I'd now like to call the meeting of the Arlington City Council to order. City Council will now go into closed session at 1127 AM on June the 12th, 2018, in accordance with the following sections of VTCA Government Code Chapter 551.071, consultation with attorney. .072 deliberation regarding real property and .087 deliberation regarding economic development negotiations. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Well, we'll now call our work session to order and know what's going on and we'll go ahead and get started because we have a lot to cover today and our first order of business is going to be hotel design standards and we'll call upon Mr. Ronnie Price. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. This afternoon we are kicking off a discussion that really started about a year ago. Some city council members had asked to get a better idea of our hotel inventory in Arlington. And we have reached out and hired Han Dettliftsson. There's the president of hotel appraisers and advisors. Some of you may recognize Han's. He's worked on and off with the city's the president of hotel appraisers and advisors. Some of you may recognize Hans. He's worked on and off with the city of the last decade or so. But he's here today to give us a brief overview of the hotels in our own today. And what we are hoping is after this, we'll go into council and we can then talk into any type of recommendations as we look at our hotel design standards from this point on. So with that, I'll introduce Mr. Hahn-Devance. Thanks, Ron. And thanks, Mayor and Council. Nice to be back in Arlington. I know we're on sort of a quick schedule, so I'll just start jumping into some of the facts. I know it's probably not going to be anything you don't already know, but we've collected the data and organized it in a way that maybe we'll be helpful. So we were specifically asked to study the hotels in the Arlington Entertainment District, which is the boundary within the boundaries on this map. And there are 29 hotels in the district. So one of the things we did was we organized all 29 of these hotels into different quality levels called chain scales. And those chain scales can't be fudged by developers or owners, they're published every year by a third party called STR. So we've got a rank here from independence at the top, all the way down to the upper upscale hotels at the bottom of the list. And one thing we wanted to point out is the average of all of these 29 hotels is in the middle of where these chain scales are. We mapped them out. You can see hotels in high traffic areas generally tend to be clustered near the interstates and some of the world-class entertainment attractions that you've developed here in Arlington. More of those are on the way. Texas Live, quarter billion dollar project, and then of course the new Rangers Ball Park, another billion dollar project coming online in the next couple of years are going to be really adding to that destination draw that you've been growing here in Arlington. It's been fun to watch over the last 10 or 11 years since we've had an opportunity to work with you. These bar graphs are basically revenues at hotels in the entertainment district. The black bars are every month back in 2016 and that's kind of when revenue per available room or what hoteliers call Rev Par peaked in Arlington. 2017, they were a little bit lower. 2018 looks like it's sort of trending to be a little higher than 2017, but not back at the 2016 peaks. One thing to kind of point out here in a building cycle that we're in right now, if you're in a community that has a lot of communities around you that are building new hotels and you're not building as many, sometimes the revenue at the hotels in your community can dip a little bit because you've got a lot of new supply popping up around you. So that's part of the explanation why we think these revenues really peaked back in 2016, even though the economy has continued to grow. This graph, the simple point we wanted to make here is that you get a pretty big premium if your hotel is in the entertainment district. So that's what that blue line is throughout the course of a year is the revenue per available room of hotels that are inside the entertainment district versus other Arlington hotels that are getting about $15 or $20 less if you're located outside that district. We looked at the inventory based on when your hotels were built as well and organized every hotel based on its opening date. You can see you've got some properties dating back to the 1960s and some in the 70s. The big bulk of your properties were built in the 80s and 90s. Then you had a few that were built in the 2000s and then not a lot open yet during this business cycle but you've got a few that are in planning and under construction. If you look at the average age of your hotel inventory, it's about 26 years old. So relatively older hotel stock in Arlington. You can see in this pie chart about a third of them were built in the 90s from the highest tier to the lowest tier, upper up scale, up scale, mid-scale. These are words that have very strict definitions that if you are a certain hotel, you are either in one of these groups or in another one. You can't sort of market yourself in and out of these groups specific brands or published every year Either to be you know in in a chain-scaler or a different chain scale. So You can see our LinkedIn has a pretty good distribution up and down the quality quality Different types of hotels in our LinkedIn on average this of different types of hotels in Arlington. On average, this, you know, you take all your hotels and average it, upper mid-scale would be kind of the average hotel in Arlington. So upper mid-scale is higher quality than economy, your independent motels economy and mid-scale, but it's lower quality than upper up scale, which is what most people think of as kind of the full service household brands of Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott. It's lower than that upper up scale. It's lower than the chain scale below that, called up scale, which is where brands like Hyatt Place, Courtyard by Marriott and Hilton Garden in reside. I mentioned a few hotels in the works. So you've got in a loft that's currently under construction, probably gonna open up later this year. That's a hotel that's going to be in the upscale, chain scale. You have a drury plaza that's in the upper midscale. That hotel was scheduled to open this year, but I think it's probably more likely going to be 2019. And then the new lows, which will be Arlington's first luxury chain scale hotel, expected to open next year as well. So, some new, now here are some examples of brands in the up-scale chain scale, which is the notch above kind of where your average hotel is. Here are some missing brands that developers are sort of actively pursuing in a lot of other markets, but we wanted to identify the brands that are pretty actively pursued, but not currently in Arlington in this chain scale. So you can see brands you might recognize like Hyatt House, Stabridge, Suits, AC, Hotels by Marriott, Cambria, these are brands that are getting developed in a lot of communities that might be similar in performance, but they don't exist here yet. We did the same thing with your upper upscale and luxury chain scales. These hotels tend to not get built almost anywhere in the country without some form of, you know, subsidy or participation or special circumstance, but, you know, brands like JW Marriott, W are in the luxury chain scale, brands like Embassy Suites and Omni are in the upper up scale chain scale. And so these are some of the sort of brands that are currently being pursued by developers and other markets that we don't see in Arlington in the in the upper upscale and luxury chain scale. I know I think we've got that that's sort of what we wanted to cover today if there are questions or you know a later part of our study will get more into recommendations but questions but any questions, comments. Mr. Glassby. Thank you, Madam. Notice you mentioned that we are like a four midscale. What are you typically seeing in a city with the kind of profile that we have? It's having an average hotel in the upper mid-scale chain scale is not unusual at all. As a matter of fact, if you look nationally across the United States, 44% I think of all the new hotels getting built in the United States are in that upper mid-scale, chain scale. So in terms of sort of landing there as where your average hotel is, I think that is not unusual. And whether or not you want to use that and try to change that or all, we just sort of wanted to present the facts of where it is. What was a little bit more striking to me was the average age. I think 26 years is a little bit on the older side for a market that's this attractive to developers. Follow-on questions since you brought it up. As I guess as a council and city, what should we be looking at to make whatever adjustments we need to be right in the. Well, I think we sort of have a second half of this study that's going to focus on recommendations, but I think. recommendations, but I think we did sort of summarize here five or six sort of policy-oriented recommendations. I think clarifying policy objectives for the development community is one thing because we work nationally, but developers that we know that work nationally, Arlington is on the radar. Some of them are questioned whether they will, how long will it take to get a project? Can we do the brand we want in Arlington? So I think some clarity around that for the development community would probably be helpful. Some of the restrictions on development here, I think the language, I don't wanna say outdated, but it may not be addressing exactly what you want to accomplish. So terms like full service, maybe 20 or 30 years ago would have specifically meant if something was full service you were going to be getting a Hilton or a Marriott or a Hyatt. But now it doesn't necessarily mean that. So it may be, you may want to consider tying policy or zoning requirements to things like chain scales rather than full service. You could have you could have lower mid-scale or upper mid-scale brands that meet the full service requirement but maybe isn't what you have in mind for what you're trying to encourage or allow. Any other questions or I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead of our current hotel years is really important. But now that since we have many of our hotel years here, it is going to, we're having to make some hard decisions so that we can have a better environment for our hotel years here and our attractions as we move forward. It is exciting times now here in Arlington. And in August, when Texas Live opens up, it will be a big change because then we will suddenly have a nether entertainment component to be bringing people here seven days a week and another reason to stay in your hotels and to stay longer. Projections are between three and four million more people coming to our city. In addition to that, we're looking at other attractions and of course we're entering into eSports, which is phenomenal and I'd encourage you to study that, but it is painful right now as we start. So the next year or two, if you can explain to your owners that the next year or two is going to be different than what we are when we get past this point. It'll be much better and the opportunity for us to greatly increase our tourism and multi-day stays is tremendous. And of course, our location continues to be an incredible opportunity for us being in the center of the country at the Gateway to DFW Airport. And we greatly appreciate the investment that's been made here and that is being made. And it is exciting times, but it also is tough as the growth occurs. We don't always get to do things in the order that we would like for them to do. But looking forward to this, the conclusion of this study and what is the timeframe when you think you'll be done with the study. The study is complete. We have the recommendation for you to share. Study is complete. We have the recommendations ready to share. Just when the guidance from you all as far as a council committee. Direction for that. Okay. We can move it right into council committee then to be looking at that. Mr. Yovrsen, do you have a recommendation on which committee? It sounds like municipal policy to me. I don't know. Okay. All right. Mr. Glassby, you've had the definitely so we'll move it to municipal policy then and get going on that and try to move that along as soon as we can here because I know we've got a lot of people waiting and wanting to hear what comes out of that Anything else anybody else has to add miss K part just I Excuse my ignorance mr. Price. I thought maybe you were going to lead in to some of those recommendations While you're here, but you're saying you're gonna bring them to the council committee and sit okay great And mr. Glasspies certainly well well versed in how to handle difficult situations. