I'd now like to call the meeting of the Arlington City Council to order and the City Council will now go into closed session at 125 p.m. on March 6, 2018, in accordance with the following sections of VTCA Government Code Chapter 551.071 consultation with attorney 0.071 consultation with attorney, 0.072, deliberation regarding real property, 0.074 deliberation regarding personal matters, and then 0.087 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 Thank you. Okay. I'm going to go to the next floor. Now I'd like to call the work session to order. And our first item of business is the Rush Creek watershed study update. And I'll call upon Miss Amy Cannon. Good afternoon mayor and council. My name is Amy Cannon. I'm with the public works and transportation department. And I'm here this afternoon to give you an update on the Rush Creek Watershed study. Miss Canne. Excuse me. Is that microphone on? You're speaking up, but. Matt, do we have it? Okay. All right. Good. Go ahead, Amy. Can you hear me? I can hear you grow. All right. Great. So it just has a quick background to what the watershed study program is. Is it's basically a comprehensive analysis of all of the watersheds within the city of Arlington to understand what the flood risk are in each watershed. And we have been working on this program for about seven years now, just going through identifying the flood risk, identifying the areas that are subject to erosion and coming up with alternatives to have a comprehensive plan to address flooding throughout the entire city. This is resulted in us determining many types of projects that we need to do as well as being able to submit applications to FEMA to revise the flood insurance rate maps so that we have accurate floodplain data for people to use. On the agenda tonight is a watershed study adoption for Rush Creek. And we are doing this as a way to basically put the plans that we determine from the Watershed Study into action. It's one of the best management practices that they identify as a way to make sure that whatever we find is an issue within the Waters watershed, we actually work towards addressing it. We do receive credit from ISO through our participation with the community rating system in order for our residents to get flood insurance discounts because we do adopt watershed studies. And then we also are able to close the gap that occurs typically when we submit new flood information to FEMA. There's usually a gap between when FEMA actually adopts it versus when we've actually finished the study. So for like our fish and cotton would create basins, there's been, we submitted them in 2014, we submitted the watershed study for them to update the maps, and we are still waiting for those maps to become effective in FEMA terms. And so we adopted the Fish and Cottonwood Creek Watershed studies so we can say, this is the data we need to use to be able to effectively manage the floods in the city. And so that releases all the engineering data for people to come and use. So if they want to build new things in Arlington, they have the data to make wise decisions to keep themselves reasonably safe from flooding. Adoption of these studies also is like the official signal to say we want to incorporate these into our overall CIP. Now as we identify some of these programs, we've been forecasting where they would fit, but by officially adopting the watershed study, you basically say, this is what we want in our capital improvement plan for this area of the city. So with that, we have actually officially adopted Johnson Creek last September. Like I mentioned before, Fish and Cottonwood Creek were adopted in 2015. So that is engineering data as well as CIP data that we have already incorporated into our program and are putting into action today. Coming this summer, we actually have five more watersheds coming up for adoption, this mainly in the northern part of Arlington where you see in the orange, the Trinity tributaries, and half of what's the lower village creek. And so with those, we kind of wait for FEMA to make their first round of comments on these studies before we adopt them so we can kind of see, you know, are they going to accept our engineering data? And if the comments are positive to where we're going to have these maps implemented, then we'll go ahead and send the adoption paperwork in for y'all. So just as a quick background to how we got here with the Rush Creek Watershed study, in 2010, we were actually, this is the entire state of Texas. We were actually hit by Trockwell Storm Hermine, where it lined up perfectly with the Rush Creek Watershed and dropped about six to 10 inches across the entire basin. And it resulted in flooding from In Road at 287 all the way to Grace Prep at I-20 to a shady valley. This is just off of Pioneer Parkway where the Rush Creek Dog Park is now with residents stranded in their homes having to be rescued by the fire department. And it was a pretty dangerous situation for those people because it happened quickly. We had the initial rain come in, and then within two hours their neighborhood was full of water. And so it was a very scary situation for them. And so we went through and determined in 2011. So here are some flood impacts that happened. We ended up buying $16 million worth of property to get homes and apartment complexes, get those cleared out because they are in the highest risk area, the impacts of this flood were devastating to the people that lived there. And so in 2011, we started on the Rush Creek Watershed Study to determine what happened in tropical storm hermene because areas flooded that we weren't expecting. And thenene because areas flooded that we weren't expecting and then some other areas flooded that we were absolutely expecting that were mapped in the floodplain. And so in May 2017, we finally got to the point to where we were comfortable with the projects that they identified as well as the engineering data to be able to submit this to FEMA for mapping. And so the official FEMA map provision submittal was in last July. And we've been going, we've had multiple rounds of comments with FEMA to get them comfortable with our data. And so we're finally, hopefully in their last round of comments with them to where they are going to basically say we're ready to make these official maps. And so as the results of these studies, one of the main priorities is identifying the capital improvement projects that are needed throughout the basin. And so this is a list of stormwater-only projects. If you actually go into the appendices of the Rush Creek Watershed Study, there's a few more projects listed. What we do is when we receive these watershed studies, we actually look at these projects and see if they can be combined with other projects, such as road projects. So Eden Road, for instance, was identified to be upgraded in the Rush Creek watershed study. And what we did is say, we don't want that as a stormwater-only project. We want to incorporate that into the overall road, roadway improvement project. So you don't see projects like this on this list, this $119 million is stormwater only. So this represents a list of buyouts, detention, channel improvements, covert improvements throughout the entire basin. Now, the only two active projects that we have right now are the two that are in red, and I'll get into more detail about those later. And just to kind of see these are spread out throughout the entire basin. So these flood management projects, we've got flood walls, the buyouts, and they're just kind of peppered throughout just as a just show you just the kind of the comprehensive nature of these. Now we'll say in this slide right here this is not the actual footprint of the buyout areas and regional detention. It's pretty big on this map, the blue and green. It's just to show that we are going to do 34 buyouts in the blue area and 16 in the green, but the way that they're spread out you can't really see that on a map. So that's why that footprint looks as large as it does but we have identified projects throughout the basin to tackle flooding in a comprehensive way. Now the projects that we're currently having are designed are the Sublet Creek Neighborhood Drainage Improvements Project. That's been combined with the Redstone Suffolk project, that's just a storm drain project, as well as the voluntary buyouts on the south side of the Creek along Doty Lane. Those, the buyouts are actually FEMA funded partially and then some of them are city funded. So we do try to get grant programs, grant funding, as much as we can in order to build these projects. Right now, we are looking at a $4.5 million estimated construction product cost, and we are expecting the construction to happen in August 2018. The next project that we have under design is the Country Club Brodrainage and Channel Improvements project that was also identified in the study. And so this is mainly storm drain flooding, but then we also have extensive erosion along the channel that runs through there. And so we are looking at a $4.88 million cost to fix both the erosion and flooding issues, and we are anticipating a bid in September of this year. We also have, from the Channel Stream Bank Assessment that was done with the Rush Creek study. We have also started the Key Branch erosion from Oak Springs to Green Oaks. This particular stream was classified as moderately unstable in the study. And so what that means is there is at least 50 to 75 percent of the bank that is exposed. It looks like fresh soil. So we have roots that are pretty much holding everything in place. There's portions of the stream that have stabilized, but for the most part, this stream is fairly unstable. And so we are currently looking at the conceptual design of this to see we're trying to find the least invasive way to fix this issue. And so right now, the estimated costs from our estimates of what's on the paper right now is $2.5 million, and we're expecting construction sometime in 2019. The second string bank stabilization project we have is from Bradley to Andalusia, also a long- key branch. This one was also classified as moderately unstable in the study. We're estimating about a $3 million construction cost on this one. This one is a fairly extensive repair and reset of the stream. We're expecting 2019 in the summer to go to construction. And our third string bank stabilization project is actually a long Indian trail on the main stem of Rush Creek. So this was an emergency project that was identified. As you see in the picture here, there's a car that's adjacent to the road and what's really not seen is the depth from the creek and so this is kind of what the creek looks like just adjacent. The next thing I want to show you is the first thing I want to show you is the first thing I want to show you is the first thing I want to show you is the first thing I want to show you is the first thing I want to show you is the first thing I want to show you is the first thing I want to show you is the first thing I want to show you is the first thing I want to show you is the first thing I want to show you is the first thing I want to We anticipate about a $900,000 construction cost, but we are evaluating the project distance because we did find that some sewer lines may be at risk. And so we're determining the location of those to make sure that when we do go to construction, it is comprehensively solving the problem and not just doing a section of it to where we have to come back. And so we do expect that to go to construction this year because it needs to be fixed. Some projects that have been completed are the Rush Creek at Bowen Road or erosion repair. We actually extended some gabions along a moderately unstable reach to protect a sewer line as well as some of the homes in the background there. We, it was a pretty cost effective solution at $420,000. We just recently finished the punch list on that, so very happy with that. And then finally, we're also using the state, even though it's not with the exception of Eden Road. This data has also been used in other city projects to basically help with some of the cost of the engineering side. So they are using the engineering data from the study in Deaver Park, Curry Road, and Harris Road to identify ways that one we can put improvements in the ground without causing any impacts and even solve problems. And so that's just kind of a pretty quick overview of the Rush Creek study and how we're using the data put improvements in the ground without causing any impacts and even solve problems. So that's just kind of a pretty quick overview of the Rush Creek study and how we're using the data and implementing these things. So welcome many questions that you all may have about it or the Watershed Study Program. Anybody have any questions or comments? It's K-PART. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Amy, for the great presentation. So much of what you've shown us today, it really speaks to some of the great needs that we've had. And certainly in the southwest and the west part of the city where flooding seems to be way too problematic and too frequent. So a lot of I love the idea of really partnering with the other city departments as we put Pappel projects online and you know but tell me where the one which showed the car and the bridge you said it was an Indian trail I'm not familiar with that street can you tell me where that is? It is right at the city limits with Dowworth and Ten Gardens. And so we owned, there's a low water crossing off of Woodside, basically it's Woodside in Indian Trail. Norther 20. The North of 20. And so I don't have it on a map right here, but we can show you where it is, but it's right at the city limits with Dalworth and Ten. I've just never noticed that. It's kind of out of the way. It's not surprising yet. It's kind of an out of the way place, but it actually is a low water crossing that many people use, but not when it's raining. Yeah. Not when it's low. Low. Yeah. It's really only a few feet above the creek. Oh, yeah. I was right over there. It's really only a few feet above the creek. Oh yeah, I was right over there. Kind of shoots off of Mayfield and it's kind of nondescript and so you could drive right by and not... And now you see it? Well that was very telling photo, very telling. But thank you for the work and I know it's been kind of a long old task, if you will. But so in working with FEMA and so they haven't really adopted our data yet, is that what I'm hearing? Yes, it hasn't been given an effective date. We've had two rounds of comments and then trying to get them comfortable with the data that we've submitted to them. We're at that stage. I'm going to reach out to them this week to see where they're at with the most recent response that we sent them about a week and a half ago. But we've been working with them to get them comfortable with the data and to accept it. So. Well, and as you said in your remarks, that some of the properties you expected would be flooding and they would were and some got added to the list that were unexpected. So in those cases, have we reached out to the property owners to tell them? Yes, we will be. So part of the review process is actually to send notifications to property owners when you're extending floodplain or even changing the maps in a way that either that impacts them. So that's part of the process. We haven't reached that part yet. So I expect to do that with the next round of comments. Okay. And once they're notified of that, if they wanted to get flood insurance, then that would be available to them. Yes. Flood insurance is available to everyone in the city of Arlington. Oh, okay. Oh, well, hopefully I don't ever need it. But thank you. Thank you, Amy. I appreciate your comments. You're welcome. Any other questions or comments, Mr. Glashby? Thank you, Mayor. We've got a great job of identifying where problems are and then coming up with ways to solve. When you take on a consideration, those things that we've identified and begin to put solutions in place, are they turning out to operate kind of like our models projected or? Yes, yes. I think our most telling storm, particularly in the Fish and Cottonwood Creek Basins was in 2015. The overall recall we had pretty record rainfall in the month of May. 2015 we got about 20 inches across the city and so the results of those models were actually reflective of what happened when we found happen the high water marks it matched up so we were pretty happy with that so it's always a concern with engineering models we may not get the results we were expecting so. Ms. K. Park. Mayor I just want to make a comment you know when we had the stormwater drainage fee and then we Put in place that it will go up every year for however many years and I forgot naming But that was a result of the citizens committee that was not driven by the council because we had so many people that were struggling with flooding and Fearful we created and I don't mirror Mr. Perish on you, probably do, I don't remember what that committee was called, but anyway, it was a Citizens Driven Committee, and we convened them because they were very upset with the council at the time because we weren't doing anything and we said, well, the problem is like, $90 million big, so how do we deal with that? And so they were the ones who came back with the recommendations. And they were the ones who said, you need to institute more on your stormwater drainage and you need to implement it over a period of years. And we need to start tackling some of these projects. So when people think we don't listen, I mean, we listen. I mean, we heard that they were fearful. We heard that they thought we weren't doing enough, but we let them come up with help us to find the solution. And it's working. And so thank you once again for helping save some of these homes and these properties that I know we would lose in the future. Just Kate Bart, I think that's a lead end to what I, some of the comments I wanted to make. You know, I just want to commend the council and the citizens But also our staff because y'all may recall in the 90s Where we had so many major flooding problems here that was widespread and most of our water sheds Now when it now when we have the big rains we aren't in a panic when they hit because so much work has been done and now our flooding is much more isolated and great headway has been made. I think we need to celebrate that. We're not where we want to be totally, but yet it's a new day in Arlington, Texas when it rains than it was back in the 90s. And as an engineer to so many of the cities around us are having so much more problem than we do. So it's a real good indicator of what has been accomplished. Now something that Miss Cannon mentioned several times that I think also is so important, and that is talking to the other departments about projects and to come up with a multi-objective project. I think that's awesome, and I'm really glad to see that. And then I know you're talking to Parks too, because in including Parks, you have the opportunity to turn a lot of this floodplain that can't be used for anything but stormwater and recreation into something special. And then also making nice, you know, up here in our city, we have avoided concrete line channels that so many other cities have had. And we've done it in a much more creative way. And you saw the use of gabions there and wasn't that attractive compared to what it would have been with the old trapezoidal concrete channels and that that's the kind of thing we've got to continue to do because our creeks are an incredible resource here in in Arlington and great opportunity is affords itself as we do the flood management projects. Then we have an opportunity to beautify and use these creeks because a great resource they're connecting our entire city, Miss Waman. Well also, Mayor, you know, it hadn't been that many years that we started the bioengineering to stabilize some of those creek banks. And we have sections that we've done that. And I think the more we're doing it, but that's only been in the past, what, tray maybe six years? Something like that. So that's really progress, because it took us while to get there. And I think we've done, now we've done a good job of it. And when it rains now, I sleep just fine. And I used to get up and put on boots and go, go waiting. So we have done a good job, and I do commend the staff for all they've done to get us to this point. Well, one other benefit of studies like this is by the city doing them, they are much more accurate than what FEMA would be doing and what FEMA does. So now you're able to inform residents more about what their situation really is because we have problems of FEMA going the other way where they actually broad brush where the flood lanes are and then we have homes that are stated during the flood lane but they're actually not and that causes major problems the other way. So this study will have great benefits in actually modeling a much better situation on what truly happens during floods and what is in the hundred year flood plain and what is not. There was still a little bit of art. I understand that, but a whole lot of science now, there's especially a much better data with the city drilling down on this. And then, Senthon city manager pointed out to me here on this too is that This is our largest Watershed here so we're getting our law and and then the second largest has already been done in Johnson Creek at 21.7 square miles How do you know about how many is what is this 35 or 40 square miles at Rush Creek is? It's right around 37. It represents about 40% of the city. Yeah. So this is a major study to be getting done. And then it's exciting that the others will be coming in line here later this year. Yes, Ms. Walman. I'm glad that you mentioned how we repurposed some of that property where the on 303. And now we have a dog park. And so we didn't just, it didn't just go to waste. And it was already and it didn't cost that much and it's being used every day. So that was a good thing too. Absolutely. Any other questions from Ms. Cannon? Thank you, Ms. Cannon. Appreciate the report. Okay, next we'll move to code adoptions. I'll call upon Ms. Jinsy Total. Good afternoon mayor and council. Jinsy Total Interim Director, Community Development and Planning Department. This item as relates to the building and fire code adoptions. It's a part of our systematic updating of our codes every few years. Before we get into the technical details, I wanted to touch up on few guiding principles for this update. It allows for flexibility. It allows our construction industry professionals and developers to be able to use the current and upcoming construction trends and technology. This code update is also responsive to our customers who are redeveloping and for info development. Some of the codes have been mandated by state, and with this update, we will become consistent with the state code. It is also consistent with many other surroundings, municipalities. Staff has put in several hours to clean up the code, remove outdated, redundant unnecessary standards, and make it very easy on our professionals to understand the code better. So at this point, I'm pleased to introduce Rick Ripley, our building official and Jeremy Booker our assistant building official who have worked for several months to bring us to this point and will share with us some technical highlights of this update. Mayor, Council, good afternoon. Rick Ripley building official for the city. As Jensie stated we've put in quite a bit of time to prepare for this code adoption versus previous code adoptions. As you can see we have five different areas of the ordinance that we're touching with this, which includes nine different construction documents from five different areas of the ordinance that we're touching with this, which includes nine different construction documents from our building codes for our commercial, our residential fire, electrical plumbing, mechanical. We've gone through these at length to ensure that they are ensure that they are usable and flexible for our development community. In doing so, we originally posted the proposed code adoption and amendments on our website in January and started our hearings in January and they ran through February. They went to our boards for public hearing and we also had a form on the website that would allow the public to make any comments if they would not be able to make a meeting so that the board could receive any communications and take that into consideration before they acted upon our