you you you you you you you you you you I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to and call the afternoon session of the City Council meeting to order. Hope everybody had a good holiday season and off to a brand new 2025. We're going to go into a closed session pursuant to VTCA Government Code Chapter 551.071072072087. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Okay. We'll go ahead and call the city council session back to order. We're going to move on down to 3.1 and this room. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Jay Warren. Director. We're going to try. Director of Communication and Legislative Affairs. Happy New Year to you all. I think it's safe to say that the intergovernmental relations is busy year round. But we have a couple of times where we really hit a busy stretch, if you will. And in particular, we're in one, or about to begin one right now. Not only are we having the beginning of a new Congress, as well as the inauguration of a new president, but starting next week will be in the next legislative session for the state of Texas. And so our IGR manager, Natalie Ralston, and the lead up to this has done a lot of work. As she and I have all met with you all related to the legislative agenda, which went through committee process and approval by the council. We've met with departments asking them what issues they see out there so we can have all of that on our radar. Also, she's worked really hard on how we will get information out to the different departments throughout the course of the session so that she can get good intel back from them that we might be able to use to impact legislation moving its way through the Texas House and the Texas Senate. So with that, she also will be more communicating with you all more and more during the session. So you're up to date on the issues that are of importance to the city and all that is again tied to our legislative agenda that you all passed last fall. So I want Natalie to come up. Share some of the work she's been doing and how she'll be communicating with you all. In addition to that, I'll tell you about some key dates that will be coming up as we go through the legislative session. So Natalie. Thank you, Jay. Good afternoon, Mayor, Councilmembers. Natalie Ralston and our governmental relations manager. I'll just go into a little bit more depth on the things that Jay has covered. As you know, the 89th legislative session opens next Tuesday and I'm going to give you a brief overview of how our organization manages it, or rather manages your expectations relative to the session, and what you can expect from the IGR team going forward. So I'm going to cover how we've prepared for session, what happens during a post session, including how you're kept aware of the changing landscape, and how the organization, each of you, engages with the process and with the city's delegation. So like Jay said, back in March of last year, we kicked off the process of putting together the city's state and federal legislative agendas for 2025 and 26. And it's something we do every year, two years ahead of the new legislature in Congress. At your place, you'll find a copy of the current state legislative agenda. And if you'll please leave this here at the end of the meeting, it'll be available for you every council meeting throughout session. There are also copies in your office, including federal copies, but if you need another of either one of them, just let me know I have several to spare. So the process for developing the agenda involved serving the departments and meeting with directors to understand their needs and concerns and seeking input from each of you. All that information is pulled together into five key areas for which we share with the municipal policy committee for feedback and bring to the full council for final approval. Those five key priority areas for this session are on your screen and in the agenda in front of you. And I won't go over them here. Since adopting the legislative agenda, we've been meeting with members of the delegation to discuss the priorities. These meetings have included the mayor, a council member, Jay and me, and we're still working through these, so if you haven't been scheduled for one yet, don't worry. I've still got a few more to get on the books. Bill analysis, which happens before and during session, is an ongoing process. As of yesterday, 2443 bills and resolutions have been filed so far. And out of those, we have flagged 667 that could impact the city, so we're working with departments and the City Attorney's Office to analyze them and look at the specific impacts they might have on the city. Moving into session itself, let's go over some key dates. As I mentioned, more than 2,000 bills and resolutions have been filed as of yesterday, and legislators have until March 14th to file bills and started doing so on November 12th when the window opened. The 89th legislature will kick off next Tuesday, January 14th, then we'll adjourn on Monday, June 2nd. And for this year, Tarant County days at the Capitol are scheduled for February 10 and 11, the itinerinerary is almost finalized, so once we have that, we'll get with you for get those details. So bill analysis will continue throughout the sessions, and spills can be amended or changed during committee or floor hearings. And I won't go into that right now, but I'll keep you updated as things progress. Like Jay said, the analysis, the analysis from the departments and the City Attorney's Office is really important because it helps our team work with our legislators and partners to make sure these priorities and concerns are highlighted that you've highlighted or heard and hopefully addressed. Starting with the next council meeting and continuing through the end of session, we will include a legislative update memo in each afternoon agenda. This will cover high priority bills and any activity at the legislature since your last meeting. But if something urgent comes up in between council meetings, I will update you right away so that you're in the loop at all times, as close to as all times. And finally, once session is over, you'll receive a comprehensive wrap up presentation that covers everything from session and the anticipated impact on the city. Looking at ways to engage this session, there are plenty of opportunities for both the organization and for you specifically to get involved with the process and connect with the delegation. So we've covered the dates for Tarant County days, but that is an event where residents, community leaders, and officials from Tarant County gather in Austin to engage with the county state lawmakers and promote the county's shared interests. There are also often special advocacy days for specific house and senate districts or for certain issues or industries that our departments are involved with or that might be relevant to your personal your professional background and your work on the council. And as these events get scheduled we'll look at them to see if we should participate in those. We also work closely with our partners like the School Districts, the University, the Chamber, CVB, Arbor, Neighborhood Groups, others to align with common priorities throughout the session, and this includes my continuous contact with other municipal IGR managers from North Texas and around the state. And then lastly, as needed, we'll work with each of you to identify targeted opportunities for you to connect with our delegation on specific legislation that leverages your individual relationships with the legislators. So, in closing, as we work on these efforts, it's important to remember collaboration is key. And while the regular update memo does a lot of the leg work for keeping this body updated, it's impossible to keep you all up to date on everything at all times. So anytime there's a question or concern, call me, email me, text me. I think you all have my cell phone numbers. If you don't, I'll make sure your coordinators have it. It's impossible to keep you all up today on everything at all times. So anytime there's a question or concern, call me, email me, text me. I think you all have my cell phone numbers. If you don't, I'll make sure your coordinators have it. I'm available anytime you have a question regardless of the update memo. So before I give it back to Jay over here, are there any questions I know I kind of spend? Councilor Vassal. quickly Miss Rosten, can you tell me about any bills or anything in our agenda about public infrastructure? Yes, ma'am. Because the five priority areas are not the only areas that the city focuses on. There's a bucket in the agenda called legislative guiding principles that covers anything that's not specifically called out. It includes things for the needs of large metro areas like infrastructure. So it gives us the flexibility to advocate for anything that's not specifically called out. Thank you very much. Yes, ma'am. So that means we'll be pushing on court to upgrade the electrical grid in Arlington, right? We will definitely be supporting that efforts as it works. It's way more guesser. This is a question for both of you. There is an opportunity, well, not opportunity. I guess a chance that someone who represents parts of Arlington could be one of the top three most important elected officials in the state of Texas, because David Cook is in a contest against dusted burrows for becoming speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. Do you have any sort of tea leaves reading or summary on that you can share? As we've been going through the legislative meetings with the different delegation members, we've asked that question and I have no clear consensus other than we'll see what happens Honestly, I think you there's lots of different schools of thought and there's even some school thought that there may be a Third person who may come from behind that isn't either one of the two announced candidates right now that may end up prevailing so it will just have to wait and see what happens when they take the vote. Good, yeah. Thank you. Council Member Odom Weissley. Yes, thank you for the report and for staying on top things. Would you just share about your procedure for analyzing the bills? I know you got some new software. Just want to have the whole council hear how that works. Yes, ma'am, I haven't fully deployed that new software out to the department yet, but we do have an AI software that's going to help read bills. I'm still getting onboarded with that process to look at that, but it will hopefully make things quicker and allow us to be more responsive to things. As it stands right now, when a bill comes in, I put it into an internal tracking software that I T created and I just route that. It's a heavy manual process, pulling information out of the state website, putting it into BuildTracker, routing it to Lindsay's and Jays and other directors. They input their feedback. It reports back to me. This new software will speed that process up by providing an analysis and advance of how would affect municipalities as a whole and make it easier for directors to look at the specifics for our elected. But I have not fully rolled that out just yet. Yes, ma'am? I saw other hands. Council Member Hogg. Yeah, thank you. Thanks Natalie. Natalie is the legislature. They're slow, slow, then they start moving really fast and very expeditiously. When we have an amendment or a bill that needs a quick opposition to, how will that come from us? Sometimes a letter or always you hope to testimony, at least a letter, hand delivered by yourself, one of, or from our legislative consultants on that side. Would that letter be addressed from the mayor? What would it be to show that our council does not support that? How would you go about that process? It has typically been from the mayor on an as needed basis. I'm working to create some templates to make that process faster, so that I can just shoot it over blanket approval. And if multiple or more than one of you want to be involved in those letters, I can add that to the mix of how we do that. But I think right now it's best that it's day of the mayor. But again, I'm open to everyone. I think the mayor is definitely on there. I think if you can have more people on there, the challenge we always have with this is we have to follow Texas Open Meetings Act rules. So it's very hard and difficult and sometimes you could have like one of our subcommittees that has less than a quorum to kind of take some of this up. So if there was a committee, you know, possibly the go-to committee of all of it municipal policy committee, if the MPC needed more names on there, that's possibly one place. The MPC could have a quicker meeting and some recommendations from those. But we do have to follow Toma always so we can't have a quorum saying on unless it's on our legislative agenda. Then I think we could say in our legislative agenda the entire council on that. But I do think I think the mayor's critical on that for those, but I think if we can on this, is where we have more time, if we can have more people on there, I think it's a big help. Okay. Council Member, I would say we don't do a lot of formal letters during the legislative process. We do a lot more behind the scenes work with the delegation staffs to try and help correct the, or implement the bill in a different way so that it can in some cases do less harm or maybe become more advantageous to us. That is more often than not how our strategy has worked in the past. I agree with that but there's also a time in a place where you have to have full opposition and make it very public that we do oppose that and we then may have to call on constituents to let them know that we are officially opposing this and asking them to call on that when we've gone through the process and nothing else is working strong as much as it's all Kellelo Archaic strong hand-delivered letters actually work really well to legislators and senior staffers down the Capitol. Well and to that end I go down every week starting next week so I will be able to hand-deliver anything at any time that is needed. Councilmember Gonzales thank you here thank you to both of you I agree with Councilmember hog I mean it's critical that we let them know Especially as we've seen in the past what's happened and down down there that sometimes they forget about Arlington's different than most other cities so anything that we can do to help I do want to complement both of you all because I've heard nothing but compliments from other legislative groups and some of our legislators and say that you guys are very well taken when they see you they look forward to me with you and so that says lot Natalie thank you for being prepared and answering our questions all the time so keep up the good work and very proud that you guys work for the city of Orlington. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Council Member Oedah-Huesley. I just have a question. I know we go every year during Chanuk County days. In your opinion is that the most effective time to go? I know I sometimes feel like we get lost in the crowd, because there's so many people down there doing those days. Do you think we should institute such a thing called Arlington Days on the Capitol? Or I don't know, what are your thoughts? Yeah, so this year we're going to, we're gonna try and work with the legislative staffs to either maybe come a little earlier, stay a little later to enable us to have maybe some face-to-face time with the delegation. This is all dependent on their calendars, and this is why this becomes a complicated endeavor, because as you just heard Natalie say, they've already got 2,000 plus bills. We were talking with Senator Burdwell the other day about his schedule and how literally toward the end of the session, there may be 15, 16 hour days that they're, and so finding time to wedge in different delegations can be really difficult. We have to acknowledge that upfront. Their time is incredibly limited during a legislative session that lasts four to five months and they only meet every other year, right? So to the extent that we can, we're gonna try and do that this year, having heard your concerns from the last Terrent Kindes where there just wasn't enough face to face time. This year too, I will tell you, in part you already have voted to amend your meeting schedule to accommodate the fact that Terrent Kindes has been moved up to February, and it's on a Monday Tuesday this year, So that will change the dynamics a little bit as well because typically we're we're later in the week And you bring up a good point to council, because typically we're later in the week. And you bring up a good point too, Council Member, if I could, the legislative agenda is passed by the body, and it's the body is agenda, right? These are the things that everyone in the room has agreed to that we find important, and those are the things that Natalie and I work off of, what we're dealing with our legislature, as well as you all, right? Because this is what the body has decided to do. At the same time, as I mentioned, their time is very limited. And so to the extent that we can corral our meetings with them to certain times, or our communication with our members to certain times, allows us to strategically take advantage of that opportunity, right? And if we have different meetings or different conversations with them at different times, we may lose the opportunity to have that strategic vision with our members. There are times where we need to work with them specifically in a bill that we have already targeted that we're trying to pass. As an example, Senator Hancock and Representative Kraus a few sessions ago, they helped us get through the Convention Center Bill that allowed us to build the convention center that we have now. And so we were very targeted with what we had asked them to do and when we would communicate with them because they were already carrying a lot of burden for the city in that regard. There may be issues that come up in mid-session that require that. So to the extent that we can be collectively as a body, our staff and with you all strategic about when we communicate with our members and when we meet with them and don't have ad hoc meetings with them, I think it will make our voice louder and our approach more strategic to advancing our LinkedIn's causes if possible. Just to follow up, might there be an opportunity to invite the delegation to Arlington for an event and they we have their undivided attention and vice versa. I'm thinking maybe during the Medal of Honor opening can we have an event for elected officials and invite them here and we do know most of their going to be here actually that's why Terrick County days was moved up and been there here. The thing we need to consider that is because it would be all the all the body here or all the the council is it would be an open meeting so the public would be need to be invited as well so that's why we have we've not done it that way in the past because that can And that I think that might defeat the purpose because it becomes a much more larger conversation. Council Member Gonzalez. Jay, I think you bring up a perfect point. You know, I know a lot of us meet with legislators. We see them at different events and everything else. And we need to stay focused on what the city needs. I know we have different things that we come up with, but we have to stay focused because, like you said, you don't have so much time with these people and they've got so much on their plate, but if they hear that it's a priority for the city, it plays a lot more than if it's just one district, the city council member wanting for something for their district, so we need to keep that focus, especially during this time of the year like you said, but I'm glad you mentioned that. So thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments for Natalie or Just would like to add one other thing if you have any of those in the streets conversations if you could just shoot me a quick Some quick note that you ran into somebody there's been a couple of times where they've asked me for follow up information based on a Conversation you have had and I didn't know what they were about. So I'd like to make us look a little better in that regard. That's okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all. Y'all have all gotten here in formal staff reports. We're going to go through the written reports as listed for the sake of time. We'll just ask any specific questions regarding any individual reports. We're going to start with 4.1. Richard, I see you over there. I know we have to have some form-based code questions or comments for Richard. Council Member Boxell, come on now. She won't disappoint you, Mayor. Thank you. I didn't even need to raise my hand. Well, I've been in conversations with Richard, so I'm pretty sure he knows what I'm going to say. But I do want to voice my concerns again about the proposed size of the form-based code proposed area. And I'll say it, like I said last time, the main appeal to this is that it will consolidate all these other codes. And I do appreciate that. I think that would be a great thing. But my concern is and you somewhat relate this is that the consultant has agreed to basically an increase in scope for the same price. So that question is why wouldn't we do that? So I'm open into discussion about that. The other issue is I really would like to consider adding on the rest of East Abram, at least up to stadium. It just seems an odd place to stop it right there at Meadowbrook Park. There's a lot of room for, there's a lot of potential there. So I'd like that to be considered. Since we're talking about such a large area and we're also talking about possibly that area will be reduced once we get further into the process, why wouldn't that area also be subject to the same thing? That's my question. So I'll open it up for discussion for the council. Richard, can you address? I'll certainly try to address some of those mayor and members of the council. The area that we're recommending is indeed larger and if I can make a general statement here, larger than probably ideal for a form-based code area, where you want to be much more focused in one's attention. But the area does take in not just the downtown, which is a target area, but also the environs immediately around it. So if you look at going all the way down to UTA, if you look at going up to Sanford, we're including the environs that will have an influence on the downtown area, excuse me, and provide some level of synergy for that area. We do expect, I would expect that as as we go through the public engagement process, okay, we're going to find out a lot of things that are going to allow us to contract or shrink the final boundary of the form-based code area because there does need to be based upon the preferences that are provided to us by property owners and other persons and interest. A community of interest, okay? A community of set vision and share vision and preferences. So I think just naturally going through this process, we're going to be shrinking at somewhat. With respect to Abrams, I went back and I took a look at where we were at, you know, 18 months ago when the boundaries of about 10 different areas were being considered at that time for potential foreign base codes, okay. In Abram from college, excuse me, from Collins to 360, was certainly one of those areas, no question about it. And indeed, even as late as a few months ago, it was one of the top three that we were looking at and was one of those areas that was toured by the consultant and our staff and others when we were looking at it. There were reasons at the time, again, even looking back a year or so, as to why Abrams was not deemed the best starting point for the first form-based code. I think most of us would agree with something that you're suggesting there, Council Member Boxall, and that is that stretch of Abram from Collins to 360. It may indeed be very appropriate for a form-based code. Okay. In my considered judgment, it's certainly appropriate for revitalization, quarter, kind of code, separate it apart from what we're looking at for the downtown area and the environments. Okay. I don't see any harm at this point. If I can put it that way, including the area along Abram up to Johnson Creek, because there's some continuation, a little bit of continuation of the fabric in Abram to the west of Collins and continuing to that area. As you get further along towards 360, it becomes much more attinuated, just in terms of the fabric. And that affects all kinds of things for implementation purposes. So indeed we have drawn and kind of redrawn the boundary several times, no question about that. But at the end of the day we're looking for, we need to launch this project in my view. And the boundary that's been outlined, including that brief stretch of Abram that we have there, is a good place to start. We're going to be very much informed through the public engagement process as to how then we can make it more logical and more implementable and successful at the end of the day. OK. And is that was during that whole process of doing that and I recently learned that the consultant is going to be writing eventually writing the code for three transects and is that because East Ambram would not fit into any of those three transects yet and at this time but may fit into another one later, a less intense one. Or I'm just trying to understand the different reasoning behind it. And maybe it might be better to just back up and explain what transsex are and all that. Well, without trying to predict the final shape and structure of the form base code, there are levels of in the form base code intensities that are referred to as transects and I won't get into all the history of that. But they are based upon intensities such as your urban cores is like one transect. The areas around it that are certainly walkable to the urban core, it's going to be less intense and then even less intense from that. But you can have a full range of transects. Again, without trying to predict the final result, I would see that in just the area we're looking at in the downtown area and its environments, you could easily have three transects or three levels of intensity going on there. Okay? Now, that, just going through that process and developing those transects as to what type of intensities and design regulations are appropriate for each of those, is going to be something that we would hope to be able to then make transferable to other areas or sub-areas of this area or elsewhere in the city, including the Abram area, where we could modify and customize appropriate for those areas, whether it be the Abram Corridor or others. So by going through this process right now and developing a range of transects, you might be able to take one or more of these and use them in a transferable way to other areas. Okay, so it's going to be a learning experience. I would submit that you couldn't just necessarily take a transect and the design regulations you have in the downtown area and plop it onto another area. You still have to go through an intense study of that area, but it's gonna tell us a lot about what can be done. Sure, but it wouldn't necessarily be a completely different thing on that stretch. It is a commercial corridor. There's gonna be a lot of similar areas areas. Yeah so I guess I'm fine with that but I would like to understand the process of how that would happen in the future. How those transects would be applied to other areas so if we could get into that at some point in a later time. I just don't want that area to be left out. The city has put a lot of investment into Abram Street all the way to 360. And I think we need to capitalize on the previous investments already made. Understood and agreed. Okay, thank you. Councillor Marblefield, one of the things we discussed after the consultant's presentation was a concern that myself and some other council members had that this thing was going too slow and was too complex and you know was turning out to be a giant tar baby as far as being something that weighs down the planning department and takes a long time to actually be implemented and done. and you know, during our meeting that we had with you, we discussed how the bigger the zone, the more property owners get a letter saying your property may be deemed nonconforming as a result of this effort. And we all know how that's going to go. There's going to be people who are very, very worried that will express concern that once again, those elitist jerks at City Hall are taking from them, the right to utilize the property, the way they want. And being a lawyer, they could go out and