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate the presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next we'll move into 2018 bond program and I'll call upon Mr. Jim Parish on our deputy city manager. Sure. Mayor and council, we had presented with the help of the chairman Dixon homing your last meeting the bond committees recommendations. So we have a couple meetings scheduled with you to try to get to a conclusion from a council perspective in regard to what you want to have as part of the bond election that would potentially be called for the November 2018 election. So I'm going to try to guide you through a little bit of the effort today with hope that we'll get some direction or questions or commentary or some consensus as to where Council might want to be. In really a couple areas one is the recommendations of the bond committee which you'll see in a minute. The second piece of that is, are there modifications to that that you'd like to see? The third question to that would be, should you, that is a four year program right now? If the council did decide to do an extra year or so. We have some information that we can share with you. So the question would be would you want to do a fifth year and then if you did we've got some suggestions for you to at least consider and then you would have to populate that as well. But we're really hoping to need that the council would need to call election in early August, which gives you very you know a short period of time to make some decisions. So just to start again the bond program you know for the audience but if I know council knows this, with the city council's financial principles and parameters, we stay very conservative in our debt level. So what this is all about is it shows that we can afford $154 million for the four-year bond program without any tax change and consistent with our level principal payments and things like that has a very strongly conservative estimate. So the committee's recommendation of recall this was that assistance-based committee and they met for 11 or 12 meetings and very concentrated effort every week. And what you see is the strong consensus of that group. You have $155 million worth of projects. We thought that was close enough to 154 that you know with some inflation adjustments of how we sequence we could get there. But there are really three categories of projects the public safety and safety facilities. You'll see two fire stations are getting rebuilt. Those are some of our oldest fire stations that really are in need of rebuilding. Those would also allow for the fire department to operate newer equipment and some other components of their operations. And then the police evidence storage facility is a critical facility for the city. That evidence storage facility is full, might be an understatement, and that really does need to be addressed as quick as we can. And then see facility improvements, that's really about major improvements to some of our 180 or so facilities that are have a longer lifespan. The HVAC systems, new roofs and things like that. On the parks and rec side, we continue to, by the committee, recommended to continue the Richard Simpson park improvements that phase two. The council has talked about previously some continued investment in river legacy. This is really related to some of the erosion around the Creek area. The start of a consideration of youth, a youth athletic complex with perhaps some land acquisition money and some conceptual thought process behind a athletic complex, similar to what we have at Harold Passion in the South because that market seems to be very strong in, particularly in the northern part of the city that does not have that, or northern or central part of the city, and then continued improvement in an area high oak, the second phase of that. On the street side, again again robust series of street projects tolling somewhere around 72 or 73% of the bond program with a pretty heavy emphasis on residential rebuild. There are two big projects here they just very expensive, Debbie Lane and Mansfield Web. Those are two expensive projects that are necessary and needed according to the bond committee. And then I want to highlight Sublet Road. I know this is something council has talked about for quite a while and I will council member Cape Art has been anxious to get this project moving. Recently the county did indicate a willingness to pay for the design of that. So that's a roughly $1.5 to $2 million of design cost that they indicated a willingness to contribute to the project to help sort of spur that project and should we be able to find additional funding earlier, then we'll try to move that forward. If you call it, that's the one where we have a small bridge and residents trying to move from one part to another, really have no safe crossing. And then you'll see some other improvements down the line laid to sidewalks and our ITS program. So that told us $155 million worth of projects. By the way, those projects are all spread throughout geographically throughout the city. It's not equivalent in every area, but the need isn't equivalent in every area. And then the committee also recognized that there if there was an additional funding source or some additional money, maybe that fifth year, that they would encourage the Council's consideration for Colin Street, Mitchell Street, and some supplement, supplementation of our residential rebuild and some of our annual programs such as our ITS program and this just shows you the breakdown and the spread of the different projects so um why don't I just stop there and ask the council about their considerations about the bond committees recommendations. And then we can talk about whether the council is interested in an additional year or so. To keep in mind that additional year, there's roughly $35 million worth of additional funding that would be available. And we do believe that with that fifth year that would be able to, do believe that with that fifth year that would be able to be able to maintain all of those financial principles council is put in place for years. Just to kick this off first of all our citizens bond committee and our staff did incredible work with record attendance. There are citizens turned out for these meetings. They met every week for was it two months? Yes. There too. Every week for two months to come through with this and in my review of this I feel very good about the recommendations that we have and I feel very strongly we need to go forward with the next the the additional year and here's some of the rationale. Right now, construction costs continue to rise. And the sooner we can get these under construction and get our roads completed and repaired, the further our money is going to go. There, in addition to that, it gives a comfort level to our citizens when they can see when things are going to be built and we'll be able to work out a timeline and they know that it's coming. And then there are some very critical projects that still need to be, I think, put in here that that will give us the opportunity there in that fifth year. But I want to throw it open here for people to be able to comment, ask questions or whatever here on the bond program. Ms. K. Partt. Thank you, Mayor. And I agree with adding the fifth year. I don't know if Mr. Ergon, can you pull that up where it talked about the capacity with that fifth year? Sure. We talked about the capacity with that fifth year. Sure. OK, so you said it's about another 35, did you say? 35 million dollars. And then on the, what you have on the slide here is on the lower right hand side. That starts with the capacity of that fifth year, which is 35 million, recognizes the $930,000, which the bond committee was over. And then it totals up if you did decide to add the fifth year of annual programs. That would be about $900, $9 million, which would leave you about $25 million in remaining capacity. But you do not have to do a fifth year of the annual programs, although that might be a consideration for you. Mayor, one of the things that I know the bond committee struggled with, but because they were limited into a four year and they did make some recommendations. But one of the things I'd like for the Council to consider is should we go to the fifth year is to consider putting some money towards a multi-generational center. You know, it was in the, I think, William, you'll wasn't it in the Park's Master Plan? Yes. Yes, I thought it was. And if we don't try to make inroads towards that multi-gen center in this fund package, then we're probably another eight to 10 years out before we're going to have anything in the community for meeting that need. So I don't know. We haven't had a lot of recent discussion about the Multigen Center. I guess the last time we did was really kind of around the last bond package and the master plan for the Parks Committee, Parks Parkment. So that'd be my suggestion, Mayor, if the Council's in agreement. Well, that'll be one thing we want to look at, land that to the list of forests. Over the course and just over the course of the next two, I guess it'd be the next June meeting and then one or two meetings in August, we've got to try to decide if we choose to do the fifth year. And so maybe before we go any further, is everyone in agreement to go to the fifth year? so maybe before we go any further is everyone in agreement to go to the fifth year. Okay now with that I think it's probably appropriate Miss Cape Art opened that door what are the things we want to consider for the fifth year Miss Cape Art wants us to consider a multi-gen center so okay Katherine okay well the only thing I would say about that is we haven't even started on the senior center and there's also a youth, it says of youth athletic complex pose. So we're kind of in the mix of already starting to do some of that and then to add in a multi jet, I don't know if we'd ever get to it anyway because we worked long and hard to add in a multi-generator, I don't know if we'd ever get to it anyway, because we worked long and hard to get the senior, and now we're adding, there's already one in there, so I would say that's kind of, I think it's already kind of there of what we're, it's not one complex for multi-generational, but we are crossing all the generations, I think. Oh, I agree, but the use complex is in this bond package. It's really kind of like Carol Patterson sports fields going to fill a very different need than what we traditionally have thought of them as doing. So I think it's an opportunity for us to once again kind of be on the cutting edge of how we provide services for our youth. So I just like to see us at least have some money if nothing more than for design in this next bond package so we don't have to wait another five years out to even start to talk about it. And the senior center is, we're moving forward with that as we get to it, but it's been appropriated. Well, yeah, but anything we add, whether anything you add, so why couldn't it be for a multi-gen center? I mean, any of it that you add is So why couldn't it be for a multi-gen center? I mean, you know, any of it that you add is going to have some of the costs. We need to look at some other projects, but I think there will be some others that will arise and we can just look at all of them. I guess I had one question about the list. I don't can't I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't add when I made my comments in our capacity is ATF we had discussion today about Richardson's and Park and so I don't know what that number needs to be for additional funding in Richardson's and Park that we talked about today. Mr. City Manager what was that number? I'm looking to Jim I thought that Richardson's and was one that was not on the list, but it is on the list. It's on the list. So was it in the list? Or was there incremental amount still in balance? No, it funds the full phase two. This came up at the last. That was my error earlier than I thought that had not been put on the list. So, we, okay, thank you. Yeah, the previous ones did not include that, but as the committee looked at, I think it was Mansfield Web, they segmented that from basically a very large phase to a more manageable phase, and that created a funding opportunity to include Richard Simpson and I believe the piece of Mitchell from Collins to Parent. And the design for the multi-generational would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 million. Other? I don't know if this is the appropriate time to bring it up, but you know, we've talked about it. I haven't seen it anywhere and I saw something in the downtown master, but we've talked about pedestrian underpass right here at Genoan Park. Would this be appropriate to possibly think about putting on the bond list? I think we need to discuss it. And I think we need to discuss that. Well, today it doesn't necessarily have to be a debate. We're going to be getting into that. Yeah. But I think throwing out ideas or what we could potentially be in that final year. And then I'll just piggyback on that. I really think that we are building here in downtown some really neat things. Both neat restaurants, the Levit Pavillion, same way with the entertainment district and then we have the premier park in southwestern United States and River Legacy parks. Southwestern United States in River Legacy Parks. Well, the ability for someone to be able to walk or bicycle from downtown to the entertainment district and from downtown to River Legacy, I think is really key and that fits right into that. And I think there's some low hanging fruit there and it doesn't necessarily have to be new trick and just be repairing and having a decent sidewalk on Collins or Division, you know, which piggybacks also on the text not deal. But I think if we had staff look at that and then there's pieces already that I think they have looked at, I think that is a key thing because imagine a map that someone could take of Arlington and be able to go from downtown to the entertainment district and be able to highlight, you know, our restaurants that we have in our Levit, Paville, and going into Texas live, but also to make them aware of River Legacy and what's happening down Collins Street and so forth. It could be an incredible trail map, you know, with attractions there in Arlington, and I think really fits in and complements what we're doing, Miss Woolf. And I agree it's all about connectivity, and I agree with you, Catherine, if we're talking about the possibility of a downtown pedestrian railroad crossing. I think we've got it as option B. I'd like to move that up to that option IA. We don't know what it's gonna look like or it's gonna be exactly, but if we don't put it on the ground and start designing it and working it right now, for all the effort that we're putting in on the new master plan, this would be the time. I would just recommend that we're putting in on the new master plan. This would be the time. I would just recommend that we go ahead and have staff see if they could include that in that fifth year and be a big piece of that next five, six, seven year opportunity. Okay. Other ideas? opportunity. Okay. Other ideas? Some things that I've heard and especially touring people around the city trying to bring businesses in and so forth. They always come in about our three bridges on at 30, but here we've got 360 at 30 that's going to be completed in 2020 and as you come in to our city either direction you were faced with ballpark way in filter road which are two of the ugliest bridges in town and for a little bit of money we could come in and enhance them and make them more functional, both there for that. And then y'all know the other one that isn't as easy as Cooper Street. But that corridor is close to being done. And that would be a finisher. And don't necessarily know whether it would be in this bond program, but it would be a something there that I wanted to throw out here for, if get concurrence from y'all to have staff look at that and see what it would cost and what we could do to try to finish off because we are close to finishing. By the way, you'll notice too that most of the section of I-30 is completed until you get to Cooper-Fielder Road and on the end end, well, that's going to happen too. But come 2020, when the 360 corridor opens, it could be a great opportunity for us to really make a splash in them. Know they were coming through Arlington. And think about the benefit that we've gotten from our Arlington marker there that's my Randall Mill Park for the people coming