City Council - workshop

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Jennifer, do we have any citizens' comments today? Thank you very much. City operations update. City manager?

Yes, sir. Good afternoon, mayor and council. We do have an update on our Sparks and Stripes event that is coming up next week. I can see it. There we go. Everybody put on their hats.

There we go.

I was hoping I didn't have to give a presentation on code enforcement, so that makes me feel way better about all of this.

So did the city manager.

Very nice. Well, Mayor, City Council, members of City Council, sorry, and then my colleagues, if I haven't met you yet, my name's Kyle Conway. I am Special Events Supervisor in the Parks and Recreation Department. And here today to give a really fun, what I think is a good presentation, a fun presentation. I'm not sure what you all have been working on most of the day today, but this will be good stuff. Shout out to Communications for the Hat. Well done. This looks good. Yes, we have a little event coming up in less than a week. If you don't know, it's July 3rd and 4th, Sparks and Stripes, and this year is obviously a very special, special event that... will take place over the course of July 3rd and 4th. July 3rd is our fireworks and drone show and live music out at Levy Event Plaza. Obviously that's in Las Colinas. And that is on Friday from 7 to 10. And then the next day we turn right around on the 4th and move down to Heritage Park and do a really fun kind of a hometown feeling event. event complete with parade and pie-eating contest. The infamous dunk tank, I am told, will also make an appearance as well, so we're taking sign-ups for that, anybody who's interested in that. Also want to reiterate, there are no fireworks on July 4th. That would be illegal in the Heritage Park area. Let's get on to the good stuff. As it relates to July 3rd, we're going to start around, like we said, around 7 o'clock. We're going to try to end as close to 10 as possible. Last year, this event went till about 1025-ish, but... We have a visitor in town that's going to be in close proximity to Levy Plaza. His name is Willie Nelson, and I'm assured that he is going to end after we're done. So we've been in communications with those folks, and that was just one little wrinkle that we found out about when we were planning this. Oh, it's probably been about a month ago or so. We found out that Willie Nelson's show that's typically in Fair Park is moving to Toyota Music Factory. because of the World Cup activities. So that changed a few things, and certainly that logistical traffic flow patterns and things like that has put a little bit of an extra twist on things, but Our city departments have handled that just unbelievably well. And so, again, the idea is for us to end at 10 so we can be out ahead of that. Before we end at 10, though, there's a few things that I want to point out. So this year new, last year there was a flyover. This year there will be a flyover also, except as opposed to World War II planes, these are going to be decommissioned military jets. There will be three of them, each with one red, one white, one blue smoke. They're going to be running about 300 miles an hour, so they can't throw candy or anything else like that out, which I asked them to. They cannot get any closer than 1,000 feet, which I asked them to. And they said they could lose their licenses if they do that. They're going to make two passes. There's going to be one pass that will follow the mayor's very well done video. The video will happen, the National Anthem will happen, and fingers crossed, those three jets are going to come over right as the National Anthem ends. So it should make for a really powerful start to the evening. We'll have two bands, as we did last year, an opener and then a headliner. If you were there last year, you saw... Koffee Anderson, which is how it's pronounced, by the way. But different this year will be the opening act. It's an Irving band called the All Funk Radio Show, which has been around for a long time. The drone show is bigger this year as far as just numbers of drones. What that does is basically create a much higher resolution image in the sky. The more drones you get, the higher the resolution is, and it just is going to look really sharp. I've seen the final drone show, and it is spectacular. So looking forward to that. Fireworks. We've increased the number of shots that we'll have. It's roughly an 18 to 20 minute. It looks like probably, though, it's probably going to air more towards the 20 minute mark. There's over 1,600 shots that will be going off for those of you that like to keep track of things like that. And so we're expecting a really great show with that. And, you know, we may have a little surprise or two tucked into that. into that show. And then finally, the logo. So really like the logo that April and her team put together. You'll see that throughout the weekend on Friday and Saturday. You might even see it in drones in the sky if you're lucky. So that kind of ties it all together. And I like it because it's our own logo. It's Irving's logo. And I think it does a really good job of tying everything together. As it relates to the actual day of event, the top left picture is a picture of last year, obviously at full speed. This year we've made a few operational changes which should help logistically with load in, load out, things like that. I won't bore you with that, but I will tell you that This area right here, this bank of restrooms is new. This wasn't here last year. And so that's a direct response from looking at and reading recommendations from last year. And that was one of the biggest ones we got was we need more restrooms. So we doubled them. And so we'll have the other bank of restrooms is right over there as usual, which you can't see because the picture's in it. But then there's that. These are all the food trucks that will be around The bottom of the layout VIP area will be roughly in the same position that it was last year. And then water distribution, we give out free bottled water. and that will happen right there. Lots of kid activities, lots of inflatables for that. Another change that we are implementing this year is a new drone launch area. If you remember in the past, The drones have taken off from, in the top left picture, that parking garage on the top of Waterway Garage. They will not take off from there this year. They will be backstage, and they will come up from behind the stage, which should give a really nice view and experience for everyone. We've got the pyro techniques that we have. We'll have the docks, as usual, floated out into Lake Carolyn. We'll have those, but then we'll have some extra docks in front of those for a little bit of special elements also that I mentioned before with regards to the pyro. To answer the question, what else is new for the 250, the fourth bullet down there talks about living statues. So if you're walking around with kids, grandkids, and it looks like a fake Statue of Liberty or something like that. Chances are it could be real, which can be shocking if you're not ready for it. So that's kind of fun. But we'll have those positioned around the grounds as well. I know communications and some of our other departments are also doing some photo opportunities throughout the event grounds, which will give a really nice also experience for everybody attending. The next day on Saturday, as we talked about, this is the July 4th day out at Heritage Park. Obviously, the parade is the big one that starts at 9 o'clock. It's roughly an hour start to finish. And then the entire event should be done around noon. But again, in between that, there will be a free watermelon that we'll be giving out. That 40 plus parade entries is now 50 plus. So it is a big parade. We will stay in and around the Irving Boulevard area. And again, there will be a pie-eating contest if anybody wants to sign up for that. And again, the infamous dunk tape will be there. This is truly an absolute citywide effort here amongst all departments. And me being fairly new, it's been really amazing to watch and get to know all of these different departments and what they do and how certainly this time of year, everybody comes together. And it's really amazing to watch behind the scenes of how all this how all this comes together. When you add in World Cup, when you add in Willie Nelson, you take what already is just an absolute epic undertaking. And then you just drop a couple of bombs right in the middle of it. And so that's what this team has dealt with. And things like that impact absolutely all departments that are working with this. So it's been amazing to watch, and just hats off to my colleagues in all departments in the city. Because I can tell you this, most cities don't work that well together. I've seen it firsthand. Well done. These are our sponsors. Las Colinas Association and Caterpillar are returning sponsors, which I will say, if you want to know if you're running a good event or not, see if your sponsors are returning. If they're not, then the event's got problems. This event doesn't have problems. as evidenced by two major brands coming together and investing substantial amounts of cash with us. New this year, obviously, HEB. And I want to say a little bit of a word about HEB. They are... In addition to the cash investment that they're making in this event, they've also committed to investing in our holidays at Heritage event, as well as donating seven pallets of water that we will go through, as well as donating two pallets of water Watermelon. Discounted food. They're going to be one of our barbecue. We're going to have barbecue from them in the VIP room. It's going to be one of two food providers in the VIP room that they've offered at a substantial discount. And to round it out, 20 complimentary pies for the pie-eating contest. I'm told it's strawberry and apple, if that matters to anybody. Anyway... Brands like this, and I forgot Toyota Music Factory, they're a promotional partner with us. They allow us to advertise around their venue as well. And they've become an even more important partner this year, as there's been a lot of communication between me and them, and then 2 Live Nation getting updates on, OK, where's Willie? How's his health? Is he going to make it to 11 or not? Anyway, it's been a fruitful relationship for sure. Anyway, these are our sponsors. Proud of those brands. And if you see any of them around town or they're going to be in the VIP room, representatives certainly from LCA, Caterpillar, and H-E-B, tell them thanks. And that concludes my presentation of this nice little event that's coming up in less than a week. So happy to answer questions.

Questions, anybody?

I just have a curiosity question, and I don't know if you want to answer it publicly, but how did you get the jets to make the flyby?

Yeah, you want to talk offline? Okay. No, I'm just kidding. Oh. There is a company out there. They're called Showboss Promotions, I think. Showboss Productions. Anyway, they're a company that are made up of former military pilots. Okay. Their office is at Miramar in the San Diego area, and they do this for a living. Now, those guys come in when the actual military doesn't come in or won't come in for whatever reason. So it's completely private, and I've told them I need it to be as loud as possible because Mr. Hellman's been saying it needs to be loud. So, yes. It's impressive talking to them and getting emails back and forth because they use time in military, and I'm not sure what time that is. I have to Google that and do that.