hire a lawyer and seek a restraining order in order to prevent us from going through with the process. And I'll based on maybe perhaps a misunderstanding of what we're trying to do. And to that end, while I think the application of a form-based code that opens up possibilities for development that weren't there before is actually something that helps people increase the value of the property, have increased property rights to develop in certain ways. So I really view this effort as something that does that, rather than something that takes. That being said though, the amount of static will have to fight through. The bigger this zone is, could be very problematic to being able to actually get something done within a reasonable amount of time. And you know, as I look at the overlay, I think it's too big. And I think there's going to be too many property owners that we're going to have to hand hold. And they deserve the hand holding. Okay, their property owner is in Arlington. I don't want to run over anybody, right? That being said, hand holding for 500 parcel holders is a lot more time consuming for the planning department and you and Jensy than handholding for 100 property holders. So I really think we need to look, despite some arguments regarding economies of scale, of shrinking this area we're considering. And I'm just gonna throw out division, Abram, Collins and Cooper. And then if somebody else is interested in adding onto that, we can phase in a Jace and Cs. Once we have a proof of concept and people know, this isn't a scary thing. In fact, it'll probably give you a chance to get a higher value for your property and do more with it. But I'm really, really concerned when those letters go out. If we're doing it in this huge area, that we're going to have such blowback, it's going to delay this effort and it won't get done before I roll off council in May of 2026. And so I really think we need to look very closely and that's one of the things I'd like to ask, what is the parcel count or separate property owners for this big block? How many people are we gonna have to talk to? Because that increases the percentage chance that somebody goes out and hires a lawyer and decides to fight us over something we really are meaning well about, right? Versus if we shrink this down how many fewer property owners do we have to deal with in order to get something done quickly and on the books faster. And Trey I want to ask you what sort of load are we placing on GenC and Richard if we go with a big piece of property and does shrinking its smaller mean the workload on Richard and GenC in the department decreases. Am I incorrect in that assumption? Honestly I think GenC and Richard have a better feel for that than I would. I'm not sure what the workload is going to be relative to this. I think it's good to ask that question, but from a scale and proportional work effort, I'm not sure what the impact is on you guys. Am I missing this, is it the same if it's big or small, or is it easier if it's a little bit smaller? Well, there is certainly some level of proportion that this thing. It's easy to assume that it's going to be more more complex the more several hundred property owners you might have. But just keep in mind that the reason why our process for this effort really kind of takes as long as it does is because of the intense public education and engagement that's going to go on. And also keep in mind that as I said a moment ago, I'm pretty confident that at the end of the day, the final boundary of the area that we're going to see as most appropriate for a foreign base code. Okay. It's going to be different than what you see here. Okay. So the area is going to be contracted somewhat. Okay. And that along with the public engagement and education that goes along with this process hopefully will help us have a smoother ride if I can put it that way. Once we get to the notification effort that you're referring to, which are the requirements of SB 929 that came on two years ago with the legislature, that requires individualized notice to every property owner, tenant, and occupant of areas. If there's the potential for nonconforming uses arise, and something you mentioned, Council Member Peale, that I haven't said that often, is that one of the advantages, and I can put it that way, of a form-based code, is that it is concerned with, but much less concerned with the adjacency of uses than our typical and currently existing zoning codes. Okay. So there may be some nonconforming uses that may result from this effort, but it's probably is not gonna be as many as one might think, because we're not just willy-nilly trying to interject a lot of different uses into the same area. The uses are going to be pretty much the same. It's going to be more concerned, however, with how redevelopment and the design of those parcels are going to take place. But it's easier if there's 100 people, 100 property owners you're dealing with than if there's 500. And that's the proportional thing sure. Because ideally, you'd want to be able to have the education take before those letters ever go out to avoid the person who's ignoring our entreaties prior to that letter going out, hauling off and going to the press and then hiring a lawyer that we all know and love to come and sue us. So I really just have that concern because man, that presentation, she was wonderful, she's smart, she knows what she's doing, but this whole thing can really spiral out of control and become a complex ball. It needs to get done quicker, faster, and with the least amount of pain, and I think going smaller is better, and then we tell the people who might be concerned or being left out. Look, we get this first one done then we phase you in as an adjacent parcel. So let me let me ask a quick question just spinning off off of Mr. Peel stuff here. Is there anything about the proposed pilot area, that your team is uncomfortable with and handling that and going through this pilot program. We're not uncomfortable about it. Okay. So this is the proposed area by the consultants. I don't have the expertise in how to propose an area for a farm-based code. We have GenC and Richard that are saying we're not uncomfortable with the proposed area that's here. This is our pilot program. Let's run the pilot with what's proposed and if it works, we're in like Flint and we got great things going on. If it doesn't, then we turn around and say, well, what were y'all thinking? What is wrong with you? Because I'm willing to bet with the exception of Miss Boxel who has a little bit more experience than the rest of us on some of this stuff. The rest of us, we're trailing behind where they are knowledge wise when it comes to this stuff. And I'm I for one, and really reliant upon the consultant's expertise and everything else. And what we need to do today, if I understand this right, is we need to pin down this area. So y'all know where to go from here. That's what we need to do, right? Yes. So, I'm of the mindset, we keep the proposal the way it is. We don't diminish it or increase it because they know better than we do on this. And we're hearing from our staff that they're comfortable with doing what they need to do with this. Let them pick up that ball and run with it. And see if we can get a touchdown. That's an analogy for the Cowboys hometown here that they weren't able to do that very well this season. But. I agree with you there. I think that that's right. But my concern is, it would get somebody that's gonna be a special problematic in regards to participation in this. Talk to us and let us know. Yeah. Exactly that. So for us to go to the community and actually engage it, we need a blessing from you all today to at least start that process. And after that, we will get a feel for how the property owners really feel about this thing. And then we can come back with a little bit more contracted shape and area. But at this point, we are not really in front of the community yet. So to start the process, we need to get some kind of blessing from you all that, okay, start with this boundary. Mr. Galante Galante. Oh, thank you. I tend to agree with the mayor. And two factors on this, we already put time and resources on this, the experts, the consulting company, already have experienced a larger area including pilot programs. In other cities, they were larger than the one they are suggesting. And if the staff is comfortable, I see why not see why not any any so it's a process a year here in a half Where we're gonna have a lot of input from the community? So those those sharp edges will be smoothed up through the process until you get a final project Empowered areas, so I tend to agree with the mayor. So we should start it. Just get it going. Thank you. Ms. Foxill. Thank you. I agree with what council member Galanty said. My only concern is that if we, there's going to be a huge public education campaign, not just from property owners, but also from the larger body of our citizens. And so if you guys are comfortable with that effort and you have the resources to do it, then I'm fine with it. I don't want it to turn into a big controversy or something confrontational. And we have to keep in mind that this is voluntary. Nobody is being required to redevelop their property, but there's a lot of misconception out there. So the education part of it is going to be huge. So I just want to make sure that you guys are sure that you're comfortable with that scale of an education component. Because it's going to be big. Just based on what I'm already hearing. I think if our trash bin issue has shown us anything, there is no city in the state of Texas that is better at communicating those type of changes than the city of Arlington. And if we can handle everybody's trash like that, we can sure do some form-based code stuff. So anybody else? Councilor, go ahead, Chair. I'm just gonna add one other thing. The communication that Richard was talking about, the letter that will go out per what the law requires. It does require certain language, right? So there would be a section of that letter that we don't control how it's written. It's required form statutory language. But we'll be able to embellish the intro and the exit on that, right? So that we can make some of the key points about how this is voluntary and how it's a potential incentive for you or a future property owner. Kind of just to start it off on the right path, it doesn't need to read a condemnation lawsuit or anything like that. It needs to just read very familial, very neighborly, about what's going on. And we'll put some language in there that at least tries to get us off on the right track. even though the part that might look a little colder is statutory that we're going to have to put in there. So did we decide to go down to stadium drive as Councilman Brock saw said and then let the consultants peel it back or we stuck it what I think we have going to MetaBook Park. I would propose doing exactly what the consultants have here on the staff report. And if they thought it was in our best interest to go further, they would have put it in there. If they wanted us to peel it back right now, they'd appealed it back. So I would say stick with what is proposed right now. But their perspective is they will then get possibly deeper into it and then possibly appeal it back and scale it back. It could be. I like the idea of going down the stadium. I think that's a hot commodity area and I'd rather have them appeal it back but I'll let my colleagues Well, my sense of this is we have to remember it's still a pilot program. We don't do a pilot program by going from here all the way out to the east side of town and then say, okay, well maybe we bit off more than we can chew. It's a pilot program. What they're proposing is what staff is saying that they can deal with right now. Let's see if it'll work. And if this works well, we can do form-based codes in other parts of the city. We can duplicate this effort elsewhere, but let's test the waters first before we jump off that bridge and realize there's a boulder underneath the surface. That was a good analogy. Someone write that one down, okay? Anything else? Okay, you all have some direction then. We do. Thank you. Thank you. Let's move on down to 4.2 Ms. Boxel. Thank you. Community and neighborhood development met this morning. All members were present. We looked at neighborhood grant proposals for this cycle. There were five proposals. We discussed them. And we are prepared to go ahead with three of the proposals. There were some questions about some of the others. And we will look look at those and possibly add a fourth to their proposal. So only one of them will be dropped and I'm willing to answer any questions or entertain any additions from the committee members. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Boxle. Any questions or comments from Ms. Boxle? Mr. Gonzalez? Yes, I thank you for that report. There's five listed. So what did you say? There's three are moving forward and then two are are being We evaluated only one of those will go through Three will go through one is being reevalued so The that will be a possible four that will go forward but three are. Okay. And then the question is it's a matching grant and I know some of these cash side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the other side of the is coming in under that. And this money is gas money, is that? Yes, this is gas will money. This is not come out of the general fund. So I guess the question, this is for Tray, is this something that with the budget that we're looking at that somebody can say why didn't you transfer that money to our general fund instead of spending it on something like this? Especially when we're looking at some shortfalls, which I know that question will come up. Yeah, no, fair question. And certainly you could. I mean, these are all opportunity costs. You. know some shortfalls, which I know that question will come up. Yeah, no, fair question. And certainly you could. I mean, these are all opportunity costs. You could decide that this is a program that given the tightness, we don't want to, we don't want to invest in. That said, what we would do here, this money would be treated like a one time expenditure. It wouldn't be treated like a rich, a rich expenditure like for a staff salary. So this would likely go into some, you know, like sidewalk fund or some other kind of thing that was a one-time thing if we chose not to invest it here. And then given though that we've got, you know, we always try to value out priorities about, you know, championing great neighborhoods. This is one of the few programs that we offer direct support for. And in a $700 million plus annual budget to potentially invest a little over $70,000 while every dollar matters. I think it's a symbolic way to build not only pride and neighborhood engagement around improvements which have a longer term impact in our community that we would wanna give some serious consideration about continuing to invest in such a way. That's how I would respond, but at the same time, we can certainly decide this year as a year to skip based on some things, but I would also tell you that we'll talk more to your next meeting. It's likely not to be a one year skip It'd be a multiple year skip of some of the challenges we've got and I think we'll have some different solutions for you That would still have you ranking this higher than some other choices that will have for you in the future and please I want all my council members in the mayor and city staff. I'm not proposing that I just ask that question because I know it's gonna come to come up and I'd rather it comes from you know you answered so when that comes to us we can say hey we asked that question you know this is a response so that's that's what I'm doing so I'm not proposing that we do that so sorry for my two questions like that today but that's in the kind of mood I'm in because I know I'm getting so thank you. Thank you questions. Okay, anything else from Miss Boxle? All right, Mr. Peel, do you have any additional stuff for economic development? We have a discussion today about foreign direct investment strategy that is developing a foreign direct investment strategy in public use of Arlington. I had simplified streamline our ability to attract foreign investment to the city of Arlington. I'd like to ask Gus and Marty to just give us kind of a brief overview of what that entails. Good afternoon, Council. Gus Garcia, Office of Economic Development. I'm here with my colleague, Marty. We're going to be discussing this is economic development. And I just want to make it sure, make it clear that this is not some new type of department or anything like that. This is something we already do. It's just a component that we have and we now have a probably a little bit more capacity to start implementing something like this.. So Marty and I have been discussing this along with the CMO's office about a potential strategy or a tentacle of economic development and that obviously we are asked to bring this before you and get some direction. So what is foreign direct investment? In a nutshell, it's foreign companies looking to invest in the United States. And so, multiple companies across the United States, there's all kinds of investment, some are with these huge multinationals, what we call Tier 1 fabrication plants. And there's also small to medium-sized enterprises that look at investing into the United States. Texas gets its fair share. As a matter of fact, it leads the country in the number of foreign direct investment that comes into the United States. And so that's really what we're talking about. Yes, and we're really trying to tie it into to that strategic plan that tip strategy's put in place for the city a couple of years ago and focus on, like you see, they're the sectors specifically of technology, manufacturing and aerospace to the benefit of Arlington residents. And so when you talk about foreign direct investment, there's multiple types. There's horizontal, there's vertical, there's greenfield, there's brownfield. These are the ones that we're usually gonna focus on. Obviously new development, which is greenfield. And then brownfield is the redevelopment of existing buildings or small manufacturing spaces that we currently have as you're aware of the you know the Great Southwest and Dustreel district there's a lot of redevelopment that needs to take place throughout Arlington as a matter of fact so these are kind of the areas that we're focused on. Make sense on the Brownfield side with us being at 95% build out too to really hone in on how we can best leverage that. In addition to some of these other things, there's companies that are looking to team up with others. So it could be through an alliance or a joint venture. That's correct. And there's just lots of different types of foreign direct investment. And we can dig further into that as we go along. This is very, very high level. We just want to get with you and obviously get some direction and dig down deeper once we know where we're going with this Why for under-rect investment? I think that it's clear that We just want to get with you and obviously get some direction and dig down deeper once we know where we're going with this Why for under direct investment? I think that it's clear that it has a huge impact on the United States As you can see from here average 206 billion annually in investment The number of workers in the United States is about way point three five million this comes directly from the Census Bureau and select USA. Average salaries are about $99,000, and just the amount of foreign investment firms come to the U.S. exports, about $382.7 billion annually. Just a fun fact. The CEO, our President, like Donald Trump had a meeting recently and you may have seen some articles on it. He was talking about investment in the United States, and this particular telecom CEO, Maiochi Son, announced that he's going to do about 100 billion investment, 100,000 jobs. So it's on top of mind right now, as far as the United States is concerned, and foreign direct investment. I think this is an important slide, relating to that strategic plan that we talked about. You'll recall tip strategies made it a priority to say we want to be globally connected. And then later on you see there the comment that Arlington is a key city in the Metropolis a destination for globally recognized commerce and industry, entertainment and recreation as well as research and innovation. We've been talking with and working with a number of groups already one in particular that's given us a proposal we look forward to coming back and kind of sharing with you. But one of the intriguing things about it is it may contine with the Texas Rangers in some form or fashion too. It may, they're very interested in the National Medal of Honor Museum and really like what they see in terms of our culture, how Arlington has honed in on that as being so important. So really developing this portion, this tentacle as Gus shared that Trey had mentioned in our the ED committee meeting, I think makes sense and will tie in well for us to be, to position ourselves competitively and to bring about the types of transformation, transformational redevelopment that tips strategies recommended and that you, you and our EDC board embraced a couple of years ago. So why the need? There's a ton of reasons why we would want to consider this. I think that as an entity, you know, you have multiple partners in the, in the DFW Metroplex. Dallas tends to be one of the strongest tractors of foreign direct investment. It builds a pipeline of investment, it diversifies our economy. Obviously, we have to have a global presence abroad as part of our strategic plan. And the main thing is to have that tentacle to be formalized with key performance indicators. What is our strategy? How does it align with what our goals are in our strategic plan? And we just didn't have that in the past. And I don't know if it's about our capacity. I mean, there's enough business to go around in the United States domestically, but having a formalized strategy to be able to compete in this market with our counterparts in the DFW based on the amount of investment that's taking place, we felt was important. And timing is a key factor here too. We've got, and we're going to show you... with our counterparts in the DFW based on the amount of investment that's taking place, we felt was important. And timing is a key factor here too. We've got, and we're gonna show you here in a minute, some of the resources that are available to us. But as departments, Gus is fully staffed. I am two staff members away after one more staff of reports next week from being fully staffed. We're soon gonna be moving into our spaces. We're going to be able to take the teams that we have. I've got a director of targeted attraction and state affairs that I can see being involved in this as well as some others. We're going to have the ability with our existing staff members to really focus more attention on that once we have a strategy if this is something you agree with. Again, it's a tentacle of economic development. This is strictly, I mean, this is bread and butter. It's all formalized. It's what other cities are doing already. We're just gonna formalize what our strategy would be based on your input. Part of that is asset mapping, amplifying leveraging and aligning what our initiatives are. And you can see from the presentation, we have multiple companies that are global partners. We wanna amplify our brand. We want to align our efforts with City Council, the EDC, the Mayor, Sister Cities Association, the EDC, the Mayor, Sister Cities Association, the OED OSI, City Attorney's Office, the Chamber, CVB, etc., and the City Manager, obviously. And we all want to be singing from the same sheet of music, if that makes sense, or playing from the same sheet of music. And what is it we're trying to do? And again, that idea of the sports and entertainment component, you component, there's certainly an opportunity to leverage what's going to happen when the whole world is focused on us in 2026 with the Grand Prix and then FIFA, the World Cup. It's definitely a prime opportunity, we think, for Arlington. So Marty just mentioned a minute ago about timing and opportunity. As we mentioned, the state right now is having several initiatives going on. We have a lot of incentives available for it, for indirect investment. Right now the state of Texas is pursuing for indirect investment. And it has been leading the United States for the last two decades. In the last 10 years, it's led 1700 new jobs to state of Texas. As I mentioned, majority of that is going into certain markets. One of them, D.F.W., another being the Houston market. Some in San Antonio. We know from speaking of dark courses coming from Rehine and Winning, when we talked about a little bit earlier, Arlington has not been leading the charge on that. maybe time that we start leading start leading the charge and some of, attracting some of those businesses. And should this be something you think is worth exploring? We've got somebody we mentioned we've been talking to that's, got some specific ideas on one particular region in a country to the east that he believes has some potential. I think what I like most about it is it's consistent with an area that the governor chose to visit. You know, you may or no, he went to three different countries this past year. But he sees the state's doing some great things. We can actually go about it in a different way and do even more than what the state is doing. I like somebody who thinks entrepreneurial and I think it can be our advantage. And there's definitely key markets. Obviously part of the deeper strategy would identify those and what that aligns well with the city. That's something we'd have to have discussion with and look at all of our partners and making sure that those are the areas we're targeting. Part of that strategy is having a soft landing program. This is not new, this is part of what we already do as an economic development entity incorporation. We help them with the real estate. We help them locate and identify places they want to go. What aligns well in the districts that we have, we have real estate, data support, all of these different things we're already doing to this area that's on the map. We already do this. It's more about formalizing how we do it and focusing on those efforts and having kind of an administrative blueprint on how we do that. And maybe it's just making people aware of these assets. We've got not thinking about all this that's down here in the lower left hand corner that we already have in the way of facilities that could provide for a company of a smaller size that needs some initial space and wants to expand later. They come to know about Nubo Desk and Spark. They come to see from the workforce side of things that we've got existing partnerships in place with UT Arlington and Terrent County College, and then as well with the Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center. We've got some things here. Our relationships, I mentioned the staff member, I'm gonna hire to work with the governor's office. We'll be able to bring them in that much more so that we're able to leverage this again to the benefit of our residents more than anything and to the property tax value improvements for the city too. And Marty brings up a good point. Again, we're not doing anything that economic development doesn't already do across the state, but we do have talent within our midst that have experience in this market or have experience in this area. And... that economic development doesn't already do across the state, but we do have talent within our midst that have experience in this market or have experience in this area and we feel it would be important to utilize that talent that we have existing in the city within our economic development departments. Clear all too. There you go. And Marty and I are here to answer any questions. Questions or comments? Marty or Gus? Thanks, guys. They'll bring some money. You want to advance it once, yeah? Okay, Mr. Peel, anything else on economic development? Anybody have any questions for Mr. Peel? All right. We'll move on down 4.4 Mr. Buskin, any appointments towards your commissions tonight? No, sir, we have none this evening. 