from the west. And I think this would be a great opportunity. So can we have staff at least look into that? Let's see, maybe that. And then the other one is we are about to open up our library. And again, I don't know if this would fit in on the bond or not. But a library turned out, and I want to complement this council for being bold and sending it back to the drawing board because I think we have a tremendous exterior design and a complement or staff for the interior and the architect for coming through for us. But it is painful to see one of the most beautiful buildings in town next to the ugliest building here at City Hall I don't think we need to spend a lot of money on City Hall But I do think there are ways that we could just try it could help the look of the exterior of this building and not Cost as much, but I think that would be another thing. I would love for us to instruct staff to look at mr. Shepherd I think that would be another thing I would love for us to instruct staff to look at Mr. Shepherd. Thank you, Mayor. I think all of these are great ideas. The thing that I want to kind of back up on the... I appreciate everything the bond committee did and I certainly appreciate the three additional recommendations they had. Certainly that was high, I guess, on the debate list. But when I look at how we're allocating our overall bond package as it presently exists without adding the fifth year, we've got a day near three quarters of it with streets as it is. And so we always go back and forth, we're either not fixing enough streets, we're fixing too many streets. And we can't ever win that argument. And I've always been concerned about how much we can do in any given year, because we could allocate $300 million to public works, but there's only so much they can do without shutting the entire city down in one year. So I would like us to be candidly, I didn't go back and look at our big list of potentials before today. And I would like us to not necessarily be constrained with the idea that some portion of this additional 25 million needs to be spent on streets. So you know, right now we've only totaled up, I know, $12, $14 million, just in the few things that have been mentioned. So I would like us to think a little broader than that. I'm not saying we shouldn't do a street and it may end up being that there's another street that hasn't been suggested that might be more appropriate size-wise, money-wise to kind of fill in the gap. Colin Street, that's expensive. We've got a couple of really expensive streets on there already, just bond package. I think we've got some expensive streets on our last bond package, not saying it doesn't need to be done at all. But anyway, I think everything has been said today is good. That's a good warning, Varsam. I'm supportive of it. I just hope we think a little bigger perhaps than not be limited by the $12 or $14 million that we might perceive we have left over. Thank you. Others? Ms. Th left over. Thank you. Others? Ms. Thalman? Thank you, Mayor. So, Mr. Shepherd, I hear your point, and I agree also, but now the suggestion also has to do with streets. I think that I would like to see us take a look at crosswalk safety at some of our schools. I know some of them, the lines aren't visible anymore, and there are some things that we could do to make me make this little safer So I'm not sure the extent of the need so that might be something staff can get back to us on Thank you Mr. Shepherd I Give you a perfect example the for me anyway the one I experience is the one on the center street by the new school my experience as the one on the center street by the new school. Yes, by McNud. If you're traveling south on center street, I know what the postage is, but nobody drives the postage speed limit on that. You don't even realize there's a school zone until you make that turn to the right. Now, the public works did place the red light kind of where you can see kind of an auxiliary red light, but to me that's a perfect example about either moving the school zone a little further north so that it starts 300 feet sooner and I don't know if there's state regulations on that or what the deal is, but I think that's a great point, a great idea. Miss Wong. What you brought up, and I think we're all interested in doing something to freshen our facade on the city hall. But I was looking at, that's what I thought of it, that city facilities improvement program. We can't use that. Yeah. Or is that? Yeah, the city facility improvement, the original menu of choices showed that to be around $15 million instead of the $5 million. That did include funding for some light improvement to this facility to match up with some of the improvements in the area. But as the bond committee met, they looked at priorities and felt like they need to scale that back. So if the council were inclined, the one way to address the city hall implementation, we can give you a number that was part of that 15 that would be added back for the fifth year. And that would be a way to do that. I just wanna piggyback on that. Really what's intended on that in a larger scale is we have 160 buildings across our system. And it's really about roofs and borders and children and air conditioners. I mean, it's just much more nuts and bolts types of things. So I think that's where in the prioritization it kind of got morphed. But I think we would probably look at some additional funding ways for us to take on things that this building so that the emphasis point could be on some of our other buildings outside and some of the just infrastructure that's really gotta be maintained just like on the fire stations and on the streets. Any other comments, questions? Any other comments, questions? So in summary, we'll be looking at the fifth year. We need to, and we had suggestions made here. And so we literally are going to be in work mode now for the next two to three meetings to try to get this resolved so that we can call the city bond election. You're very exciting opportunities here for us to move our city ahead and take advantage of some great opportunities. Jim, Jim, do you have that date where we need to make that decision? This is the first meeting like August the 7th or which today's 14th is the date that you must call for an election. Okay. Okay. And real quick, I don't need for you to go through. I'm here. But would someone just send me the locations of the nine of intersection and traffic improvement locations. Just so I have a list of them. Okay, I don't need for you to recite them here. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate all the work there, Mr. Persion. Next, we'll move to beautification initiatives and I'll call upon Mr. Limiel Randolph, Director of Parks and Recreation Department. Thank you very much Mayor and members of City Council. You'll find some similar themes in this presentation to your last one. But this was coming to you as a request of Council Member Glassby, who wanted an update and overview of our beautification initiatives. The beautification of Arlington is a corporate wide endeavor, and so it includes involvement from all city departments, but not just city departments. It includes a lot of input from our nonprofit and private sector. So why does beautification matter? It matters because a physical environment can have a profound impact on one's experience. Just think of the way we look at a clear sky and a sunny day as compared to a rainier or cloudy day. It makes us feel better. The research suggests a direct relationship between the physical environment and the long-term socioeconomic health of a community. Attractive, vibrant communities tend to be more successful at attracting private investment. Compared to other complex issues the city might face, beautification is relatively straightforward and it has a very high return on investment. Major factors impacting a comprehensive beautification program are largely within the purview of local government. In other words, you as the city council. So in 2015 staff developed the city's initial beautification guide which references in catalogs development standards and code compliance initiatives, litter urban, urban forestry, pollinator and beautification programs, volunteer, urban forestry and landscaping initiatives, new development opportunities including beautification elements, and it also includes court or beautification strategies and mapping component for city projects. And staff is endeavoring to update that guide and should be prepared for this fall. And so, I want you some recent highlights. There is a substantial body of work encompassing beautification that this council and the entire city should be very proud of. These images represent city designation markers for both the entertainment district and city entryways. Art also plays a very prominent role in beautification of Arlington as these projects represent. Star of Texas, 20 different locations across the city including government nonprofit and private sector locations and also the Unity Arch and Sculpture Trail within the entertainment district. Recent projects have included substantial beautification including elements like brick pavers, LED pedestrian lights, sidewalks, benches, trash receptacles, street trees and landscaping, artistic monuments, banners, and ballards. Through grants, capital projects, and other recurring programs, these projects were completed, including Pioneer Parkway, with a $400,000 grant from TechStyte, the corridor beautification project, which is on your lower left side. And that one was through a grant from the Arlington Tomorrow Foundation. And then Main Street and Otcribs, which comes from a recurring and general fine account. To add a little focus on the quarter of beautification and pilot project, the initial program was funded with a $250,000 grant from Arlington Tomorrow Foundation. It was developed to install native landscaping to screen dilapidated fences along key corridors. As the plant material matures, a landscape will screen privacy fences, utility boxes, and other street hard-scape infrastructure. Two corridors were initially funded, including Northeast Green Oaks, and Northeast Arlington, and then Sublet Road in Southeas Arlington. This pilot project we have deemed very successful and now it will serve as a guide for us as we move forward with the planning of roadway projects. And so the Parks and Recreation Department and Concert with Public Works and Transportation Department will be identifying plan roadway projects that could benefit from enhanced landscaping, with the idea being that we want a full right of way improvement, not just the street infrastructure itself. So recent highlights, as discussed previously, beautification is relatively straightforward enterprise and largely within the purview city government. Examples of those principles is evident here with the project reflecting the uniform development code guidelines, impacting both private and city capital projects. Much of the concern regarding beautification in our onlyton revolves around a prominent role that TechSdot and the railroads play in the mowing of state highways and train corridors. City Council has chosen recently to invest more in this effort by supplementing PECS.Mowing cycles along I-30, 20 state highway 360, 287, Division Street, and also 23 railroad crossings throughout the city. Other beautification efforts include programs that help to improve the physical look and condition of residential properties. The Arlington Property Renewal Program was created in 2013 for the purpose of rehabilitating and repairing private properties in Arlington. Property owners meeting eligibility requirements may receive project management and financial assistance and this slide shows two examples of a fence improvement and garage improvement that was funded to the program. There's also growing interest though from the business community seeking funds, city funds to improve the aesthetic condition of private businesses and shopping areas. And so one of the things that we'd like to get out of this meeting is if the council has has interest in exploring that opportunity as it relates to private businesses and improving improving those businesses. Other recent highlights include news abatement. This is a particularly important and ongoing effort as well due to the clear negative perception that properties in these conditions could suggest about a community. These are two recent examples of remediation efforts there. We also have a number of upcoming projects. There's a lot to be proud of, but more work to plan. Arlington Commons meeting in Park which I'm sure most of you are familiar along Lamar excuse me along Lamar Street. And compasses the entirety of that corridor for the plan of multi-family development. There is an opportunity though to the east of the development in front of Rolling Hill Scoff Course. That is not part of the planned project. However, it does represent an opportunity to really showcase an entryway into that area. And so one of the items that we'd like to get your consideration on is, is there interest in enhancing that area with a similar treatment to what is going along Lamar Street. So in essence it would be a continuous improvement from Cooper Street all the way through the completion of the Lamar Commons development. The current plan is for when each phase of the multifamily development is completed the adjacent phase of the median park will is completed, the adjacent phase of the median park will be completed. With your consideration, we could explore an opportunity to expand that footprint to include the connection all the way to Cooper Street. The design for that has already been, is underway, for example, by Bob Kempel. He's agreed to kind of put funds forward with the anticipation that there might be some interest in doing so. And so one of the takeaways from this meeting would be to get your input on your particular interest with that project. Other projects. You want to talk about that now or wait till you get done. Either way. I think one more slide to be helpful and get to that. So this is the depiction of the currently planned project, which is the entirety of the Mara Collins, the Lamar Commons development. So this section here would be the section that's not currently developed that would connect it to Cooper Street. Mr. Yeilverton, if I just might add to what Lemuel Samair, you know, as you might expect me to do and we're investing in projects, I kind of find myself driving around them a lot, you know, kind of taking a look at what's going on. And what I've found driving that quarter, particularly when you contrast it to the improvements we made on Eastlamar a few years ago, there was just this little piece. If all of this is going to look really good between