our paycheck or it's a fun, you know, um, we know we know we're supposed to give. We don't really know why, but we know we do. Um, I can personally say I saw the way that the United Way stepped in and stepped up when our community was in so much need when we had the Cooper apartment fire. Um, and so I want to remind people that it's not just those day-to-day programs um that you help fund throughout our community, but when Fort Worth needs you, you show up. So, thank you for being agile and thank you for helping us fight those bears. >> You know, Council Dr. Hall. >> So, two things. one, I have the uh privilege, the esteemed privilege of serving on the United Ways um executive board, and I got to have the privilege of being on the search team that found this remarkable leader, Adam Pal, um to lead our endeavors. And I want to echo the sentiment of uh Councilwoman Beck, and that um no matter what your donation is, no matter how big or how small, um your donation supports those programs that that stand up here in Fort Worth and benefits our community. So I encourage all employees to um give where you can and how you can and also you know let's take the gold and being a model for other organizations in giving. Um let's win again. Let's be number one. So thank you >> Dr. Chris. Sorry. >> I I'll take it. I'll take it. I know a lot of honorary doctors out there. I'm waiting on someone to give me one. Um that was really good what you said today. I would tell you just go back to what Elizabeth said earlier. I started giving to United Way when I worked at the housing authority back in 2009. Not because I knew what they were doing, but because so many people were doing it. But to hear your story today uh talking about the bear uh says a lot about uh why we should give, why we should be fighters and not runners. And so I appreciate you coming to Taran County and changing the culture uh here of why we should give, why we should support. United Way has been a great partnership with the city of Fort Worth with the One Second Collaborative with the um the Cooper Fire and so many other things and you guys are just not support not um working with Fort Worth City but you're working across the board across Taran County. So, thank you for what you're doing and when I'm out on a Sunday and I can't preach, I'll be calling you and all you got to do is preach that sermon you did today and you'll get some amens. >> Did I miss anybody? No. Adam, excellent presentation. We're so thankful. I know the city of Fort Worth and our employees here really enjoy a partnership with United Way. So, we're going to set to Dr. Hall's point, bigger goals this year to raise more money and be a good example across Fort Worth. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next up is >> It's me, right, >> Parker? Okay, I have a proclamation. Did y'all know it's America Recycles Day? Okay. And I'm gonna ask Dr. Whittenberg and his awesome team who I already took a picture with um to join me at the podium and make sure we recognize their hard work. Cody, if you want to kick things off and I'll present this after that. Thank you all so much. And it was an honor to take a photo kind of pre-eremony today. So, thank you for your patience through that. Fort Worth has a unique opportunity because we have all of the key pillars of an awesome recycling program. We have curbside collections. We have disposal opportunities. We have a market that supports these other um products coming to life. We also have a a citizenry that really wants to drive recycling. And we have all the marketing communication tools to promote that. So, it's just an honor to prepare for about 30 days from now on November 15th. We'll celebrate America Recycles Day for its 28th anniversary. It started in 1994 with the the Texas Commission on Environmental Equality at that time. Moved in to keep America beautiful under the current umbrella. And so, we're excited to move things forward. So, looking forward to a proclamation and celebrating the next few weeks getting ready for that. And rather than read the entire recognition, I just wanted to maybe take the opportunity to say how lucky we are to have such an excellent director for environmental services in the entire department. Um each of you, I promise, have interacted with them um in your offices because um Cody really takes a lot of pride in making sure his department rises to the level it needs to and also our partnership with waste management really allows us to stand out across the country and for that we're incredibly thankful. Um it's not probably at least once a week I tell somebody, have you met Dr. Whittenberg yet? if you haven't, you're going to be you'll be astonished that someone like him um is is willing to put this much time and effort into a worldclass city like ours. So, with that, I will make sure we're proclaiming we're going to do this November 15th again, I guess. But today, we're going to make sure you know that November 15th, 2025 is America Recycles Day in the city of Fort Worth. Thank you, Dr. Whittenberg. [Applause] Next up, we have informal reports. Um, I'll start with the first one. 25-0114. It is on the 26 next phase of the 2026 debt plan and um, Alex Laugher is here to answer any questions. None. Okay. Uh, next up is the community partnership fund on the Riverside Arts District Heritage Mural. There's any questions on that. >> Jay, I'd like to have an overview. >> Sure. Martha Collins is here to provide an overview. And as she comes up, if I'm not choppy, I just wanted to express my gratitude and give a huge shout out to Belinda Norris and Debbie Stein for their tireless efforts with the Riverside Art District. Um, their commitment has significantly contributed to creating more vibrant and prosperous Six Points Urban Village or otherwise known as Ray Street. So, just thank you for all that you do. >> Ladies, if you'd like to stand, let us recognize you, please. Martha Collins from economic development. I'm excited to inform you today of the city manager's office's recommendation to provide matching funds in the amount of $15,000 to award to the River's Arts District, a nonprofit that brings together community through arts and culture and is instrumental in a lot of the success that we've seen in our race street corridor. Uh they were raising funds for a new mural to welcome visitors into the west side of race street and uh city manager uh Jay Choa has offered up uh matching funds for that. Uh we want to invite everyone here mayor and council to actually the mural dedication is this Saturday the 18th at 11:30 uh followed by a really exciting celebration. Riverside Arts District is actually celebrating its 13th annual birthday. Um there'll be uh activities all afternoon, markets and other murals and whatnot. So if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to economic development. Thanks so much. >> Thank you, Martha. >> Thank you all. Uh next up is our IR on judicial recruitment and appointment process and Chief Judge Simone Gonzalez is here to answer any questions. >> No. >> Yes. Council Peoples. Can you put >> Make sure you turn your mic on. Councilwoman Peoples. Thank you. >> Either it's on or off. So, Judge Ozales, you've told us about I think the two people uh Judge Henderson and someone else has been hired, but I think you have some other positions that are open. >> No, ma'am. Just just those two at this time. >> Okay. Just that those two. Okay, >> then that was it. Okay. >> Thank you. Thank you, judge. >> Next up is our litter litter control update, and Cody Whittenberg's here to answer any questions on that. >> Any questions for Dr. Whittenberg? Council member Beck. >> Hey, Cody. I just have a quick question. I noticed that the illegal dump investigations and abatements are down significantly from the previous two fiscal years. And is that because we have less illegal dumping, you're doing so much abatement or is it a staffing issue? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, it it is related to a drop in the number of illegal dump sites and the size of those sites. So, we are seeing an impact from all our efforts. We're seeing fewer illegal dump locations, smaller sites. We're also seeing fewer illegal campsites and smaller campsites. So, that's a positive trend. We are seeing that some of the smaller instances are happening more frequently and we're really working to balance out all the resource for that. But, really positive changes on our litter programs. >> Great job. Thank you. >> Thank you, Cody. Next up is our residential neighborhood parking restrictions ordinance and Peter Elliot is here, I believe. >> Council and council, >> do you want to >> Hi, Peter. Um, I'll be real honest. I'm uh frustrated with this IR because um the last time that we discussed this, I brought up some issues with our current ordinance and I don't see changes to those specifically for those non-residential um the the RPP program. Um we've already identified neighborhoods that we know are negatively impacted by um parking generators that are adjacent to them. So, we've got the list here. Will Rogers, TCU, and Magnolia Historic District, and the Stockyards. Um, so we know that the potential to be a problem is there. So, I still don't understand why we're causing we're we're putting the onus on our residents and our neighborhood associations to take on a very very costly um study to be able to get that program. And so that's one change that I'd like to see in this particular program if intuitively we know that it's a problem because we put it on the list. But having asking a neighborhood association to come up with $10,000 or more for an engineering study is um is a service that we should be providing here at the city and not um putting on our residents. >> Yeah. Um good point. Uh, one thing to remember is when we did this program originally, we never did anything relative to associated fees, funding, um, you know, putting anything in the budget for studies or anything like that. So, we we just do not have the the wherewithal to do anything more than the process that we have, which is this four-step process, which includes, >> okay, >> the the request or paying for that and also pay. >> I I appreciate that. Um, thank you. So then Jay, my direction to you. Yeah. Thank you, >> council member Hill. >> Thank you, Peter. I think just generally speaking on the RPP program, is there a renewal process or does it go on in perpetuity for the neighborhoods that are participating? >> There is a renewal every year. >> Every year news. Yes. >> Is it automatic or the neighborhoods have to opt in? >> They have to basically go back through the same process. >> No, they do. >> And they do. And they do >> have to go back through the same process of the engineering study or is that a >> No, no, no, no, no. the renewal of the actual permit itself on a yearly basis. So they get new tags and you know they have to go through the system. So >> okay some of the neighborhoods that well North Highount specifically has inquired about how to get out of the program if they wanted to. I think when um I don't even know the name of it and health now um when they were being built and expanding they didn't have the parking garages that they do currently and so I've gotten some questions from constituents in that area. Um they can't park in front of their homes because we don't you know provide parking or permitted parking for them. Um, so I think we need to do some communication to those neighborhoods that have questions about it. And some of those neighborhoods want to get out of the program. Just a couple residents that have mentioned that. I don't think it's the entire neighborhood, but I don't think people understand the process of how the program renews or if they want to discontinue it, >> right? We do have a process. And so, uh, if if someone wants to get out of it a particular block fest, and we we we have had that happen in the past. >> Okay. They literally will have to get the support of 67% of their block to to get out >> of the block or the neighborhood >> the block if if they're concerned about their particular block. >> Council member, we can we'll we'll get CPE to work with Peter and his team to provide more communication to those uh areas where this is currently occurring so that we can have provide overall information on how to opt in, how to opt out and those kind of things. >> Thank you, Council Crane. So just for clarification, uh the point was brought up. Every year