Go ahead, John. David. Thank you, Mayor. Are we going to have Uncle Sam on stilts?

You know what? We are going to have Uncle Sam on stilts. And he may have a friend or two. But yes, Uncle Sam will make an appearance.

I heard a rumor that we were trying, or you all were trying to see if we could do a whole Willie Nelson drone portrait up there. And I think we might have been able to get him to stop in with us. But I won't ask you to answer that question.

Well, I'll say this. Just like it's illegal to fire fireworks in Heritage Park, if Willie shows up, he would be illegal too, more than likely, with his entourage and all of that. Probably just not family friendly either, but...

Are you thinking that he's sparking?

No comment.

Yeah, okay. I'm going to take anybody, any comments from anybody, because if you don't mind, I'm going to take a little personal privilege. Exactly 50 years ago when we did have the Fourth of July and we used a lot of fireworks as well as military aircraft, I was fortunate enough to be the Assistant Secretary of Interior and Director of the Bicentennial for President Ford. And so we got to see it when there were real fireworks. So this is deja vu for a guy like me 50 years later. Here I am sitting here as your mayor. So it's going to be a really special time for me to be there. And I wish we had fireworks too, but okay, I get it. Let me ask a question. Is that something that is state or is that a county or our admonition as far as illegal fireworks?

I'm not an expert. I don't know if anybody else can talk about. Is that a city policy?

What's that? It's ours. Okay. I wasn't sure how far that reached. Okay. Well, anybody else at this point? Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Joe here or is he? He's what? Okay, good. Well, tell them thank you and all the team, all of you. Appreciate you very much. Okay, we look forward to it. A week from tomorrow, we'll be all together. I would at this time request that we're going to be going into executive session. So, Kayo, would you like to read us in?

Yes, sir. I'd be happy to do that. And just a note, since we don't have any citizen comments, just to put into the record, there are no citizen comments. So item number one will just be satisfied in that regard. There is one executive session item. The time is 1.18. The Irving City Council will convene into a closed executive session to receive legal advice pursuant to Open Meetings Act, Section 551.071. Thank you.

Watch me. Your Irving City Council is now fully in place. At a special meeting, single-member District Place 3 Councilmember Abdul Habir was sworn in for a second term. Councilmember Habir has held his seat since 2023, but faced a runoff election. His term will now run until 2029. Habir joins fellow second-termer Mark Cronenwett... elected to single member district place five and newly elected place six council member Fahad Ahmed. Ahmed fills the seat and term of former council member Al Zapanta, now mayor of Irving.

So help me God, I affirm and I swear.

Nick Lawton for CitySource.

A new kind of summer camp.

Well, I got a new mini fridge and I wanted to stock it.

Young Emily Flores was so eager to be the first HEB customer in Irving, she convinced her mom to arrive more than 48 hours before the grand opening.

We drove by and she's like, mom, let's do it. One, two, three.

Mayor Al Zapata and Irving City Council members were among the VIPs invited to get a sneak peek at the expansive new grocery store located off 635.

So this is really an icon. And for us to have the first in Dallas County right here in Irving, hey, that's a big one.

For decades, the community has been asking for Irving to secure an HEB.

And they have both an H-E-B and a Jovies in Irving. That's a great win for the city and a great win for the residents.

As they say here, no store does more. More choices, more flavors, and certainly more unique Texas tastes.

What really has impressed me is the variety of items that they have to offer some of the brands of things that I never knew existed.

The selection they have. I just want to start shopping now. As Irving residents walk these aisles, they'll find fresh produce, meats, cheeses, but also something more.

What I hope they find is an incredible culture inside the store. You know, grocery shopping is a task. We all know that. But we try to make it a brighter part of someone's day.

As part of the grand opening, HEB showcased that culture, awarding $10,000 checks to four local nonprofits. including the Irving Family Advocacy Center.

Our commitment isn't just inside the four walls. When we commit to a city, we're here as a great citizen to take care of the community, and part of what that is for us is serving the community.

Of course, for Emily, there's one thing in particular she can't wait to be served.

The blood HR team.

A true taste of Texas, now home in Irving. Robert Sheik for CitySource. Patriotic pride while welcoming the world.

I'm traveling all over the U.S. and I looked up, oh, today is the match year.

Dominique is here from Germany, traveling on business. She was one of hundreds of soccer fans of all ages, many representing the red, white, and blue, gathered on the plaza at Toyota Music Factory to watch the United States opening World Cup match against Paraguay.

This team's looking amazing.

Three first half USA goals gave this crowd plenty to cheer about.

3-0, I didn't expect that. This is a good place to watch the game and be with fellow fans.

More watch parties are planned here throughout this international extravaganza.

We're a great community, you know? We're really excited. We're just proud to be here.

Every country is different, but I'm happy that everyone is in general welcome to be here and cheer and celebrate Warsaw because it's important. It's for all of us.

As the world unites around this celebration of sport, Irving is embracing the global golazo. Robert Sheik for CitySource.

Sizzling competition. We fire up the grill and see who's cooking the best steak at this year's Rare Steak Championship.

We're happy to kind of be out supporting Irving, supporting the community.

Historic freedom. The community pays tribute to the past while commemorating the present at the city's annual Juneteenth celebration.

It celebrates different cultures and that's just what makes us who we are today, just the melting pot of cultures.

Haunted fun. We check out the scary sights roaming the Irving Convention Center at this year's Texas Frightmare weekend.

I love making people scared. I love making people smile. So, can't you tell?

And in Feature Flicks, I review one of the most talked about films of the summer, Steven Spielberg's latest sci-fi thriller, Disclosure Day.

The data they paid me to

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Irving Spotlight. I'm Susan Stevens. We begin tonight with an event where culinary passion meets competitive spirit. Rare Steak Championship returns to Levy Event Plaza for a mouth-watering competition. Sizzle. Slice. Chew.

Three, two, one.

Welcome to Rare!

The Ultimate Steak Showdown returns to Levy Event Plaza. Today we have Rare Steak Championship. It's our second year in Irving, so we're super excited to be back.

We're happy to kind of be out supporting the community and just kind of getting our name out there, yeah.

23 of the top steakhouses in DFW are firing up the grill and mixing drinks.

We have a high desert sour. We're partnering with Fry Ranch. We did a bourbon and a mezcal split base, a little bit of orange juice that we amped up, a little agave, and a little lemon juice.

I'm not even a bourbon girl, but that just tastes really smooth and the perfect amount of citrus.

To find out whose cocktail and cut are above the rest.

We have a cold smoked ribeye on top of barbacoa with masa at the bottom, so essentially it's an open-faced tamale.

We're serving our sliced beef tenderloin with our signature sauce, which is a green peppercorn sauce. It's slightly spicy, and then we have our famous smashed potatoes underneath that.

Mmm. I'm gonna have to come back for a second one of this.

We are serving a grilled Wagyu steak over a tostone, which is a plantain crisp with our house chibichurri and a little bit of guajillo crema at the end.

From creative bites to traditional bold strips, the competition is tough. Fortunately, the steak is tender.

It's so good. I mean, there's nothing wrong. It's quite rewarding.

But this event is about more than competition. It's about a rare experience.

There is no event like this event. You cannot go anywhere where you get this much steak all included in your ticket. The drinks are included. You don't pay for anything once you get inside.

You get to taste this huge variety of different types of steaks from different restaurants. All the chefs are here.

And where the steaks are high, the community comes together. Good food is also part of the annual Juneteenth celebration. The cultural gathering returns to Heritage Park, inviting the community to honor resilience and rich history through music, family fun, and fellowship.

This is a day that we come out and that we celebrate and so I'm just so excited to be able to just come out here and just enjoy food, enjoy good vibes with friends and family and just enjoy the day.

Today is Juneteenth. The city of Irving puts this event on every year like clockwork. We're here to celebrate our freedom. We're here to network. We're here to pour into our small businesses, local vendors, and just have a good time.

We have the Inspiration Band, the More Melodies Band, and we have a saxophonist that's going to be entertaining the group today.

The entertainment has been good. There was some dancing. We kind of got out to do some line dancing and things like that. Food was good. So the sun is out. It's raining this morning, so I'm just happy to be out and celebrate.

It's a day that's becoming more and more popular, I think. It's a federal holiday now. But we really just wanted to enjoy the community and just togetherness.

Juneteenth to me means freedom, just oneness, celebration.

To me it symbolizes like unity, it symbolizes like freedom, and it symbolizes power and empowerment and overcoming things that we had to go through as a culture. I think it's important because we need to show that we are sticking together, that we can grow, that we can develop, that we can rebuild the things that have been trying to overcome us.

celebrates different cultures, and that's just what makes us who we are today, just a melting pot of cultures and just, you know, coming out and just, you know, being one.