4.5 questions or comments on the comprehensive plan for, I'm sorry, of the bond election for Lemuel. I have questions. I've recently have spoken to a number of individuals about some concerns I have with the Nature Center up at River Legacy Park that was dropped from the proposed bond package here. Do you recall how much that was dropped from the proposed bond package here. Do you recall how much that was and what was dropped and what's the feasibility of including that and the current bond proposal? Certainly, Mayor, I've got some detail on that. Also have kind of an overview of where we are in the process if you'd like me to kind of go through that so we can please. Because there's some deadlines that we need to meet. So what I'd like to do is to kind of an overview of where we are in the process if you'd like we can go through that so we can please because there's some deadlines that we need to meet. So what I'd like to do is to kind of review the bond schedule to date and talk about and confirm any project changes that you want to consider and then most importantly we need to confirm the project and category amounts today and the reason for that was directly related to the Terrent County Day change that affected our formerly February 11th meeting that now moved to February 4th. So because of that squeeze, in essence, we need to confirm the list seven days prior to that February 4th meeting that you have. That takes to the 28th but it's got to be noticed and so effectively before your next meeting we would need to get that confirmed. But what I wanted to do is talk a little bit about where we are in the process. This is the modified list of recommendations that the bond committee presented and And I say modified because if you recall at that last meeting, we made an adjustment to the Public Safety Training Center. We took some funds out of that to add to the radio line item. But the dollar amounts remain the same for all the other categories. And so speaking of the mayor's interests and talking a little bit about river legacy, river legacy science center was one of many facilities that was reviewed by the bond committee. And as you can tell by the list of projects, this is an essence of bare bones request overall for projects throughout the city. We have a number of facilities that need some infrastructure repair. Revelegancy is one of those and it certainly was considered by the committee but not prioritized as far as a recommendation. What I have before you on the screen are two options that you can certainly consider if you may want to add to this discussion. We've outlined it from a perspective of highly critical, and so that's the first package, the 220,000, and then 2.8 million for all the current needs that have been identified through a study that we commissioned several years ago to review a number of our facilities. And so the critical needs really is an approach where we're addressing surgically specific needs within that facility. And so for example, it includes portions of steel guardrail, whereas the 2.8 million would include replacing all of that guardrail because the idea of being that over time it certainly would be needed. And so that's kind of the critical difference between the critical package of 220,000 versus 2.8 million. That $2.8 million investment would effectively take that facility from where it is now to in a condition where we wouldn't have to be in front of you for several in a number of years for any infrastructure issues related to river legacy nature center and so that certainly is is something for your consideration today and we can talk more about that or I could kind of go through the rest of the presentation based on your preference. I'd like to get a sense from Council on what y'all think about, including one or both of these in some way, shape or form. I think there are pretty critical need here, but Mr. Gonzalez, you had your hand up. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. And on the critical needs, I mean, as we'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry other projects is that correct? So we haven't laid out a specific schedule, but certainly higher priority needs would take precedence. And we don't have to, for example, sell the entire allotment at one time. And so if we identified some critical needs that really needed to get prioritized we could carve that out of the 2.8 million but still a lot the entire amount for all of the needs there. So the 220,000 could be done to meet it? Well we wouldn't it's not it's not the same in other words the 220 and the 2.8 are comparable we would not, the 2.8 would replace totally the 220,000 if that makes sense. And so if you elected to do the 2.8, for example, and we identified, let's say the foundation needs were determined to be the highest priority and that was 500,000. We could sell 500,000 and address that earlier than the rest of the 2.3 million. Does that make sense? Yes. So why was this taken out of the, what was the discussion with the committee if it was something critical? Why was it taken out? Well, the 220,000 was not part of the discussion that the bond committee had. The discussion overall was for the $2.8 million. And just like a number of facilities that weren't prioritized, it was simply one that didn't make the final cut. the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the see, you know, whether... I agree with Councilman Gonzales. I do feel like we really need to address the critical needs at River Legacy. Whether we go with option one, option two, but I think that we really need to add this in here so we can address those needs that are really critical right now. So thank you. Council Member Hogg. Yeah, thanks Mayor. And I think the way it's worth it. I think we go with the 2.8 for this proposal right now. Because we do have, we have to be prepared. What if the bond doesn't pass? Yeah. Right, you always have to think about that. And so with existing space, I think no matter what, we're gonna get to where possibly we have to spend that 220. We've got existing bond funds that we could use. We're talking less than five months to get to that vote. I think it's an important factor to do that 2.8 from my discussions with River Legacy and seeing that. I just had the honor of serving on their fundraising as the host committee and there is some need. It is a huge asset to our city of what we're trying to do. And I think it's something we do need to put in. Now, it also all depends on capacity within the bond, what we're spending on other things. And as long as we can make that fit within what our capacity is and what we're trying to do, then I think it's a no-brainer we put it in there and let the citizens say what that needs are. And if they say no, then we come back and we look and we recalculate a bond for the future. We also say what are critical needs that we have to do and what have to do that across multiple areas within the city if a bond does not pass. Cause we do have to always be prepared for that. Anybody else? I can't just want to roll it on my sleeve. Well I don't deny that there's there's the need. I'm just wondering about the amount and I don't know how they came up with 2.8 million but looking at the total bond package I'm just wondering if we could do just a $2 million and that would round out the bond package to $200 million because right now we're at $198, correct? Correct. And so if we just do $2 million, it may not get everything but certainly it would meet the critical needs and then some and just give us a round number to work with the bonds to 200 million. Mayor, go ahead. In my simple brain I always like simple numbers so I agree with that. But now I think we're picking pennies and you know, Nichols and Dimes over what we're looking at. You know, I'm not worried about taking to voters for 198 versus 198.8. I don't think that's a contingent. I would sit there and say, if that's our proposal, and listen, we always know as good as staff is, as good as facilities are, they're taking short shot at some estimates of these numbers. And so sometimes those numbers come higher. Sometimes they come lower. Their goal is to get all this work done within that proposed numbers. So if they're proposing 2.8, I would sit there and say if we're going to do it, put it in for 2.8 would be my reasoning. I would have a ten-seated degree. to pull out nearly a third of that amount of money to try to fix everything that needs to be fixed out there and this is a tremendously important asset to the city that we need to keep operational and functioning. So let me help because you figure out a way to get this thing included it looks like that's the consensus. We certainly can do that. I just wanted to kind of go through a couple more items that were brought up by various council members. Cliff Nelson was was brought up as as one as well. That was on the original list of needs identified to the bond committee and was not prioritized. It's about two million dollars. I mean includes things like exterior doors, electrical panels, wiring, just basic infrastructure needs within Clifnelson. So wanted to bring that forward to see if there was any interest in any consideration for that project. Mr. Gonzalez. Yeah, I might be the owner of the brother. What year was Clifton and also built? 90. I can get you that number. It was. It was the 90s, right? It was before Elzy. And Elzy was believed 92. We'll get you that. We'll get you that day. Did that. Well, that's. I do know it's our second oldest facility so Dottie Lynn being the oldest and then Clip Nelson's the second oldest I mean that's only I mean in fact several committee members reached out to me and said they thought it needed to be added on there. But I know we have only so many funds, but I just wanted to make sure I brought it up because I know with the act of scenario might change a lot, but those are my thoughts. Anybody else want to weigh in on Cliff Nelson? Okay, based on that, we will not include that in proposal list. So, next, I wanted to talk about Randall Mill, just to provide an overview of the improvements that are planned for Randall Mill and then get some understanding of where you might want to take this project. The original proposal for the 2025 bond is in that green section and that is the Cooperative Fielder section about a mile at about $54.7 million. This includes a five-lane undivided roadway which would improve circulation and is the recommended approach to improve the conditions there. Cooper DeCollins, as you already know, is funded and will begin pretty much right after World Cup conclusion. That's funded and will be moving forward. And so the balance of the Randall Mill would be the fielder to Oakwood, which is about 0.62 million, or excuse me, 0.62 miles. We have a current Mill and Overlay program for April of 25 of this year. And so that's the standard about two inch that grind down the asphalt and replace it with a new course. Certainly does extend the life of the road, but it's not as long of a fix as a complete rebuild would be. We've estimated that a complete rebuild of Oakwood to fielders about $27 million. And so with that, I wanted to show you a couple of options relative to the field or to Cooper approach. We've identified the existing one obviously that's recommended 54.7. A four-lane rebuild divided, which would in essence put a median on Randall Mill. And so it would reduce some turning movements for some of the businesses, but it would improve safety along that stretch. Modest savings of about $2 million of savings versus the five lane without a median. And then the third option is a four lane rebuild undivided about $11 million worth of savings there. This, in essence, would replace the existing conditions with concrete, but it would not increase mobility or congestion. And so those are kind of two alternative options to the current proposal for Randall Mill. Additionally, Councilmember Hoggett had asked a question about the cost to Barry Lines along Randall Mill. And while we don't have an updated figure, we do know that the figure is higher than the one we do have, which is a million dollars per mile, which we got in about 2012. And so, we would estimate at least 20% higher cost now to to bury those lines and so if for example you wanted to consider going to a fore lane undivided and saving that 11 million it would not approach the cost of moving that project from from Oakwood to Fielder just because of the delta that $27 billion cost. It's certainly wanted to bring these ideas and concepts up for sub-level discussion. It's strong. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and Sarah and Yolk staff and public works that helped push this. This is this proposal came back. And I think multiple of us, this is a highly trafficked area. I think every day I drive to City Hall. I drive this road. Every day I leave my house. I drive this road at some point. The real first piece of this came and I would tell my council colleagues it didn't make sense to me that we've somewhat done Cooper to Collins it'll eventually be totally rebuilt and done we had some council of governments money and federal money that came in but to do that but then to leave that point six two miles undone it didn't just make sense that that road's actually probably in almost a little worse shape than the other one of Fielder to Cooper. So when staff came back and said they think a milling overlay works on that, it's proposed to be done. I think that's a great solution. And I think it will work big. The one thing I'd ask that milling overlay, they can make it where people entering that major center that we invested in on the corner of field or random mill, there's a big dip going in there and that really slows traffic a huge amount from what people are doing and turning from that side. And so then I asked the question of field or to Cooper. And this is where we got to the question of four lanes versus five lanes. As you know, there's a large cemetery there to the north side. There's our hospital to the south side of Arlington Memorial. A lot of small doctors offices, medical centers along that stretch of road and then some residential area that follows along that road. And so if I look at these prices and what I asked Lemuel and his team to bring back was what is that cost of going to five lanes and what it really takes to expand that road from that perspective? As I looked at that, I didn't know what that number was and I kind of told staff, I said, if it's a couple of million, then I'm probably saying let's go with 5 million. And I didn't know coming in what would be my indicator of that number of what's that variance that makes me say, I think four lanes is better than five. I don't think lane option two is worth it. I don't think option two, let me go to the next slide just so everyone can see. The four-lane rebuild with the median only saving you know 2.5 million. I really don't think it's worth it on that. I think median's, it slows it down but I know we've got concern over the street but I don't think it's a real major safety. I don't think I don't think we're gaining that much safety just from everything I've looked at, from that going to a five-line rebuild. This does not deal with traffic coming into the stadium as much, the side from Cooper to the stadium to Collins does deal with the stadium traffic a lot more of people leaving and coming back. So then I look at this and I say with 21% difference, you know, a little over $11 million, variance that expanded to five line. I would probably, more than one of the listeners of my colleagues, I would probably lean towards the four lane rebuild. If you told me you want to spend it to bury the wires I would say 100% because if you look at most of the sidewalks in there, they have sidewalks, they have telephone poles in the middle of a sidewalk along that road as we drive down on that. And so, you know, we get to that number, I would sit there and say the four-lane rebuild is probably what I would be leaning to just from that improvement and the way to kind of, I don't say pinch some dollars, but allocate some dollars to some other things. So I would incline to lean to where the numbers are and maybe key so you can speak to this a little bit better than let me know if I don't know, let me know. Maybe you know know all the numbers too I didn't mean to say you didn't know what you're talking about. I'm more inclined to go with what the stats show us on this thing. I understand this is a high-endry network roadway out there and are we going to be facing greater problems in the future if we diminish it to four lane rebuild? To save $10 million, $11 million on this, are we going to be shooting ourselves in the foot? Instead of putting a left turn lane out there in a five lane rebuild and what are the numbers telling us why would we need a five lane rebuild on this thing? Yes, Keith Brooks, Director of Public Works and Transportation. The reason why we were looking at a five lane and we kind of did the same thing on the park row for the 2023 bond election from that area from New York at 360. We look at the accidents, of course this is on the high injury network and we're trying to figure out what is something while we're out there, what is something that we can do that will help save on some of those accidents. And we typically look at a five lane or even a divided roadway just to give you more lanes for people can actually turn and kind of get out of the through, out of the through lane when they're making their turn, prevent some of those rear end accidents and things of that nature. So that's why we take a look at things like five lane continuous turn lanes and plus when you consider all the businesses out there, some of those could be restricted by the divided Broadway. If you go back with the four lane, yeah, you can rebuild a four lane, you could save some money, but at the same time, you're still not dealing with, you're basically just rebuilding was already out there. And if it's already been identified as part of the highway, you know, high injury network, then what are we doing safety wise to really improve it if you just rebuild what's there? So that was the thought process from us as while we're out there, how do we get the most for our money? Do we, you know, the spend the extra $10, $11 million and do the five lanes and get that extra safety factor? So that's what we took a look at. Yeah, thank you for that. You know, I think Mr. Hogg proposed a very legitimate question on the cost of the five lane compared to the four lane and it certainly was worth exploring. But if we're dealing with a high-endering network roadway, I'm more inclined to say less spend the extra money to make it safer. I could see some of the problems associated with the four lane where people rapidly change in lanes. to say let's spend the extra money to make it safer. I could see some of the problems associated with the four lane where people rapidly changing lanes to get around somebody turning left in that inside lane. I think we need to do everything in our power to make our roadways and Arlington as safe as we possibly can. And if that means spending an extra $10 million on here, $11 million, then so be it. Sorry, Mr. Hogg, I hate disagreeing with you. Oh, you can be wrong, it's okay. Okay. Keith, let me ask on the High-Endery Network Roadway, is that just accounting for that one mile section? Or is that accounting for also, you know, I guess what are accidents just determined within that mile or they'd also determined to the east where we're then moving to a six lane road which has a lot higher traffic count than what this is. How is that high-endering network roadways? Is it just taken into account that mile or is it taken into account the entire 2.6 miles that we have there? There were actually several sections of Randall Mill Road that was listed on that high injury network. So we were just figuring okay we did a six lane of course divided roadway and in some sections it would be undivided. We needed at least at a bare minimum do a five lane was our thought process on this. Closer to the stadium we were trying to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . would be undivided. We need to at least at a bare minimum do a five-lang was our thought process on this. Closer to the stadium, we were trying to put more lanes in knowing we're going to have more event traffic. But as you move farther away, we were thinking, okay, at least increase the mobility by adding that extra lane for safety. Yeah, and Keith, so let me ask you then this question. And we all agree, Mayor, we want safe streets. And on here you have listed improved safety most of the infeucaly, but then the last one, I'll save $11 million also says improved safety. So what is that variance of the amount of safety that we're improving? It's it's it's going to be very minimal, but just just like right at the intersections, it's about all we can do. Any type of improvements we can do right at the intersection, but the rest of the roadway would be fairly minimal as far as improvements. So we're still improving safety with just a for land. And this road, Keith, correct me, driving this constantly, it goes in there's mint there's at the start of it on the west side it's a six-line with turn lanes on the sides Davis there's a deceleration or turn lane I think is whatever it's called over there on there so so there are areas where it is already five six because we've got turn lanes already built in correct that's correct. I just don't see the true extra increase of that money being spent. Mr. Boxel. Thank you. I too have questions about how the safety is the metrics on that because because while you may be increasing the mobility of cars to get around each other, that also includes, means the cars can travel faster and speed then becomes another factor in safety. So I don't know how you compare apples to oranges on that. I don't think there's unless you can provide some sort of safety study that shows that adding mediums and turn lanes and diesel lanes improve safety overall because what those things do is they also make higher speeds possible and speed is also a safety issue. So I'm just struggling with the fact that we're saying it's going to be safer but is that really true? Is what I'm asking? I would say that kind of like when we put all the the medians in on Cooper Street, that big median project we had, the text that I came in in, the reason why they did that was, even though it did limit it some of the mobility as far as your ability to be able to turn anywhere you wanted to, you do try to curb some of the head-on collisions and think people just crossing the road, you have a median sort of a barrier to kind of protect you. The continuous left turn lane, you don't have that barrier, but at least you have a space to where if you need to veer over and get into the median or get into that continuous turn lane, you have space to do that. And plus you have space to get out of the road anytime you need to make a turn. I don't have the specific metrics to say that this, you know, we just know just over time just our experience that anytime you add meetings or anytime you add a continuous left turn lane, it doesn't improve safety. Especially with the rear end accidents, we have noticed that when we're looking at the crash data those are things that we take a look at especially if you have areas where you have schools and things that that nature where there are a lot of turns or shopping centers and things that nature we want to get people off the road as quickly as possible especially on your major arterials when you're going 40 45 miles an hour you want to get people off the road where they can decel Mr. Billion, thank you. Thank you, Keith, for the insights. My question, the for author plan that was approved. where they can decal as quickly as possible. Mr. Melon, thank you. Thank you, Keith, for the insights. My question, the for-off-app plan that was approved 2022, what it calls, what does it call? Four lanes, six lanes. On that segment, are you talking about? I believe it's four lanes. Four lanes, right? So we're gonna be compliant with the for-off-app plan that was approved, right? but that's that's for when we talk about four lanes we're talking about like through lanes okay like through lanes it doesn't it you know because even with the four lane divided you could have turn lanes within that left turn lanes within that but and even though if you went and counted it would be more than four lanes if you have turn lanes in a median so when we're talking about like the thoroughfare development plan we're really talking about through lanes. Okay so we're gonna be updating upon what was approved on thoroughfare plan correct? I don't think so I think it was still say four lanes but it's it's the through lanes is what you're really counting not technically the turn lane does not not a release. Consider it through lanes. Correct. Got it. Thank you. Mr. the through lanes is what you're really counting. Not technically the turn lane, it's not a really considerate. Consider the through lanes, okay? Correct. Donna, thank you. That's strong. Hey, and let me ask a question with pretty good bond experience. You know, you always want to be, I think there's some question over this, right? Like, is it the right 100% path? When we list these as bonds, you do have some freedom to make changes adjust a program with that. And so, you do have some freedom to make changes, adjust a program with that. And so, in trade with this, I think this money should no matter what still be used for a road. So 54, 7, 5, 5 is still the number we go with, but it could be allocated for other road projects on that. So with the bond proposal, do we have to officially say five lane versus four lane at this current time right now? And you're checking in now, which is what I assumed, and we can make that decision and then move forward. Cause I would still say, is it worth a consideration of, when we talk safety, let's talk pedestrian safety. When you have sidewalks, which is all gonna include new sidewalks on this rebuild I'm 99% sure We then have someone walking on sidewalk when they walk around a Telephone poll there that I'm sorry. I couldn't think of the word Thank you counselling with all as you knew what my brain was thinking They do you see twice Yeah, you see people on bicycles riding around the poles and they're that much closer to the street. So if we want to talk safety, we can talk pedestrian safety also, from that perspective, only place I have more concern about pedestrian safety's division, which there is a major problem with that. So could we do that with just the 454755 and then make that decision, whether it's four or five as the build comes out? Yes, absolutely. You can do that approach when we, when you all decide that you're kind of going to decide two things. How much money do you think you want to put in the capital program by category, by road category, by public facility category, by parks, libraries, whatever projects we've formally designed on, you will come up with a dollar amount for streets to your question. And I don't remember the number, but $80 million for streets, and I'm just picking a number. And then we will design the streets along the way. And as the project comes along for engineering design, we'll be able to revalidate that. And at that time, we can either go forward with it, like it's proposed, or we can say, you know what? Another priority has come in, or different pedestrian parties have come in. And we're going to spend those street dollars in a slightly different way. What we typically do, though, for the campaign is we'll say, here's the dollar amount, and we will list the anticipated projects, because we do want to deliver what people expect. And we've done a really good job of that in the last three elections of saying, here's our list, and we work the list. And with very rare exception, have we made a couple of tweaks? And it's usually because we've had some savings by downsizing, but we've done work on all those projects. So we'll decide a number, and then within those categories of roads, public safety, libraries, and parks, we will be able to decide then informally, even though it would be put on, not on the ballot, but it would be put out in PR material, the list of projects that we anticipate investing in. of projects that we anticipate investing in. in America. Yeah, in Trey, I think that helps a lot because I still think we allocate the full amount towards this. But I think as we communicate, we make sure we're not overly transparent, overly, you know, overly saying five lanes versus four lanes. We're just talking about a Randall Mill rebuild in this section because I do think there's some variance because I would like to see the data. Okay, within this mile, how many rear end accidents have there actually been, right? How many have actually occurred within this one mile zone that is costing us a extra $11 million when we could allocate other things? Is it safer to actually bury the power lines? Is it