neighborhoods have to reapply to be in the program, >> not the neighborhoods, but individual citizens uh to get their new permits for the new >> Okay. I just want to clarify because we do not have that for commercial entities, valet parking and other things. They they are just in perpetuity can have those rights. >> We talked about this a couple years ago, right? >> We did. Yes, we did. >> Yeah. So I just want to make sure there's parity if we're putting onus on neighborhoods to do something or individuals >> that we're not doing. >> That's not that's Yeah. So So to be fair, yes, they do have to come back at the end of every year and get a new valet light. >> Get get a new >> Yeah. So it's it just doesn't go on forever. >> Oh, so that's changed in the last two years. >> No, it's it's always been the case. You have to renew every single >> I think you're talking about the sign stays up, but in order for them to be able to use the valet, they have to come in. It was very clear the last time and when the call came back to my office about that with valet etc. it stays in perpetuity. >> No, >> you're saying they do it like Okay. If you can send that paperwork that they do every year for that, that'd be great to know what that looks like because that was not the message that came back two years ago. Um, the other thing I've I've obviously been very vocal about taking away a public entity, which are the streets for private citizens. And so I just want to make sure there's parity there too in what we're doing. Uh, what that looks like and also being very transparent when we're doing that too because I'm not sure that happens now. You know, if neighborhoods want to get together and and and apply for this, etc., great. But I think we've got to at least inform our offices too that know that it's happening as well because we also get it may be not be our district but we get complaints from people that are going to to businesses etc to see what's happening and they can't park or whatever it is because parking has been taken away. >> Please let us know. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions for Peter? No. Thank you Peter. >> Okay. Okay. And the last item I have is that we have a special guest here today, our our unofficial assistant city manager sitting at the end here. And uh Councilman Crane's going to introduce him. >> Hey Vince, stand up. This is Ben Russling who's a sixth grader at Menali uh Middle School out in Walsh and he loves social studies. So he wanted to come spend a day uh looking and seeing what we do and the the madness at city hall. So thanks for being here. And I know there's some representative Walsh out here. I'll tell you that he's already told me he is a good citizen and follows the rules and is not one of those kids driving the golf carts around out there in Walsh. So, but Ben, thanks for coming to spend the day with us. Appreciate it. >> Good to see you, Ben. >> All right, mayor. That's it. >> Okay, council. Any questions regarding changes in memberships or boards of commissions before our October 21st meeting? Any questions regarding significant zoning cases for October 21st? >> No questions, mayor. Just a statement on it. Uh we're moving forward with ZC25-114 which is really a cleanup. The best way I can describe it to something that council already took action when it comes to the subd districts and how we're treating them in the stockyards. Legal appind and said that we needed to go back and button up something so it's clear in our zoning ordinance. >> Sounds good. >> Stakeholders are you fully informed and on board with that. >> Thank you Carlos. And any questions regarding city council MC log for October 21st? Okay. Okay. If not, I'll move to our first presentation, which is an update on neighborhood improvement program and 2026 announcement. Casey is up first. Hello. Casey Thomas, neighborhood services director, and I am excited to be here today to provide an update on our neighborhood improvement program and also to announce the new neighborhood for fiscal year 2026. just an overview. I'm going to provide some general information about the neighborhood improvement program. I will then transition to providing a quick update on our current neighborhood improvement areas, provide an update on an implementation consultant that you all um approved us moving forward with a few months back. and then we'll transition into talking about the fiscal year 2026 neighborhood improvement announcement, the timeline, and then a couple of items um policy-wise for you all to consider. So, what is the neighborhood improvement program? So, the point of the neighborhood improvement program is to put targeted capital in some of our underserved neighborhoods across the city with a focus on improving the safety of those neighborhoods as well as the condition of those neighborhoods. A couple of years back, it was agreed that we would um transition we would move this to a three-year timeline. So each neighborhood would we would have funds that we would spend over the course of three years. And we select the neighborhoods now through a datadriven approach that includes census data as well as data that we get from our departments in terms of um for example crime data, crimes against persons, crimes against property as well as some neighborhood condition data such as the condition of our streets and sidewalks. A key feature of the neighborhood improvement program is that it is um the the success of the program is based on collaboration. Not only with the residents, we have a strong emphasis on community engagement, but we also collaborate with external partners, some of the developers, churches, other um organizations that are in those neighborhoods. And then it also involves a lot of our departments here at the city. And I do want to particularly mention um the departments that we work most closely with which are code compliance, environmental services, transportation and public works, park and recreation, and the police department. Key milestone to date, we have invested over $35 million in the neighborhood improvement program since fiscal year 2027. As of fiscal year 2026, we would have impacted 11 different neighborhoods here in the city of Fort Worth. And we are seeing as a result of these investments, we are seeing improvements in not only neighborhood condition in these neighborhoods, but also the safety scores. Just a refresher. So, three-year program. Um, and this kind of lays out how the program is set out. So, we start with the selection process. I trying to identify what those neighborhoods are going to be. Then the first year we typically focus on clean and safe initiatives. So litter abatement um adding security cameras, cleaning up alleyways, cutting down trees. Year two is where we move over to more capital intensive improvements. So this this may be park improvements. It may be adding sidewalks in a neighborhood or improving the streets. And so that is generally park and recreation department and our transportation and public works department. And then the idea is that by the time we get to year three, we are starting to really engage the community so that once the three years of funding is gone, they can help keep the momentum going and continue to work on improvements in their neighborhood. This provides a recap of all of the neighborhoods that we have done so far. They are all within the loop. Um we are in seven different um council seven or eight different council districts so far. Um in green you'll see stop six north side and Rosemont which is almost done. We just have to pay some remaining invoices, but those are the neighborhood improvement programs that are complete. And then you'll see the remaining areas that we're working through, but they are all spread out across the city. And then this is a graphical representation of the funding. Um, in fiscal year 2017, stop six had a little over $2 million that we provided for that neighborhood. For fiscal year 26, we are almost at $4.4 million that we will be investing in the area. The red line represents when we're talking about the three-year timeline, anything to the left of the red line should in theory be complete by now because it has been three years. And then the um neighborhoods to the right of the red line are the ones that are still in progress. And so that's in terms of neighborhood services, we are working with the departments where you see the blue to the left of the line. We're working with the departments to get those funds spent as quickly as possible. This is a recap of the matrix. So you may recall a few months back we came to you all with a proposal to revise our scoring matrix. We have three different categories that we focus on. One is financial hardship where we're looking at factors such as unemployment, um housing cost burden, how many people in the neighborhood are spending more than 30% of their income on housing. We also looked at safety, which is crimes against people, and then also crimes against property and society. And then we um are also looking at neighborhood condition. Again, looking at vegetation, substandard structure, and missing sidewalks previously um neighborhood or a census track because we do score all of these based on census tracks and not necessarily your typical neighborhood association boundaries, but the census tracks um previously they could score up to 90 points. We are currently at a maximum of 100 points. And so for these next few slides, this will just provide an overview of the neighborhood improvement program areas that are still active, what those areas look like. There will be some pictures that'll show different things that are going in on in the neighborhood. And then at the top you will see the improvement in the scores. So the lower I should say the higher a score is in any category, the worse off that neighborhood has. And so, for example, with neighborhood condition, we started off at 21 points for Ash Crescent. They are now at 15 points. So, they have seen an improvement in neighborhood condition. And then you'll see listed below some of the things that we've done through the neighborhood improvement program that have helped improve those scores. We have just under a million dollars left in Ash Crescent. And the m the bulk of those funds almost all of those funds are for Smiley Park which should be completed in the spring of 2026, spring summer of 2026. So this is a neighborhood improvement um program area that we expect to have closed out in fiscal year 2026. Rosemont um again as I mentioned um on Rosemont we are just we finished the last activity which were some sign toppers. the community wanted some sign toppers to really build the um pride in the neighborhood and so we just are working on closing out those. You'll see in Rosemont there was a huge emphasis on adding street lights in the area. There were over two um over 200 street lights that were added to the area as well as some artwork and park improvements. Ko has um about $133,000. This is also going to be some park improvements that will be completed this fiscal year. But you'll see that um they've been able to do some artwork. Um a lot of the neighborhoods have wanted to add some artwork to some of the key um places in their neighborhoods and again some improvements in the safety in the neighborhood condition scores. Las Vegas Trail. Um, one of the things that I want to highlight with the community engagement, um, you see that top photo is our block party, and I'll talk about it a little bit later, but we were early on the, um, small business emphasis with the neighborhood improvement program because a lot of the vendors that we bring to our block parties are small businesses. They are not familiar with the city purchases purchasing process. And so, we've been able to introduce them to becoming a vendor with the city and then also able to support those small businesses. Um but a lot of great um response from residents from these block parties. A lot of them are just happy to see the city in their neighborhoods. We were at one neighborhood where they wanted us to come back the next weekend and bring everybody back again. And we were like that's not how it happens. That's not the process. But they were really excited to have us there. And again all of our partner departments, they show up at these block parties and they are there from start to finish. as well as our council members whose district these um neighborhoods are in. Historic Marine. Um so this is one where