recommendations. Each of these items taken before the board had emotion made and carried before we brought them to y'all for consideration. So they have been vetted quite well. Here are the documents that we are actually looking at. The nine different codes. Before these are brought to you for consideration, they are vetted through many channels. They go through the International Code Committee first. Then they go through state statutes. Then they go to the local level and for us, that's COG. And we don't just take them at that. Once COG has made their recommendations, we go through them to do the clean ups, make any amendments that we feel are needed to serve our development community better based on what we have seen here and it's coming in from surrounding areas. We are currently under the 2009 editions of the code and the 2008 edition of the National Electrical Code. What we're proposing is to move to the 2015 family of codes and the 2017 National Electrical Code. Within these, the International Energy Code is mandated by the state, and the 2017 National Electric Code has also been adopted by the state, and contractors are already expected to be working to these standards. These 18 surrounding cities have already adopted the 2015's with amendments and are using them for their construction inspections and interpretations. So we will just be following in line with our surrounding communities. Updates to the construction chapter include the International Residential Code, International Building Code, the Energy Conservation Code, and a new one is the existing building code. This used to be in the building code as chapter 34. It was taken out and became its own document to allow more flexibility for existing structures when they're being redeveloped and repurposed. That's why it was brought out and into its own document was to allow additional flexibility. I've highlighted a few of the changes with staff's help. One significant change is the residential code is on our carbon oxide and smoke alarms. They are both now required to be hardwired in. They're by, they have to be attached to electrical circuit plus have a battery backup. This is actually already being done. This is pretty much an industry standard now. When this originally came out, your smoke detectors already had to be hardwired, which your carbon monoxide could be on battery only. This is changing and just stating that now they both have to be on a 110 circuit with a battery backup. And the contractors can either use a hardwired CO2 detector or a combination detector. I said this is really already being done. So this is not a change for our development community. Another change to help our commercial institutions in the building code was a definition clarification and addition for institutional occupancies adding conditions. What these conditions did is they outlined that if you met certain criteria, It's a outline that if you met certain criteria, then other areas of the code would come into play or you would not have to comply with them. They're by making it more lenient, depending on where you fail, if you were an occupancy group under this designation. So once again, we're adding flexibility for our development community. Storm shelters, they were in the code as an option with guidelines. They are now a mandated item. On this particular piece of code, we have gone in and amended to include only new educational facilities where the code is written would have required storm shelters to be placed whenever a remodel or addition was done we went in to try to work with our stakeholders in the ISDs and make it easier on them and change the wording to read only new construction. On the International Energy Conservation Code, which is where most of our changes have come, the leakage and duct leakage testing are now a required element. Duct and envelope testing is more stringent than in the O9 code. The U factor and solar heat gains for your windows. The allowable has been increased in one area and dropped at the other to keep your thermal transmission out and keep your conditioned air from migrating out of the structure. Your lighting requirements have gone up from 50 to 75 percent. This is going along with the deletion of incandescent bulbs and moving toward fluorescent LEDs. You now have to have whole house mechanical ventilation. Your hot water piping is required to be insulated. If it meets the criteria is listed, three-quarter-inch and larger, recirculation systems under a floor, buried, or if it's on a manifold system. Now for the commercial side of it. New commercial systems are required to have commissioning done, which is a third-party company that comes out Avaluate the system to ensure that it does meet the minimum compliance standards The HVAC equipment has additional requirements for ventilation fresh air and the energy efficiency ratings You're lighting now has to have occupancy sensors and daylighting controls where if there's enough light outside it will either dim or turn off the lights to save energy there. And then there are energy efficiency packages that the developers are allowed to choose to meet compliance so they have options there to meet the minimum standards. To kind of back this up and give you a better idea of how this affects our development community, we added this slide in. This was an independent study that was done by the Department of Energy strictly for the state of Texas in our climate area. As you can see, our average home is looking at $385 in savings. They're going to get $5,500 in savings over the average life cycle of the home, which is a normal mortgage. The additional cost up front to the buyer is only $2,200 and that only affects the mortgage by basically $70 a year with a payback in 3.7 years for that $2,000. So these energy efficiency requirements are actually a very minimal impact to our development community and they actually benefit the end home buyer in the long run. and home buyer in the long run. Discuss that the existing building code is a brand new code for everyone that it was part of the building code, but they broke it out to give it more leniency and ability to work with existing structures because everybody realizes that we're ending up with more buildings that need to be redeveloped and repurposed. We have a few updates to the fire chapter. In regards to the fire chapter, if there's any questions, I have Mr. J. Hinkel from Fire Prevention here to answer those. A few of the changes that were placed into the fire code, this cycle, is instead of coming in at the end of the fire, the fire is going to cycle, is instead of coming in at the end with an evacuation plan that is now required to be provided up front so we can look at it to ensure that they have adequate egress, stairways, door width and number of doors. So it's just changing the timing of when we normally see this document. Also we had a clarification and definition for storage of materials. The clarification was basically for abandoned wiring in ceilings to be sure that it is removed if that ceiling is opened up and work is done. This is actually not a new item. This has been in the fire code in the electrical code. This is something we have been doing for quite some time when work is done. Abandoned conduit wires, cables are required to be removed and discarded. Reason being is if we have an emergency event and our firefighters go in and start pulling ceilings down with the shepherd's hook, we don't want a spaghetti load of wires coming down on top of them and entangling them. So the fire code just clarified this definition of storage and what is included in that. The CO2 systems that are used for carbonated beverages, they added a section in here that if they are if they are put inside a very structure, there has to be protection provided, be it a detection system or a mechanical ventilation and an external fill connection for the trucks to hook their hoses to. Currently what we see are the tanks are placed outside. We have not had anyone at this point bring one to ask to put it inside of a structure. As long as they remain outside, they don't have to do any cap of detection or ventilation or add an extra fill point. The operational permit is something that has also always been required. It's just been clarified in this version of the international fire code. This is the updates for the mechanical electrical and plumbing chapters, which includes fuel gas code. There truly do significant changes to the mechanical code other than makes it clarifications and moving some sections around so they all lined up and you weren't going one place to another defined information. The NEC had a few more changes in it. Added arc fault circuit interruptors are now required in guest rooms and in suites and hotels and motels where before they and the rest of the day. We're going to have a couple of other things that we're going to do. We're going to have a couple of other things that we're going to do. We're going to have a couple of other things that we're going to do. We're going to have a couple of other things that we're going to do. We're going to have a couple of other things that we're going to do. We're going or they can have floor receptacles that way you don't end up with extension cords where in the past a meeting room like this would not have been required to have any outlets and we have extension cords once again a safety item from many aspects. Tampa resistant receptacles are now required in preschools and schools. Professional offices, corridors and gymnasiums protect those curious young children we have at the schools. This has been in the electrical code for homes for several cycles now. So it's just moving it into our schools and other areas where we have children. And then used equipment that is being used or relocated from one location to another now has to be certified through a third party testing agency. A nationally registered testing lab can do that, such as UL and some of our other ones. For our plumbing code changes, public restrooms are now not required in quick service occupancies, such as takeout restaurants, dry cleaners, those type of areas where you're in and out, where prior codes did ask that they be in there and available to the general public. We added a local amendment to reduce, I mean, sorry, increase the number of people before a water fountain is required, the plumbing code itself stated that if you had 15 or more you needed to put a drinking fountain in, we increased that to 30. Once again, be a little more flexible based on the type of use in these buildings. And our drain pans are not required under replacement water heaters when a drain plan was not previously located there. This will help out some of our homeowners that have over homes before drain pans and drain lines were even thought about or required so they don't have to go through the process of figuring out how to fit one or to get it outside. Now before I answer any questions, I do want to let y'all know as well. We did take additional time with this review and we're ending up deleting about 15% of the amendments we previously had by going through and getting rid of obsolete or amendments that were already in the code. So we have lessened the number of amendments, brought it more in line to be a general code. So when an individual goes from one city to another, they don't have a lot of changes to worry about. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Any questions or comments from Mr. Ripley? Yes, Dr. Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say thank you to you and your staff and others that worked on this and to all the staff that Planning that worked on because I know the hundreds and thousands of hours that went into this code I just want you for the sake of the audience here as well as the sake of home just to explain one thing that you told us in Committee which is why we're in a 2015-2017 code just to tell a little bit about that cycle You keep mentioning the cycle. I just want to make sure that the public that's listening understands why we're not in 2018 code, why we're in 2015, 2017. Thank you, sir. You're welcome. The reason we're using the 2015 codes is they have thoroughly been vetted at this time. The 2018 codes have just now been published. They have not been completely vetted through all the state agencies nor have they made the local level to be vetted out. So we're going to a set of codes that have been vetted through the state and locally to ensure that we are providing the best possible service and information to our development community. In addition to that, one of the piece I I do want to add with our amendments, we did take some amendments from prior codes that were deleted out and added them back in to add flexibility. An example of this is an atrium. The current code states that anything two stories or more would be considered an atrium, which would be like our entry lobby. And that would require additional ventilation, sprinkler systems, and some other criteria. We took language from the older code after researching it, talking with fire prevention, fire suppression, and change that to be atrium's or three stories or more. Thereby limiting that requirement to do additional work for somebody that has a small two or three story office building that they're wanting to put in. Go ahead. Thank you Mr. Ripley for making that comment and thank you also for giving that us that concrete example because I know that a lot of the development community has been very interested in this process and very much appreciate the fact that you've taken the time to look at what is more flexible for them and also to take into account all of their feedback on this process. So once again, thank you very much for all the work that's been done on this. I know this has been a labor but very much helpful for those that are interested in developing in our community. So thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Questions, comments? Thank you Mr. Ripley and express our thanks to your entire department. Appreciate all the work. Thank you sir. Okay next we will move to our Police Department annual report presentation from Chief I'm going to go ahead and move on. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council on Will Johnson, your police chief. I'm privileged to present the 2017 Arlington Police Department annual report. This presentation highlights some of the most pressing challenges experienced last year and celebrates some of our most pressing challenges experienced last year and celebrates some of our community's greatest successes. We will also discuss our priorities for 2018. In 2017, our profession continued to face numerous challenges including device of rhetoric that sought to undermine the very core of what police do in society. If you ask 100 cops why they serve, 100 cops will tell you they desire to make a positive difference in our community. Our officers have a servant's heart. They are dedicated to the mission and we will not allow ourselves to be distracted by negativity while serving this great community. We continue to emphasize relational policing in our partnerships and civic engagement activities. Community policing is not a program in Arlington. It's simply who we are. As your chief, I will always seek to provide opportunities to build trust, unity, and compassion throughout our community. Last year was exceptional for the department. Despite the rain in October, neighbors, cops, and city officials came out in overwhelming numbers to celebrate National Night Out. In this National Competition, our department took first place in Texas and ranked second nationally for communities 300,000 and larger. This is the second year in a row to achieve such a distinguished accomplishment. Through our ongoing strategic partnerships with the Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Service, or COPS Office, we receive grant funding for 15 new detectives who will assist us in managing increasing caseloads and handling the increasing task of digital media which I will discuss later. These detectives will focus on addressing violent crime and gun violence in our community. We hope to hire these positions in the upcoming July Academy class. In an unprecedented announcement, we received three national awards related to our Walmart Restortment of Justice Initiative from the International Association of Chiefs of Police or IACP. Last year, we deployed three teams of officers to support first responders in the greater Houston area to provide relief to communities devastated by Hurricane Harvey. Over 61 officers deployed to these communities and helped by responding to calls for service, supporting shelter operations, and doing damage assessments with our aviation equipment. We demonstrated the Arlington Can-Do attitude and reinforced the Mayor's Kindest campaign as we were working away from our home. I cannot express how many Arlington residents came to me personally and appreciated our community's efforts to help our fellow Texans. A photograph to picked in Corporal Damon Gary assisting a junior high student tying his first neck tie as part of the mentoring Arlington Youth Program took top honors as the Department Justice awarded APD with the Community Policing and Action Award. Our crime scene unit went through an exhaustive reaccreditation process to maintain their forensic inspection accreditation. This is a rigorous process and one that we subject ourselves to to maintain the highest degree of standards in our crime lab and to defend against wrongful prosecutions. Our tactical intelligence unit, or ATIU for short, won the 2017 Crime Stoppers Productivity Award. You can tell by these numbers that you can see that we continue to respond to a significant level of calls within our community. I want to draw your attention to the nearly 5,000 mental health calls that we responded As you can see, we continue to respond to a significant level of calls within our community. I want to draw your attention to the nearly 5,000 mental health calls that we responded to last year. I will discuss this topic further later in the presentation. DWI arrests continue to be a priority for us. As you know, driving while intoxicating is completely preventable. We had 29 deaths on Arlington roads last year with almost 40% of those crashes being linked to alcohol, drugs, or a combination of both. Our volunteers play a critical role in our day-to-day operations. With over 345 citizens actively participating in various tasks, our volunteers saved the department over $388,000 in resource hours. Volunteers are making a tremendous difference in our department. I'm excited to report on the continued growth of our hometown recruiting program. Officer Fred Kemp is doing an amazing job preparing students for a career in law enforcement, but more importantly, he is helping prepare these 45 Arlington teenagers for life. With every passing year, we are getting one step closer to hiring one of our hometown recruiting officers. As you, police chief, I'm always looking for opportunities to convey Arlington success at a national level. We have numerous individuals in the department that currently occupy key leadership roles and represent Arlington well. From our work with the IACP Board of Directors, the IACP Human and Civil Rights Committee, the Public Information Officer Section, Major City Chiefs, and our work with the Department of Justice, we are leading the way in advancing best practices in policing. Recently I had an opportunity to testify before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee on enhancing our response as a profession to hate crimes. We will continue to make positive enroads to ensure equal protection under the laws consistently applied in every jurisdiction. To that end, we were honored to participate last year in the Arlington Conversation on Race and confronting the alt-right movement at Cornerstone Church last year. This event served as a foundational event to keep this important conversation going within our community. Our Victims Services Award was recognized by Mayor Williams as a celebrated 30 years of service. This remarkable unit helps people when they needed the most and was one of its first of its kind in the state when it was first created. In 2017, nearly 11,000 crime victims were served by our counselors, and I'm extremely proud of their work. Commercial truck safety is important if you drive on our roads. As such, we have a dedicated group of officers that work to make sure that commercial motor vehicles are operated in a safe manner in the city of Arlington. One of our CVE officers, Cody Towns, won several state awards for his expertise in making Arlington roadways safer. And speaking of awards, our police youth explorer program under the leadership of officer Jeff Lee took several top honors in state competitions last year. Crime analyst Katrina Hickman won first place in an tactical crime bulletin award from the International Association of Crime Analysts and four of our officers, regrettably, four of our officers who were seriously injured in the line of duty received the Star Texas Award from the Governor. Now, I personally would disassume that we don't receive that award, but we had four officers that were injured and received that distinction. We also bestowed the Medal of Valor on four officers last year, Corporal Robert Phillips, Officer Eric Garcia, Leonard Lake, and Craig Roper. The Medal of Valor is reserved for exceptional bravery at great risk of loss of life or serious bodily injury. These awards effectively demonstrate the caliber of individuals that are serving this community. The state of policing continues to be very demanding on the department and our employees. This slide represents some of the most challenging topics that we face and offers insight into some of the department's highest priorities. Let's first look at use of force. We experienced six officer-involved shootings last year and a total of 39 officers were injured in the line of duty. Some of those injuries were minor, but some were significant including officers who were shot, seriously assaulted or run over by a vehicle. One of the worst calls that you can get is achieved is when one of your officers is injured. With the ever-present burden I feel to protect the safety of my officers. I challenged our team to form a new unit that will analyze police use of force incidents and look beyond whether the application of force was lawful and within policy. But more importantly, it will analyze these critical incidents to make sure that we have no gaps in our training to ascertain if there were better solutions that were available and to seek opportunities to reduce the likelihood of our officers being involved in a use of force encounter to begin with. Look, I get it. This is a dangerous profession and it's a dangerous job. And we will not be able to avoid all physical confrontations with violent offenders. In fact, just last week, officer Abernathy got into a physical fight with a felon in possession of a firearm who tried to pull a gun on our officers. You didn't hear about it in the news because we didn't kill her. We were able to wrestle her to the ground and take the gun away from her. But it's these sorts of incidents that keep me up at night and drives the importance of us being able to make sure that our cops receive the best training possible. As chief, my hope is that I can protect our officers by reducing the number of Use of force encounters that they're exposed to. And to this end, we will use our data to innovate, Enhanced our training tactics and to keep our employees safe and out of harm's way to the best of our ability. Last year, we noticed an uptick in violent crime early in 2017, and we instituted a violent crime task force that leveraged hot-spot analysis, intelligence on known offenders, and sought alternative enforcement options to deal with preventing criminals from reoffending. We have been publicly talking about fake guns for several years now. The accessibility and frequency by which suspects, displayed, BB guns, toy guns, and other replica weapons is extremely concerning. And we must have an effective strategy in place to deal with it. The mall shooting on Black Friday weekend was the most recent example of where we used deadly force to deal with a significant, credible threat that has been on our legislative agenda for several years. I am becoming more and more concerned about the prevalence of fake guns in our schools. Just last week, we had three schools going to lock down status based on an eight-year-old who brought a toy rifle to school in his backpack. We also had an incident in one of our high schools where a student brought a BB gun to school. We will continue to focus on this issue and the need to work with parents and educators to come together and have real dialogue with their children on this important topic. Social media robberies continue to be a risk in our community. We repeatedly advocate for citizens to use our safe exchange zones when meeting an unknown individual to buy property. Being a smart consumer recognizing the dangers related to online buying and selling forums, our goal is to reduce the opportunity for criminals to victimize our residents. Last year, we also focused on strengthening our partnership with federal law enforcement agencies to fight gun violence and violent crime by pursuing these cases in the federal court system. Oftentimes, federal convictions can produce stiff penalties for offenders. to fight gun violence and violent crime by pursuing these cases in the federal court system. Oftentimes, federal convictions can produce stiff penalties for offenders. We worked last year with John Parker, the former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, to send a clear message that we will not tolerate these types of criminals acting in our community. 