We're doing it because we are a part of this community, so you cannot express and share something if you're not involved. So we want them to know that we're always going to put something on for the city of Irving and surrounding cities, and we're supposed to have fun. This is what we call a fun day, and kick your feet up.

The summer blockbusters are rolling in. Steven Spielberg's newest alien sci-fi thriller, Disclosure Day, has arrived. And after bringing us legendary extraterrestrial stories like E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I'm sad to say this highly anticipated alien mystery lacks the Spielberg magic we've come to love from his previous theatrical treasures.

Let's take a look at today.

Let's, let's, today is, today's... Disclosure Day asked the question, what if you found out we are not alone and someone was able to show you undeniable evidence of alien life? Would that scare you? It's an interesting question and could be an interesting movie if the script and the characters were not all over the place. In the film, Dr. Daniel Kellner is on the run from his underground government boss. He carries a great deal of proof that aliens are among us and feels that the entire world should finally know the truth. Luckily for him, a Kansas weather girl, who shockingly is linked to the aliens, can help Kellner get the message out. There are several issues with this film. It appears there wasn't a clear intention of which direction they wanted to go. The tone bounces around from a serious drama to a hokey and unconvincing kids movie. There are numerous plot holes in the convoluted storylines, and the underdeveloped characters make any emotional or climactic scene feel unearned. The saving grace of Disclosure Day and the real reason to watch is Emily Blunt's award-worthy performance as Margaret Fairchild. She brings energy and personality as well as humor to the very long two and a half hour underwhelming sci-fi. Though the rest of the all-star cast, including Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, and Coleman Domingo, do a fine job, their surface-level roles are not as memorable. There is thrilling action that entertains, and the comedic relief makes the film worth a trip to the box office, but set your expectations low. It does pain me to speak negatively about this movie, especially because of Blunt's performance, but Spielberg can and has done much better than this. The intent to reflect on humanity and have empathy for the unknown is admirable and greatly appreciated, but the efforts made to bring that message to the screen fell flat and rings hollow. Why would they do this?

When the time is right, everything will become clear.

Whatever happens, don't let go.

Disclosure Day is now showing. Check AMC Irving Mall and Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Las Clinas for showtimes. Sci-fi and horror fans return to the Irving Convention Center to step into the thrilling world of Texas Frightmare Weekend. Genre legends come together for an unforgettable festival featuring celebrities, exclusive panels, unique cosplayers, and so much more.

Well, we come out every year, and we love making a show.

I love to dress up, and this is a good place to dress up.

What's not to like about coming to a horror convention? The people are just amazing! I offer free childcare.

We are a three-day convention that celebrates horror movies. We try to celebrate all horror movies, classic to new.

There are so many fun, cool things and people to see, and it's great to see everybody celebrating those things together.

I love horror. I've been a horror. Freddy Krueger was my personal boogeyman with recurring dreams when I was little.

Putting people in uncomfortable situations makes you feel alive.

I love making people scared. I love making people smile. Can't you tell?

I've been attending conventions since I was a teenager, but we decided it was time to start selling. We just love horror movies, and we love selling, and we love supporting the community. Do we want with blood or without blood? It's both in there. We started out doing mostly laser engraving, that's where the name came from, but we've since expanded, so we have everything from pins, accessories, jewelry, plush, and more.

There's so much. The photo ops, the panels are super fun, but the main attraction is always the guests.

Who you got caught?

Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters. That's right. Always happy to have the screen crew back. You can see they draw a crowd, and they love Matthew.

Matthew Liu. I love the guy when you meet him. He's actually surprisingly pretty nice.

These kind of conventions bring everybody together from all over the place. We get to meet new people.

It gives people a place to come together and meet people that enjoy the same thing that they do and that doesn't happen all the time in the horror community.

We don't always know where our people are. Everybody can just be themselves about horror. They can like gore and no one will bat an eye and say oh my god this man is incredibly crazy.

everybody around here accepts you just loves you and you know no judgments in addition to exciting festivals there are several fun things to do around the city levi gomez our man about town has taken a break this week but our intern joel garcia is filling in and shares his suggestions

Enjoy a slice of history with the movie and pizza event here at the Irving Archives and Museum. The free screening of Pele, Birth of a Legend starts on June 27th at 1pm. Chronicling Pele's rise from poverty to international sports icon, the film highlights perseverance, courage, and determination in the face of hardship. You know her as the star of the Disney Channel series Lizzie McGuire. Hilary Duff is coming to Irving on her Lucky Me Tour. The singer-songwriter performs here at the Toyota Music Factory on June 30th at 7pm.

Celebrate America's 250 years of independence by making a patriotic light. Teens can create a star-destroyed lantern here at the Valley Ranch Library. The craft gets underway on July 2nd at 2 p.m.

The Aulawa Music Festival features Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, and more. The festival continues its tradition of unforgettable music and community that has made it a true cultural phenomenon. The performances start on July 3rd at 2 p.m. here at the Toyota Music Factory. Paleontologist B.K.

Bones will show you a look back in time to prehistoric Texas where dinosaurs and other amazing creatures roamed the wilds. See a massive T-Rex go and learn why B.K.

calls Texas the Bones Star State. Dinosaurs of Texas starts at 2.30 p.m. on July 8th here at Valley Ranch Library.

Share your thoughts on the birthday of the United States. Here on the America 250 Wish Wall at the Irving Archives and Museums, you can add your hopes for the next chapter of our nation's story and see what other folks from Irving have to say as well. Stop by anytime this summer.

And that wraps up this episode of Irving Spotlight. Join us next time as we let it go and follow Elsa and Anna in Irving Youth Theater's production of Frozen Junior. And we head downtown to celebrate Independence Day at the Irving Sparks and Stripes Parade. As always, tell us stories you'd like to see on the show. You can email us at ictn at irvingtx.gov or connect with us on social media. So subscribe to our YouTube channel, like us on Facebook, and follow us on X and Instagram. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks so much for tuning in and have a great evening. For Irving Spotlight, I'm Susan Stevens.

this is a drill this is a drill let's go now respond on training eight engine seven engine 12 engine five a fire training scenario where the onlookers are the students all units responded to the structure file this was pretty epic i highly recommend this to anybody it was awesome to actually see them in action i'm actually inspiring myself to become a firefighter

Lester Hunt was one of the dozens of Irving residents who attended Fire Ground 101, a one-day crash course hosted by the Irving Fire Department.

Most people, you know, they see the fire department driving down the street, and that's the extent of the interactions we get on a daily basis. We wanted a program where we could just be out here, answer some questions, and see how we do our things.

While much of the day was in a classroom setting.

We can look at fire patterns and see how the fire was affected by wind or the water we sprayed.

The highlight was out here. As attendees witnessed firefighters respond to a structure fire. As part of a training drill.

This is a really, really good educational class that a lot of residents need to be looking out for in the future. It's something that they can then take back to their families and take back to their neighborhoods as well. And this is a great class to learn about what they do.

Seeing these crews respond so quickly impressed everyone in attendance. And for hopeful firefighter Lester, the class was especially impactful.

I was hyped about it for the entire week, and it's overexceeded the expectations of which I had.

Fire education, as hot as it gets. Robert Sheik for CitySource. A new kind of summer camp.

Well, I got a new mini fridge and I wanted to stock it.

Young Emily Flores was so eager to be the first H-E-B customer in Irving, she convinced her mom to arrive more than 48 hours before the grand opening.

We drove by and she's like, mom, let's do it. One, two, three.

Mayor Al Zapanta and Irving City Council members were among the VIPs invited to get a sneak peek at the expansive new grocery store located off 635.

So this is really an icon. And for us to have the first in Dallas County right here in Irving, hey, that's a big one.

For decades, the community has been asking for Irving to secure an HEV.

and they have both an HEB and a Jovies in Irving. That's a great win for the city and a great win for the residents.

As they say here, no store does more. More choices, more flavors, and certainly more unique Texas tastes.

What really has impressed me is the variety of items that they have to offer some of the brands of things that I never knew existed.

The selection they have, I just want to start shopping now. As serving residents walk these aisles, they'll find fresh produce, meats, cheeses, but also something more.

What I hope they find is an incredible culture inside the store. You know, grocery shopping is a task. We all know that, but we try to make it a brighter part of someone's day.

As part of the grand opening, HEB showcased that culture, awarding $10,000 checks to four local nonprofits. including the Irving Family Advocacy Center.

Our commitment isn't just inside the four walls. When we commit to a city, we're here as a great citizen to take care of the community, and part of what that is for us is serving the communities.

Of course, for Emily, there's one thing in particular she can't wait to be served.

The blood HR team.

A true taste of Texas, now home in Irving. Robert Sheik for CitySource. Patriotic pride while welcoming the world.

I'm traveling all over the U.S. and I looked up, oh, today is the match year.

Dominique is here from Germany, traveling on business. She was one of hundreds of soccer fans of all ages, many representing the red, white, and blue, gathered on the plaza at Toyota Music Factory to watch the United States opening World Cup match against Paraguay.