we are um really kind of at the beginning. Um part of the reason why some of these projects are delayed is due to staffing changes, but you'll see we have almost two $2.6 million remaining to spend. So what we've done with this slide is that we've listed some of the projects that we're planning um some safety improvements that are expected. They won't because um one of the issues when we're doing some of the transportation and public works is that when it involves text dot those projects have a long lead time. And so for example with these beacons we won't be able to start construction on those until 2028. So historic marine likely won't be completed until 2029. But we do have projects identified for those funds. In seminary um is one of uh relatively new projects. So we are at the point we did have to redo some of our public engagement events. Um the weather was not our friend and so we had low turnout on some of those. And so we are at the point where we're collecting all of the feedback that we received from residents and starting to work with our partner departments to identify what some of those projects will be. What you'll see on the right hand side are the top three areas of interest. So, park lighting, community gardens, and street and pothole repairs for seminary. And likewise on Worth Heights, um top three areas of interest were street repaving, community cleanup, and then also street lighting. In Fair Haven, which is our newest neighborhood, this was one that we introduced in fiscal year 2025. What the community identified for that one are shade structures, security cameras, and street and pothole repairs. And again, we were able to introduce some um some of our community partners into our block parties. We actually had a group um that they go to the community center and they do dance lessons. And so they were able to come out and do some dance lessons with the community. And that was a really big hit. And they were really excited about what we were doing in Fair Haven. And also um you'll see the dancing um they had us out doing dances and musical chairs. It was a lot of fun. So as far as the NIP implementation consultants, I mentioned that with some of our capital projects. So for park and recreation, TPW, not only do they have capital funding through the neighborhood improvement program, but they also have it through the bond programs, their general fund dollars, and so sometimes it can be challenging to get to the neighborhood improvement programs. So with these implementation consultants, we are bringing them in and they are going to help with some of the front-end um activities such as working with the departments to do bidding processes, design, and we hope that that's going to speed up the process so that we can get faster through our projects. Key takeaways. I won't highlight all of these, but I do want to mention a few. Um collaboration again is very critical to this um program. We cannot do anything without the support of our partner departments, the support of the community, the council members, as well as some of the um churches, schools, and everything else that are in the group. As far as staffing, that has hindered us. We have had some changes in our neighborhood improvement coordinator position as well as the assistant director position that manages this program. So, it slowed a pro the process, but I do want to recognize um Michelle Duneene, who's our assistant director over community services. I put this in her lap in the interim, and I was worried that she would be overwhelmed, but she is enjoying it so much that she's lobbying to keep this permanently because she's having a lot of fun with the um program. And then also um Eden Alzando, who started in our department as an intern last summer and is now a permanent employee. He is um from the Worth no Victory Forest Worth Heights neighborhood. Um and so he is really invested in the program and really excited about this small businesses. Again, we have been able to support a number of small businesses that are new to um city purchasing processes from DJs, food vendors, bounce houses, and dance groups. Community engagement is a really important part. the neighbors are excited to be that we are there in their neighborhoods, but they also want to provide input on the projects that are there. And finally, when looking at our census tracks, we have about 200 census tracks remaining that have not been through the neighborhood improvement program. Um, again, 100 is the highest score that you can get. So, the higher your score, the um more challenging or distressed your neighborhood is. And so as of now, we have 29 of the remaining census tracks that have a score of 70 or greater. So when we're looking through the future and what that looks like, that's um those are the neighborshoods that we would be targeting. Again, just a recap of our scoring matrix. And then from here, um I will move into the new 2026 neighborhood. So when um so at the beginning of this year, we updated our scoring. We received new census data and we also received some new data from some of our partner departments. And so this is what it looks like. So the darker the purple, those are our more distressed neighborhoods. Um so this shows financial hardship in those different categories. So the n um the neighborhoods that have fewer bachelor's degree is inverse relationship. The fewer bachelor's degrees, the more points they get. Um we also look at unemployment, destiny of family poverty and then housing cost burden. And then that chart shows you of the census tracks that are remaining. Those are the top five um neighborhoods. So Morningside, Eastover, Post Oak Village, M Meadow Creek, and Marine Creek. For the next category on safety, you see we have a lot more purple as it relates to the safety, but um New Mitchell, Glennwood, Diamond Hill, Overton Ridge, and Butler Place are the top in that category. And when it comes to neighborhood condition, thankfully we don't have as much per dark purple, but we do have a little purple and it's a little bit more spread out across the city. But of those um when we're looking at missing sidewalks, substandard structures and vegetation, the top five are Village Creek, historic historic Carver Heights, Carver Heights, Hanley, and then Central North Side. And this next slide will show all three categories together. Um the yellow the yellow areas are our current NIP areas. And then you'll see we only have just a couple of areas where they're in that dark purple and then a little bit purple that goes from north to south. And with that, our 2026 neighborhood improvement program area is New Mitchell. Um over by 287, also by the Renaissance Square, New Mitchell has a score of 82 out of 100. a portion of the area particularly around the Walmart area is in a tiff um tiff 12 the east eastberry um tiff. So the plan is that in terms of our neighborhood improvement funds we would not use any money that's in the tiff area the tiff area since they already have funds allocated towards it. So it would be more in the residential areas and just looking at the scores in terms of financial hardship. New Mitchell received a 31 out of 40. It received um all of the points in unemployment and then education was next. Sub neighborhood condition was 21 out of 30. It received all of the points in missing sidewalks and then also substandard structure on vegetation not as much an issue but you will see in terms of safety score they did receive the maximum 30 out of 30. It is important to note so they do have a um big commercial area around Walmart and so that could be driving some of those um crimes in that area as well. Just about New Mitchell, we have a few um pictures that show in terms of what we can address whether it's um cleaning up areas, looking at cleaning up some of the alleys, cleaning up some of the vegetation. Um but it'll show you just the list of some of the key markers that are in the area. We have Cobb Park. Leadership Academy at Mitchell Boulevard. We have AC Child and Family Services has a location in that area. We mentioned Renaissance Square as well as the YMCA. And then if you look in the chart that shows New Mitchell's demographics con compared to the city, you'll see that it's pretty stark differences um particularly on poverty rate. There are about three to four almost three times more poverty um than the city of Fort Worth as a whole. And then we're looking at bachelor's degrees, you'll see it's a very small percentage of people in that area that have a bachelor's degree. In terms of timing, so when we're looking at the three-year timeline, so year one is where we're going to be focusing on doing a bus tour, forming a stakeholder group that will include residents. We'll also start working on developing a project list. Hopefully, our new um neighborhood improvement coordinator will be on board by de the end of December. Also within this year, I mentioned that we hope to close out Ash Crescent and KOMO um this fiscal year. Going into year two, we'll be looking to do more of our capital intensive projects, more of our res um substantial projects. Year one is where we focus on clean and safe. We hope to close out Seminary, Worth Heights, and Fair Haven in um which would be fiscal year 2027 and then announce our new neighborhood. And then year three and beyond, we're really looking at engaging the community so they can continue this work going out. We'll um close out most of New Mitchell in year three. Also later on, I mean, it would probably be fiscal year 2029 due to the transportation improvements, but would be closing out Las Vegas Trail and then Historic Marine. as it relates to policy discussions. Um the three-year timeline. Um initially the neighborhood improvement program started off all the funds were spent in a year. Then we transition to the three-year timeline. One of the things that we just want to highlight is that if we are in a neighborhood where there is a a desire for a lot more capital intensive projects, whether it's street improvements, street lights, um park improvements, we do want to make the council aware that those NIPS are going to take longer than three years. um not only because it takes a long time to go through the bidding process, the RFP process, but if we're having to deal with text dot or other agencies having to acquire land for parks, that can take a long time. Um and then also as it relates to community engagement, I mentioned that community engagement has been a really big focus of the neighborhood improvement program, which is wonderful. We love it. We love getting the feedback from our residents. But one of the things that we've identified is that most of the activities that we do from neighborhood to neighborhood are pretty much the same. And so what we would like to do is to start off um our neighborhood new neighborhood improvement programs with a menu of items already that we know most NIPS will do and focus that community engagement piece on just the large projects, our capital intensive projects. And that is all that I have. >> Thank you Casey. Awesome update. Questions for council or comments? Council member Larsorf and Council. So, >> thank you for the information. On the uh the bidding and the RFP process, is there a way within these NIPS to identify business owners that actually live in the community that could provide those services like I'd say identify them through those community meetings, you know, what businesses they own or they're a part of that then that that way they have more community buy in, right? Is there a way that that could be incorporated? >> The quick answer is yes. And I would say we would probably um work with our economic development team, their small business group, and start working to see what are some specific things that we can do to identify businesses in the area and let them know about this program. But that's something that we can work on. >> Thank you. >> Uh thank you for the presentation. I'm excited we are using choosing New Mitchell Boulevard. They actually had a neighborhood association meeting yesterday and they only meet every third uh every uh three months. Uh how will we be coordinate with the neighborhood association and uh information about this new project that's coming to them? >> Yes. So we usually have a couple of different methods that we use. Um one we also we try to start with the council members office. So after today, we'll be engaging the council council members office in order to identify