Center and Cooper except for the part that's adjacent right there from the west part of this project to Cooper, there was like a gap. And it just didn't make good sense. So I asked Bob if he was willing to work with us on this. And he said he would. So he went off and had his guide do some drawings. And it's very consistent with this. It's a few trees. It's landscape and irrigation and some veridian-esque type treatments to the railing on the textile areas, if you've seen some of that look. So I asked him to take a look at that. So I'll take credit or blame, whichever one is appropriate on that. But we do have a way, if y'all are inclined to look at that piece, because of how he's sequencing his work, the money that we've earmarked over the last number of years, we've fully funded this, but we've only partially awarded it. So it's going to be a couple of years before the rest of this comes and so my thought would be is if y'all were all right we could take some of the dollars that have been earmarked and kind of flip it over to that west to close that gap between Cooper and this western edge and then over the next couple of years look to replace those funds back to what we originally agreed to on that development. It's certainly not a half to you, but in the concept of Mr. Glassby's question and our ongoing investment into some of these kind of street corridor improvements, it kind of seemed to make some sense. So we just throw out there as a concept for you all to, you know, let us know what you think. Okay, yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. It's interesting. Lamar Boulevard is shaping up. Well, it already is one of our most attractive streets and the opportunity to really make a splash. I think it's huge. So I see agreement there that we're shaking. Okay, Mr. Randall. Sure. And I'll just go back and put a little attention on the other projects on this list. And so obviously Lamar, the Lamar Street project is certainly a significant one. But with Eden Road, Abrams Street, New York Avenue, and Harris Road, and we also have planned projects along those corridors as well. So quite a bit going on as it relates to roadway beautification enhancements. So quite a bit going on as it relates to roadway beautification enhancements. Bridge enhancements, and the mayor mentioned this earlier, there is an opportunity as the I-30 and 360 projects come to a conclusion mirroring the theme along center street to perhaps enhance the ballpark waybridge. And so we wanted to just place this in front of you just to see if there might be some interest in going down that road as well and determining whether there's interest in looking at a potential project there. So this is the urban design is actually gone in and put the improved that is ballparkway bridge then Right there that is not there. Yeah Yeah, and then and then the paint and then the paint So I think we got from the fore we'll look into that and see What it what it the cost is and opportunities. In a similar vein and the sound walls are part of the project along 360 the image in your lower left as a installed section of that sound wall kind of screening that image in your upper left. But there are opportunities there for perhaps for landscaping along the sound wall. The sound wall will do a lot to enhance the image of that corridor. That mesh screening will go away and so the sound wall will replace it. And so that in essence, net that collects litter and trash that's blown up won't be an issue anymore. However, landscaping tends to soften those hardscapes. And so, wanted to test your temperature as well on exploring possibilities of enhancing the sound walls with landscaping as well. So that concludes. I want to add a little more on that one too. One of the things that I've found interesting about the 360 project between 30 and 20. That I was not familiar with till I met with some highway department officials a couple of weeks ago. Is that the sound walls that have been put in south of 20 will be also coming in on the northern piece. But in addition, when the widening of 360 occurs, it's two lanes to the middle. So the grassy kind of median comes out and that wire mesh that's in the middle comes out. But also if you remember because we've had kids I guess historically kind of run across the freeway and they've actually put wire mesh fencing in the kind of the medium, not the medium, but the parkway pieces, all that's coming out as well. And I've always found that really not to put us in the best light because it's all bent up. It's been run over by vehicles or it's been climbed over by people who still want to run across the freeway. So I think that 360 area between 30 and 20 is going to have a much improved look as that project comes forward. And then the other one that I'll throw out there is as the 360-30 interchange is done, you're going to have a lot of, for lack of better phrase, undergrowth in that area with all the flyover ramps. And we're going to want to make sure that we are maintaining the grass or the hardscape or the trees or whatever and I'm not sure that the highway department's planning in that area is all that robust so we might want to take a look that we've we don't just end up with you know two foot high grass underneath all those bridges but we're kind of taking care of it. Again from one of these how we how do we take care of the built environment to an appropriate standard, not a manicured standard necessarily, but one that is reasonable and doesn't attract the litter and the trash, such as that. So if you're OK with those things, those are also things we want to weave into our future thought process to build on the momentum where investment is going. That's kind of a general theme. We don't generally go of go off, you know, kind of over by itself necessarily, but we like to kind of hand in glove some of these other investments that they're kind of done right the first time that they're full and complimentary and then we kind of work our way through. It's kind of the thought. Okay. So everybody's in agreement there with that. Okay. Is that there? Thank you. Everybody's in agreement there with that. Okay. Other questions from Mr. Randolph? Discussion. I want to emphasize something. These are all catalysts here to try to help our community here improve and move ahead. It's really important as we move forward that we are able to attract the businesses and the people here that want to move here. And so these are all important things that we pick up, but most importantly all, it will improve the quality of life of our citizens here. But I do think, and it was mentioned by Mr. Randolph, that we have a tremendous return on investment for each of the things that we have here that is not. We truly have an opportunity to leverage these to make money for our community, and that's a bigger overarching thing that we have here too. So with that, thank you Mr. Randolph. Is there any, did you feel like you got clear direction on everything? Yes. You do? Okay, great. Yes, Dr. Myers. Mayor, just have a good question and this may not be related to any of the areas. It's a different area and it may be off put. So please tell me if this is out of order. But the tunnel that goes through Cooper Street that goes through UT Arlington for years, we've talked about the walls. And then we've talked about the beautification of the bridges that go into that. And we made this choice to take down the net, when I was there. We took down the netting, we put up some nice things, we tried to put up a make-do sign, a couple of things to happen, and then there was a lot of discussion about murals and other paintings. Is there any way that we might think through some of these ideas with them, even if it's softening those concrete by putting in some of those nice designs that you see on the Just something like that because that's right down the center of one of our major Collectors in in Arlington and I'd love for us to think through that whether it's in partnership with UT Arlington or Something that we might think about going forward. It's a great idea And already in downtown Arlington to our other famous underpass that hasn't had anything done to it in 200 years is our West Street bridge. But I that's a great point. I think those are two areas in it. Yeah, I thought you were about to go to West Street, but I think this other one does warn it. Yeah. All right. I think that's two good additions there. Thank you, Mr. Randolph. Appreciate the work the parks departments doing to there and once again nominated for top award parks department in the nation, man. That's pretty awesome. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. Next we'll move to our informal staff reports and we'll look at ordinance revisions for recycling at new multi-family developments. Ms. Coronado. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Nora Coronado, Assistant Director, Public Works. And your council packet should be included in informal staff report with the summary of a draft revisions to the ordinance to require recycling at new multi-family developments as requested at the last council meeting and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Miss K. Port. Thank you Mayor. One of the things in the draft, it has a start date that is a blank. But I personally would think I'd need some kind of guidance or recommendation about what would be reasonable to implement this. Does that be something staff could guide us on? Oh, absolutely. If given the draft that you would want to and seek to adopt, we can look at some, if necessary, some operational changes, any outreach you would like us to do and give some recommendations based on that, if you'd like. OK, so we're looking maybe 60 days, 90 days. 90? Perhaps. 90 days, maybe. OK. And reading through the draft ordinance, there were certainly things in there I was not completely aware of. Some of the verbiage I really kind of bothered me with regard to requiring and must and shall and all of those kinds of things. And so, I mean, is it punitive if those things are not met? And if so, how so? In section, if I can refer to E to section E, list of offenses. And this is just to have an ordinance, something that staff collaborated on between city attorney's office, color enforcement, public work staff in a solid waste and recycling and of course our city attorney's office. So in the list of offenses, you have one through six of potential list of offenses for owners who do not provide the at-minimum weekly services, recycling services, that is duplicated in the strap ordinance. Also, there are some provisions in here to assist with the enforcement, not only that, but also with recycling collection containers. There's some of that and this was again, collaboration with our colleagues in code enforcement and City Attorney's Office. And so it was kind of vetted through that process. So you had some layouts about what was acceptable and what was not acceptable with regard to location. So obviously the recycle containers have to be next to the regular garbage dumpster from everything I'm seeing. But is there, well, is there, I'm a little confused because in some of the language, when it talks about if they can't put a recycle container on their property, that they can use an alternative method. But if these are new constructions, why would there ever be a reason they couldn't put a recyclable container? That's something that we discussed. My colleague, Jensy, topel and community development planning, usually with infill development. The language we have in here is for about a naked and this is based on experience in what we know is coming in. So say they could have a sufficient space for a solid waste collection container and that it being closed. With this requirement, it may be difficult to have to allocate sufficient space for two size containers, one for solid waste, one for recycling, and have an enclosure and have sufficient access for the collector to come in. So some apartment complexes nowadays offer door service, so that would be another collection method in choosing a provider, maybe not necessarily a container on the property, but some door service could be offered to residents and comply with the with the requirement. So it gives them some flexibility if I'm missing you. Correct. So it may not be necessarily our trash hauler. It could be independent of that. That kind of thing. Okay, and you will you'll kind of give us some guidance about a start day? Yes, we can do that. If you allow me, I can talk internally through, talk to the CDP since it would be part the commercial site plan. I'd like to have the opportunity to work with them a little bit and also our code, et cetera, just to make sure that we've worked through all the, we cleaned up the draft, if directed by council, and then think of an operation how we could carry this out. Okay. And Mayor, I, what I would like, is I'd like an opportunity to meet with Nora or somebody over the next couple of days and make sure I understand all the provisions in this ordinance and then get some recommendation with regard to a potential start date and then maybe have it on the council agenda for up or down for next week. Okay, the mystery over to and I just might elaborate a little bit on what Nora said. I think one of the reasons why an enclosures not required is that in our zoning ordinance I understand that multifamily is to find this three or more units and so some of these are triplexes or quads that aren't necessarily going to have a dumpster service, but actually might have more even of a traditional curbside type service. So you might have a curbside recycling, or you might have a door service, or you might have a dumpster service, depending on the scale of the multi-family development that's created. So that's why that was created as an option there. And I think that's great to give them the flexibility. So because indeed, multi-family means different things, right? It's not just one definition. So I think that's great. But I'll get with you in the next few days, Nora, make sure I understand all the provisions as well as I'd like to. All right, thank you. Miss Thelman. Thank you, Mayor. So I understand that we're not requiring existing multi-family housing to provide the recycling service correct With that would it be possible or the pleasure of the council to have some type of communications or outreach to the existing multifamily housing providers in the area to encourage them to also Implement this process. Certainly something we could do, just at an operational level. We have various departments who engage with multi-family developments already, whether we are police department or code enforcement, etc. So there is that opportunity there to collaborate with them and provide, say, here are some of the providers, and to encourage that encourage that kind of conversation if so directed. Also the Department of the Association of Tarant County might be a good partner for us to work with. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. In fact, that's one of the things I was leading, not about the ordinance itself, but I wanted to go on the process procedure. I did have a chance to talk to the Arlington Department Association about this particular issue because I was very surprised in your presentation how many of the multifanelies have already decided to do this on their own. And one of the things I was also interested in finding out from staff that two of our library locations are heavily utilized. And there's also an opportunity through our rec centers perhaps to expand that opportunity maybe through parks. So I would really ask the council to really think about a re what I'll call a re-education program. You know in the 1980s and 1990s when we first started recycling everybody was talking about what it is. Now you know I talked about a couple weeks ago I mentioned the pizza box fight that I have with my husband about is it gonna contaminate the waste or isn't not going to contaminate the waste put it in the can? If you read the can, it says one thing, if you listen to Vince, it's another thing. So I just feel that we have an opportunity at this juncture to do some re-education across the city with our bins. You know, to update those stickers that have been there maybe for 10 or 15, 20 years that maybe aren't quite right anymore. And then also I'd love to see us reach out to the libraries, those two library locations in particular that you and I were talking about Nora. They have a lot of multifamilies around them. So it would be nice to reach out to those multifamily units around those library locations and they may already be doing that. And then also one of the things the Arlington Department Association brought up was the idea of providing some flexibility so that you brought up a number of different providers that do recycling. And I think that might be an opportunity for us to maybe enhance this without going toward you know, I agree with what you want to do going forward. But I think we have an opportunity to expand and then reeducate our citizen tree. I'm doing an even better job than what we're doing right now with our residential as well. So thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councilor, thanks. Thank you. All right, really appreciate the work there, Nora, and let's put it in the can. All right. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, can we do that? Re- Can we start a re-education program and maybe do something innovative like a coloring program or something? I think that would be awesome. I think that would be awesome. I can bring some. That can be awesome. I'll bring some. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And I think we've asked the right one. I think add, and I think this would be a great opportunity to re-engage the environmental committee to help do this, that committee oftentimes doesn't meet, and I think this is something they would really rally around pretty heavily. So if you could reach out to them too, Nora. And have we talked to them at all about this recycling from our apartments? Have they been consulted at any level? No, not as of yet. There is an opportunity to do so. They haven't meeting in August. And they themselves have talked about more recycling efforts as just as part of their ongoing conversations. Okay. And particularly to Ms. Farmer, just a comment that if and the way we're going to have a lot of time to make the way we're going to do and we're going to have a lot of time to make the way we're going to have a lot of time to make the way we're going to do and we're going to have a lot of time to make the way we're going to do and we're going to have a lot of time to make the way we're going to do and we're going to have a lot of time to make the way we're going to Well, this, thank you, no. Okay. All right, next we'll move to the six month forecasts of anticipated bid and proposal projects and report on the second quarter formal bid awards. Mr. Cleveland. Got the new mayor and city council, original Cleveland MW coordinator. You have been in front of your package our annual six months forecast of upcoming projects along with not only our formal awards but also the spin reports for our local and MWFIRMS and also on a yearly basis we also provide comparisons in terms of both notifications, award and with our various local and MWFIRMS for the past years. So we kind of see a progression of activities on our procurement side. And so with that, I'm available for any questions. Any questions from Mr. Cleveland? Well, I'd like to add to his report, in fact, Mr. Glassby, I think was there with me when we heard it. Mr. Cleveland was reporting to several of our area African-American leaders here about how much we're doing now. And we actually had Mr. Bob Rae Sanders as one of them representing the greater Fort Worth metropolitan black chamber, which by the way has a lot of Arlington members. But he said that with these numbers, he said that it will inspire some cities and embarrass others to do more for our minority contractors and our minority companies. And that was really a great word. And Mr. Cleveland has worked really hard along with his staff here to help and make that happen. And then we've seen companies digging in to help. And then we have a lot of our bigger companies that are reaching down and helping and mentoring some of our other companies to help bring in the opportunities. And of course, on our big projects, it takes us live and at the ballpark in the hotel. They have porcelain out smaller pieces of that project so that other mini-contract contractors can have a chance to go after them, which I think was ideal. One of our biggest challenges as we move forward will be job training. And we're hearing that time and time again because there's new jobs evolving because of technology. And our very own Tarant County workforce board has been honored as the top workforce board in America. And in fact, currently, the head of the United States workforce board is our own very Judy McDonald's. And she was actually recognized in Boston at the US Conference of Mayors, but this is a big deal. And I think it's helping Arlington move into a whole other level. We're not done, we gotta keep going, but it is very important for us to continue to help our companies improve themselves and to move forward because we got a lot of projects coming. We got a lot of new jobs and we have set the record for the most jobs being created here in the Metroplex above any other city and it's real key that we fill them with qualified skilled workers and with qualified companies doing the work. So thank you very much, Mr. Cleveland, and keep going. Appreciate the work there. And it's great to see allington leading the way here in the Metroplex on our MWBE programs. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Okay. Next, we'll move to our 2018 City Council priority investing in our economy and our call upon Mr. Perri-John. Mayor and Council Jim Perri-John, Deputy City Manager. Before you today is again an opportunity to talk about one of Council's key priorities which is investing in our economy. The newsletter before you today really hits really three major things that it deals with recruitment both domestically and internationally. It talks about retention opportunities and success. And it also talks, as the mayor just mentioned, about job creation. So I just want to highlight a few of those things for you. Again, it's also a big and a small business related to Vans shoes, which recently expanded. Small business was here in 1940, and has expanded because their businesses doing so well. A lot of custom work that's been done there so please take advantage of that if you're in the audience. And then going to the much larger scale which would be rent the runway. Rent the runway is one of the businesses the city actively recruited. That business opened a distribution center in the southern part of Arlington. But most importantly, that business is one of the new breed of retailers. They're really making an evolution from traditional retail to something quite a bit different than that, and the city's part of that effort. That company plans to hire 600 or more employees over the next 12 months. So if you're looking for an opportunity as a city resident, that would be a really nice opportunity to take a look at. They'll be in about 300,000 square feet of space on West Barton Road. They also, that corridor has really become very successful for us, that the RENTH runway joins UPS summit racing, FedEx and other major distributional logistics centers that have made the I-20 Arlington corridor home. So we're continuing to see very substantial opportunities and growth in that area. And then I wanted to highlight some of our international efforts. In fact, next week we'll be in Washington, D.C., a couple of us for a very significant event called SelectUSA, which is really all about foreign direct investment. And today we've got several meetings planned with companies that are actively looking to come to the United States and we want part of that. We want all of it, but we'll sell for part of that. And then just a highlight of from the Asian market, the city recently participated in a large Japan to Texas investment summit that occurred in the Houston area. That was a very significant event. Those types of events have longer lead times. It starts with some networking. It starts with some connectivity and connections. And then it relates to potential business alignments. and that's really what we've been working on. And then I left perhaps one of the best for last and then as you can see in the newsletter, the city did release quite a bit of the details from our opportunity with Amazon's headquarters too. And you can see some of the details of that, but I think it just should be recognized the city put forth a very compelling vision for Amazon headquarters too and got the opportunity to share that vision on a very, very, very few in the nation that got an opportunity to share that vision directly with the Amazon staff through site visit that they came to the city of Arlington fairly recently. So just wanted to highlight a few of those. And then finally, I left at your place. It's we called the 2018 Economic Development Guide. It's just a document that kind of starts to show some of the successes the city has had. It's also a great opportunity for us to share some of those during retention visits and recruitment visits. And we've got our office of communication and our marketing teams on our economic development staff that put that together. So I'll stop there. That's a lot of different things, but it's recruitment, it's retention, it's job creation, it's small business, it's large business, and we're trying to touch a lot of those things on a regular basis with the guides of the council. So this is your opportunity to talk a little bit about your priority if you'd like. Mr. Glisbee. Thank you man. Mr. Perrachana couldn't help but notice on the back page has a solicited fourth on the nation of entrepreneurs and fit what fits small business.com Would you elaborate a little bit on what it is that you was in? That's a great question. Bruce, would you be able to? The various magazines will do these sorts of evaluations based on their own sets of criteria and then they'll announce the results of that. And periodically that these things show up, we catch it, and we will post it out there. But I can certainly find out more information about what that criteria was and why we rose up as high as we did. Fellab, I think this is worth also telling it, we are very focused on small businesses. And in fact, our council knows this, but for the TV audience, we have entered into an agreement with our Chamber of Commerce in which we are focused on finding those small businesses that need help in their expansion or may need some other help that we can have. And that has been very successful. Something else that we have done is through the permitting and development process. Ms. Topel, I appreciate you adding, we have Maria, Maria Syas, who actually is a development coordinator, a nominabudsman, actually to help people to get through the system. And that has been working extremely well. I get compliments about her all the time. In fact, I've had a call for a liaison with small businesses. She is it. She does that exact thing to work through it. Then also Ms. Topel is meeting on a regular basis with their developers and our contractors, our architects and engineers to continue to improve our permitting and development. And it's a journey, you know, and it will continue to be a journey. There's we do that, but I appreciate that because it creates accountability on both sides because it's good to keep the engineers and architects and developers honest too, because it's two way street the engineers and architects and developers honest too because it's two-way street there to help get things through but we recognize the importance of moving things through in an expeditious manner. There with it, those are things that are doing that are really key for our economic development that are also being done. And there seem to be small in the scheme of things, but yet they are very important. Here's we move forward and I want to thank you, there Ms. Topel for having the meetings and then also having that extra position there to help our small businesses get through. And that comes from, by the way, a mayor who actually owns small business of the year in 2012 so I want you to know that small businesses and I look around this room it is always on our mind about small businesses and I just want to be sure that that is this prevalent Mr. Glasping. We can't go through this whole discussion without mentioning the text live is going to be open for too long. What's the latest on when? Understanding is August 9th is the target date for opening so about 60 days from now. Good afternoon, everyone. They're double shifting. They will make it and it's going to be a new day because that is going to be bringing people seven days a week there to our entertainment district. And then since you brought that up, that also we have the International Folk Art Festival, another form of economic development that is going to be taking place this weekend here in which we have artisans and artists from around the world that will be converging on Arlington. And of course it's in the same vein as the Santa Fe International Folk Art Festival. And so looking forward to that and encourage everyone to look that up and come out and attend. There was some great pro