This team's looking amazing.

Three first half USA goals gave this crowd plenty to cheer about.

3-0, I didn't expect that. This is a good place to watch the game and be with fellow fans.

More watch parties are planned here throughout this international extravaganza.

We're a great community, you know? We're really excited. We're just proud to be here.

Every country is different, but I'm happy that everyone is, in general, welcome to be here and cheer and celebrate World Cup because it's important. It's for all of us.

As the world unites around this celebration of sport, Irving is embracing the global golazo. Robert Sheik for CitySource.

Sizzling competition. We fire up the grill and see who's cooking the best steak at this year's Rare Steak Championship.

We're happy to kind of be out supporting Irving, supporting the community.

Historic freedom. The community pays tribute to the past while commemorating the present at the city's annual Juneteenth celebration.

It celebrates different cultures and that's just what makes us who we are today, just a melting pot of cultures. Haunted fun.

We check out the scary sights roaming the Irving Convention Center at this year's Texas Frightener weekend.

I love making people scared, love making people smile, so can't you tell?

And in Feature Flicks, I review one of the most talked about films of the summer, Steven Spielberg's latest sci-fi thriller, Disclosure Day.

The data they paid me to

Hello everyone, welcome to Irving Spotlight. I'm Susan Stevens. We begin tonight with an event where culinary passion meets competitive spirit. Rare Steak Championship returns to leave the event plaza for a mouthwatering competition. Sizzle. Slice. Chew. Three, two, one, welcome to Rare! The Ultimate Steak Showdown returns to Levy Event Plaza.

Today we have Rare Steak Championship. It's our second year in Irving, so we're super excited to be back.

We're happy to kind of be out supporting the community and just kind of getting our name out there, yeah.

23 of the top steakhouses in DFW are firing up the grill and mixing drinks.

We have a high desert sour. We're partnering with Fry Ranch. We did a bourbon and a mezcal split base, a little bit of orange juice that we amped up, a little agave, and a little lemon juice.

I'm not even a bourbon girl, but that just tastes really smooth and the perfect amount of citrus.

To find out whose cocktail and cut are above the rest,

We have a cold smoked ribeye on top of barbacoa with masa at the bottom, so essentially it's an open-faced tamale.

We're serving our sliced beef tenderloin with our signature sauce, which is a green peppercorn sauce. It's slightly spicy, and then we have our famous smashed potatoes underneath that.

Mmm. I'm gonna have to come back for a second one of this.

We are serving a grilled Wagyu steak over a tostone, which is a plantain crisp with our house chibichurri and a little bit of guajillo crema at the end.

From creative bites to traditional bold strips, the competition is tough. Fortunately, the steak is tender.

It's so good. I mean, there's nothing wrong. It's quite rewarding.

But this event is about more than competition. It's about a rare experience.

There is no event like this event. You cannot go anywhere where you get this much steak all included in your ticket. The drinks are included. You don't pay for anything once you get inside.

You get to taste this huge variety of different types of steaks from different restaurants. All the chefs are here.

And where the stakes are high, the community comes together. Good food is also part of the annual Juneteenth celebration. The cultural gathering returns to Heritage Park, inviting the community to honor resilience and rich history through music, family fun, and fellowship.

This is a day that we come out and we celebrate and so I'm just so excited to be able to just come out here and just enjoy food, enjoy good vibes with friends and family and just enjoy the day.

Today is Juneteenth. The city of Irving puts this event on every year like clockwork. We're here to celebrate our freedom. We're here to network. We're here to pour into our small businesses, local vendors, and just have a good time.

We have the Inspiration Band, the More Melodies Band, and we have a saxophonist that's going to be entertaining the group today.

The entertainment has been good. There was some dancing. We kind of got out to do some line dancing and things like that. Food was good. So the sun is out. It's raining this morning, so I'm just happy to be out and celebrate.

It's a day that's becoming more and more popular, I think. It's a federal holiday now. But we really just wanted to enjoy the community and just togetherness.

Juneteenth to me means freedom, just oneness, celebration.

To me, it symbolizes unity, it symbolizes freedom, and it symbolizes power and empowerment and overcoming things that we had to go through as a culture. I think it's important because we need to show that we are sticking together, that we can grow, that we can develop, that we can rebuild the things that have been trying to overcome us.

Celebrates different cultures and that's just what makes us who we are today. Just a melting pot of cultures and just, you know, coming out and just, you know, being one.

We're doing it because we are a part of this community. So you cannot express and share something if you're not involved. So we want them to know that we're always going to put something on for the city of Irving and surrounding cities. And we're supposed to have fun. This is what we call a fun day and kick your feet up.

The summer blockbusters are rolling in. Steven Spielberg's newest alien sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day has arrived. And after bringing us legendary extraterrestrial stories like E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I'm sad to say this highly anticipated alien mystery lacks the Spielberg magic we've come to love from his previous theatrical treasures.

Let's take a look at today. Let's, let's, today is, today's.

Disclosure Day asked the question, what if you found out we are not alone and someone was able to show you undeniable evidence of alien life? Would that scare you? It's an interesting question and could be an interesting movie if the script and the characters were not all over the place. In the film, Dr. Daniel Kellner is on the run from his underground government boss. He carries a great deal of proof that aliens are among us and feels that the entire world should finally know the truth. Luckily for him, a Kansas weather girl, who shockingly is linked to the aliens, can help Kellner get the message out. There are several issues with this film. It appears there wasn't a clear intention of which direction they wanted to go. The tone bounces around from a serious drama to a hokey and unconvincing kids movie. There are numerous plot holes in the convoluted storylines, and the underdeveloped characters make any emotional or climactic scene feel unearned. The saving grace of Disclosure Day and the real reason to watch is Emily Blunt's award-worthy performance as Margaret Fairchild. She brings energy and personality as well as humor to the very long two and a half hour underwhelming sci-fi. Though the rest of the all-star cast, including Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, and Coleman Domingo, do a fine job, their surface-level roles are not as memorable. There is thrilling action that entertains, and the comedic relief makes the film worth a trip to the box office, but set your expectations low. It does pain me to speak negatively about this movie, especially because of Blunt's performance, but Spielberg can and has done much better than this. The intent to reflect on humanity and have empathy for the unknown is admirable and greatly appreciated, but the efforts made to bring that message to the screen fell flat and rings hollow. Why would they do this?

When the time is right, everything will become clear.

Don't you let go.

Disclosure Day is now showing. Check AMC Irving Mall and Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Las Clinas for showtimes. Sci-fi and horror fans return to the Irving Convention Center to step into the thrilling world of Texas Frightmare Weekend. Genre legends come together for an unforgettable festival featuring celebrities, exclusive panels, unique cosplayers, and so much more.

Well, we come out every year, and we love making a show.

I love to dress up, and this is a good place to dress up.

What's not to like about coming to a horror convention? The people are just amazing! I offer free childcare.

We are a three-day convention that celebrates horror movies. We try to celebrate all horror movies, classic to new.

There are so many fun, cool things and people to see, and it's great to see everybody celebrating those things together.

I love horror. I've been a horror. Freddy Krueger was my personal boogeyman with recurring dreams when I was little.

Putting people in uncomfortable situations makes you feel alive.

I love making people scared. I love making people smile. Can't you tell?

I've been attending conventions since I was a teenager, but we decided it was time to start selling. We just love horror movies and we love selling and we love supporting the community. Do we want with blood or without blood? There's both in there. We started out doing mostly laser engraving, that's where the name came from, but we've since expanded. So we have everything from pins, accessories, jewelry, plush, and more.

There's so much. The photo ops, the panels are super fun, but the main attraction is always the guests. Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters. That's right. Always happy to have the screen crew back. You can see they draw a crowd and they love Matthew.

Matthew Wu. I love the guy when you meet him. He's actually surprisingly pretty nice.

These kind of conventions bring everybody together from all over the place. We get to meet new people.

It gives people a place to come together and meet people that enjoy the same thing that they do. And that doesn't happen all the time in the horror community.

We don't always know where our people are. Everybody can just be themselves about horror. They can like gore and no one will bat an eye and say oh my god this man is incredibly crazy.

everybody around here accepts you just loves you and you know no judgments in addition to exciting festivals there are several fun things to do around the city levi gomez our man about town has taken a break this week but our intern joel garcia is filling in and shares his suggestions

Enjoy a slice of history with the movie and pizza event here at the Irving Archives and Museum. The free screening of Pele, Birth of a Legend starts on June 27th at 1pm. Chronicling Pele's rise from poverty to international sports icon, the film highlights perseverance, courage, and determination in the face of hardship. You know her as the star of the Disney Channel series Lizzie McGuire. Hilary Duff is coming to Irving on her Lucky Me Tour. The singer-songwriter performs here at the Toyota Music Factory on June 30th at 7pm.