like who are people in the area that we would want to work with. And then we also work with our community and public engagement team. Um they go to all the meetings and work with them to figure out how we can engage the community. >> Council Crane, Council Peoples, go ahead. Council Peoples, go ahead. >> Casey, you all do an amazing job. I think you know how grateful I am to you. I noticed in this that three of the poor neighborhood conditions are in district five historic Carver Heights, Carver Heights and Handley and but I just want to tell you your team does a wonderful job of doing work in the neighborhood and I think I've sent you notes to let you know how grateful I am. >> Well, thank you. We appreciate it. I think that is one of the things about the people in our department is that we all love what we do. I was telling Dana, I really love my job. This is um even though I met in multiple departments in the city, this is the first one where you can really impact residents on an individual level um and really making some um significant changes to neighborhoods. >> Council Crane. >> Yes, thank you. Thanks, Casey. This is always a good process to go through and I appreciate what you're doing. I feel like the 785 was the same number last year that was sitting unspent in Las Vegas Trail. So, can we I get a brief on that of what's still outstanding? I think there were some things um allocated for but just want to know what the holdup is in spending that >> we can do that >> and then the second thing Jay as we've discussed I know as some of these criteria are put up there they maybe the neighborhoods don't meet all of the criteria but there are still issu neighborhoods that need to be invested in maybe missing sidewalks etc and I know you're going to explore that as maybe projects over the next year versus a whole neighborhood improvement program but I'd support that effort to make sure that we're investing in those underinvested neighborhoods >> and we keep a list too there are several other neighborhoods those who they aren't high on the list, but we do get a lot of um requests from the residents and that is kind of key like if you have a good group of residents who want to help the neighborhood and so we have a list um as we have funding that becomes available sometimes we'll see if there are opportunities to use whether it's CDBG funds in those neighborhoods but we do track that as well. >> Council Martinez. >> Thank you mayor. Um just more of a comment um to Casey. I know that we work in tandem with uh or your department works tandem with code to identify issues in these nip areas. I I've just been getting our office has been getting a lot of complaints about like yard parking or a lot of litter in Fair Haven and Worth Heights. So, if you can look into that for me, please. And when when that's going to start up, >> we will do that. Yes. >> Any other questions from council? Great updates, Casey. We appreciate you. Thank you. Okay, next up is Cody Whittenberg, who's got two presentations. The first is recycling costs and landfill diversion updates. Hello again, and thank you for just a few more minutes to talk about recycling and waste diversion. Just talking about our overview of our of our solid waste programs, really dive into several lines of service. You've heard these before, garbage, recycling, yard, and bulk. I just wanted to spend a few minutes talking about the opportunities to divert some of this away from our landfills, away from those garbage and bulk streams, and kind of talk a little bit more about recycling and yard waste and some opportunities we have and and discuss a little bit further on that recycling conversation we started a little bit earlier looking at our overall waste universe, if you will. This is how much we collect from all of these lines of service throughout a typical year. So in 2025, you look at the 374,000 tons of material that we're trying to dispose of. And I just want to remind everyone that if you're put items into your garbage container, that that brown cart, all of that is going to our southeast landfill. You can see a breakdown there. And we noticed that about 18% of that could have been diverted away from the garbage, away from the landfill, and uh put into recycling containers. If you talk about our bulk stream, again, this service is once per month on a weekly basis, you can see about how much we process there. Just as a reminder to everyone, if you mix your green waste or your bulk items, no one is separating that out. And all of that would go to a landfill if it's contaminated. U but we want to try to maximize those efforts as much as possible. On the flip side, if you look at the blue carts or our green carts, if you use those or maybe a paper bag, all of that is going to be diverted. So, just a key reminder, recycling green waste is diverted away from landfills. Everything else is probably going to the landfill. Just kind of a a showcase of the universe. We are fortunate as a large city to have a lot of different components. You can kind of see our our four drop off stations. Our ECC are critical to our success. We offer a lot of services and these are the different points across the map of where these different materials will go if you're able to bring them to one of those or we take it to our southeast landfill, our CND landfill among others. Just a real highlight again about 18% that's around 47,000 tons of material again not going to a future use or a repurpose but is going to the landfill that could have been redirected. So things like tree limbs in your in your bulk waste, things like cardboard boxes, again you see large cardboard boxes, if you're putting those in the bulk waste, again there's no someone's separating that. That's all going to go into the landfill. So reduce, reuse, recycle. Really continue to think about those waist streams as we move forward and and really advance education tying into uh we'll also talk about the economics on the next slide. So why recycle? We we celebrated that today. It's we have incredible partners. We have incredible partners across the city. We have credible partners in in the waste industry like waste management, Republic Services, and other haulers throughout the the universe. And we really appreciate all of their efforts. Here you can see some of the critical reasons of why we really want to promote recycling in the community. But aside from the the feel-good components, the sustainability components, it's also more economically sensible to recycle. This conversation came up in a committee meeting. And just to highlight this in September of 2025, we look at about $24 per ton to go to a landfill, about $12.13, everything included to to recycle. So there's a net financial benefit of about a late at 87 per ton as of that month. To showcase a little bit more, sometimes this conversation comes up around recycling. Sometimes if you look back at 2021, the markets much like the stock market or other markets, the commodities for recycling sometimes are generating revenue. So you see that that blue curve there, that's whenever we are making money, not just the benefit from recycling or also generating a revenue from the sale of those materials. We haven't seen that flux in the market most recently, but even in that gray area where the curve is down, we're still getting the benefit from that net overall uh cost recovery, if you will. So, highlight again, commodities are going to fluctuate and even when recycling markets are down and we're not producing that revenue, it still remains true that it's more cost-effective than going to the landfill. Just another highlight on recycling. We talked about that 18% could have gone into the recycling container from your garbage can. The reverse is also true. We're seeing about a for two years as we've done audits, we're seeing about a 27% contamination rate in recycling. So, there's materials that that we would love to recycle. Sometimes we call that wish cycling, but there's things that should not go into your recycling container, as much as we wish that they right. So, um >> wish a new for you. So, we don't want to wish cycle, but we do want to recycle correctly. And we want >> I feel like you're talking directly to me, Cody. It's okay. >> So, we want to try to promote recycling as much as possible. And we want to reduce that contamination rate. All that material, if it's overly contaminated, it has to take a pit stop at the recycling facility and then go on to the landfill anyway. So, we don't want to put that burden on our recycling facilities. More about that in just a few moments. So, our goal is really a 10%. Go ahead, sir. Yes. So Cody, I was just going to ask if you could give us a list of or a few anecdotal answers to what are the most uh often wish cycling. >> You know, I say clo what we want to do a tour of the new MURF which you'll see soon and also our our our current MURF as well with Republic Services. Both MURFs in Fort Worth have the same conversation about contamination and items. So I would say things that we call tanglers. This is like your garden hoses, water hoses, your Christmas lights. All of these things we wish they could be recycled. You can't put those in your recycling. Sorry about that. Yeah. So, um some we have some unique items. A lot of people think clothing and other items that you would take to a a drop station or what have you. Those items while they could be those textiles could be recycled with some markets, they don't belong in your blue cart. They don't belong at the recycling. They can they cause issues with the machinery. Individuals have to separate all of that out. And if it again, if it's too much, it has to go into the landfill. say anything that's that's dirty, food waste, those types of things cannot go into your recycling facility. Um, and just anything that's really heavily soiled or really dirty, we see diapers, for example, being put in recycling bins and that's not something that we and I hate to bring it up, but it's a true issue that we see frequently. So, things to think about as we're promoting better recycling and a higher level of recycling moving forward. Thank you. Just a couple more slides on this topic. We'll keep moving. Um so again that 27% we're trying to move away from that contamination rate really promote proper recycling and if if I say when when in doubt leave it out right but if you have glass if you have plastic that if you have um the the metal tin cans aluminum cans we are very fortunate that we recycle glass in our market. Not every market allows for glass to be recycled. Um those food containers typically in your refrigerator or pantry once you clean those out rinse it out and drop it in the recycling container. That's really important. Another key piece is no plastic bags. This is kind of contrary to popular belief, but we don't want plastic bags in the container. So, you can put those items freely in your blue cart, your recycling cart. We want them to move into the truck without an issue when it gets to the recycling facility to easily go up the conveyor belt. We don't want any anybody ripping up plastic plastic bags. Especially if you go to a store and they give you a plastic bag, keep those out of your recycling cart. Okay. Couple little notes. Again, we did try to get a pretty large-scale campaign to all of our account holders. We have about 264,000 account holders across the city who have residential service with us. And again, we really promoting these core four, if you will, paper and cardboard, the plastic, metal, and glass. Again, we talked a little bit about it, but just a reminder, empty, clean, and dry. Rinse it out once. Try to keep it as dry as possible. We don't want all the water and wet materials to cause the paper and other things to break down. Again, just another reiteration, no plastic bags. And then really watching that bulk stream specifically. We know there are large boxes. We'd encourage you to break them down as much as possible. Cut them into smaller pieces and put them in your blue cart or if you need to take them to one of the drop off stations. Unlimited recyclables for our drop off stations, swing by and and drop it off with your driver's license. Okay. So, just another highlight. We talked about America Recycles Day coming up on November 15th. A few highlights building up to that. We do want to celebrate a new facility in Fort Worth. The the WM recycling facility will be formally grand open on Tuesday the 28th. That's an 8:30 