last year was our first year. It turned out very well and some great products there to that we have for sale, but then also an opportunity for us to learn about other cultures and to come together in that. See, and by have anything else on economic development. Well, I'll never miss an opportunity because Dallas Business Journal, a young, just six months ago, announced that Arlington had created more jobs and more investment than any other city in the Metriplex and we did pass Frisco, Plano, Dallas and Fort Worth with that. And great momentum here with what we're doing. And then of course the opportunity is, the opportunities are paramount. And in fact, the opportunities abound in downtown Arlington, don't they, Lanna? And we're about to talk about that as we move forward, anything else here on economic development. Okay. All right, then we'll move here to our committee reports and the first is community and neighborhood development Miss Lana wolf is chair. Excellent. Thank you Mr. Mayor for the community and neighborhood development met today and we had a very thorough presentation from under the leadership of Lindsey Mitchell, our staffer and our consultant representing MIT. And if you'd like to see the full presentation, I encourage you to use your agenda and go on and look at that. But we do, they've done very, very well. They've been very active to, I'll remind you, the last downtown master plan was the Frigginese Plan in 2004. So it's about time that we do. Because we're trying to address the fractured downtown and how do you reconnect and how do you rebuild it. So great opportunities. There's also for our citizens and property owners recognizing that there is a survey and there's been over a thousand responses to that downtown survey. What are you looking for? What do you want? What can improve? The first public meeting had over 160 people show up at legal draft. people show up at legal draft. They've got 20 very active citizens, primarily business owners, property owners within the area that are very engaged as they move forward. And I think what's important is just to recognize there's a lot of opportunity to address different housing options, be those condos, be those townhouses, they're looking at that, how do you really make that connection into the entertainment district if that's through trail systems or whatever it is. So I think it's really exciting. It's been very engaged. There is a meeting tomorrow night for the public and again it's a 6 p.m. at legal draft then there will be another opportunity as the committee continues to meet for public meetings but the council will get a full presentation of the draft of what that group has come up with and L. My. G. is just outstanding. They're just at the forefront of everything that's practical and including our parking strategies and all of that. So they will give a full explanation to counsel in August. And- I see they're here, Ms. Wolf. Oh, great. That would be- Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I just feel like I'm in the state. And we've got time, I'm so sorry. I just want to try. If we get time, could we hear from them a minute? Give us a view of what next steps we got time. It. Would that be all right? Whatever you say, Mr. Mayor. All right. We'd love to hear from MIG. And maybe I'll get share with us a little bit about what's going on and expand on what Miss Wolf had to say. Sure what's going on in expand on what Miss Wolfe had to say. Sure, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Again, Chris Bannon with MIG. I'm joined by Ellie Fury with MIG. We do have team members, economists, EPS, Walter P. Moore, Transportation Consultants on the team. So again, we are dedicated to doing a lot of work to help us with the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the change of the as far as moving forward. We know that this is a city that gets things done, and that's what we are dedicated to doing right now. To expand upon Ms. Wolfe's statements there, I think first of all, we're cultivating a shared vision. And that vision is one of a walkable, very dynamic, active pedestrian oriented, economically vibrant, inclusive downtown. All of those are very meaningful words here to the community. And I think in many ways, if you look back a decade or two, and most downtowns across the country, they were not saying, hey, we've got to be really walkable and we've got to draw everybody down here to live or to, you know, chop. Well, no, downtowns were maybe different and we had a lot of suburban expansion and a lot of that now is coming back to the core and it's a lot of what people are wanting to see here in this community. Importantly then, as we cultivate this vision in a set of very specific goals, it's about how do we catalyze strategic action? There are all kinds of things we could do, and if we're not smart, and we don't align things in the right place and the right way, so that we're maximizing public investment to stimulate private investment in development opportunities. We might do something to a street over here, but the development opportunities over there and the park spaces over here. We want to make sure all of that is very aligned. In many ways, we don't call this a master plan. We call it a strategic plan or a strategic master plan for guiding this investment. So along those lines we are outlining strategies for key streets and destinations in the core. Key catalytic sites both city-owned and owned by the private sector where we are bringing forth vision, development programs, ideas working with business and property owners, helping them to see what the possibilities might be for their sites. And all is a part of creating, I think, stronger districts in the core. Right now there is, I think, admittedly, you know, a lack of some identity and navigability. Where is the downtown or is this part of downtown? Or am I in this side of Cooper or that? I'm, you know, I think part of moving forward is to build upon what folks such as Ryan Dotson have done to create the urban union area and where are those other opportunities that can all complement each other here in the center city of Arlington. Parks activation, bolstering, arts and culture, building upon the amenities that we have, you know, just sitting down and having a map of all the different assets that are in the core, it's really amazing. I don't think we all necessarily think about that are in the core. It's really amazing. I don't think we all necessarily think about that all in one set, but from Levitt Pavilion to the Art Museum, to the theater, to various performance, music venues, and then on and on about, there's a lot more restaurants and food and drink in the core than you might imagine when you sit down and map it out. So how do we connect those things and how do we create identifiable opportunities for, as I mentioned, those people who want to invest here in the court. And ultimately, I think what we're moving toward is something that is emblematic or representative of this exact term here, the American Dream City, creating a downtown that embodies and provides opportunity for that American Dream. So if I am a musician and I'm interested in kind of building myself, building my career. There's a lot of opportunity to provide a number of different venues, whether they're performance halls or outdoor beer gardens or other places where I can kind of move up the chain and build myself in that way and achieve my dream. Or if I'm a student at UTA, and I've been taking classes and I am a part of this tech hub incubator program. Well then I see the opportunity to stay and find a job here in downtown Arlington instead of move on after graduating or be a part of that incubation or you know if I'm an entrepreneur and I have an idea to build a business as was mentioned previously, that's what this city does is support small businesses. I have a space here in the downtown and I can plant and root myself in this cool district. It supports that and their ancillary uses that we all kind of are like-minded around that. And then I can expand as my business expands. All of that is I think a part of where we're going to help achieve really intangible terms the downtown of the American Dream City. So we're partly down the path. In fact, we're probably kind of rounding third base right now. Our task this summer is to write up our plan document in draft form. As was mentioned, we'll be bringing back the draft of that to you all later in the summertime. So we're putting pen to paper pretty soon. We feel that we have a good consensus of where folks wanna go. It's not baked. We need more input and refinement from you all as we move forward. Staff has been incredible to work with and being able to bring forth more ideas or the latest development activity that's out there, we don't wanna put everything on hold, we wanna incorporate those things as they come along and make sure that we're incorporating it into the overall strategy. So I think the idea is to be bold and thinking forward and bring some color, I think, to downtown and some life. And you know, you all have citywide proven that you are innovators and you're embracing the future with all of your different programs, the things that are going on, the entertainment district and elsewhere, and that's what this plan and a protest to live up to. So we're taking that charge and we are moving forward over the next couple of months and we look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate it and appreciate MIG working on it. Your reputation is great and I've personally experienced it in other cities and you guys do a great job. And we know this one's going to be the best plan in the US. Absolutely. Thank you very much a great job. And we know this one's gonna be the best plan in the US. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor, back to you, Miss Wolf. Anything else? I have. All right. Any questions, comments? Okay. Then we'll move to the next committee report and that's transportation municipal infrastructure, Miss Walman. Thank you very much We were there today and met and we we only had two items on our agenda today One is and I think both of them were on the agenda tonight, but The personal delivery devices that we're trying we're going to do a pilot project with very interesting, very innovative, and the other one was to on-street autonomous vehicle service pilot project. So both of these are really exciting, but Miss Winklebuck is here today and she's got a little presentation that will really help kind of explain them and I think that's the best way to do it. So I'll let her do that for us right now. They're quick, but. Thank Thank you, Alicia Winkle, Black Assistant Director, Community Development and Planning. So on the first item, personal delivery devices, we've actually had a private company reach out to the city, extremely interested in testing and deploying their technology in the city. So that has initiated this discussion on personal delivery devices. We had our second committee meeting on the topic today and felt like it would benefit the full council to hear just a brief presentation on the item before the resolution showed up on your council. Excuse me, I need your agenda. So just a quick background to get everyone on the same page. Personal delivery devices are autonomous, electric, robotic delivery devices that operate on the sidewalks. So they don't operate on the street. They can cross the street, but they are primarily operating on the sidewalks. Very similar to our Milo autonomous shuttle project in the entertainment district. They use light-ar sensors and cameras to navigate their environment. There's secure devices. You can see on the lower right there an example of a keypad where you would enter a code when you use the device. If you say order food, you would get a text that gave you your own specific special code when the personal delivery device arrived, you would enter your code and be able to open it up. So this is not something that anyone on the sidewalk would have access to. They typically deliver food, groceries, and packages. That's a fairly open-ended option there. The company we're talking to has a few limitations themselves. For example, they have said that they won't deliver medicines and those types of things. So each company is a little bit different. But in general, I think the opportunities in our city are probably food, groceries, packages, that kind of thing. They are built, you can see in the upper right there, an example of one, they're actually built on a motorized wheelchair base, so that helps you typically operate 3 to 4 miles an hour on the sidewalk. So easy to navigate around if you're a pedestrian on the sidewalk. And these are for short trips. These are a few blocks maybe up to 1 to 2 miles but they're not going long distances. And in terms of use they are beneficial and businesses are starting to look at them because they're a cost-effective solution instead of, for example, putting someone in a car to drive half a mile to deliver a sandwich. They could put the sandwich in what is basically a cooler on wheels, drive it down the street, deliver it and come back. And so there's a cost savings there. There's also a reduction in curbside congestion, so vehicles that are parking for just a few minutes on the side of the road to jump out and jump back in. And then therefore, there's a positive impact on the environment because you don't have a lot of short trips and vehicle idling. This is a relatively new phenomenon. There's only a handful of companies that are actually in this business, but that is definitely growing and like we've seen in other autonomous technologies, it's beginning to be the direction that the market is moving. And currently there are no personal delivery devices being tested or deployed in the state of Texas. So should council decide to move forward with something like this and we do have a company come deploy in our city. If that happens soon, we stand the chance to be maybe the first city in Texas who is testing this type of technology. So our legal department has been looking at the state transportation code and our interpretation is that these devices are allowed today on the sidewalks. However, the companies that are looking to deploy the technology are looking for a supportive institutional partner and a clear statement that the city is interested in having these types of pilot projects in our city. So our recommended approach is to use a resolution to do that. So the resolution that staff has drafted so far makes these key points. It recognizes Arlington as a technologically innovative city. It recognizes that development of PDDs is taking place worldwide and is a growing market. It mentions our desire for data collection, which you've seen us do in other