19%, I'm sorry, we had 19 homicides in 2017. While this represents a nearly 10% decrease in the number of homicides we had in 2016, an analysis of our homicides over the past 10 years revealed that one in almost five deaths is drug related. Methane fetamine continues to be our greatest drug threat in our community, followed closely by prescription drug abuse and then marijuana. While heroin is a threat, we have not experienced the same opioid epidemic that has ravaged other communities in the United States. Another emerging threat is the unintended consequence of the legalization of marijuana in other states. While we are on record as strongly opposing the legalization efforts marijuana in other states. While we are on record as strongly opposing the legalization efforts in Texas, the action of other states has produced new challenges for law enforcement. And we are now seeing more marijuana coming into our community from other states such as Colorado and California. Our violent crime trended down 6% over the prior year when looking at our uniform crime report summary data. The drivers of the violent crime which we did have were aggravated assaults, crimes involving a firearm and robberies. We had significant arrests over the last year in these categories. If you follow my Twitter account you saw that I posted several high profile cases involving drugs and gun seizures. Stolen guns continue to be a threat in our community. There was a significant burglary that occurred in Missouri from a tractor trailer that was transporting guns to be distributed and delivered to a local sporting goods store, not in our community. We recovered two of these stolen guns in Arlington, Texas. This demonstrates how an offense in another state and another jurisdiction can impact our hometown. Property crime last year in Arlington rose a mere percentage point with retail thefts, shoplifting and motor vehicle thefts, driving these categories. Interesting to note, Walmart has received quasi-legal challenges to their award-winning restorative justice program in two other states other than Texas. Their goal was a desire to push out this successful Arlington program to all of their stores nationally. This has been placed on hold by the Corporation Seeks Federal Regulatory Relief from the actions of these two states. We have argued that Wal-Mart should continue the program in Texas since it's not being challenged here and is proven to be successful. At this point, Wal-Mart has declined. I anticipate that our theft offenses will continue to trend upward, absent Wal-Mart participating in this proven successful program. When comparing 2017 to 2016, we are statistically flat in overall crime. However, crime is down 31% over the last eight years. I think that's worth pausing for just a minute. Crime is down 31% over the last eight years. As I stated earlier, traffic safety is a top priority. Our community, like many others, continues to experience road rage incidents. In the past two weeks, we have responded to two separate road rage shootings. Operation Freeway Safety was launched last year in an effort to combat these types of crimes. In 2017, we've conducted over 88 team enforcement on our highways. Made 2,300 traffic stops issued 2,900 citations, made 30 arrests, and have sent out 124 letters to registered owners of vehicles whose vehicles were reported as engaging in aggressive driving behavior. Clearly this is important to us and we will continue our efforts to combat this unacceptable driving and criminal behavior in our community. Finally, D.W.I. enforcement officer Stacey Brown has done a tremendous job over the past several years partnering with our schools and other civic organizations to spread the message of the dangers of impaired driving. Stacey does a great job trying to influence our young people to make good decisions and think before they drive. Challenges related to mental illness is the greatest challenge facing law enforcement in the United States, in my opinion. Nationally, one out of four officer-involved shootings involves somebody with a mental illness. According to USA Today, one in five adults experienced some type of mental illness in their life while one in 25 are categorized as having a serious mental illness. Our department responded to over 4700 calls that had a mental health component. This is a significant officer safety and community issue. To equip our officers for the best possible outcomes, we invest a significant amount of time training our employees. The state mandates 24 hours of mental health training for officers. We provide hour recruits with 80 hours of training, including crisis intervention training and de-escalation tactics. In 2017, we provided an additional 16 hours of crisis intervention training to all of our officers in the department. And we also have 85 officers who are certified Texas mental health peace officers. Our department has partnered with Terrent County MHMR to create an integrated response model which has social workers embedded in our patrol operations. And finally, we are an active participant in the IACP's One Mind campaign. This initiative seeks to ensure successful interactions between police officers and persons affected by mental illness. But despite these robust efforts, there is not enough capacity in the mental health system to address the need. Until society confronts this reality, we will continue to have use of force encounters involving those with mental illness and we will continue to have outcomes of force encounters involving those with mental illness, and we will continue to have outcomes of those use of force encounters that are undesirable in which people want to know why that couldn't the police do something different. We are asking for the community's help, we are asking for legislative help, we are asking for your help. This is something that is absolutely an officer safety issue for each and every one of our cops. As I mentioned, relational policing is who we are. Our geographic accountability model at every level of our organization positions us to effectively build and foster positive relationships within our community. This is the foundation of our public safety strategy. We literally have dozens of ways for citizens to work with us to keep our community safe. We can't do it alone, we need their help. The program listed on this slide represent just a fraction of ways Arlington residents can get involved to make Arlington better. I'm often asked, chief, what are you doing to help youth in the community? And my response is a lot. And I need you to understand everything that we're doing so that you can help be an ambassador and talk about the programs in which we're doing. Coach 5-0 continues to be a huge success. We are in every high school supporting multiple sports and the neat thing about Coach 5-0 is that it offers the ability for our officers to tailor the program to their specific school and to their specific desires. What Lamar High School might be doing could be totally different than Seguin. I love seeing our cops on the football side line or cheering our players on at a basketball or volleyball game. We're doing great things with this initiative partnering with our coaches. Our POW camps are transitioning from a summer only based program to a year long program thanks to a strategic partnership that we have developed with the Boys and Girls Club. We hosted one of the largest high school citizens police academies last year and our award-winning mentoring Arlington youth program which was previously just for young boys, added the opportunity for girl students to join the program when we got the help of the Junior League of Arlington who assisted us in providing the number of women mentors necessary to be able to serve girls in the school. Here's a brief video that highlights our May program. The May program started in 2015 with an eye towards helping trouble teens and partnering them with the APD. Officers acting as mentors for boys who needed a helping hand. The first two classes showed how successful the program was and the time came to expand the program to include girls. The kids are blessed. You know, when you allow people to just be themselves in an environment where they feel safe and comfortable, it's amazing what you learn from each other. I am learning a lot. She probably doesn't, she's not aware of how much I'm learning from her. A lot of things that she goes through as a young woman, I didn't go through. We are really instilling wisdom and them through non-stitional efforts, and really non-stitional programming. With them, Ledness Know what's going on in their lives, and we're able to go back and give them positive feedback. I'm getting confidence for myself because I'm not very good with that. I'm kind of a shy person, but I'm gonna get a lot of more friendships because like most of these people I didn't even know before I stepped into this program. I understand it's a day by day what change is going to change overnight, with this program, so it's kind of fun. I want her to have confidence in who she is and working she achieve because she has a lot of potential and sometimes we don't see that. We feel somebody tells you or shows you the way and how to do that. I hope that she develops better people skills that she builds comfortable with law enforcement and just prepares and just kind of help build up her confidence. A lot of the officers are young and so they're able to connect with a lot of the new sayings and the way that our youth do things today. And so I rely on them to translate or just simply have fun with the kids. So it's been a blast. I have learned that I'm just hard. No matter what you show, it keep us smiling in your face. I think you can tell from that video that the programs like this, they're good for our kids, they're good for our officers, and they're good for our community. But yet there are still times whenever I'm challenged by individuals in a community that says that's not your job that's not your role. Why are you wasting resources doing that? I'm here to tell you that is absolutely untrue in my opinion. These programs are critical for building public trust and investing into the overall health of our community. And with your support as long as I'm police chief, we will make this a priority investing in our kids. As we transition to technology, we continue to experience technological changes within the department. Now this can be a good thing, but it also can put tremendous amount of stress on our team. We recently transitioned to a new records management system and that just kind of rolls off the tongue and doesn't do justice for the amount of organizational chaos that that actually created that the team had to lead through. It fundamentally changed every workflow within our department. But the team did a great job, and we are merging on the backside of that program with a successful implementation, and I'm proud of their work. The full deployment of body-worn cameras will be complete in a few short