Celebrate America's 250 years of independence by making a patriotic light. Teens can create a star-striped lantern here at the Valley Ranch Library. The craft gets underway on July 2nd at 2 p.m.

The Aulawa Music Festival features Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, and more. The festival continues its tradition of unforgettable music and community that has made it a true cultural phenomenon. The performances start on July 3rd at 2 p.m. here at the Toyota Music Factory. Paleontologist B.K.

Bones will show you a look back in time to prehistoric Texas where dinosaurs and other amazing creatures roamed the wilds.

See a massive T-Rex skull and learn why B.K. calls Texas the Bones Star State. Dinosaurs of Texas starts at 2.30 p.m. on July 8th here at Valley Ranch Library.

Share your thoughts on the birthday of the United States. Here on the America 250 Wish Wall at the Irving Archives and Museums, you can add your hopes for the next chapter of our nation's story and see what other folks from Irving have to say as well. Stop by anytime this summer.

And that wraps up this episode of Irving Spotlight. Join us next time as we let it go and follow Elsa and Anna in Irving Youth Theater's production of Frozen Junior. And we head downtown to celebrate Independence Day at the Irving Sparks and Stripes Parade. As always, tell us stories you'd like to see on the show. You can email us at ictn at irvingtx.gov or connect with us on social media. So subscribe to our YouTube channel, like us on Facebook, and follow us on X and Instagram. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks so much for tuning in and have a great evening. For Irving Spotlight, I'm Susan Stevens.

This is a drill. This is a drill. Let's go now. Respond on training eight. Engine seven. Engine 12. Engine five.

A fire training scenario where the onlookers are the students. All units respond to the structure fire.

This was pretty epic. I highly recommend this to anybody. It was awesome to actually see them in action. I'm actually aspiring myself to become a firefighter.

Lester Hunt was one of the dozens of Irving residents who attended Fire Ground 101, a one-day crash course hosted by the Irving Fire Department.

Most people, you know, they see the fire department driving down the street, and that's the extent of the interactions we get on a daily basis. We wanted a program where we could just be out here, answer some questions, and see how we do our things.

While much of the day was in a classroom setting.

We can look at fire patterns and see how the fire was affected by wind or the water we sprayed.

The highlight was out here. As attendees witnessed firefighters respond to a structure fire as part of a training drill.

This is a really, really good educational class that a lot of residents need to be looking out for in the future. It's something that they can then take back to their families and take back to their neighborhoods as well. And this is a great class to learn about what they do.

Seeing these crews respond so quickly impressed everyone in attendance. And for hopeful firefighter Lester, the class was especially impactful.

I was hyped about it for the entire week, and this overexceeded the expectations of which I had.

Fire education, as hot as it gets. Robert Sheik for CitySource. A new kind of summer camp.

Well, I got a new mini fridge and I wanted to stock it.

Young Emily Flores was so eager to be the first H-E-B customer in Irving, she convinced her mom to arrive more than 48 hours before the grand opening.

We drove by and she's like, mom, let's do it. One, two, three.

Mayor Al Zapata and Irving City Council members were among the VIPs invited to get a sneak peek at the expansive new grocery store located off 635.

So this is really an icon. And for us to have the first in Dallas County right here in Irving, hey, that's a big one.

For decades, the community has been asking for Irving to secure an HEV. And they have those in existence.

The selection they have, i just want to start shopping now observing residents walk these aisles they'll find fresh produce meats cheeses but also something more what i hope they find is an incredible culture inside the store you know grocery shopping is a task we all know that but we try to make it a brighter part of someone's day as part of the grand opening heb showcased that culture awarding ten thousand dollar checks to four local non-profits including the Irving Family Advocacy Center.

Our commitment isn't just inside the four walls. When we commit to a city, we're here as a great citizen to take care of the community, and part of what that is for us is serving the communities.

Of course, for Emily, there's one thing in particular she can't wait to be served.

The blood HR team.

A true taste of Texas, now home in Irving. Robert Sheik for CitySource. Patriotic pride while welcoming the world.

I'm traveling all over the U.S. and I looked up, oh, today is the match year.

Dominique is here from Germany, traveling on business. She was one of hundreds of soccer fans of all ages, many representing the red, white, and blue, gathered on the plaza at Toyota Music Factory to watch the United States opening World Cup match against Paraguay.

This team's looking amazing.

Three first half USA goals gave this crowd plenty to cheer about.

3-0, I didn't expect that. This is a good place to watch the game and be with fellow fans.

More watch parties are planned here throughout this international extravaganza.

We're a great community, you know? We're really excited. We're just proud to be here.

Every country is different, but I'm happy that everyone is, in general, welcome to be here and cheer and celebrate Worcester because it's important. It's for all of us.

As the world unites around this celebration of sport, Irving is embracing the global golazo. Robert Sheik for CitySource.

Sizzling competition. We fire up the grill and see who's cooking the best steak at this year's Rare Steak Championship.

We're happy to kind of be out supporting Irving, supporting the community.

Historic freedom. The community pays tribute to the past while commemorating the present at the city's annual Juneteenth celebration.

It celebrates different cultures and that's just what makes us who we are today, just a Melting pot of cultures.

Haunted fun. We check out the scary sights roaming the Irving Convention Center at this year's Texas Frightener weekend.

I love making people scared. I love making people smile. So, can't you tell?

And in Feature Flicks, I review one of the most talked about films of the summer, Steven Spielberg's latest sci-fi thriller, Disclosure Day. Hello everyone, welcome to Irving Spotlight. I'm Susan Stevens. We begin tonight with an event where culinary passion meets competitive spirit. Rare Steak Championship returns to leave the event plaza for a mouthwatering competition. Sizzle, slice, chew.

The Ultimate Steak Showdown returns to Levy Event Plaza. Today we have Rare Steak Championship. It's our second year in Irving, so we're super excited to be back.

We're happy to kind of be out supporting the community and just kind of getting our name out there, yeah.

23 of the top steakhouses in DFW are firing up the grill and mixing drinks.

We have a high desert sour. We're partnering with Fry Ranch. We did a bourbon and a mezcal split base, a little bit of orange juice that we amped up, a little agave, and a little lemon juice.

I'm not even a bourbon girl, but that just tastes really smooth and the perfect amount of citrus.

To find out whose cocktail and cut are above the rest.

We have a cold smoked ribeye on top of barbacoa with masa at the bottom, so essentially it's an open-faced tamale.

We're serving our sliced beef tenderloin with our signature sauce, which is a green peppercorn sauce. It's slightly spicy, and then we have our famous smashed potatoes underneath that.

Mmm. I'm gonna have to come back for a second one of this.

We are serving a grilled Wagyu steak over a tostone, which is a plantain crisp with our house chibichurri and a little bit of guajillo crema at the end.

From creative bites to traditional bold strips, the competition is tough. Fortunately, the steak is tender.

It's so good. I mean, there's nothing wrong. It's quite rewarding.

But this event is about more than competition. It's about a rare experience.

There is no event like this event. You cannot go anywhere where you get this much steak all included in your ticket. The drinks are included. You don't pay for anything once you get inside.

You get to taste this huge variety of different types of steaks from different restaurants. All the chefs are here.

And where the steaks are high, the community comes together. Good Food is also part of the annual Juneteenth celebration. The cultural gathering returns to Heritage Park, inviting the community to honor resilience and rich history through music, family fun, and fellowship.

This is a day that we come out and that we celebrate, and so I'm just so excited to be able to just come out.

We'll be right back.

City Manager, are there any administrative comments you want to make on this item? Because at this point, I think you've made your- No, I'm good, sir, thank you. Set an update, all right? I'm good, yes, sir, thank you. Okay, thank you. I'd like us to move into the, are we in now at this point? Good. Consent agenda. Item number three, approving the work session minutes of Thursday, June 11, 2026, while also approving the regular meeting of the minutes for Thursday, June 11, 2026. Item number five, ordinance, amending ordinance number 2025-11167. providing budget adjustment number six to the 2025-2026 fiscal year budget. Item number six, resolution approving the release of all claims with Rosa Sandoval in the amount of $135,000 for settlement of a personal injury claim. Number seven, resolution authorizing the city manager or designee to negotiate and execute an electricity supply contract for the City of Irving based on best value and other conditions set by the City Council. Resolution 8. Approving an agreement with the Office of the Governor of Texas Homeland Security State Administrative Agency to receive and participate in the fiscal year 2025, Homeland Security Grant Program for the Fire Department's Hazmat Project.

Mayor?

Yes.

I'd like to hear a little bit about these Homeland Security Grant Programs. I'm not familiar with those.

Chris, do you want to take that on?

You bet. Jason's coming up, our Emergency Management Director.

Okay.

You may want to turn on the...