autonomous technology projects. It discourages operation during major special events where you've got the sidewalks flooded with a lot of pedestrian traffic and it really just doesn't make sense anyways. It also discusses a desired size of 26 inches or less and that's just really an effort to kind of define the size of the device we'd like on the sidewalks. So these things don't get too large and impede other movement. And then it seeks to encourage companies to develop pilots in our city and come work with us to test their technology. And then also we anticipate that this item is going to come up in the next state legislative session. So this ability to be testing and learning about these devices now would help inform those conversations. So in terms of next steps, you will have a resolution for council consideration on your June 19th agenda. We have also been in initial conversations with the University of Texas at Arlington. We've got a meeting later this week between the company that's interested in deploying here with the University of Texas at Arlington. We've got a meeting later this week between the company that's interested in deploying here in the university. It's a great fit for some of the work that the university is doing. They've got a division in the university called Utari, which is very heavily focused on robotics. So they're excited about the potential opportunity to kind of have a partnership with any company that wants to deploy here as well. It also offers some unique use case opportunities. You could maybe envision a need to move papers across campus. And instead of somebody walking all the way across campus, you can put them in one of these devices and send them across campus. Or you've got students, faculty, or staff who are living around campus and want to order food from downtown and you can do some kind of delivery there. So some great opportunities there. If Council should decide to approve the resolution on June 19th, then we would expect that the company that has reached out to us would go ahead and move forward with putting together a pilot project and probably start testing in deployment late summer or early fall. That's all I have on this topic. Well, let me expand on this because this is a one element of companies that are now emerging that deliver for local businesses to combat Amazon. Basically, they could turn, for instance, I'll just use Gene Allens as an example. They could be delivering Gene Allens gifts through our community here and make them just as convenient as Amazon is so they could turn our other companies into much more competitive companies. And then when you look at these, and as Ms. Winklebeck said, there's currently mainly three or four of them that are out there that are, but the numbers for the companies that use these delivery services, their business is rising tremendously. And so what they wanna do is use these and more of their densely populated areas to cut out that, you know, two block, four block delivery when they have a delivery guy, you know, they're not wanting to make those, those cost them a lot of money, but yet they're still important. And this is a potential to be able to do that. So this leads us into the other part, and it's very competitive, by the way, to get these three or four companies to come in. And I've had some discussions with one of them, and then Alicia has with this one. We have the opportunity here to be ahead and be able to move this out here in Arlington that could help our small businesses. Imagine that theme here to be able to move this out here in Arlington that could help our small businesses imagine that theme here to be able to compete against the Amazon's who have that day delivery well we can have same day delivery you know right here in our community and and be able to create that convenience. Well I agree with everything you said and I think it also shows that it was interesting that this company approach they're approaching us now, because we are known as a pilot city for transportation and new innovative technology. So that was very impressive to me, but you're right. We've got just the right setting for these projects to go forward. So yes, we were all excited about it and hope that we can move forward. The next one though is also exciting and I think tonight she's going to present a resolution that we have on the agenda tonight or it's for an RFP. So I'll just let you explain it very quickly and it's also very exciting. And I actually have a brief presentation on this one too. I'm actually have a brief presentation on this one too. We could get it pulled up. While we're waiting for that, so we, you have on your evening agenda tonight, a resolution to allow us to issue a request for proposals related to on street autonomous vehicle service in the form of a pilot project. So as you are all aware, we have been testing autonomous vehicle technology and had a lot of success with that. And we really kind of have a few main initiatives and reasons that we were out there in the first place testing that technology. The first was to be testing the new technology in a real world environment to allow us to learn and prepare for the future. We know this technology is coming. We wanted to be at the forefront of testing and understanding it so that we're prepared when or as it comes into our city. Our second reason was to increase public awareness and comfort with AV technology, which we've really been able to do a lot of that with our Milo Autonomous Shuttle project. We've had great success with ridership, a lot of interest, and a lot of that with our Milo Autonomous Shuttle project. We've had great success with ridership, a lot of interest, and a lot of increase in comfort level with that type of technology. And then third, as we've mentioned already, was to promote Arlington as an innovative and progressive city who's open for business. And clearly related to the personal delivery devices, that's been working for us as we have companies approaching us. So we've always looked at the autonomous vehicle service project as a two-phase approach. The first was off-street, which we've done with Milo, and then the second was an on-street deployment. So just while I'm on the topic of brief update on the Milo project, as I said, we've had a lot of success with the project and got a lot of positive feedback. We've given over 1,000 trips. We continue to run it for special events and then public and private demonstration events. We've done onboard surveys. Riders continually say that they are comfortable with the technology. They would do it again, write it again. They would recommend it to others and they enjoyed it. We've gathered a lot of data and learned a lot of lessons about the way the technology works and the way it impacts our environment and the way our environment impacts it, which has really prepared us for the next phase of an on-street deployment. And the Milo pilot was initiated last August and it will run through this coming August. and it will run through this coming August. And then just on the heels of the Milo project, we would like to initiate Phase 2, which would be on Street Mixed Traffic Pilot Project testing autonomous technology. So what we are looking at is a turnkey operation. So for a one-year pilot with the option to renew for an additional year, we actually have access to $350,000 in congestion mitigation air quality funding through the Council of Governments that we could apply to this project. We're probably looking at a total cost of somewhere in the $550,000 to $650,000 range to be able to put a meaningful pilot in place. Right now, we are thinking that it is probably an entertainment district focused pilot. So the vehicles are running in a geofenced area in the entertainment district on streets that are 35 miles an hour or less. So slower speed streets. We would like to see the pilot running for both day-to-day operation and special events to move people around the district. Probably somewhere in the range of three to seven vehicles. We're not specifying an exact number of vehicles yet, but somewhere in that range. And we would have either safety drivers and or remote tele operators with the service. So there's always either a safety driver in the vehicle or someone who is remotely watching and able to take over and operate the vehicle if needed. So what you have on your agenda tonight is just the initial step that would allow staff to actually issue the request for proposals to bring a vendor on board. If you choose to approve that tonight, then we would issue the RFP and Spin July evaluating and scoring RFP responses. We would come back to you in August with two different actions. One would be an agreement to utilize the congestion mitigation air quality funds. The second would be an actual vendor contract. And then we would move very quickly to deploy an on-street pilot in October, which would allow us to debut the service at the 2018 Texas Mobility Summit, which the city is hosting in October. So, and with that, I'm happy to take any questions. I guess not. Any questions? Autonomous vehicles, y'all, it's, I think every one of us in all of our meetings and so forth, it is here and the technology is there and it's basically the regulatory environment is what is being worked on right now. Him, Mr. Yelverton shared with me a quote from the General Motors President. I'd love for you to share that there. I thought that was most insightful, but it epitomizes what we're hearing from everyone. Sure. Ms. Mary Barra, who's, you know, the GM CEO, just was recently on a, I don't know, Wall Street Journal or CNBC, something like that, business, leadership, interview. The question that was posed to her was, within the next five years, how likely do you think it would be for us to roll up to a red light and look to the car on the left or the car on the right and see a car with no driver? And her answer was very likely. I mean, unequivocal, very likely, it's that close to occurring. So with that, we need to be ready and be a part of that. Then at the same time the discussion is that as jobs change because of autonomous vehicles and our world change, we've got to be ready to do the job training to adjust the jobs that we have. And I think that with our Tarantant County Community College, our Tarrant County workforce, they all are aware of that and they are already there. I think we're very well equipped to do this, but I think this is a huge step that we need to take for us to be competitive here as we move forward. Anybody else have any questions? Yes, Dr. Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Could we just take a step back for just a moment just so I can understand the numbers a little bit? We'd be ending the Milo program. So the money currently, is that what I heard you say? The Milo project was a one year contract. Okay, that's all right. So the money that would be, it would have been allocated potentially to a renewal that contract would go toward this RFP. Is that correct, or? Well, that happens to the budgeting process. So it would be council's decision. Okay, then let me just ask it to you out. What is the total, what's the total cost? That we think the total cost is probably somewhere in the $550 to $650,000 range. We have $350,000 to put towards it. So there's a gap there. So that would be the total cost from, that we'd have to be providing. Correct. Correct. There is no other alternative funds available. I just, not at this point in time. We continue to explore that. I just want to make sure. Thank you. Okay. Other questions, comments? Okay then Ms. Walman, what else? Well that concluded our meeting today, our committee meeting, but I agree with you mayor. This is the most exciting time and we are truly seeing transformation and transportation. And our city is ready and we've already demonstrated that and we're going to be ready for all the future technology that comes. And there's more to come. I mean, we're not through. There's more to come. It's on the way. So it's exciting. Thank you, Ms. Wom and for Y'all's work. And then I do have one more quick, Ms. Winkleback. Could you share with us about our VIA increased service rides and so forth? And how that's coming to expand the service there? Sure. about our via increased service rides and so forth and how that's coming to expand the service there. Sure. So, via continues to go really well. We've given over 30,000 rides to date. We are continuing to get really great positive feedback from our riders and we have a 96% customer satisfaction rating. I think I gave a recent quote that around 64% of our trips are taking place around the university. They're either going to or from the university. So there's a lot of activity kind of in our university downtown core. And then we are expecting to expand the service down to I-20 corridor in the next 30 to 60 days. So that will just really increase the opportunity for more residents and visitors to use the service. Well, our VIA service is another thing that has just got nationwide attention, both from the networks and the media, but also through other cities. And of course, Ms. Winklebeck has been contacted by many major cities. And I'll just share with you, I heard from the Sacramento Mayor. And they are starting in on the via service. He said, I was just disappointed that Arlington was first again, and we didn't get to be first. But that is going to be, and share with us again about some of the cities you've heard from here that are going to be doing the right here Sure Some of them are doing it some of them are just interested in doing it, but we've we've talked to Boston. We've talked to LA lots of local cities I believe I talked to Kansas City The twin cities just kind of across the nation. And then we've actually been asked to speak at a lot of different conferences, international conferences even, from different groups and entities that are just really interested in the concept and how it's working in Arlington. Well, see, the opportunity here is through our vans to be able to be picking people up at a more convenient location and delivering them to the doorstep so they're not having to have transportation to get to a bus stop or a rail stop. So consequently, and then it's also very affordable at the $3 barrage price point. And so consequently, it is taking the place of buses and then the larger cities that have invested in light rail, they are seeing their ridership on light rail go down. So they see this is a method to be able to get their citizens to their light rail. And then for us, it's also a direct connection to the center port rail station, also the opportunity to get into DFW airport. So it is, it is the only solution to our transportation, no. But it is a huge part of our solution here to transportation that