ceremony. They have guaranteed a tight cutoff at 9:00 so you all can get back for your day meeting at 10 a.m. on that Tuesday. But really hope you can join us at that event. Also, we're going to celebrate partnership with parks department and and others. But specifically calling out our Fort Worth library. Madori Clark and her team have been excited to partner with with all of us to promote recycling week building up to that Saturday, November 15th that we celebrated a few moments ago. And then finally looking forward to celebrating with America Recycles Day on November 15th. Last just call to action. Recycling really is for everyone. residential, apartment complexes, commercial, industrial, even if the city of Fort Worth doesn't pick up your recycling at the curb. There are lots of opportunities for you to promote recycling and churches, schools, even here at our city facilities. Just underscoring that again, we're working on a big campaign with our city staff. And four key items to close out, increase the amount of clean, usable recycling, lower recycling contamination where possible. I don't again, no wish cycling. Keep it moving forward. uh support good recycling behaviors with all of your networks, with all of your colleagues. Let them know that recycling is real. It does exist. Some people think that it's just a fake thing, but it does it's a different set of trucks. It goes to different facilities for processing and our partners can absolutely tell you that that it is absolutely going to a good cause. um sharing also then finally with that unified recycling message, Ola McCartney on my team and and all of the excellent partners across part um the different partnerships with with P public events and and CPE and others. We're going to keep driving these messages across and we'll help you get some content out to your constituents, but thank you for a few more minutes to talk about diversion. >> Thank you, Cody. Any questions? Council Crane. >> Quick, um this may be intuitive by the name, the drop off locations, they're in orange on this map that you had up there. Those are the uh only places that public have access to drop off. I'm asking just because you have something out here in the west side uh the westside transfer station. Can that be utilized by the public as well? >> Absolutely. So I I think our friends at at WM would encourage anyone in that area who they have some locations out near the gate that is not a city-run facility. That's a WM facility, but they do allow for our residents to to drop off extra recycling in that area if they would like to. >> Only Yeah, recycling. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Cody? >> Keep going, Cody. >> All right, so we'll call it a trash talk double header today. So, thank you. All right, so moving into long-term waste disposal, strategic planning, and future options. Of course, as we just talked about diversion, we also have to talk about our landfill and some other assets we have across our network. So, in this one, I'm going to focus on our solid waste fund, which we talked about a lot during our budget development, a little bit about our southeast landfill, and then how we're planning for the future to support our solid waste programs and networks. So, just as a reminder, our solid waste fund is the key fund that we utilize. Again, this is an enterprise fund. The revenue coming in to support the expenses going out. We provide those collection services across all four lines. We have our southeast landfill operations. Again, as council member Crane mentioned, our four dropup locations as well as our environmental collection center. We provide dead animal collection throughout the entire community. Our pedestrian street cans in some areas are serviced by the city if not with a a pit or others. And then we have a transfer out for the compliance side of that. So, some money goes to code compliance for the services provided. The punch line is we provide a lot of services through solid waste and many communities look to us as a shining example and want to know how we're doing things. So really proud of all the amazing partners and teams we have. Um we do focus on four guiding principles anytime we're making decisions about our solid waste fund. So exceptional customer service, best value for our residents, trying to keep our costs low, creating and maintaining a clean and attractive city. We want to manage solid waste so it's not contributing to litter or illegal dumping or other things like that. And we want to preserve our length of life and promote diversion as we mentioned a few minutes ago as much as we can. These these are pretty consistent with all of our decision-making. We talk about our 26 budget. We did sort of start the conversation that we know our landfill is going to close in about 11 years and we have to start balancing the fund solveny to provide long-term solutions and start saving some money for those. We had our increase with our rates in for the first time in about 20 years this year and we'll look to see how that moves forward over the next several years. Talking a little bit more about our southeast landfill. It was permitted in 1976. In about 11 years after about 60 years of life, we know it's going to fill up and reach its capacity and we have to start planning for the future. We know that Republic Services is going to continue to provide the operations of that landfill through that end of life and into closure and postclosure. So now we get to start really developing some long range plans. Just to give you some highlevel uh landfill economics if you will. This is why we have to prepare for the future. You'll see that the blue if just oriented you with the chart. Anything above the line these would be our expenses. Anything below the line kind of an accounting perspective this would be our revenues. And as you know over the summer we were able to secure the landfill gas component. So that's where that green color comes in under the line after the landfill closes. But the punch line is as we move away from having a a landfill and we know that that will close at some point when as long as the city owns the landfill that uh southeast landfilled rent and those sur charges that is revenue coming to us in addition to that new landfill gas that we will see soon. But after that closes you'll see that we may have to go a little bit further. So you'll see that lighter blue color after 2037 starts to go up a little bit. This is where our expenses are going to increase a little bit and you'll see that some of those revenues fall off if we're not uh owning a landfill as as it was in this part particular scenario. Okay. Moving into long range planning. Of course, we are really focusing on three core objectives. We are trying to close that gap again between our rates and our cost to provide services. So that's where we continue those conversations with with partners and our analysts across our forward lab and others to really develop those models looking into long range collection and disposal strategies. We want to make sure we have a good balance. As I showed you on that map, we have transfer stations. We have landfills across the region. We have recycling centers and and dropoff stations and others. And it's not just an issue with Fort Worth. It's actually an entire every city has to deal with these types of long-range problems. The third objective as we lean into Fort Worth's um model and where we're headed is just we need a capital plan to support whatever those infrastructure plans look like. So we are taking all of these options into account as we move forward. Last couple of slides as we really develop this process over the next six months we really are working with an interdep departmental work group to support a plan development for long range. We've engaged as with our key partner is Burns and McDonald engineering firm really as a strategy partner to really work through all of this. We want to incorporate dialogue with our stakeholders and other solid waste providers. We have a whole host of across our universe. We at number four, you can see we really want to also focus on that regional concept. How does Fort Worth and our landfills and our infrastructure play into a regional conversation? And then we really want to define those strategies again for our for our recycling facilities, for our transfer stations. What does our network of landfills across the region look like? And how is Fort Worth a leader in this space? So just another highlight, a different way to look at it. We're having four key areas of focus. Multi-depart work group rateayers and community input is critical to this process. Having intimate conversations with our different race providers and understanding everything that they bring to the table and then also making sure that we leverage our partners with other cities, counties, and regional and state partnerships across the board. So, just in closing before questions, we are looking about a six-month process to go through all of these different levels of conversations and dialogue and really develop a concrete plan moving forward. We'll be back with council to ask for an increase with Burns and Mack to really support those uh thirdparty professional services. We hope to complete those objectives by March or April and then be back to you in the spring with hopefully a more refined plan. So, happy to take any questions. >> Questions from council. I'll start one Cody on your long range planning process slide related to regional efforts um especially in cooperation with COG. What does that look like right now in your conversations with our municipalities across the area? Is there is there a possibility to do something together? >> I think there absolutely is a possibility and obviously the the the what we call the western region of the north central tax of governments. They did a lot of work up through 2021 early 2022 to kind of talk about some of the challenges that we were facing. Some of those dialogues need to be restored and we have probably new players in these different markets with other cities and counties, but we're hoping to leverage all those relationships we built for through various intergovernmental conversations and bring those forward. >> And this may be something we can talk about more in the spring, but I'm just curious with your expertise, are we at the cusp of any kind of innovation around landfill technology or we kind of where we're going to be now as we make this decision before our landfill? >> Absolutely. I think we move forward. We want to have a very open mind to any of the different disposal options that are out there. What we typically find is from an economic standpoint, landfills are still one of the the cheapest options, if you will, to to provide for long range disposal options, but we have not set any any decision- making around those. We're going to be looking at all the different aspects, all the different um economics related to each of those solutions and working with all of our partners. We hope we can come back with some really sound solutions moving forward. And last question, I'll turn to council members. Is the state of Texas looking at this closely in your opinion? Is this something we need to elevate through the legislative process to make sure as a state we're tackling the challenges that are going to be facing a fast growing state like ours? >> No, I say what I've seen so far is that most of the local jurisdictions or the regions are really left to lead these conversations directly and I think that each independent municipality is really left to develop their own long-range strategies, but there could be some conversations around it if we wanted to advance those. >> Thank you. questions or comments from council. Council member Hill >> Cody, thank you so much for this. Um, and just to cut to the chase, I think um I think these conversations with other partners, I mean, I know it's a geographic issue, population issue. Do you have a short list of areas throughout North Texas that you will look at? So I think >> I'm not asking you to name them but I'm just more of c >> c certainly like anytime we talk about if if we were to go to a landfill route certainly that's a different conversation that requires a lot more and we get into sighting and economics and all of that and I think if we get there there's always options but we have to go again with our partners and see what what areas we can consider as you look at the urban