months. This has had an impact not only on our patrol officers using the cameras, but in supervisors reviewing the footage for compliance for policies and the amount of time detectives spend processing body camera footage to file their criminal cases. Open records request and intergovernmental agency requests continue to rise and we continue to try to institutionalize just how we approach managing the significant increase in records that are being produced through the Body Worn Camera Project. It is also worth a brief mention that over the last year we transitioned to a new electronic citation device after our previous devices reached their natural end of life. Crime Reporting. On today's agenda, immediately after this presentation, you have an informal staff report that provides you a great deal of detail on the department's transition from the uniform crime report or UCR summary report to the UCR National Incident Base Reporting System or Nibers. We switched in January of 2017 and now have one full year of Nibers crime reports. All Texas agencies are required to make this transition by 2021. As an elected official, it's important for you to understand the differences between these two systems. The primary difference involves how crime is categorized and reported. Under the UCR Summary Report, crime is reported in a hierarchical system of one of seven offensive categories that is then reported to DPS and then ultimately reported to the FBI. Under Nibers there are over 50 crime classifications and each crime incident may involve multiple offenses being reported, not just one in a hierarchical system. Very simply you cannot compare UCR summary crime data to UCR Nibers crime data and vice versa. One analogy that might help you understand this better is comparing miles to kilometers. Both are units of measurement that measure distance, but trust me, running five miles is different than running a 5K. And so there's not a direct comparison. Another important factor to understand is UCR summary data once reported never changes, where Nibers Data can and will change as it's reported because reporting structure involves the use of dynamic data, not just static historical reports. I wanna highlight the fact that social media is a tool that is effective in helping us communicate to our community and beyond. Last year we reached over 42 million people through Facebook, Twitter and our YouTube channel just in the police department. Telling our story and the excellent work that our team does is vital. But not everything on social media is productive. It's unfortunate, but true, people will say whatever they want with no regard for the facts on social media. This presents a challenge for our department and for our community. Recently, we dealt with a situation where an individual posted that a family member was almost kidnapped at a local business. This caused significant community concern and was shared extensively on social media. Detectives determined that the post was not accurate and further determined that no criminal offense took place. However, even after providing the individual with these facts, they refused to take down their original post and basically insinuated that they could write whatever they wanted to on their social media account. Although this case, and in this case, that might be legally true. It is not socially responsible, and it causes great community harm. And we must all advocate for social responsibility and urging individuals to guard against believing, unverified social media post as true just because it shows up on their newsfeed. Sometimes, however, we deal with a different threat on social media. Sometimes suspects intentionally try to deceive the police using social media. We have experienced several swatting incidents, which is an incident where an individual creates a fake account or a clone telephone number to report a false crime in an effort to prompt an overwhelming police SWAT response. In these incidents, some communities have made national headlines because of the consequences of that police response. Thankfully our staff have quickly determined our incidents to be faked and avoided some of the more tragic outcomes that we have seen in other communities. But I just want to remind Council that this remains a persistent and very real threat in our community. Finally, social media can impact our school safety. We have arrested six kids in the last three weeks for threats directed at our schools. Some of these threats were conveyed through social media. With the support of Council and the City Manager's Office over the last year, we continue to invest in our workforce. I'm appreciative of your support and the result, resultant impact that these programs have had for our employees. Last year, we transitioned our patrol operations to a 410 alternative works schedule. This has been a significant improvement for our officer's wellness. Additionally, we have deployed new resources to help with officer safety, including additional rifles, ballistic shields, enhanced protective ballistic vest, and helmets in go bags for our officers who may have to respond to an active shooter. As I stated earlier, we are focused on getting additional help for detectives as they manage increasing responsibilities and case filing requirements. And we have made staffing a priority for the past three years and have received grant funding for 45 new officers over that time period. The end result is improved staffing to deal with the public safety needs in our community. And finally, I'm happy to announce that we are in the process of finalizing an MOU with AISD to house our new force simulator at the Dan Dipper Career Technical Center. While our hometown recruiting students will be able to use this new technology, I'm really excited about the scenario training that all of our officers will be able to participate in when the simulator comes online later this year. Once we are operational, I will schedule an opportunity for Council to come and experience just how difficult it is for police officers to make life and death decisions while under emotional and physical stress in a use of force encounter. I wish you good luck before you do it. I'm not going to spend too much time talking about the 21st Century Policing Report because we just recently presented it before Council. I do, however, want to highlight it as one of the most significant accomplishments in 2017. We continue to host other police agencies who want to learn about the Arlington experience because of their review of this report. It's a testament to every officer that makes up this great department. So as I begin to conclude my presentation, I wanna share some of our ongoing challenges. Throughout this presentation, I have provided you insight in the complexity of tasks, officers face on a daily basis. For them to be successful we must ensure that they continue to receive the best training available and that we expand our capacity to meet the growing demand of topics that society insists officers be trained on. We've already discussed the challenges of managing technology in the department. This challenge will be persistent in the coming years as technology continues to change. Managing the perception of crime in our community and the impact of negative social media and unvedited statements or just flat out misrepresentations of truth will continue to stress our community and stress our department and challenge our response on these areas. We must continue to monitor the legislative process and ensure our voices heard while guarding against the intended or unintended consequences of state and federal legislative mandates, particularly those mandates that are unfunded. And finally, we must meet the financial challenge of the expanded cost of doing business while meaning fiscally responsible. Our focus in 2018 will be on known offenders, drugs and guns. By concentrating on these primary drivers, our goal is to achieve crime reductions in violent crime. We must also have the right educational component, community engagement strategy and enforcement efforts to send a clear message that we won't tolerate gun crime, gun crime, or known offenders victimizing our residents. As we move beyond 2018, we will meet these challenges through relational policing. By engaging our neighborhoods, our youth, and our business community, we will attack these identified challenges that I've presented. It's an opportunity for us to forge genuine and caring relationships with every citizen that we come in contact with. When citizens have positive relationships with our officers, community members feel a sense of trust and loyalty to our hometown, which leads to a stronger Arlington. This annual report is a testament to the hard work of the men and women in the Arlington Police Department that sacrificed and served this community daily. But they couldn't do that without your continued support and without the continued support of a great and passionate community that cares deeply about their department. I thank you for that support. I'm grateful to serve in this great community and I'm prepared to answer any questions that you might have. Questions, comments for Chief Miss Walman. Chief, that was a, I love the report. It's positive and it tells what our police departments really all about. But I want you to go back over one statement that you made because I want all our citizens to hear it. And I believe you said since 2010, overall crime in Arlington, Texas is down 31%. Is that correct? That is correct. That's awesome. And thank you for all your good work and for all the staff that you have. They've just done an incredible job for us. Thank you. Others, Dr. Mars. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to thank you again for that amazing report. And I want to highlight one thing that jumped out at me because I heard a quick conviction in your heart when you said this when you said we're investing in our kids. And I just want to say all those programs, especially the expansion of the May program to young women, has been a very impactful in the city city and I commend the department for continuing to put resources your time and attention into that and all the officers who spend their off time on that. I think that's a significant when we invest in our kids, we invest in our future and I thank you for that. Thank you for allowing us to do that. Mr. Parker. Thank you, Mayor. Chief great report. Thank you very much. And thanks, Aurelcon Foul, for the job they do in our community. They do a standing job, and I understand why you are rated so highly within the United States as a department. There are a couple of things that I wanted to touch on. I was interested in your statement about the aviation unit going down to Harvey and utilized down there. Could you expound upon that just a little bit about how effective that was in some of the problems that you saw down there? It's tremendously effective. So as you know, we were the largest city, the first large urban city in the United States to get FAA authorization to fly unmanned aviation systems in complex airspace. And we've seen that the technology evolved over the last 10 years or eight years or so since we've been in that space. The units themselves have become smaller, more portable, and more deployable. And most of the missions that we fly are what can be referred to as like a periscope mission. Meaning we will go up to get an elevated position, take in 360 degree aperture of what the environment might be and then come back down. Very useful in tactical scenes, very useful in looking for people in brush conditions. And in our response to Harvey, it was extraordinarily helpful because it gave people an opportunity because there was an incredible demand on aviation assets and they were taxed to the limit. So they weren't always available in the broader region for a local sheriff or a local police department that was impacted. They didn't have that asset to go up to see the extent of the flooding, to see kind of where the swell was and the anticipated reduction of that runoff water, and they could actually plan their operations around the data that we were able to give them to try to make the best use of the limited resources that they had. Cool, cool. I have one other question. If I'm not you talked about auto theft or auto burglaries and theft in some of our establishments as far as shoplifting and so on and so forth. And you mentioned the Walmart initiative. And anyway, I was wondering if the Walmart down on Randall Mill is the issue that is most creates more of a problem for you than any place else. So quite simply, not just the Walmart on Randomil, we have three Wal-Marts in our community. Before our restorative justice program, how Walmart went was how our crime rate went. So they were responsible for the overwhelming majority of our theft calls, our shoplifting calls. And so that's why this program was so significant. Not only did it take into consideration social justice reform and trying to divert kids out of being labeled for the rest of their life for low level petty theft, where there was a suitable alternative consequences that they could redeem themselves by. It also helped our community because it reduced our overall crime rate. And so as that program is scaled down because Wal-Mart's position at this particular point is all or nothing, national program or no program. And we are seeing an incremental increase in the number of offenses at Walmart, absent intervention on Walmart's behalf. I believe that we will return to previous program numbers within all three of all Wal-Mart's in the community. Well, also, echo Ms. Myers' sentiment about working with our youth, the Coach 5.0 program up at Lamar, May program, the rec, all that stuff, all youth intervention, youth at risk type programs, all initiated by our police department and just a great job. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Glassman. Thank you, Mayor. Again, great job. Just on what he's saying. Would you share with us how you work with the school district to assure that the right program is being done the right place? So one of the key successes that we've been able to do with these youth programs is try to keep them as organic as we possibly can. We're a large organization, the school district is a large organization, but we've got five school districts in town, right? And so to the extent that we get a willing educator, somebody that is passionate about kids and wants and is willing to connect with us and a passionate police officer on that topic, well then they can give them a broad goal and let them define what the course looks like. And so that's why, you know, in some schools we've got mentors for the cross country team. Other schools we don't, not because we're opposed to supporting that school, but I had a cop that wanted to connect in cross-country, and they had a connection, a relationship, with the school that they chose, right? And so we're constantly trying to create those opportunities where coaches, educators, and cops can interact and find those commonalities, and then give them the freedom to discover what the art of the possible is, as they start just trying to serve kids in any manner that we can find that's productive. Other questions comments? Miss Cape Art. Thank you mayor. Thank you chief. It was a great report and I appreciate so much not only your presentation but the men and women behind you that do such a great job in this community. One of the concerns that I've noticed recently and have had comments about from my constituents is that the amount of speeding that's happening on our roadways, I don't really put it that obviously in the category of road rage, but I travel 287 a great deal. It's highly congested as it did not used to be, but just yesterday there was a very fancy sports car that came up behind us and trying to go through the traffic and leaving in and out and doing all those kinds of things and people got afraid because they were afraid to move over to letting past but they were afraid to stay where they were It's so and so Well my way home I decided to come Cooper Street, but go home by come I encountered the same kind of thing, but was a different car so in one day And I know that's very isolated for me But I'm certain if I saw it twice in one day, it's happening far more frequently than that. What can be done to help with that? Well, honestly, man, the only thing that can really combat that is a well-crafted ticket, right? Or taking somebody to jail for aggressive driving. I saw a video that somebody shared recently of a vehicle aggressively driving in the breakdown lane on 287 North just passing people on the shoulder. Completely unacceptable. And so the reality is, is we need to maintain visual presence and deterrence through traffic enforcement. I will tell you that there's several challenges that I have on that topic. First and foremost is, as we deal with the full palette of opportunities to serve in the community, all of them take time. So every one of these youth engagement programs that we have, it takes time. And that time comes at the expense of something. The second thing is traffic enforcement nationally has gone down. It is a national phenomenon where officers are stopping fewer cars on a national level and we see it on the state level and we certainly have experienced it here in Arlington. And so, and there's a couple of reasons for that, I believe. Not the least of which was a survey and research finding from the Pew Institute that I think I shared with Marin Council last year called Behind the Badge. And it basically was measuring the Ferguson effect on law enforcement in which in a very simplistic sort of statement is the emotional and behavioral response changes in law enforcement based on the possibility of some targeted viral video and what that might mean for the officer. And so we've been trying to work through that as an agency. When we speak about employee wellness, we talk about the value of the four tens. The value is giving officers an opportunity to have more decompression time so that they can stay engaged on the most meaningful topics, right? But we also need to increase the number of traffic stops when we're having direct conversations with the cops about just exactly the value of those traffic stops we're making. And we're having direct conversations with the cops about just exactly the value of those traffic stops. And the subsequent value of things that we find on traffic stops. This morning I tweeted out a picture of about a pound or so of marijuana along with several thousand dollars of cash. I think it's $12,000 of cash and a couple of guns in a car that we got off a traffic stop, right? And so there are many, many other criminal behaviors that we find whenever we stop cars. And so an organizational emphasis right now is really talking about the value of traffic stops looking beyond just why you stopped them, but also taking an opportunity to exercise appropriate discretion. If they don't need a ticket, fine, give them a warning. But if we need to change their driving behavior, issue them a ticket because absent that ticket, we're still gonna have aggressive driving taking place. Well, as the council representative for my district, I will tell you the most frequent complaint I get with regard to policing is speeding. And so why don't I see an officer running patrol at such and such okay, why, and it's always a speeding issue. Now, occasionally it's maybe car break in or something, but the most prevalent thing I hear is speeding. So I hear you with regard to the Ferguson effect and I certainly sympathize with the officers but is the representative of the people what I'm hearing from the people is they want more enforcement. Thank you. I would agree and I would also encourage any citizen that contacts you on that topic to call us. We need to be able to hear that concern. We need to be able to respond to that concern. As we have geographic accountability, those leaders that are accountable for those neighborhoods need to be accountable to that concern and demonstrate what they've done to respond to that concern. So we will gladly receive any of those complaints. Any other comments, questions? Chief, I just wanna express, I thank you to you and the rest of the department on incredible work that is taking a lot of extra time. And we see these programs, they have to be developed and then implemented. And our police force is putting a lot of extra time in to make them happen and to make them successful and then also applying creativity and expertise that is being recognized nationally. And that's something I think all of us have got to continue doing and to our TV audience we have got to express the appreciation here to our police department for doing an incredible job that has really made our police department one of the best in the country if not the best. And we appreciate the sacrifice of dedication and commitment. And then I know that so many other cities are having trouble getting policemen. And I know that it's still a challenge because it's such a hard job now and today in the 21st century. But one of the most inspirational things that I have attended was the police academy graduation here just a week and a half ago. It was phenomenal to see those 41 new officers come in, the enthusiasm and the caliber of people and the diversity that was there in that class was just... that were shared both by their instructors and by each one of the students. They gave you hope, gave you inspiration for what is going to take place here in our community because of that, because all the time, we have great officers that have put in their 30 years, they're graduating, but yet the future does look bright. They're in our police department because of that. Now that being said, I really appreciate the citizen engagement that is taking place, but yet I think we have all got to step it up because of what you shared with in social media, because people will put things on there to undermine our police force and I don't know what the motives are but they're not true. We cannot get our news from Facebook or other social media. We have got to be out there and refute that because I know that counsel and us if we are constantly having to track down these bogus reports there on it. And I think the best way is for us there to give the our citizens a comfort that they need to know that when they hear something outlandish on there on Facebook is probably not true, instead of jumping to the conclusion that, oh, that's true when it's not. The other part there too, as ambassadors, we got that job to do, but then also another challenge that you mentioned, the cost of public safety continues to go up both monetarily in a financial way. Now we saw that with the body cams. Well, that's new technology. We needed to invest in to make our department better. They're in it. We continue to have those resources. And this is a one that is so hard to predict when you start trying to forecast a budget and start forecasting years out. And that's something to I think that we are going to have to communicate to our citizens and then also to our fellow state legislators there about the challenge that we are faced with because public safety has got to come first and what we need to do to take care of our people we're going to do. The other thing to demonstrate the cooperation that exists in Arlington, Texas here are city and under this topic of school safety and so forth. Our chief is very much engaged with our school district, working together here in addressing another, what can I say, in studying the different things that are happening around in other schools around the country and then coming up with the best solution to our own situation here and of course we are in better shape than a lot of other cities. But yet still I appreciate the fact that our chief is connected nationally and internationally to what is happening with other cities, other police forces and able to draw on all that knowledge, but then able to also apply that to what we need to do locally here to help provide the best safety we can, including our schools there with it. I'm going to stop talking, Chief, but there are just so many things here in this, but thank you for that report and there's anything you want to add to. Mayor just to share with council I was invited last Thursday we presented to the school board as topics worthy of exploration for additional work. Number one, the absolute need for an expanded and strategic communication plan to be able to talk with