help our economic development then? Because there are some open spaces of land right there next to a very driving hospital that's getting a complete rebuild on the front side of Randall Mill with the woman's center being built right there. Are there other things we could be doing to make that? Or is there, this road already has areas where it kind of goes in and out a little bit. There are some five lines and so are there other areas you can put those within there to be able to do that? I think we still go with the main number. I just don't think we lock in to a five line is what I would propose to my colleagues today. I disagree. I think we just go with the main number and we figure it out later on. No, that was my idea. Haven't you learned by now? Okay, all good ideas are mine. I think that's great. We'll We'll just stick with that. All right, so we will confirm and trade by the way, it's 136,995,000 for our streets for this program. So I wanted to kind of wrap this up, as I had indicated, we need to confirm these categories and amounts today, just for your reference, you started this process in May of 2024. And that's when we had a discussion about changing to a three-year cycle based on the off-election years. And so considerable amount of work has been done over the course of 24 and into 25 to get us to where we are. But just to kind of give you an overview of those five propositions, the public safety package would be 48,930,000. Libraries would be 2,425,000. City administration building would be 3,105,000. The parks piece would increase additional 2.8 million, and so that would be 9,345,000. And then the public works streets would stay at 136,999. And so if that is your pleasure, that's the language that we will work towards documenting to the public. Perfect, okay. Thank you. And so. Question. Oh, the public work stays at 136, 995. I thought we just added 54 million from around the mill. Oh no, that's already included. That's already in there. It's already in. Oh, okay. Okay. We would be way over budget. We had it. And so we will we will document these categories in amounts. And then you'll have that proposition language at your January 28th meeting. If you recall, we must call the election between the second and 14th of February. And so that first and final reading, which does require unanimous support, will be on February 4th. And then based upon that, we'll start developing all of the voter guides and public information. And this kind of gives you an overview of that schedule since the bond committee started their work concluding with the May 3rd election and so unless there any additional Information that you'd like me to share that concludes my report for today the other questions comments for Lemuel Thank you, Long Hill. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you. Okay. Molly is not here, but Galen, I guess she'll field any questions anybody has for charter amendments? Absolutely. Anything at all. Go ahead. I just got all of them today, Mayor. I've got a lot. That's all right, brother. Come on with it. Give me a couple of weeks off and you see what happens. Go over the break, you know? Your holidays must have been really boring. My children love me and my wife sometimes. This is what I do when they go to bed. Um, two things. And I know it's just some things to kind of tweak and clean up. In our charter, it says, and if y'all are looking at the charter, it's page 20 section one. It talks about Council show me once per week. And this has been in the charter since 1980 from where it says, and what we do, when we approve our council meetings, we are in essence canceling all those meetings is how it works on that. I think this is one of those. We should ask, not Gallant, let Molly kind of work through, so I think she's the charter expert from that or she may be having you do it all, so I don't know. But I think that's something where, you know, one week is not realistic. That is not what we do, that is not what we follow. And I know we are meeting all the rules in the law, but in the interest of best interest in law, I do think we should modify that to say what we normally do, which is about two weeks a month or some way. And I don't wanna lock in our legal team of how to word that from that. And maybe it's said number of times a year, as needed, all kinds of different things. But I think it's one of those things that could use an extra little modification as most of this charter amendments were doing, it's just a cleanup of what we're doing from the charter. The only direction that we need today is just we need consensus on what you all want in the language and then we can have it for you for the 28th. So if that's the direction that the board when the commission council wants to give, we can definitely have that prepared. And I don't know, I don't wanna limit on what it's said. I would ask y'all to use y'all's big brains and figure out the people who actually do the work on this, figure out how to say it and word it on that. So just to clarify, it would be, it would be verbiage that's more accurate and more parallel to what we do today, which is clearly not what the charter says. Exactly. So as long as we write something that's inclusive of what our practice has been for the last almost 20 years, then that will work. You just want to delete that. Well, you shall meet every week. I just don't think we'll let y'all kind of make the transformation. And I have one more on there. And when I searched it, I kind of looked and I found out, talking to Dr. O'Wesley, she brought this up and I must have zoned out or something early on. I don't know if we brought this up and actually counsel or just a discussion, but we do not actually list the deputy mayor pro-tim in the charter. We list that you, we vote on a mayor pro Tim. I think our deputy mayor pro Tim is a good idea. I think our mayor pro Tim and our deputy mayor pro Tim, that gives three. We list that you we vote on a mayor pro Tim. I think our deputy mayor pro Tim is a good idea. I think our mayor pro Tim and our deputy mayor pro Tim, that gives three people to be able to fill in from there. I think it's a really good idea. I think it should be in the chart. I think right now we have it as an administrative procedure of what can be done. I think that is one. I would also throw to legal and say, Could we add that back in to follow suit with how we do the mayor pro-tum? Do it the same way to have the deputy mayor pro-tum and have it sync up on those things, because it is not listed in our charter, whatsoever for that position as a council. Not a problem. You can definitely have that drafted for you. Mayor, those are my only two charter amendment changes I have right now. And I think that'll be all. I really went through hard to go on the holiday. I think that'll be all for their first time because I know we're coming up on the deadline. Thank God you didn't come up with anything extraordinary difficult so they didn't have to struggle putting it together. I would just add the guidance that I got when I brought it up to Molly, our city attorney, that the deputy mayor pro-tem position is included in the administrative chapter and that there was no need to have it in the charter. That's why she didn't take it forward. So I don't know if we should or shouldn't. I think it's a question that Mr. Hawler bringing up. It's recorded and it's what you do, but is it in your governance document as opposed to a city ordinance that can be changed? Does the voters need to designate that or is it a council vote via, it's kind of the implement, right? Ordinance versus charter. And so I think that's the question that I heard, Mr. Hawg, bring up is let's go ahead and that's our practice and it's regarding the body. Let's let the voters validate that that's the rule and the practice instead of you all just validating it for yourself. And and really when it comes down to is anything any time you change the Constitution the charter you have to ask yourself is this something I'm gonna have to come back in a few years if it's a situation where you think the deputy protein is gonna fall fall out of favor and we're gonna need to get rid of it at some point, then we'll go back to the voters for it. That might be different. I don't really see that being an issue, but. And I think that's a great point. I would say, Trey, how long have we done deputy mayor protein? Probably 20, something. been a long time but Galen's point it has been a time when we had a mayor pro Tim and then it went away and then it came back. So I have seen it go back and forth based on the council's will. Yeah, I I could go either way on that we're getting it done. I just always want to try and clean it up. I would rather put it in there. I think it's a good position. and all my years of following council, being on council, I think it's something good to head in there. I'm gonna agree, let's just go ahead and get it in there and let's keep it simple and straightforward. Mr. Fam, I hear the question for Gailin. Again, for the mayor, pro-tam, do sort of, the mayor is the person that appointed the individual, right? Or they voted by the colleagues, the council member, how do you how do you charter? Yeah, the basically, yeah, this is a seniority. I think you all typically go, it goes to full council, right? Yeah. Goes to full council. I nominate the person and it goes to council for vote. Oh, okay. So. And I think right now we currently vote on Mayor Pro Tem and the deputy mayor. I think we vote on them both. And I think the mayor points on, I think it's a good. Do we have to limit on those? I know we vote on at least. I know we vote. I can't remember if we're talking about. That's on the floor. a position. I think they do sort of go based on how your terms staggered, but keep in mind, I mean there's nothing they require you to have that office. That's a limited for those positions. I think they do sort of go based on how your terms staggered. But keep in mind, I mean, there's nothing that requires you to have that office. So whatever your policy is, what you're happy with how it works, it's entirely if it's working for you. If you want it, it's not required. We can put it in a charter, have put it in a ball, have people vote for it. So that way we were going to term limit and then the position we have term limit too. So that's what you do for your cross. I mean, I don't want to be mayor pro-tem but you know there's somebody want to get to be in charge of that position at least we get to vote or you know let the people decide after you get elected you mean it was so long you get nominated to be a mayor pro-tem and up to one term or two term and then you might step down, have the mayor, the colleagues who revote you back in or something like that. So that's something to think about. It's an annual deal where I will nominate an individual to be mayor pro-tem and deputy mayor pro-tem annually that is confirmed by vote with city council. And so I could change it annually, I could leave it the same. It's been done different ways for with different mayors. Just you know, I don't have a formula other than I like to have an experience council member filling in. And Dr. Odom Wesley is our most experienced council member. So she has graciously accepted the mayor pro-tem. Andrew Peel was deputy and he's allowed role to be able to see the mayor. I'm not sure if you're going to see the mayor. I'm not sure if you're going to see the mayor. I'm not sure if you're going to see the mayor. I'm not sure if you're going to see the mayor. I'm not sure if you're going to see the mayor. I'm not sure if you're going to see them like if I ever did Mr. Galante or something like we do Your opposition to that and see I have very many friends here. I hear what are you thinking? Okay? Okay Measure twice cut once That's going to be the new theme for City Council now, Mr. Peel. Evening agenda items, Dr. Odom Wesley. I don't have any dissatisfaction. Oh, I am so disappointed. Anybody else have anything on evening agenda items? Nothing, wonderful. 4.8, something new to our agenda this afternoon. City Council external committee and training reports. We're gonna start with Arlington Convention and visitors, Bureau Board of Directors with Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Hogg. Does one of y'all want to take the lead on that? Yes. Many positive tours and happenings were reported at the convention. Visitor Bureau December 11th meeting. We received the convention's visual bureau received a claim audit. Representative of SFC reported the recent audit. Went smoothly. Strong CVB meeting bookings were announced. We had 157,000 rooms booked and 126,000 room booked in Arlington. The meeting sales team office to another great year. They booked 31,200 meeting room nights for November, which is a record for any month. The Arlington hotels broke room revenue records six times in 2024. They booked 23 million in November of 2024. 