There we go. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Jason Carrier, Emergency Management Coordinator. So before you today, we have a mix of Urban Area Security Initiative Grant and State Homeland Security Grant. Urban Area Security Initiative Grant, the 10 largest urban areas in the nation receive an allocation of funding every year, and the DFW WASI receives projects on that. The HAZMAT Grant supports buying HAZMAT equipment for the fire department. We also have a project for a state homeland security program, which is a competitive program through the COG district that's buying through the Public Works Emergency Response Team a mobile light tower, diesel powered. So if we have an incident in the middle of the night, we have light. as well as a variable message board sign if we have an issue or we need to close a road down or have a safety concern or a special event we can utilize, as well as a planning project that funds salary for a staff position for a GIS staff member or the four projects that we currently have that have been funded. We do get these funds every year. The UASI goes to the 10th largest jurisdictions, which we should, as long as funding is earmarked, we get it every year. And then the state homeland security projects are competitive, so some years we get some, other years we do not. But we have been receiving these funding since 2003.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Any questions at this point? Okay, thank you. Item number nine, resolution approving an agreement with the Office of the Governor, Texas Homeland Security State Administrative Agency to receive and participate in the fiscal year 2025 Homeland Security Grant Program for the Police Department's Planning Enhancement Project. Any comments? Chris or the Chief, are we good? Okay. 10. Resolution approving an agreement with the Office of the Governor, Texas Homeland Security State Administrative Agency to receive and participate in the Fiscal Year 2025 Homeland Security Grant Program for the Police Department's PWERT Light Tower Project. 11. Approving agreement with the Office of the Governor, Texas Homeland Security Administrative Agency, to receive and participate in the Fiscal Year 2025 Homeland Security Grant Program for the Police Department's Variable Message Sign Project. Item number 12, Resolution Approving an Interlocal Cooperation Agreement with North Central Texas Council of Government's NETCOG for FIFA World Cup. Mayor?

Yes. Just real quick on this topic, and not today, but maybe in September, October, if we could kind of get a debrief on what lessons learned from having an event like this in the Metroplex and any policy changes that we need to look at for future type events.

Thank you. Item number 13. Chris, are there any comments? Are you good? Okay, good. Item number 13, resolution authorizing the preparation of an application for financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, building resilient infrastructure and or it should be resilient infrastructure and communities brick program for the upper Brockbank Channel Phase 1 project. 14. Resolution authorizing the preparation and filing of an application for financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency building resilient infrastructure and communities BRIC program for the North Delaware Creek Phase 1 Channel Improvement Project. Item number 15. Resolution of support for the designation of certain qualified census tracts within the City of Irving to the Office of the Governor Economic Development and Tourism for the 2026 Opportunity Zone 2.0 program. Item number 16. resolution approving the engineering services agreement with freeze and nickels inc in the estimated amount of one million six hundred eleven thousand eight hundred dollars for the jameson water supply line replacement and relocation design project okay that concludes Those items, now we're moving into bids and purchasing items. Item 17 to 23, does anybody have anything specifically that they want to point out or have a comment on? Okay. Can I ask a question?

Yes. Quick question on number 23. Is this for the mailboxes and Windows licenses, 3.4 million?

We do have a presentation. We'd be happy to share that with council.

Okay. Is that coming later? No, we can do it now. Okay, I appreciate that.

We have a presentation now that we can provide.

Let me read it just to be sure everybody knows what we're going to be doing. Resolutions. renewing the three-year Microsoft Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft Corporation, which will be fulfilled by the SHI Government Solutions, Inc., in the total estimated amount of $3,400,000 for the technology, solutions, products, services through the State of Texas Department of Information Resources.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. My name is Benny Boyson, Enterprise Technology Officer for City of Irving IT Department. I'm sorry, I missed the question earlier. I wanted just to take that.

Yeah, I was just wondering what's driving that post.

Oh, great.

Okay. Thank you.

Perfect. So City of Irving utilizes Microsoft products for all their enterprise, Word, email, PowerPoint, like today's meeting. I don't know. So, yes, our email is Microsoft 0365. It's approximately 2,100 email boxes for all our city employees. It also covers our OneDrive and our enterprise. This enterprise agreement also covers our servers, data center, operating systems, and things like that. So it's about $367 per employee per year to have email through Microsoft, which also includes the enterprise software as well, like I discussed. So enterprise software, again, is the database, operating systems, all the core Windows operating systems for the computer desktops and laptops, and then the Office 365 pieces, the email, and all the cloud applications that we use. Some of the importance of the licensing is it keeps our policy compliance. We're able to do MFA to meet our cybersecurity needs. It actually does cover a lot of tick boxes for the cybersecurity. It also gives us technical support, security updates, and then also enhances our productivity and collaboration. So again, we have 2,100 employees. So it's about $342 per user for the email and all the office products. And that also covers about 1,700 devices. Any more questions?

Here, Matt. Yep. Thank you, Mayor. Can you go to a second device, a second slide, I mean? One before. The one with the servers and I see that. So Is this all on-prem? Are we still using Server 2022?

So we do have on-prem services. We use virtual machines. Windows Server 2022 data center, we're not actually using that, but that is actually a typo. It should just be Windows Server products, standard data center.

I'm just wondering if that's driving your cost for support more because they'll charge you more for outdated operating systems.

That is true. We do try to stay above the retire dates on those operating systems, and we only pay for the extra enterprise software licensing for the support on our police department applications at this time.

Got it. And do we do true-up with them?

With Microsoft, yes. This is a true-up.

Is this a true or false?

Yes, sir.

Have we considered taking SQL and System Center off of our data centers and using cloud-based solutions?

So we currently use Intune for our mobile device management. Our current on-prem, we do use SCCM for some of our Windows device management. We are in the process of actually migrating and planning out a solution to get off that on-prem solution, get it to the cloud.

Intune?

Intune, yes, sir.

Because that's very expensive, the SCCM.

We do get, yeah, the SCCM, you're correct. And we are going to leverage the licensing features we do get with the Office 365, the per user 342. That does give us the Intune device management right now. So we're going to, like you first said.

Is this a redundant cost when we're paying for Intune and SCCM?

Currently, in our enterprise agreement, we are covering both, yes.

All right, thank you.

Yep.

Okay. Item 17, resolution renewing the contract with Lone Star Hazmat Response LLC in the total estimated amount of $200,000 for regulated environmental risk services for emergency response for sanitary sewer overflow and hazardous materials incidents for a two-year period. Item number 18, resolution renewing the contract with Triumvirate Environmental Services LLC in the total estimated amount of $200,000 for regulated environmental risk services, emergency response for chemical waste testing, removal and transport and disposal of a two-year period. Item number 19, resolution approving renewal number two to the agreement between the City of Irving and Morris and McDaniel Inc. in the total estimated amount of $194,000 for police and fire promotional exams for a two-year period. Item number 20, resolution approving as needed expenditures with GT Distributors Inc. in the total estimated amount of $1,100,000 for ammunition, body armor, duty gear, and other related supplies and equipment through the State of Texas Local Government Statewide Purchasing Cooperative Agreement, by bond. Item 21, resolution approving and accepting the bid of Unica Enterprises, LLC, the total estimated amount of $164,000 for the custodial services at the Valley View Municipal Complex. Item number 22, resolution approving IT vendor member contract pursuant to the cooperative purchasing agreement between the City of Irving and SHI Government Solutions, Inc. through the State of Texas Department of Information Resources. We've already discussed item 23. Item 24, ordinance approving increase of residence homestead tax exemption for persons disabled or 65 years of age or older. Item number 25, ordinance amending chapter 36 entitled public swimming pools and spas. of the Code of Civil and Criminal Ordinance of the City of Irving, Texas. Item number 26, ordinance granting a franchise to Waste Management of Texas, Inc. for solid waste collection and services beginning on June 26, 2026 and ending on June 25, 2029 pursuant to Chapter 33 of the Code of Civil and Criminal Criminal Ordinance of the City of Irving, Texas. That completes the bids. We're now in zoning and companion items. Jocelyn.

There we go, good afternoon. We have, I guess, five cases tonight. Sorry. Oh I do. Thank you. All right. The first case is a conditional use permit 2025-256 CUP at 2241 West Rochelle. The reason they have to do a conditional use permit is because they are more than 2,000 square feet and they are within 500 feet of an R zone residential district. They're also asking for a variance to the minimum required parking. Staff recommended approval. PNZ was, I'm sorry, denial. PNZ was denial 9 to 0. No letters of support and 1 in opposition. So here's the tenant space in the shopping center. Future land use, the zoning, and the notification area. Here, again, is the location of the shopping center. Since staff recommend denial, we did not discuss a time period with them. So if council chooses to approve, you do have the ability to set a time period if you want to. So, again, we didn't have that discussion with the applicant because we had a recommendation of denial. You go into the chart. So the maximum event center size to be able to do it by right has to be no more than 2,000 square feet. Their proposal is 5725 square feet. They are adjacent to a residential district, which is to the north and the rear. So the request variance is zero feet because it's property line to property line. And then the parking, the required for this use is 58 spaces. They're requesting a variance of 36 spaces. So in your report, we didn't put it all here, the inspections department keeps track of the required uses and the required parking for shopping centers. And for this use, there was only 22 spaces left over for the event center. And that brings us to need a variance for 36 spaces. So here, this used to be the King Tut Hookah Lounge, if y'all are familiar with that. The opposition actually came from the ownership of the AutoZone. There are, let me go back to the site plan. There are seven spaces here that are, through private agreement, are essentially shared or given to the AutoZone, so that's why we took that out of the calculation. So those spaces are right here. Let me go back, sorry. So, again, those are right along here. So those are not spaces that this shopping center can count.