parents, all the different educators on campuses and kids related to not only what we see elsewhere in the United States, but on school threats. I can't keep arresting kids every week. That's not the solution. We got to come up with another solution and we believe that exploring a strategic communication plan is key. We're in the process of reviewing all of the crisis response plans to be clear. AISD is responsible for their own response plans. We are responsible for making sure they have access to us to see what the integrated response will be if we're called to their campus, right? And so our SROs are going through the process of helping them with their on-campus assessment, but then we're also doing a review and our scheduling table tops to be able to test and just the proficiency and the thoroughness about how people execute the plan. Because in policing, we know that the first thing that goes out the window in a critical instant is the plan, right? And so you just got to be able to adapt and overcome. We've recommended that we explore a multidisciplinary risk assessment team. Think about the Alliance for Children and kind of all the resources that we bring together to try to make sure that nobody falls through the gaps. We think that there might be some value on school campuses to do something similar. Oftentimes, if there's a criminal element, we're pretty good at identifying and responding to that. If there's a code of student conduct issue, the school is pretty good at responding and dealing with that. It's whenever it's not criminal and it may not necessarily be a violation of code of criminal conduct that the at risk behavior might need an intervention, but it doesn't rise to the level to be able to do something. We're gonna try to address that. We're going to look for opportunities to seek ways to maximize community support of campuses. Law enforcement is not the only tool that we have as a community to make our campuses safe. Old fashioned parenting and having adults present with kids helps make kids safe, right? And then, you know, AISD, like I mentioned earlier, is similar to the city, it's a big organization, right? It's got multiple different campuses all over town. It's difficult to make sure that you had the highest levels of consistency from one campus to another, whenever you're a large entity. We need to make sure that we help provide feedback from our perspective about possible inconsistencies so that we can make sure that we strengthen those and that we're approaching all of these topics from a unified perspective on every campus. And those are the things that we as a staff will be doing to help strengthen the school safety protocols in place. And one last thing, in the interim of Parkland, I elevated all calls for service for any of our campuses in our community to priority one calls. We will do that for the foreseeable future, evaluate the impact and assess whether or not we should return to a call- based prioritization or a location based prioritization. And that's something that we're also evaluating. Thank you, Chief. And express our thanks to the entire department. Really appreciate all of this. We have a short time to get through several things. So what we're going to do is go to 4-1, which you're about to be up on, and then the aging well expo, and then we'll just see if any of the committee meetings have any times, any committees have any time-sensitive things that they need to report out there with it. So with that, Chief, we'll go to police department transition to national incident-based reporting system. Chief, you have anything else? I can answer any questions you might have on crime reporting processes. Mr. Glass, please. Thank you, Madam. The only question I had was what impact is this going to have on productivity about police? Because it almost seems to me that's going to take a lot more time to do all the it's not going to impact the officer we already had expanded internal data collection as it related to crime and we actually simplified what we collected to report it to UCR what it will do is it will make what we collect versus what we report much more similar now. Any other questions for the chief? All right, thank you, chief. Thank you. Well, I'm excited about the next topic here, Agingwell Expo, and the NARA floor staffer at our Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation is gonna give us a report on that. Thank you, Council Mayor. It's gonna be a quick one because I know we're running out of time, but it's really important I wanted to get up here before the actual expo, which is on March 21st from 9 to 2. The success the success of last year's event necessitated us to move to the Arlington Convention Center. So from the Bob Duncan Center is just it was expansive so we had to do it. the a free box lunch. Our feature keynote speaker is David Lieber presenting watch dog nation how to protect yourself from scammers which I think is very timely now but the most important thing this spectacular event will not have a financial impact on the city so we want everybody to come out and I welcome any questions. Any questions from council? You did a great job explaining it to us. So they can register online. Can they do it tomorrow or just have to be by tomorrow? No, they can do it tomorrow. So it's the last day. They can register. Yes, ma'am. That's great. Thank you so much. Thank you. We look forward to it. Committee members Mr. Glass-V from municipal policy do you have any time sensitive information you need to share with us today? Not really time sensitive. We just reviewed the town hall and and survey and there some other things we need to look into fairly closely and in the process. The context of city is trading to help. Work with this problem and then on the nation boxes we got into a discussion about possible other areas we might want to zone and decided we'd hold that and finish next time. So. It's your partner. Michael, do we have some kind of a timeframe that we're going to get information for the short-term rentals to Council? I would, I can't give you a definitive time, but it should not be too long because with the results we got from the town hall and the survey coupled with assessing kind of what we have in place now, that's one of the things we're gonna look at next time to kind of define what gaps there are and how we might go about addressing those gaps. Mr. Galasfi on those, the town halls that we had on the short term rentals, did we get quite a bit of response meaning written response or just verbal response from the people in attendance? Yeah well we got we had about almost 295 people participating on town hall and we had a 155 participate in our survey so we had a pretty pretty good response. Great so we really got a good turnout there basically with feedback. Thank you. Miss Walman, transportation, municipal infrastructure? Yes, it's not time sensitive, however, I can go very quickly. And we do have one exciting thing that I would like to do. It just takes two minutes. Sure, no. But we received an update on the Texas Innovation Alliance, and that's a group of cities, transit agencies, and research institutions that have come together. They came together first in 2016 in Austin. We're a member of that. And they're still, it's a textot innovation that they are putting together. They're very little details about exactly how it's gonna work. They're still in the, let's say the embryo stage of doing it, but they are having another summit this fall, and it's going to be held in Arlington, Texas. So we got the update that that would be happening here in our city. The thing that I would like to do just for the community, and for those that large about the Transportation situation in Arlington was that yesterday morning on CBS news National news we had a quick little thing. It's only a two minute and if it's okay if we've got two minutes Okay, let's play a national who speaks about us. Yes, we'd like for everybody to see it on who's peace about us. Yes, of course. We'd like for everybody to see it. One Texas city is trading public buses for ride sharing. Arlington is produced commuter buses in 2013, but now the city has abandoned them. Replacing them with a new partnership with the ride sharing company, VIA. Bands pick up passengers on demand for a $3 ride. Arlington is the first US city to experiment with this kind of venture. Chris van Cleve went to Arlington to show us the cost-saving innovation. Good morning. This is where you used to wait for a bus in Arlington, Texas. But you'd be waiting a long time. Now, as the sign says, the city dropped its bus service, going for more of a virtual bus stop that you summon with an app. And here is what the new city buses look like. It's actually a ride share. Arlington, Texas wants to know if this could be the answer to mass transit in the Uber age. The city partnered with app-based ride sharing service via to operate 10 vans to shuttle residents, replacing the city's four-year-old commuter bus service. The commuter bus didn't apply to me at all because it didn't take me where I needed to go. Since January, Bill O'Toole's left his car at home and commuted with via, summoning the van from his phone for a flat fee of $3 a ride or a weekly pass for $10. The fees are partially subsidized by the city. Stress at work has been alleviated, and it's probably just the fact that I'm not starting stressed. You really hate driving? I really hate driving. Getting around Arlington without a car is not easy. It's a sprawling community of 99 square miles and sits 12 miles from Fort Worth and 20 from Dallas. But Arlington residents have repeatedly voted against spending money to build a mass transit system. When the bus line was scrapped, ridership had fallen to as little as 100 people a day on its single route through downtown. Do you see buses and rail as... Passe as outdated technology? Absolutely. I think that with the new technology that's coming on, you're going to see very little light rail built because this is so much cheaper. Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams. It's a pilot program. You know, if it didn't work, well, we can go on to something else. And it's a fraction of spending $50 million a mile for light rail. Arlington residents are taking to the virtual buses. In its first month, VIA provided more than 5,000 rides at a 97% customer approval rating. Thank you so much. Alex LaVoy from VIA. We're going to pick you up with a block or two where you want to get picked up. We're not going to pick you up at a few fixed pick up locations within the city. It's quite a convenient solution. And we think for that reason, people will really enjoy it and so far they really have been. The city is planning on expanding the program to cover 120,000 of its residents by this summer. And if they're filling up the Vee of Vans, they let to go city wide in the next couple of years. For CBS this morning, Chris van Cleve, Arlington, Texas. It's working there. Thank you, Chris, very much. So anyway, I think that was really a good piece and I'm glad that some of our citizens watching this afternoon got to see it and we will move on. Questions council. That's why cool. In national news, it can't hurt our image. No, no, no, no. All right, Ms. Wolf, community neighborhood development. Yeah, just quickly nothing imperative. We did get an update on the Collins Street Pioneer Parkway design along that international corridor. We did understand that it was presented to P&Z and passed unanimously by P&Z, and it will be coming to this council on March the 20th. So we can have lots of questions and move that forward. And then we continued with our CDBG program, HUD, and we're preparing to go to public comments. March 21, April 3rd. And we'll continue to work with the providers. And it was very good meeting. Questions, Council? Thank you, Ms. Wolf. Point Ms. Taboritz and commissions, do we have any? No appointments this evening. No appointments tonight. Evening agenda items. Anybody have a question? We have a continued public hearing on the Phantom Farms, what I refer to as the Phantom Farms real side. Everybody clear on that and they need any questions answered by staff? Seeing none. Issues relative to city and textile projects. And future gendators. Seeing none, we are adjourned. Thank you.