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Minutes August 17-18, 2005 Minutes of the Annual Planning Retreat of the City Council August 17,2005 Civic Center Community Room- 2:00 p.m. Council Pre-Discussion Discussion of Council Procedures Planning Staff preparation Annexation Residential/Offices Topics for Discussion Consider P&Z appointments as training for further community leadership roles Mayor Responsibilities The primary external contact for the City All Council Members should work on selling the City Evaluation of key staff operational procedures (Council requests for assistance must go through at least an ACM. Cannot deal directly with staff members) Retreat Discussion Items from the exercise completed in February 2005 were discussed. Those items evaluated the progress of the retreat items from last summer. Item I: Council Governing and Control Algorithm . Citizen input - Improvements had been made but there was still more to do. (Examples Planning Quarterly Review, Tree Ordinance). . Citizens needed to understand rationale of decisions. . Would like updates on pending issues and how they were moving (examples: Code Enforcement complaints, Talliferro Street) on a monthly basis. . Feeling that items are "disappearing" from the radar screen. . Brief discussion held on the possibility of a CRM system or other procedure to track such items and report back to Council. . Close the loop on citizen feedback. Need to track these inputs, newspaper, telephone, phone, etc. and make sure some sort of response was accomplished. Item II: Council Operating Procedures . Council meetings improved 100% with citizen report changes. . Desire improvements to the Yard of the Month Award. (Would like Keep Denton Beautiful to ask for RSVP then attend the meeting in person to confirm that winners were present for presentation by the Mayor, possibly seat them together.) . All evaluation items would be graded higher if survey done today. . Like the 2nd Tuesday sessions and the way they worked. Item III: City Departments . Reliable feedback from development community on new Development Review process - may still be 2-3 years away in finalizing. . Staff has heard Council direction and was "on board" (Director and Consultants); they "get it" and improvements were showing. . Staff will continue to count on Council for feedback and help with the bumps left in the transition. City of Denton City Council Minutes August 17-18,2005 Page 2 . Agreed that a great deal of the "fat" was gone from the City fiscal/operations viewpoint. . Police vehicle issue still not settled. Want more feedback on traffic enforcement. . Staff still looking at question of adequate staffing and officer ratios, many standards to consider. . Council concerned that things were still tentative after consultant, and things should be more squared away; Council was ready to "have an answer". Would prefer outcomes sooner rather than later. . Would like a report with numbers that show patterns like crime rate, areas of greatest criminal activity, etc. and have a presentation on the findings. . Council still committed to strengthening the police efforts. . Public Safety is still a # 1 priority to Council. . Acknowledged that the current system, state law, was preventing success of diversity efforts. . Look at changes to certified hiring and other creative measures, such as Explorer program (in the Fire Department). . The effect of "meet and confer" may playa role in hiring and diversity for civil service. Item IV: Planning and Development for the City . Have to balance future thinking with involvement in private ventures. . Some risk was involved (land purchases, involvement in development). . Suffered for not being proactive in the past, time to "get moving." . Key up topics for an Executive Session to gage Council's comfort level so staff can move forward. . Bring catalog of Downtown properties for Council, all approximates, while waiting for Rutherford's recommendation in the next 60 days. Topics from the Agenda: 1. Council Operating Procedures All of the items listed on the agenda were important as well as consideration of defining the Mayor's current responsibilities and how to maintain Mayor Brock's relationships with existing supportative publics. Attracting younger Council members should be considered when appointing Board and Commission members . Council would like routine items to be "routinized" so that things will move better and Council can be proactive on future oriented issues. . Need to plug into the Chamber and Leadership Denton for good candidates. Council pay is not necessarily a solution for increasing the pool of Council candidates. . Council was satisfied with the meeting structure. Approved of shorter staff presentations and an expectation that Council had read the back up. . Agenda committee was open to suggestions from the other Council Members . Appreciate Council Assistant's calls on Tuesday morning about the consent agenda. Will begin to tell staff if they plan to bring up an item from Consent for specific publicity reasons in advance. . Pleased with work session procedures. . Liked the flow of information requests. Not trying to play "got-cha" during meetings. City of Denton City Council Minutes August 17-18,2005 Page 3 . Refer accepts and regrets to Council Assistant so she can track Council's participation in events. Assistant will continue to coordinate Council activities and work to make sure some Council representation has been arranged for important events. . Appreciated the ability to have more open discussion when possible (legal aspects). . Legal can provide written opinions if they were willing to have a short recess before going into an unplanned Closed Session. . Budget Process was much better this year. Like increased City Manager and staff involvement. Appreciated detailed efforts to better explain the proposal. Adjourned for the day at 6: 15 p.m. Minutes of the Annual Planning Retreat of the City Council August 18, 2005 Civic Center Community Room- 9:15 a.m. Topics from the Agenda: 1. Council Operating Procedures Travel . Council Members will share information from seminars and official attendance at other meetings in informal sessions (luncheons suggested). . Council was interested in setting employee travel/training targets as a percentage of each departmental personnel budget to keep from being either too high or too low. 2. Planning and Development Multi-family Issues . Multi-family and single-family residential rental inspections were still on the table. Needed to consider voluntary registration/inspection program for rental property. . Requested a session to revisit the remainder of the Code Enforcement changes drafted by staff. . Have a session about what was worth putting resources towards. Council will go through Community Aesthetics white paper and look for unresolved issues they'd like to work on prior to a Code Enforcement Session. . Consider issues of substandard housing with attention to single family rental property in established neighborhoods. Consider property owners mistreatment of renters (students). Balance public safety with rights of owners. . Be thoughtful about how to proceed. Enlist the help of the rental property industry. . Changes were needed to stop negative effects on economic development in Denton. . Code Enforcement staff currently doing proactive neighborhood patrols when they received a directed complaint. KDB/CE/Building Inspections working on efficiencies. City of Denton City Council Minutes August 17-18,2005 Page 4 . Council was willing to use additional resources for these efforts. Consider possibility of redirecting efficiency study funding to assist with these efforts. Possible tax support in next fiscal year. . Have to weigh the "cost of doing" with the "cost of doing nothing." . Would like to move forward with drafts already presented on code enforcement issues and fill in any holes on code enforcement in the near term. Longer term consideration then presentation of an inspection and/or registration type of ordinance/program, and consider use of international property maintenance code applied to Denton using the stakeholders group during the process. Economic Development Issues . North Denton- it was coming and there will be more when University Drive was done. . Council/Staff to be proactive about influencing the location of the connector to tollway route to benefit Denton. . Continue working on Western Blvd. Anticipated completion 2 years. . Council was ready to reconsider possible amendments needed to the Comprehensive plan, especially in relation to north and west Denton; Staff initiated though Planning and Zoning. . Need further consideration of annexation, land use and utility issues for control in the future. . Council willing to support use of contract help to craft well analyzed annexation plan. . Council would consider peer meetings with other elected officials who have participated in contentious annexations in other communities. . Continue working on Loop 288 West and encourage quality not just reactive development. Downtown Proj ects . Downtown Taskforce still working on a strategy to make Rutherford's recommendations into an action plan. . Synergy around Wells Fargo. . City participation will be necessary at some level. May work to get properties ready. Consider use of gas well revenue for non-ongoing expenditures to get action plan started. . City role in making specific deals, Council role in considering creative revenue policies in the near-term. Must have a big vision for the long-term. . Economic Development Partnership Board and Downtown Taskforce recommendations will be coming with considerations for future funding if resources can be identified for the near term. Economic Development Drivers . Need an arts master plan for the community, when the new GDAC Executive Director was in place (including consideration of a fashion museum, Texas artist museum, facilities inventory/needed, long-range goals and dreams, organizations inventory/needed. ) City of Denton City Council Minutes August 17-18,2005 Page 5 . Possibility of creating an advisory committee to the Council on public art through the Parks and Recreation Department. 3. City Departments . Council recognized dramatic changes and reorganization for efficiencies. . Continue with efficiency and operations in the Development Review Process using a modified private sector model, and giving Planning the needed resources to build a cadre of established folks with great development service skills. . Need to work on flexibility. Council willing to allow staff to give administrative relief as long as it's not circumventing the public process. . Discussion about which group was most appropriate to review items associated with streets, the Mobility Committee, PUB, or Council approval only. While further discussion was desired, in the interim, use the Mobility Committee as needed. . Mobility Committee should establish a scheduled meeting time on a monthly basis. . Outstanding utility, drainage and wastewater issues seem to have been dealt with in the budget process. . Diversity plans seem to be effective in most workplaces. Area most at risk for criticism is in the Asian community. . Council to help staff with customer service by passing on name and contact information of concerned citizens. 4. Service to Citizens Roads . Real solutions are going to require significant political will and funding. . From a long-range view there wasn't a plan either to maintain or to improve. . CIP will help as more value can be received from match money. . Taxes would require a $0.25 increase for the $10 million deficit needed for streets. . 2.5 cents will get $1 million a year. . ELAP funding will continue for a while. . Reminder that we are behind 10 years in maintenance and capital improvements to streets. . Issue needs to be addressed or it will "come back to haunt us." . In the interim, take a hard look at design criteria to new streets; may go a long way in providing relief. Will bring recommendations to Council and the development community. Other Issues . Need to encourage more citizens to vote, but don't know what process will accomplish this issue. . For public forums, consider going to other organization's established meetings rather than Council hosting their own separate community meetings. City of Denton City Council Minutes August 17-18,2005 Page 6 5. Environmental Concerns . Pleased with the green aspects of Fire Station #7. Would like to see good publicity done on this. . Consider stopping garbage bag distribution with the transition to cart refuse serVIce. 6. Would like to have a mini-retreat to revisit these conversations after the first of the calendar year. With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 2:30 p.m. EULINE BROCK MAYOR CITY OF DENTON, TEXAS PAM RAMBO-ESTILL ASSISTANT TO THE CITY MANAGER CITY OF DENTON, TEXAS