Where is AutoZone compared to those parking spaces?

So the AutoZone is right here. Right there. So they're an adjacent parcel. This is a relatively new oil change place, and so there was some massaging they had to do to work to fit that back there and everybody get their parking.

Okay.

So this is a closer-up picture of the AutoZone across the streets, and then a laundromat and another building to the west. I'll be happy to answer your questions.

I have a question. Yes, I have a question.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a quick question. On this event center, they're generally active in the after-hours meetings. in the evenings. In that area, I think the AutoZone and other businesses has been closed at that time, so why can't we consider that parking to be utilized?

That's your prerogative to consider that. AutoZone, I think, closes at 9 and events could happen, you know, maybe during the day on a Saturday and Sunday. But we don't have an allowance in the ordinance for shared parking based on hours because it's very, very difficult to enforce. If that's something that you all want to consider, that's your prerogative.

Because the understanding what I learned is that they have some MOU between them to use the parking spots over there.

Right, AutoZone has those seven spaces through an agreement. Okay.

All right, thank you. Okay. Okay. Thanks.

Next case, this is postponed from the April 16th meeting. This is the cemetery at 4190 Valley View. The request is SP2 for CO for the cemetery with a variance to the minimum size and the internment setbacks. Staff recommendation was denial. PNZ had denied 5 to 4. No letters of opposition or support. And again, this was postponed from the April meeting. So here's the location in far west Irving. The proposal, they have a frontage here on Estelle, which is not a constructed street. It's what we call a paper right of way. They have some frontage on Valley View. We'll talk about that in a minute of how those have some complexities. Future land use. In here is an existing, I believe it was the Harrington Cemetery. This is not part of the zoning. So they would not be incorporating that cemetery into theirs, but it would be surrounding it. So here's the site plan. It's a little bit revised, but it's pretty much what you saw before. The property is a little under five acres. The requirement that was established by council just a year or so ago is 25 acres. And the internment setback from a property line is supposed to be 20 feet. That setback actually is measured from the existing cemetery, so they're requesting zero because it's already a cemetery at the moment. What you see around the edges, part of the requirement through the SP2 process is to show their internal driveways, so that's what the gray area is. And they have discussed with CIP and traffic the different options for some drainage and access into the property. I'll show these pictures, and then we'll talk about that for a second. So this is pretty much the frontage of the property onto Valley View. This is a creek. It's Estelle Creek. And the majority of the frontage is the culvert, and it is actually kind of the, I guess you want to call it a bridge onto Valley View. This is the paper right-of-way. It probably used to be a road years ago. And this is Estelle. No, I'm sorry, that's DFW Airport. This is the paper right away right here. So it looks like, I guess, the people who maintain the Harrington Cemetery just kind of cut across. This is Irving ISD land, so it looks like they just kind of go catty-corner and go across the grass. So the discussions, the reason it was postponed from the April meeting is to discuss how they were going to get access to it. I can defer to Dan and Trevor if you all want to give a little bit of the detail of what those discussions were and what the conclusions were.

Abdul, would you like that?

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Dan Vedrill, Traffic and Transportation Director. Trevor's going to follow up here in just a second. Some of the discussions we had is this is a unique set of property and a unique set of conditions that apply here. One is And Trevor can work on, we have already worked on the road plans for Valley View Lane. They're complete. With this drainage system here, there's head walls, there's railing, and everything already pre-designed in. So that would be a huge issue to deal with. And the dock keeps going away. It's just difficult to deal with getting any sort of driveway that was originally proposed here over a drainage system. It furthers convoluted by you have a public and a private system. The public water going through a public, underneath a public street goes into a private. If there's some time in the future, If the channel gets clogged up or gets the bridge over the driveway there happens to be compromised, it affects the public. And now we're having a private entity responsible for that. That's a real key element to think about here. Something that the public would rely on, meaning Valley View Road, would be compromised. And then you're asking a private landowner to fix that problem because of the way the property is set up. So what we did is we met with the developer's engineer. We had a very good meeting, and we were looking at alternatives how to solve this issue. One is there's a sliver of land that comes up here to the old Estelle Road, which you see right up here. And we can get into the history of why it's like this, but it is what it is. At some point when the city builds Valley View Lane, we're going to have to get a drainage easement. We're going to have to get a drainage easement along this side of the property to get into the drainage system here. So what the city staff was talking about, now this is a land use case, but we're looking for an access and how can we make it work if the council's position is that they want to move forward. We're not telling you what to do. We're not advertising a position or a place. We're just saying we are solving an issue if it comes to that. That's nothing more than that. At some point, though, when Valley View Lane gets rebuilt, there's going to have to be a drainage easement acquired by the city. So the thought... that we have is to take basically the effort, financially what it takes to get this property and to acquire this easement was to put it into a road system here, just basically swap in effort for effort. So that way they can get access out of Block Drive, which goes up to Walnut Hill. It's kind of complicated, but we've got a lot of moving parts here. So it's a way of helping solve, and it helped the Valley View Lane Road project solve the issue of getting access to the property, because there's some other issues with the access as well, and basically just moving the puzzle pieces around but still getting to the end. And I can try to read. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir.

Dan, thank you very much for... coming up with the solution to this issue. You know, last time that was a big element that value of expansion is going to affect and this and that, right? So having the Stellar Road paved and having the access to this property would suffice the issue which was raised before. So thank you very much for that. Yes, sir.

Trevor and your engineer had a huge deal there too, Mr. Dewey did. So a lot of people working together diligently on this issue.

Very good. The other thing which I also came to know is right now we don't have any access to Harrington Cemetery, right? Right. nothing paved or nothing to go in. Correct. It's in a natural state. So by doing this, we will have the access to that property as well.

To right here. Yes, sir. That will provide access to that. It would be a paved access as opposed to just a dirt.

Yes, sir.

That is absolutely right. Thank you. Yes, sir.

I have a question. Yeah, Mark. Dan, I'm talking about that utility easement there along the west side. Yes, sir. It's not there now because you don't need it. You're anticipating the expansion of Valley View?

When Valley View Lane gets improved... There will be a drainage system needed. The reason there's not one there today, there is no need to get one until such time that the property develops.

The water naturally just flows through there?

The water just naturally flows. Now, if the project would lead development of the property, we would at that time have gone to the property owner and said, listen, we need to acquire an easement for the road construction to handle the water. So it's a chicken and egg issue is what it is. Okay, thank you.

Okay, any further comments? Okay, let's move on. Okay, thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. Thank you.

All right, the next case, 4149 North Beltline. The applicant has requested to postpone this to July 16th. You also have a memo for this. Happy to go through it or happy to wait until July 16th?

Did we finish our discussion about the cemetery? Yeah, unless you want to continue. Hold on one second. Yeah, go ahead, Mark. It seems like, you know, we were talking about the easement issue, but then I don't know if there was anything else to discuss about the case. Did anybody else want to say anything? I mean, I've made my comments before that, you know, like you were saying, Jocelyn, that just a year or so ago we came up with the standards and 25 acres being the minimum. We retain these experts to advise us on what a viable cemetery would be and that we listened to their recommendations and adopted them unanimously by the council. And so what's being requested here is an 81% variance from those standards, which is very high. I know that there's a discussion about how much the cemetery would be used. And because it is so small, even the estimates from the applicant are that it would be 20-some years max. So it's not really a long-term solution for providing a cemetery. There's a question, as I understand, about the creek that flows through there that has not been analyzed by FEMA as far as, like, I'm sorry, do you know something about that, Trevor? Could you speak to that?

Trevor Crane, director of CIP. Yes, that's correct. So we're not sure how much of this property is in the floodplain, if any of it's in the floodplain, how much of it's developable. That would all have to be a part of the process for them to move through and get their permitting for this.