complex there's not a lot of space for a 300 acre landfill site for example so we're going to have to really evaluate what all that looks like okay specific locations no but I think we have areas is that we can consider as we look to the future. >> Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Great job, Cody. We appreciate you very much. Okay, Assistant City Manager Dana Bergdolf is up next to proposed special districts for Shelton Ranch and Brown Ranch and ETJ planned service areas. All right. Thank you, Mayor and Council members. I was before you, I believe it was back in May, talking about special districts in our ETJ, uh particularly along Bonds Ranch Road and Pedin Road up in uh far northwest Fort Worth. Uh today I'm bringing you two more uh development proposals, also one in Far Northwest and uh one in Far West Fort Worth, known as Shelton Ranch and Brown Ranch. So, uh, we're going to review the special districts and, uh, talk about some next steps. But what I'm showing you on the map here, uh, you'll see a portion of our city limits. Um, what you'll see in the pale yellow is our ETJ. In the, uh, bright blue are our planned service areas. These are areas within our ETJ that are designated, uh, for consideration for potential annexation or at least service, particularly with water and sewer service. Um mo most of these areas are within our water CCN, meaning these are areas that we're obligated to serve. We both have the right and the obligation to serve with our water utility. Uh and then with the red outline, these are special districts uh that have been created over the years. um they may be municipal utility districts, water control improvement districts, uh freshwater supply districts and in and in one case we actually have a Tarant County created capital public improvement district. So all of these districts uh created to help um in in many cases uh developers provide capital infrastructure to support development. So special utility districts are political subdivisions. So we want to think about their creation very uh carefully. Uh they do provide as I mentioned infrastructure, water, sewer, drainage streets and other municipal services within a specific boundary. The Texas water code uh generally governs uh their creation and they've evolved. Um in some cases they were often used in more rural areas where there was not a water provider like the city of Fort Worth. Um but now they're often used to create master planned communities with urban densities just outside of municipal control. So, we've had them at least since the probably early to mid uh 2000s uh that I'm familiar with. So, they provide revenue for infrastructure um through district taxes or assessments. And that's in addition to what developers within our city limits use, which is typically revenue from lot sales, right? So, you have a land developer who gets the entitlements for development. They then have lot sales and that's the dollars they use to help pay for infrastructure. Uh with a special district, those developers are both able to use basically a tax or a special assessment like a city would. Plus, they also then have the revenue from the lot sales. The argument is that as infrastructure costs have grown over time uh and particularly where there might need to be off-site infrastructure that those special districts are needed in order for that development to occur. So the developers are uh obtained city water and sewer to support that urban development. And again when they're in our water CCN boundary we're obligated to provide that water service and we want to provide sewer where we provide water. And then the owners uh in those boundaries within those special districts uh they do not pay city property taxes for say 20 to 30 years while those special districts are paying off the debt for the infrastructure uh that those special districts are paying for through their own uh their own uh debt that they issue. So the city is not obligated to pay for any of the debt that those special districts incur. So they maintain the infrastructure uh over that time. The only exception is the city does maintain the water and sewer infrastructure from those for those special districts. So we have got two uh proposed special districts and I apologize because my my stars uh fell off. Um but I'll see if I can I don't know if I can point here. I'll see if I can use the mouse. Oh no, I won't be able to use the mouse but oh there it is. Um, so just here um you'll see we've got there it is just just in between just east of the word Tarant is where Shelton Ranch is proposed right in here and that's um just north of Pedin Road and south of of Tinsley just to the west of business uh 287 and then Brown Ranch which is just down here mostly in Parker County but a a little bit in Tarant County on the east side of Walsh Ranch. So in between Walsh Ranch and our city limits. So you'll see Brown Ranch here on the far west part of Fort Worth and then again back up in here is is Shelton Ranch. So those are the locations of these proposed uh special districts. They're pretty good size. Shelton Ranch at about 858 acres and Brown Ranch at almost 1500 acres. So, uh, because these are, um, jurisdictions, if you will, quasi jurisdictions, uh, we have certain goals that that we try to achieve in these agreements to make sure that we protect the city's interests. So, our first goal is to retain our ETJ. So, as you all recall from prior state legislative sessions, property owners have the right to release from our ETJ basically at will. So they can notify us if they want a release from our ETJ, which means we're no longer able to consider them for annexation. So one of the things we're able to do if we're willing uh and to negotiate with developers for these special districts is they're willing to work with us to keep these properties within our ATJ so that we can retain the option for annexation in the future. And in the case where there's urban development, particularly if there might be commercial development or higher density development that could have a good property tax return or sales tax return for us, we want to keep that option open. So retaining our ETJ is something that's important. It's also important because it allows us to apply our subdivision ordinance and to apply our master thoroughare plan and our other infrastructure standards to that property. When property releases from our ETJ, we lose that authority. we lose our ability to uh create our arterial network through our master thare plan. We lose our ability to apply our subdivision ordinance. And in that point, we have to rely entirely on our counties which have different standards uh I would argue less less stringent standards uh for streets and for uh for for subdivisions. So that's something that's important to us is to retain retain our ETJ and retain that authority. Then because we have the ETJ, we do retain that option for future annexation after that special district debt is paid off. Our other goal is um oftentimes these are primarily residential or single family developments. So we're looking for a mix of residential lot sizes so that there's um not a lot of monotony um within within the development. So we want a mix of residential lot sizes. We also want commercial uses at the intersections of arterials. We also want to see school sites that support the the school districts that they're within. We want to um obtain the construction of the arterial street network because we're not able to collect transportation impact fees. Uh we don't want to create a future burden on our general fund taxpayers when we do annex uh and create a burden on future bond programs. So we want to try to have these uh the developers and the these special districts pay for the arterial street networks. of course within the districts but ideally adjacent to these uh to these districts where we can. Uh we also want to obtain open space. Uh we want to preserve flood plane and we want to uh uh where we can get compliance with our park dedication policy. Our park dedication policy does not apply within the ETJ and so that's something that's an important negotiating point uh for the city. We also want to apply our trail plan, our active transportation plan where we can get trails along uh particular streams or other corridors or to connect to schools uh connect to the shopping centers and and other destinations. We also want to ask the districts to charge an assessment or a tax rate that's significantly higher than the city's tax rate. And the reason for that is number one they need to do so in order to uh have the revenue to pay for the infrastructure they need but also we want them to have a capital replacement reserve because again if we're not annexing for 20 30 40 years that infrastructure whether it's uh streets street lights drainage systems uh parks they might need to have capital replacement over that time period. We also want a reserve in place so that when we annex, we have those dollars available to make capital replacements that we might need to at the time of annexation. And also just because those residents, those property owners at the time of annexation, we would like them to see a benefit of coming into the city. And so if their tax rate is say a dollar or maybe that that by that time it's only say 90 cents or 80 cents and our tax rate is much lower, then we want to be able to show a benefit of coming into the city of Fort Worth at that time. So that's one of the one of the one of the discussion points. And then lastly, these special districts have eminent domain authority again because they're like another jurisdiction. And so we ask through our development agreements that they limit that authority really just for the purpose of obtaining off-site infrastructure easements, particularly for water and sewer easements. Occasionally they might need it for uh perhaps for a roadway easement, but most often it's for for water and sewer easements. Um and so in some cases we also um we we can work with them if they if they need uh eminent domain authority from an adjacent property owner uh for some other kind of facility. We will work with them to try to negotiate so that they don't have to use eminent domain. Um but that's where we ask them to only use that authority for that infrastructure purpose. And then uh lastly, we also many of these districts have the ability like the city does uh to potentially expand our like our city limits. They have the ability to expand their district boundaries and to grow. Um and we would want to limit their ability to expand um without our consent. So we want them to require require our consent in order to expand. So Shelton Ranch. So again, this is the one up far north, just north of Pedin Road, just west of business 287. Uh this is north of some of the other special districts that we've already consented to create. And again, you may recall Sheilan Estates at Eagle Mountain, that was a Tarant County Capital PID. We then had PMBB with a freshwater supply district. And then Green Brick had another freshwater supply district. And so this is also Green Brick is the developer for Shelton Ranch. This is um just south of uh Tinsley Park. Uh Tinsley is the community park that we purchased almost 300 acres just to the north. You'll see on the left their original concept was fairly general had quite a lot of single family proposed with some multif family on the east next to the uh closer to the the the industrial on the east. We then came back and asked for commercial uh at the intersections of the arterials and we also asked for greater mix of lot sizes and lot types. Some detached town homes. uh they they've added the school sites, they added more open space and trails. There's about when you take all together the the easements, the uh private and public open space, the flood plane, it's I think it's roughly about 25% open space, if you will. Again, not all publicly accessible open space, but generally open. Uh and so we we thought that was good. And then they've got the multif family in a couple of different spots. Uh as well as some mixed use. So we think the land plan is is is a much better improvement from what they came to us with originally and would give us in the future a greater return on an investment if we if the city future city council chooses to annex. And then second is Brown Ranch. So this again this is far west. Uh you'll see it may be a little bit hard to see but there's a dashed line that runs north south um on the