is much more cost effective than buses and light rail. And it also is technologically advanced, but yet still with the call-in number, they're the opportunity for our elderly or people that do not have access to smart phones, the opportunity. And they're using that. And it was interesting, you know, Miss Winklebeck reported to us earlier, there was a little bit of resistance here of our vendor to do that. And yet it has been very much used. And that's one of the first questions I get from other mayors about, but how do you take care of them? And then also, of course, we have the bank card that they can use to pay cash to be able to use that bank card to be able to to be able to do it if they do not have a bank account. Ms. Walman. It was just one quick comment, Mayor, because you talked about the VIA and how we when it first started, I will tell you, I used to drive down A-Rom and I'd see one park and every time I would see this VIA van park ready to go, I haven't seen that van parked and I don't know when and I'm seeing them in every neighborhood. They're all moving. So it really is a successful endeavor that we got into for the ride share. It's there. You're just seeing them everywhere now, moving. And you know, our citizens transportation committee, they talked about that they saw that this was an actual transportation method that would get people out of their cars and using it. And I'm hearing that too from our citizens, that it's very convenient for them. So many times they'll get dropped off somewhere and they'll use VIA to get back and to get them around. But it's exciting that we're not having to spend a billion dollars on getting into the transportation business. You know, when you look at the numbers here, there are so much more manageable here and worthwhile. So I didn't want to lose that opportunity here to talk about VM, Ms. Walman. Another kind. I would just say thank you to our Transportation Committee. As they saw the vision and they took the technology and made the recommendation and that's what really helped us in making this a really win-win endeavor for the City of Arlington. Really yes. Any other comments? Just one quick question. So how many vehicles do we actually have on the road now and how many will we have on the road with the expansion? Sure, we have 10 VIVans right now and we're actually going to maintain that number of 10 through the expansion, gather data, analyze the service, and then see what we need to do moving forward. So I anticipate we'll increase them, but you're not at first, Trent. I was going to suggest that, based on what ridership has, in the beginning to Miss Walman's point, weight times and vehicle accessibility was very robust, but as we've seen a nice steady stair step increase that's become a tighter market. And so when we go down to I-20, I think we're going to feel that from a wait time perspective. And so as we look down the road, if we want to go a little further south or a little further north, it's going to need to add to the fleet with the vendor to keep the wait times within reason. I don't think it needs to be instantaneously. There's other people out there that can get you door to door faster service. So I think our goal is 12 minutes or so, 12 to 15 minutes. But if it gets much beyond that, that's unreasonable for our goal. So I do expect if we continue to be involved with this effort beyond, go from the pilot into more of a permanent status, we'll be looking at augmenting the fleet with some resources. And then just in closing here to wrap up the transportation municipal infrastructure with our venture into autonomous vehicles, our smart traffic signals, our smart city initiatives and what we're doing with VIA has actually put us, and as you see, we were a finalist that actually had a city that had a site visit by Amazon. And we wouldn't have done that if it had not been for this venture there. And in fact, many cities said, I can't believe that Arlington had a site visit because you don't have light rail. Well, we didn't have light rail, but we had the latest in technology here in the other methods that are so much better than light rail. And that's a key point, I think, that we all need to do here in the mix of as we talk about Arlington and transportation and our infrastructure that we all need to do here in the mix of as we talk about Arlington and transportation and our infrastructure that we need to be sure and emphasize. So thank you, Miss Winklebeck. Thank you, Miss Waman, and we'll move to appointments to boards and commissions, and I need to welcome one of our latest additions to our staff, Mr. Alex Busken, who is our new city secretary, and Miss Mary Sapino has moved over to our police department there, and of course some would say that's a promotion. Others would not as cheap. Oh, cheap is here. Good. But she's gonna be working hard and she's cheap about it now, but we're proud of Mary, but then it's great to have you here, Alex, you're in the mix of this. And so there's the first official due to here. I would like to ask you to, we have any appointments to boards and commissions. Thank you, Mayor. Tonight we have 17 appointments to boards and commissions. All right. Thank you very much. Next, let's move to evening agenda items. Anybody have anything? Oh, Dr. Myers? Mayor, I have an inquiry regarding 11-6, which is the Inmemit to the Unified Development Code, relative to the buffer requirements between gas well drilling, uses and residential uses. In particular, in the staff report, and I was looking at the UDC change number the second one, the second change proposed change, which is the requirement a gas well developer seeking a new specific use permit to own the surface property rights within 300 foot. I had some legal questions and I was asking some staff and I was wondering if Miss Dopal might speak to a little bit about our conversation and how we might consider a wording change in this particular area. Well, I think it's substantive change because I think that is really a problem there with requiring them to own it. So Ms. Topel. Thank you, sir. Jensit Opel, interim director, community development and planning. So at the planning and zoning commission meeting, that's when we heard from the gas well industry. And they were concerned about the second item about owning the 300-foot radius from the proposed gas well drill zone. So we've been thinking, staff has been thinking about if there is an alternative language that can be meeting the intent and the intent being that no residential development in the 300-foot buffer from the proposed gas well. So this and again this requirement is only for future gas well sites, not for the existing gas well sites. That's the requirement, the item number one captures existing gas well sites. So for that, the alternative language that we thought off is a developer seeking a new specific use permit for gas well drilling must include a minimum area in compassing a 300-foot buffer around the proposed drill zone within the proposed gas well, SUP boundary. What that means is it doesn't say they have to own it or lease it or whatever it is, but the 300-foot area needs to be within the SUP boundary. So when a SUP application is submitted to our department, the SUP application has a signature requirement of whoever owns the property. That's about it that we'll be looking at. That the SUP boundary includes that 300 foot buffer. And if SUP is approved, the ordinance child prohibit any new residential buildings within that SUP boundary. Thank you, Dr. Myers. We were in the spirit of how to propose that we go at the language of the community that was in the spirit of the community. Well, I couldn't agree more. I think that will be much more palatable. Mr. Parijand, do you want to add to that? Yeah, I'd just like to add more for the council's application. I do believe that there are a couple organizations that represent the gastro-ling companies that understand, I've been in touch with them. They've reached out to me in regard to the language, particularly on the ownership. I think conceptually they're more comfortable with the alternative language, but they still have some concerns that they might want to voice that to you either tonight or ask for some additional time to work through some additional language. Okay. Mr. Shepherd. Thank you, Mayor. Gen. C, two questions I had. I saw that at PNZ, they added the word new in front of the specific use permit. I thought what we were trying to do is that any gas will site that's not currently in production, we would require this new setback. But the SUPs expire, and one might argue that that's a new S P. We've certainly seen situations in the last couple of meetings where the applicants different, the decisions different, what have you. So is it staff's intention that this would apply to all oil and gas S U P's issued here on out. So this would be for any new gas will S U P's that will come outside of the 56 sites that we have today. So after the 56 second. So what you are seeing, that's coming to evening agenda and that's all SUP for establishing a drill zone. So those are all amendments to SUP, but this is specifically for any future gas will totally new gas well site. One other question if I'm right there. And then the other question I had, the exception to the exception of the exception that we have at the bottom, I'm confused about the need for that. zone properties period without any distinction between RE or 7.2 or what have you. So I thought when we talked during our discussion prior to the meeting in your presentation, I think focused on residentially-zoned properties which would include multifamily, yada, yada, yada. and then we had to take a little bit of the money that was eventually zoned properties which would include multi family yada yada yada. And I'm so I'm confused why there was a need of perceived need to include that exception does not. That exception was included because we looked through all the 56 gas spill sites and the surrounding properties. There were about three properties adjacent to existing gas spill sites that were zoned and platted or just zoned as 7.2, which could come into that 300 foot area. And since they were arrested with that zoning, we wanted to allow that to be grandfathered. That's the exception. But if they change that zoning to another residential category, is it our intent that it then does apply? So if suppose it is zoned RE, and it was not RS7.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0 the current zoning as is, then it would not. I think the example could be may feel farms might help. It was zoned RE and they were coming in for a PD for RS 7.2. So if this ordinance was in place before that application came in, then they would have required to keep the 300 foot building setback from the existing gas valve site. But you said it's only three examples though. Three examples that we feel the 7.2 would come into place but we are not distinguishing between 7.2 RRE. So if you are RE and you want to build on our ezone property you are still vested with that zoning you can build the house but we don't see that it would come within that 300 foot area since your lot is going to be much larger. I think I'm sufficiently confused. Thanks. Anything else on this or anything else on an evening agenda, Adam? Yeah, I'm a shiver. I think we have it our place here, a memo concerning potential in proper advertisement of the gas well permit for cornerstone. and so staff is recommending that we continue this till next week so that it can be re-advertised. I don't know how we get that message out soon enough to perhaps encourage those who might otherwise have come down to speak to not come because we can't hear this tonight because of the advertising. So I'm not sure that this case is unfortunately fraught with several continuances. Some of them by our own request here. This one unfortunately is not. I don't know how we do that, but certainly would ask if the mayor would allow that we make that announcement very early on in the media. Perhaps even before we start the meeting. Perhaps so that they're made aware. I don't believe they'll be very happy about it, but there's really nothing we can do. Yeah. Great point. OK, anything else on the evening agenda items? OK. There's also an additional memo at your place. No, it's not an amended man. It's a different topic. But this today we were involved in another part of our CIP bond sale for water improvement bonds and drainage utility bonds. So those market results are there for you to see. And tonight you'll have items on for your approval of all these actions. Just wanna draw your attention to the results of the bond sale. Okay. Anything else on the evening agenda? Okay, then we'll move to issues relative to city and textile projects. Okay, and then we'll move to future agenda items. I would like to put on the International Corridor there on Pioneer Parkway. I'd love for staff to update us on what is being done and so forth on that. So everybody are all right with that and that one. Mr. Shepherd. Mayor, as it appeared on the afternoon agenda, we had a discussion with legal counsel on the short-term rentals, and the most recent Texas Supreme Court case on that issue. So we could have that placed back on our agenda for discussion next public agenda next time. It's a great point. Hopefully advance that discussion next week. Yeah, especially with new developments. Yeah. Okay. And real quick, on the international corridor, is it possible to talk some about, you know, we're talking about spending a lot of money on the corridor itself and on an intersection? Has there been any discussion? Well, actually, we don't have any plans at this point. What we're looking into is just it's just beginning. So this would be the first real briefing of our council here to start it there. And of course we have private citizens. They're wanting to form, have us form a tax increment financing to do that. So this is really the first introduction. So it's great time to talk about whether in some of those intersections where we have aging retail properties, whether it might make sense to talk about some programs where if if a let's say for example, they come in and update some of their signage and their landscaping as part of the corridor work because you know my point is if you do the corridor work and don't do what's behind it. You lose an awful lot of the impact. That's great point. In fact, staff could add that to the list to talk about that. I think that'd be good. I'd be great. Appreciate that, Ms. Moise. Other future agenda items? Okay. Then with that, seeing no other business, we'll stand adjourned and we'll reconvene at 630 tonight for our evening meeting. Thank y'all very much. Thank you to the people that came today too. Appreciate that.