23 million in September, 2024. They broke the record July, June, May, April and September. The CVB's annual meeting received high marks, 93% of those attending the annual meetings said they were satisfied with the event. keynote speaker received pray for his engaging presentation about word of mouth marketing National Medal of Museum opening. They gave a presentation about that, gave about all the things that will be happening. The museum's grand opening will attract media from throughout the US, it's expected that more than 600,000 visitors annually. We also received a report from Kelly Parker Berry. Basically the same report that the City Council received regarding the preparedness for the FIFA World Cup. They talked about all the things that we talked about and then a report that the UIL high school football state champions were coming in town, which were a huge success. So it was a good meeting, well attended and Bowie was there and and and Trey is a member of that also. I don't know. Mr. Ong you have anything that? No, I have it in the parking. Dr. Ong Leslie. Do we have any idea when they are gonna move to their new space, the Arlington Convention and Visitors Bureau? Aren't they moving to the showroom on Randermail? Oh, they ran it. They're already there. Okay, I didn't know they ran it. Are they gonna have an open house or something? Do we get to see it? You can open house, everybody else was invited. And we can certainly take care. It was great over there to look at it. There's gonna be merging in, the EDC is also gonna be over there. And that may be where there's a little confusion because what we've got is kind of a Common area that still needs to be refined some some amount. So I do think they'll be an opportunity probably in the next month or six weeks and to go see the EDC's offices. And while you're there you can see all the offices, but there's there's going to be continued improvement in that space between Medal of Honor offices, the CVB offices, and the EDC offices in that one space. That's a draw. And Dr. Arnaud, would you like to go throw? And anytime we'll take you over to the CVB offices and let you see, but it is the national medal honors there and they will eventually go over to their whole location. But let me just say to add one thing on a rule, we got a very detailed explanation of what is happening on the National Medal of Honor Museum. I knew it was going to be really big. I had no idea how truly big this is. They have already confirmed, I don't know if I'm supposed to say this, confirmed three of the former presidents will be there. The fourth, one of them just passed away and then the next one will soon be a former president. We have a feeling he will confirm. They also feel like the current president potentially could be here showing up in Arlington. The amount of events and the amount of things people will be able to see starting that Saturday up until that Tuesday, it's going to be maybe one of the biggest things we've ever had in Arlington in town. I know staff and they're working extensively on a safety factor from what it's doing, but I think one of the things you mentioned, you know, you really these vents, you get one or two, maybe one band from the military bands, they're almost all coming in, they're all showing up. It is going to be the most well-run kickoff of something I've ever seen from that perspective. So I just have to commend city staff and the Medal of Honor Museum and our previous council and mayor who work so hard to get this it is going to be a true major event Starting on March 22nd going up until the actual official opening on March 25th So I just wanted to add the importance of that. It's coming up good point and it's gonna allow Citizens to partake not actually in the museum but outside and see what's going on so they're gonna have big video boards and everything else and so a drone show and a lot of the largest drone shows they've said and they they've calculated for they said 10,000 people around Mark Holtz Lake I think they better plan for more than 10,000 we've all talked about that and I think they are appropriations of folks me and we'll watch that so I Can't look forward to us kicking that off and the next meeting for the Commits and Bureau is scheduled for February 12th Perfect. Thank you sir RTC Mr. Gonzalez you again. Yes, Mayor. Thank you as many of you know the mayor and I are members of RTC council council met Regional transition council met on January 7th or December It's less or lower regional transition council met on Thursday December 12th Arlington was recognized during their energy efficiency air quality mobility award luncheon. Jason Dair, the city's fleet manager accepted the Silver Fleet Award for the city's work. Consent agenda item was approved to request the addition of US 287 from I-20 to I-45 to the strategic road network, including the portion in Arlington. Arlington's multi-modial delivery project funded by the US Department Energy was highlighted in the air quality project spotlight as part of Michael Morris' report. Arlington will track two new initiatives approved by the RTC, a competitive call for projects to reduce diesel emissions and a traffic signal coordination equipment upgrade process. Staff summarized the 2024 ozone season activity and other air quality updates for the Dallas, for Wirt region, the ozone season for March 1st to November 30th and the region is working to reach federal ozone standards. Important summary was presented on the recently completed forecast 2050, the region's new population and employment forecast. These forecasts will be used to support the upcoming development of the mobility 2050. The metropolitan transportation plan for North Texas. So the mobility 2050 is the metropolitan transportation plan for the North Texas government. The region's current population is over 8 million, it's predicted to increase to 12.4 million by 2050. Employment is projected to increase from 5.5 million jobs to 8.7 million jobs in 2050. A great deal of planning and infrastructure will be necessary to support the projected growth. And the next meeting of the RTC is scheduled for this Thursday, paying on the weather. January 9th. Thank you. Any questions for all on RTC? One thing I do want to focus. They are focusing. I know we get a lot of emails from some of the some of our citizens. They are focusing on the ozone and how important it is and emissions and all that. So, you know, the city is part taking in that discussion. We're part of it and with the staff that we have here, I'll have, I will gladly say that I really believe that we have the best staff in all the cities that are involved in counties and the county commissioners. I mean, I'm really proud of any time anything comes up with regards to what's going on in the RTC, Arlington's in the mix of it. So, and Mayor does a great job representing the city and speaks up when he needs to speak up and I'm there backing him up. So, thank you Mayor for leaving the city. Thank you. Mr. Hogg, North Central Texas Counselor, General Miss Executive Board. Boy, they're tired of you and I, Ro. We're covering too much here. Let me thank you all for the honor to serve on this. Mr. Peale used to serve on this as the president. Just rolled off. And our cog is one of the most high functioning organizations, especially for council of governments around the state. Truly high functioning from leadership and a lot of that has been led by Mike Eastland, our executive director. So I'd be remiss if I didn't say the biggest news is he's announced his retirement after, oh goodness, I'm going to mess it up, 30 plus years as the executive director of leading our cog from that perspective. If you don't know, the Nor Central Texas Council of Governments is based here in Arlington, right over right east of the stadiums. And so every time they come in, I thank them at every meeting, thank them for driving to Arlington and spending their money while they're here doing a cog meeting from that perspective. But a search has begun for our new executive director should be done within the next six months to be able to find a new executive director to leave that. That is a big change for an organization. So it will be a critical time. Some of the major things we've worked on over the last couple of months, transportation is always a huge factor. It's a huge factor of the cog and what they're doing. I think a big thing is what they've done is we approved the 2050 regional population employment forecast for the area. And I think it'll be shocked. You see, we're expected to be some 12.5 million people and 8.7 million people employed within the north central Texas area. We're also we constantly are in FIFA work of what's going on in traffic management and safety from what is happening for the FIFA that's coming throughout the entire region. It takes a council of governments to help coordinate throughout the entire region. We also executed and federal discussion area. A lot of college is based on grants from the federal government. We've completed, received notes, and executed a $387 million dogmet cost within the region of $843 million. It's things such as transportation and infrastructure improvements, vehicle replacement, alternative fuel equipment and regional planning activities. We are working on the update in 2050 metropolitan transportation plan from where it's going, is some Rick and Zollison RTC in sync with that. We're also working as we said on the environmental assessment of the, they say Dallas to Fort Worth. I say Dallas to Arlington to Fort Worth high speed rail project, which is, it is sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration along with the RTC of what we're doing. From that, we also have a couple of other things on emergency preparedness for the region. The started preps will do a full scale. It's called Metro X, which is a full scale emergency exercise conducted in 2025. It's all first responders, state, federal agencies to fully have preparation for a large area. We also have a, we finalized a threat hazard identification risk assessment and regional planning. And then we sponsored regional emergency responders working group meetings over the last few months. The last couple of things I'll throw out is a lot of work on the Regional Police Academy which doesn't effectively, directly affect Arlington, but as we have our own, but a lot of cities within the region and counties do not have, so they use our Regional Police Academy, which is a highly functioning organization here for that. But then the last piece I'll say is big coming up February 14th where they're hosting the regional codes council, which is all the 2024 buildings codes and construction codes. So as y'all know, we use those codes. Didn't see in her team. Look at those. So this is a big review to go through that and have regional adoption so that we're on case with that. There's a lot that goes on in Cog. It's hard to tackle all those different things, but at any time and full transparency, you can look on the Cog website. They have the agenda. They have every single thing listed and you can see all those at any time with us. That's all, Mayor. Thank you, sir. Questions or comments from Mr. Hogg? I'd like to thank our Mayor Pro Tem, Dr. Oden Wesley, for coming up with the idea to include these committee reports and training reports. I think they're going to be a benefit to counsel, to hear from everything, and I appreciate you coming up with that Anybody have anything on the issues relative to city or text projects? Seeing none, future agenda items? Yes, sir. Future agenda I would like to suggest we take a look at that permits for liquor stores. If you have an opportunity for limitations like we have like vape shops. What do you want him to know about? If there's not. If we don't have too many liquor stores out there. You're wanting to know how many liquor stores we have or a map happy. I'm happy. And see if we're not too dancing. If we consider an limitation on opening more, like we did with the vape shops, we need to know to see the numbers. OK. We can see if we can get you some numbers on that. Just get an email to you on that. OK. to answer, how many liquor stores are? It's another question to answer what your regulatory ability is because I think it's different for liquor stores than it is for vape shops based on state laws and voter authorized things. So we can certainly get you the data, but your limitations and what we can do as far as future regulation on the Christos, I think is gonna be limited. Anybody else? Yeah, yes sir. And with that, you know, Councilor Galante, you could, one regulatory, you could increase the minimum size for new, because we have, I think it has to be 2,500 square feet. You could make that larger. That's something I saw just regular resident when that passed and came through, but that's something to think about. I do have two agenda items, Mayor. One, I'd like staff to explore as we've looked about pedicaps. We had a young man come speak to us in a couple of meetings. And I think there's we had issues with it in the past and I think the city did the right thing of removing them. But some of the ideas of how to possibly bring that back because I do think there is potentially a real need as we are moving more people around, moving them around. The challenges we have if we can overcome those, I think it's something. So I would like staff to explore this, potentially have the consideration as I have the discussion about could petty cabs be brought back to our entertainment district area to be able to utilize on that? I'm happy to have staff look into it and report on there. I'm hesitant to really get in to bring in them back after hearing some of the concerns and the problems that were associated with petty cabs. And one of the biggest problems that we have right now is our partners in the entertainment district do not want them back, including the Rangers and and the cowboys and people like that do not want them back over there on their properties, doing those things and having the issues that they've had before and I'm hesitant to get crossways and bring in those type of things back when we have partners in there who my understanding do not want them back in that area. Well, until I know the details, I probably can't say I'm hesitant or not, because I can look and say we're probably one of the few large entertainment areas that doesn't offer. It's just, I pretty have to chime in here. We, yeah, just if you all want to discuss it in the future, we can put it on the agenda if you all want to. Thank you. Give you some information we can. Yeah. I would like it on a future agenda item for discussion. We can do a staff report on it. Yeah, one more. We just got to know and and try this may need to slow down. We got to know about out-gerge restriction housing finance corpse approvals. And I think that is a major issue from PECO's housing corporation that is trying to push and allowing and approving to support low affordable housing coming in in New Orleans. And I think it is, if you haven't read it, it was just sent to us earlier in the email today. Every council member should read this extensively, and I think, you know, trade whether it's the next meeting after one, I'll let you all have a little time as y'all are doing some more exploration on that. This is something I think that needs to be legislatively brought up, and I would like us to, without getting into the details that they got on this, I would like us to talk about this quickly as a major issue within the city. Anything else? See how I just stayed away from getting into the details. It's kind of guy. All right. With that, if you know, anybody else has anything on future agenda items, we'll stand adjourned on the afternoon session and we'll see everybody downstairs at 630. you you you