very eastern uh right side which is where the Tarant County Parker County line is. Uh here, Brown Ranch again is just in between Walsh Ranch on the west, uh the portion of Walsh Ranch that has not been annexed into our city limits yet. And then to the east, a little bit uh further is our current city limits. This is almost 1500 acres, uh quite large here. The developers agreed to meet all of our city goals. In addition, u much of this land is actually not in our water CCN, and they've agreed to add that area to our water service area. In addition, the other important point um in terms of something that would be in it for the city, if you will, is they will fully construct the full width of Walsh Ranch Parkway that is not within um their boundary that's uh just here, Walsh Ranch Parkway, this green. There's also a bridge involved because of the the large flood plane there that they will connect uh construct this connection down to Walsh W the existing Walsh Ranch Parkway. So, they've agreed to con construct that portion as well as to construct this portion of Old Weatherford Road here, which is offsite as well, so that we'll have two points of arterial connection uh that'll both improve mobility, not just for Brown Ranch, but also Walsh Ranch and other developments in the future. So, this is the proposal for Brown Ranch. Again, you'll see they've got uh quite a lot of uh commercial proposed here around the the main arterial intersection, which we prefer, as well as uh some other um mix of residential densities proposed here, and then single family surrounding. They've also got a good mix of open space and floodplane protection as well as compliance with our park dedication policy uh proposed as well. So, our proposed next steps, uh, Shelton Ranch has been, uh, they've been working on this, uh, uh, for a bit longer. Initially, we had, uh, been working with Tarant County on a freshwater supply district. Uh, in recent conversations with the county, we agreed to go separate to move separately with a municipal utility district so that, uh, we could proceed independently and they've agreed on that path with us. And so, um, our proposal is to come forward on October 28th with a, um, MNC to consent to the municipal utility district and, excuse me, a resolution to consent to the municipal utility district and an M andC to authorize the development agreement. We would come back to you with authorization to enter into strategic partnership and utility agreements which provide more detail on the the structure of the utility requirements as well as the um option for us to annex for limited purposes the commercial property and obtain uh sales tax revenue from future commercial which is available for both of these developments. And then for Brown Ranch, those conversations aren't quite as far along. Uh we do have a term sheet and other uh documents. Um, so we feel we'd be fairly soon coming back to you with a development agreement. I just didn't want to commit to a date uh on this presentation, but wanted to bring that forward to you for your consideration and to see if you had any questions or concerns that we could address. >> Thank you, Dana. Council Council Peoples. >> Oh, I'm sorry, Dana. I'm all for growth, but I just want to know when we're looking at this, what is uh their long-term plan for building this out? because I'm worried about increased pressure on our city services like EMS and fire and I think about you know some of the pressures we have with the with the great growth in North Fort Worth and having services available for this to handle this. >> Yeah, certainly. So that's one of the you can sort of argue it both ways. I would say a benefit of this special district is that the growth pressure is there today, right, for these developments to happen and particularly with Shelton Ranch, our water service area is there today and once those water lines are extended, a lot of that will be completed in 2028 and those areas will develop. whether we um if if we don't have the special district uh and we annex those areas, right, and they develop, then we're immediately responsible for fire and EMS protection. By having the special district and working with the counties, then we are not responsible for fire and EMS protections. Uh again, with the timing on Shelton Ranch with those 858 or so acres, it'll take a number of years for that to fully develop. I would guess probably 20ish years. Um so it'll be a while before we're required to provide fire and EMS protection. Obviously, we would uh through mutual aid and other agreements respond when extra help is needed, but on a day-to-day basis, we would not be the responsible entity for fire and EMS protection. So, that gives us a bit of a grace period, if you will, to plan for facilities and to plan for potentially future bond programs as may be needed with regard to ramping up our service. and council crane. >> Hey Dana, thanks for this and we've talked a lot about it to what's the alternative if we don't do this. What happens? >> Well, my my sense is that um again where it's already within our CCN that the the development occurs and we don't really have a seat at the table to negotiate some of the things that are important to us, right? In terms of our ability to comply with city standards, park dedication policy, open space, other things that that we prefer. Um, and then I think also there's always the next state legislative session, right, where developers have generally been pretty successful in getting special districts created without city consent, >> right? And that's >> so again, I think that's I think trying to keep our seat at the table is really been our goal so that we can keep the conversations and and have friendly negotiations as opposed to not as friendly negotiations. >> Right. And I think that there's been a policy shift over the last because of some state legislation. Yeah. which changes this. And I'll say this, I I've said this before. I'm not going to leave the person that sits in this chair later to clean up the mess because we weren't anticipating development and uh uh building the thorough affairs that need to happen in the infrastructure, what's happened up north. Uh you know, we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars of bond dollars and other things to try and play catch-up. And I don't want to do that on the west side of Fort Worth. So, you I've had extensive conversations about this piece that falls into the west side of Fort Worth and it it makes sense uh for the connectivity and the infrastructure that needs to happen. So, I'm supportive of this and I appreciate it. >> Any other questions for council? >> Okay, great job, Dana. >> Thank you. >> Okay, Orie, I think you're up next to chat about Walsh Ranch Tax Increment Financing District. >> Good afternoon, Mayor Council. Before I begin, I just want to thank uh the Fort Worth Lab and Dennis from Legal and many people on our team to help make this project a reality. There was a lot of work that was put into that. And I do want to recognize I know the Walsh team is here. Um I know Corey couldn't be with us today, but she's phenomenal. So, um I just wanted to give her a credit up here. Okay, so here's some history and overview. Uh back in 2003, uh city and Walsh entered into an ETJ development agreement for approximately 7,27 acres, which compromises Walsh Ranch today, or comprises, sorry, Walsh Ranch today. Fast forward to about 20 years later, they acquire an additional 200 or so acres, which is now the Walsh Ranch project. So just recently, December 2024, we did receive a letter from them pretty much requesting that a tiff be created and that's when all the the negotiations and discussions took place. So thereafter in March, we began meeting formally with the Walsh team. Uh we brought in Munichap to also help with the financial analysis of this project. And then in late June, that's when Walsh's team officially submitted a TIFF application um for this hopeful TIFF creation. So the request from the developer is that in addition to the existing Quail Valley PID and creation of future capital PIDs, um they would like to have a single TIFF district. And the reason why they would like to have this tiff district and I'll and I'll show you the boundaries in just a second is because it's going to help activate um all the projects that are already taking place there as well as it's important to mention that it will uh accelerate the completion of major regional roadwater sewer and drainage projects. And so let me just show you the map. If you look at that bottom half in the pink, the corporate bowl and the 2500 uh areas, that's where a lot of that activation and the projects, the industrial projects are are taking place. That's what we use when we are trying to solicit these bigger industrial projects. If you look in the Highland Hills area, that's where the UTA West campus will help kind of activate that mixeduse area. And then for all of you uh HB enthusiasts, even though there's one not too far away in Hudson Oaks, there will be a new HB in that Walsh West uh area, which is looks like a salmon color uh on my screen. So, here are the project specifics. Um I really want to focus on yes there will be single family residential and multif family residential and you can see the corresponding units there but there will be significant office and industrial office with over 8.7 million square feet industrial with over 15 million square feet and then uh just under 4 million square feet of commercial and retail including a 700 room hotel. The proposed buildout value and present value for this project is just around 14.3 billion dollars. The total TIP project costs are 890 million and that it is assuming base cost with no escalation or ad admin fees. And then your non-tip project costs are just over $1 billion. So if you add the 8.90 million plus the 1.08 08 billion. That should equate to the total project cost in present value of just under $2 billion. They project that these projects in the buildout will take place within 50 to 60 years. And I think I had already mentioned um most of the major anchors secured the UTA West campus, the HUB, and then a second luxury apartment complex. did want to take note um on the um total tiff project cost with a 6.7% escalation that 6.7% uh is comparable to the field the ve ranch project or tiff project that includes everything from inflation to materials and labors um costs over time. So I just wanted to point that out. And then if you look at our private to public ratio, it's a pretty good one. 1 point oh sorry 102.76 to one. So here are more of the tiff details. Uh unfortunately I will not be around to see the end of this and probably a lot of us in here unless you find this secret to the fountain of youth. And if you do please let me know. So it's a 83year term. Um, once again, just under 7,200 acres and it excludes the Coil Valley pit. And if I go back, I forgot to point that out to you, but if you go back to that area where there's um some dash lines in that coil value area, that is the area that will be excluded from this tiff. >> So, or to reiterate there that on anything that's already been developed, they're not participatory in this and their taxes won't increase or anything. Yeah, this is only on new development that's happening out there. >> Correct. >> Right. >> The city participation is 50% and then it will increase to 65% with county participation and they're actively seeking participation from both Arer and Taran counties. No city sales tax uh tiff participation and then we will consider chapter 380 grants on casebyase basis. These are the different waiverss um that were requested by the developer. The requirement that tiff term not exceed 21 years. Requirement that tiff application contain economic impact study. Requirement that tiff application contain outreach plan. And then this last one I want to point out that we did run this one by our FMS team and um they did agree that this was okay. the requirement that the developer provide security collaterization or credit enhancement as a precondition to a funding recommendation. So the next steps next week hopefully consideration of a resolution to call the public hearing for creating tiff number 18 and then thereafter a couple of weeks um the actual public hearing and the official MNC and council vote on ordinance creating tiff number 18. So staff is respectfully recommending that we move forward with the formal process of creating a tiff for Walsh Ranch, otherwise known as TIFF number 18. >> Thank you, Orie. Questions from council or comments? >> Just make a comment. Thanks, Mayor. Uh I just want to say thanks Ory to you and your team for all the work on this and also all the Walsh folks. Thanks for working with us to get this done. I appreciate all that. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. Last but certainly not least, we have an important update that I think Martha Collins is going to lead us through. Correct. >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. Our Evans Rosedale financing update. Martha? >> Yes. Good afternoon. Martha Collins again with economic development. Um we have an exciting update today. Uh financing on the Evans and Rosedale project. So everyone pretty well knows in this room. This is the location. Um our Evans and Rosedale urban village. Um little quick project history. Of course, our developer was selected back in August of 2024, and we did a great amount of community engagement and negotiations and brought you all initial proposal back in May. Um, since then, we finalized our purchase and sale agreements for the land, which is great. And we've been working through pre-development negotiations. In that process, we've discovered that really a new financing structure would better serve both the city and the developer. And so, that's what we're here today to talk about. Um, this will not affect the timeline and it will not affect the overall development and what we're looking to see there. So, as a quick reminder, this is what this uh development will look like. Combination of residential uh minimum of 170 units, commercial 15,00 um commitment of a ger minimum of one year. uh parking adding 283 spaces and enhancements and additions of parks and common space throughout the neighborhood or through the development, excuse me. Developer commitments, the 63 million is actually up from the original 61 million. Um they finalized better some of their hard costs going into construction and talking to their GC. So, we're down to 45 million hard costs. And since we're being able to bring this back, we're going to be including that 30% small business goal to this development with best fate effort to really engage and hire from within the neighborhood. in that 76104 neighborhood, which is very important. Uh the non- construction commitments really stay the same except for we did replace the um 30 full-time employees from the neighborhood with this 30% SB goal, small business goal with again those best faith efforts to hire. Uh this is where we switch things up a little bit. Um our proposed incentives and structure. So we will still maintain the $7 million contribution from the TIFF, but we will reimburse in two phases. uh 2,500,000 in city or HFC grant funding will remain and we are proposing to replace the 380 grant with a tax exemption and in a payment in lie of taxes to the city. So this HFC will own the land and its improvements in a partnership structure and then we will have a pilot a payment in lee of taxes to the city at 100% of what we would estimate city taxes would actually come to us. So, this actually gives the development an estimated value of about $6 million. Um, provides more stability for the development instead of it being performancebased and allows a net benefit to the city, which we'll go into the dollar amount later. Uh, the land contribution remains the same at that $4.2 million. Um, of course, we're still adding um project assistance through development services and some of our fee wavers through neighborhood services. So the total amount um is estimated at 919,000 I'm sorry excuse me 19,783,866 just slightly up from our 19 million7 about 455. Sale of lots does remain the same. The only thing that we are changing is it will actually be transferred or conveyed back to the HFC to allow for that tax exemption structure. So all of this will go to the developer and then back to the HFC. So total land contribution is the same and those entities that would have been reimbursed will still be in rebur be reimbured so they're able to do more projects um in some of our underserved neighborhoods. This kind of outlines the proposed structure. Of course, as I mentioned, the HFC will be the groundholder. Um the HFC, the developer, and the investors will kind of create a partnership, a singlepurpose entity that will own the improvements of that land. And then this outlines kind of that revenue distribution. This is something you typically would see in our HFC and you'll you'll see again on the 28th um on how we kind of partner with on these sorts of deals. So first of course our debt service payment will be paid and then next um city will get their payment in lie of taxes taxes. After that our LITC investors uh repayment to the developer for their contributions into the development after that a company management fee for the developer and then any remaining cash flow will be split 90% going to that general partnership which is us and the developer. and that last 10% to the um investor and of course we have a split within that and so uh 75% to the developer and then HFC will split that 25%. In terms of the fiscal impact in summary um over those 15 years the developer will pay the city $150,000 per year at a 2% annual increase. This totals $2,594,13. Um, we are also estimating in that cash flow structure that we just went over or what's also known as your waterfall, um, 138, uh,574 to be split between the HFC and the LDC for a total estimated revenue of 2,732 580, excuse 2,732,587, excuse me. um the total impact to the city. So the foregone property taxes that we were estimating because of the exemption was about 2,565,551. So that actually gives us a net a little bit over that 100% that we kind of talked about of 28,462. And so if you look at the total impact of this change in structure, not only are we saving about two plus million dollars in what we would have paid, but now we're actually getting paid out of this devel development as well. So the net benefit is $4,983,798 to the city. Um, of course you have your public participation summary there that we've gone over for that total about 19.7 million. And really what's highlighted here is the um public private ratio has shifted. So formerly the first project we were in at about a 25% um we're now actually down to a 15% participation. And if you conclude the land, that's up to 22. Um, but of course when in the deal structure, we will come back and own have control of that land. So we'll have an opportunity to negotiate how we'll exit that deal and potentially benefit at the back side of it as well. Everyone knows here the benefits of this development, why we're committing to this um at such a a great dollar level and also just city commitment level. Um, of course, we've been looking for development to go into this urban urban village for quite some time and really restoring the historic uses to this incredible neighborhood that has an incredible history. And so that culture and heritage will be preserved throughout the development. Uh, creation of course more affordable housing within the neighborhood. Um, estimated at 181 units with really an emphasis to rehhouse or keep some of our seniors in one of those buildings on the um, even more affordable levels. So, some very intentional thought put to that. Um, so new commercial retail and live work units along the corridor that historic Evans Avenue that everybody talks about going being able to in the past um go to all their commercial favorite uses. Um, we'll working to restore that. Um, of course with our ger, uh, best taste efforts to hopefully keep that longer than the one year, uh, new programmable green space, common spaces, of course, the pilot, the payment L of taxes to the city, and revenue going to both our HFC LDC to continue to do these kinds of deals. And lastly, but not leastly, just improved safety and security, which has been a huge priority for this neighborhood. They meet with city staff on a quarterly basis just to talk about this. So, what do next steps and timeline look like? Of course, we're here today for work session. Um, we'll be back in front of you at city council on the 28th and as well as the HFC and the LDC and we're hoping to finalize all agreements before the end of the year. Um, again, as I mentioned before, timeline remains the same on closing on the land, which is great. So, we're looking at June of next year with a potential uh they do have an option for a 60-day extension if they're still waiting for approvals from state or county on that. And with that, are there any questions? >> Thank you, Martha. Council Nettles, I'll turn to you first. Any questions or comments? >> Yeah, I don't have any questions, but I just want to uh take the opportunity to thank you and your team and Jay's team uh for going over and beyond and staying connected with the neighborhood. Uh you guys attend monthly meetings with historic Southside Neighborhood Associations to make sure you stay along in the path. I also want to take acknowledge appreciating Lorraine Miller being here as well, who's also been a key starch in making sure this development happens in the historic Southside. So, I look forward to seeing what uh the completion of this Thank you. Any other comments? Great job, Martha. I really appreciate you. >> Okay, council, that's the last of our official presentations today to future agenda items if anybody has any. >> Council member Crane, >> a couple um SA, first of all, it may go unnoticed with the public, but I love the consistency with the PowerPoints now. My um add loves that I don't have to sus through different uh styles. So, thank you for that for setting that up. Um, I think it might be useful for uh with the increase in violence that we've had recently maybe uh and it was great that United Way was here today. This 1 second collaborative, we haven't had an update lately about what they're doing and what the outcomes have been there. I think that might be useful for the council. We also second um have uh a lot of uptick there people speak coming to speak tonight about their youth sports complex. What are how are we investing in youth sports? And I've talked to Dave Lewis and Jay about this too. This might be a good time we can communicate all the things in the bond and everything that we are already investing in youth sports and what that might look like. And then third with some conversations. I know we're we're uh set to have be police fully staffed by 2026, but I think we should look at what that looks like going forward. Uh too with police and fire, our staffing, we did a staffing study three four years ago. Maybe it's time for an update to see what that looks like. Thank you, Council Member Crane. Any other questions or future agenda items from council? >> Yes, Council Member NetS. Um I have a question uh well look forward for uh to discuss with some of the rhetoric and violence that are happening uh with uh elected officials of how we can offer some uh safety or detail especially at meetings or meetings like this or offsite and maybe not just for council but even making sure that uh staff when they are away from city hall. So I would like to see a presentation of how that would impact our budget. Uh, also I know we're getting ready to talk about the bond. I mentioned this uh for the um the council uh pay increase to be uh talked about for the bond. So I want to uh throw that back out there again. Um I think those are my only and then I had a question about um the length of time when we ask for these IRS or presentations that we when we get them uh cuz sometime it's months or months I forget I asked about it and I'm looking at this tracker. I asked for two IRS I don't see on here. So I want to know how we are keeping up with the track and staying in connection with the councils. >> I think those my only two >> thank council NS. Any others? Um my request might be future agenda but maybe just a cadence. There's always wonderful updates around homelessness and our programming. Maybe working with staff and Tara to the frequency that would make sense whether it's monthly just a 5 to 10 minute update. It's an IR that's standard kind of like development services. I'm open-minded about that. But maybe so that our residents can also become more familiar with that as well. >> Mayor can add to that the pan handler piece of it too like what we're doing there and what that looks like. >> Okay. >> If not that's all we've got. Meeting journed.