Okay. Thank you. And so, you know, with the land use questions, you know, that's a lot of times we don't consider a lot of these drainage issues until later because that comes up at platting. But at the same time, if you're talking about having a variance for a cemetery and you don't know, we don't know whether that cemetery is likely to be inundated because of the floodplain issue, then it doesn't make sense to move forward on having it even go forward as a zoning case. And I know it's not a perpetual care cemetery. It cannot be that way. That was our recommendation is to only have perpetual care cemeteries, but because it would be the applicant is a religious organization, as I understand, then by law, then it cannot be. So that we don't have that assurance then that if it ever were to fail, that the state banking agency would take it over. It would be our responsibility, a local responsibility, or nobody's responsibility. It would just be disused. And there was some discussion, I know, at different points about that, well, nothing else could go there anyway. But, you know, No one's actually ever said that. I mean, as far as, like, the applicant saying that it could never be used for anything else. And typically, if somebody's an applicant, that's something for them to provide to us as a reason, but it hasn't. But, you know, I just happened to notice just recently that in the Dallas Morning News, Robert Walonsky posted something about Northwest Highway, something about their – There are several cemeteries among the Northwest Dallas warehouses built atop what used to be farmland. One of them is the old Latow Cemetery, which in the 1870s became a burial ground for some of Northwest Dallas's earliest settlers when this part of town was called Latow, so named after Clement Latow. So history is in the piece. So is that of the cemetery on Shady Trail and Banana Drive, which the city closed in the 1950s, too many bodies because it wasn't large enough. I mean, that was That's the point for the 25 acres. It wasn't large enough and left to Boy Scouts and volunteers to keep clean. Even old Lito Cemetery is yet again consumed by high weeds and without a caretaker in sight. So I guess a couple points there. One is that you can build warehouses around cemeteries. That premise is just not true. And I know there's also some apartments that have been built around old cemeteries included within them. So that is a false premise that nothing else could ever go in there. And in considering the size of the cemetery, Again, that's why we had these experts come in is because when it's going to be small, that it does create this possibility that it will go into disuse and then become a problem for the city, and it can't be developed under the law. So I think it's a bad case. I understand the desire to have a cemetery. But when you look at where that should be and the size of it and what we should be looking at as far as like the best interests of the city, the size and location just does not support it. So I think it's a – I don't support the case.

Okay. Any other comments I would like at this point? Dennis. Yeah, Dennis.

Yeah, I'm going to support the case. At the end of the day, you're not going to be a nothing else out there, period. We all know that. You know, I asked the question the last time we had this conversation to this council, and you still haven't answered the question. If we are going to stick to the 25 acres, then we need to let everybody in the city of Irving know, don't come to this city trying to get a cemetery under 25 acres, period. And y'all won't do that. So we waste people's times by having them thinking that they got a chance to get something when you know in your heart you're not going to vote for anything, most of you, under 25 acres. So if we're not going to vote for anything under 25 acres, tell the people and quit wasting their time. Now, at the end of the day, this ain't that big a deal to me. So I'll support it.

Okay, David?

Yeah, with this, there are some conditions and kind of maybe educate me on the PNZ process versus the permitting process. But for the water, the channelization, is that something we need to make a motion tonight? Looking at it, or is that?

That's all done at permitting, platting and permitting. It's what all the civils will be done, all the studies will be done. And so this is just a land use discussion and a variance discussion. And then when they get into the intricacies of engineering, they'll do that at platting.

And do we know that they've got some smaller plots of land there? And that Estelle Road is not on any of my Google Maps. I think it's a dirt road right now, if that.

Mm-hmm.

Do we know who owns that little piece of land right north of it?

Irving ISD owns this.

And above Estelle Road, correct?

I don't know. I'm not sure.

I thought Irving ISD owned above Estelle Road. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not sure who owns that one. And DFW Airport owns this.

DFW Airport. Okay. Thank you.

There is another piece of small land over there which City of Irving owns it, right? I don't believe so. On the triangular one, the bottom one.

Oh, in here? This is the campus, the animal care campus. Right.

Yeah. So we own that. It's not in use. It's available in the future, probably.

That would be up to whoever decides, but the city does own it, yes.

And as I remember, last time also there was a discussion about how we are going to address the issue of the creek, you know. So is that being discussed and come up with a solution to take care of that water flow?

So, Trevor, I don't know if you want to chime in, but that's, yeah, that's kind of what they were discussing earlier, that it has to be studied to determine what those boundaries are and how they're going to engineer it.

Yes, that's correct. We did have that discussion, but we don't know what the solution is to that until they go through that plotting process and all the studies are done of what that needs to look like. But they have committed or have stated that they're willing to go through that process and whatever they need to do to make that work, they were willing to look at that.

As I remember, these are the two main issues. I mean, we know about this The land use, we know about the size of this property. That's what we are here for. I mean, as a council, we need to carefully consider. And because of the, we are very proud to say Irving is a very diversified city and We represent all faiths and all segments of our communities, so we have to accommodate whenever it's necessary. I think if the issue of the Valley View and the water channel has been addressed or is going to be addressed, I think I would be in favor of this case. Thank you.

I had some questions for the applicant. Yes.

Are they here?

Because I think they left. Yeah. That's great. The most exciting part came after, so that's too bad.

Well, tonight at the public hearing, they'll be here tonight.

That's fine. They'll be here tonight, probably.

Let me ask a question. I thought there was also, on the far north part of that diagram at the very north, I thought that either it was FEMA or Corps of Engineers that any... I guess, study that shows any kind of flood directional stops at that point? Or do we have a definitive study that in fact says here's what's there? Because I thought we were questioning that.

Yeah, we do not have that study. We stopped kind of right down here where the animal care campus is. And so this whole section up here is not, there's no drainage study.

None of this. Yeah, that's my point. All the way up to top and left.

Correct. We don't know.

All up there. Okay. That's what I thought. Okay. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion on this? Okay. Thank you.

So, again, the next case, 202682CC, has been requested to be postponed to July 16th. Happy to go through it. I assume we'll skip over it. The next case is 202684CC4401 North State Highway 161. The current zoning is an SP2 for ML20 with a data center and the 161 overlay. The request is to keep the zoning but have a variance to the maximum parking between the building and State Highway 161 right-of-way. Staff finds no unnecessary hardship. P&Z recommended approval with the removal of the data center as a permitted use by a vote of six to three, no letters of opposition or support. Again, this is the site of the Calvary Church. There has been a demo permit issued. From what we understand, it has not been completed yet. The building still remains, but there is an active permit. But this is the site. With the ML20, the future land use was changed to light industrial. And here's notification in the zoning. Of course, you have BAPs up here to the north. So this is their site plan. So their site plan just has notes, has the ML20A uses with data center, and then the added variance to have no more than 25% is required. They're requesting 71% of the required parking be in the front. So here's some maps. This is what they want to do is this is a spec warehouse and they want to have their employee parking in the front. They say this is safer. I'll show you a map into the second about their plan B and the back, the rear will just be their truck parking and their trailer parking. In order to get their building permit moving, they did submit this building permit that complies with the regulations, and they put their employee parking in the rear. And this is just what they do not prefer. If it does not get approved, this is what they would have to build. So the employees, you know, we still have the truck parking here, but the employee parking would be in the rear. In this area up here, they'll have as much as they can. They're 25%, but the rest of it would have to be landscaped or grass or something like that. Just some pictures of the church, property in 161, more of that, and then, of course, BAPS on the north. And we have not, again, got any letters of opposition or support to this. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions? Yeah, David. Yeah, thank you, Jocelyn. I drive this area all the time and travel a lot, and it seems like the front parking inside of these buildings is not a bad thing at all personally to me. Why is this in our ordinances or P&Z for that type of code not to allow this in the first place?

So when 161 overlay was created years ago, 10, 15 years ago, the intention, what they were trying to do was create similar to what 114 is, which is more of an office corridor, office-type buildings, just over zoning case after zoning case, a use here, a variance here. It ended up not being, I think, what the vision was originally. So we've had several variances for industrial uses here. and for the parking in the front. So I think that's why it was put there. There's also some uses that are allowed or not allowed in the overlay for the same reason. But I think the intent of the overlay is different than what the reality has become.

Okay. Because the reality right down the street is this.

They got a variance for that.

All right. Okay. Thank you.

Yes, Adam. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I agree with David. It seems like it fits in normally with everything else that's there. And then going back to the employee parking in the back, is that if the variance is not approved, the employees would have to park in the back as it's shown here, and they would have to walk, I guess, through the shipping, like through the

the loading docks or around it or something yeah I mean they'll still have all this employee parking so it depends on how many employees they have so we have a minimum employee count most people don't even come close to you know a filling up all of their parking so you know very well could be this would be plenty of parking for their employees but this just is what they would need to meet their minimum count okay okay thank you

Right, so the 161 overlay, it's unfortunate that that vision has not held firm in the future. But when we considered the case before in talking about warehouse versus data center, the clear idea was that it was going to be a data center, which was going to be less traffic, not warehouse-type traffic, and it would have less of an impact on that area around there. We talked about the warehouse uses along that corridor, but actually in that corridor from Walnut Hill to the north on the west side of 161, you have Calvary Church, and to the north of that is BAPS, and to the north of that you have residential. So the idea of actually having that become a warehouse usage was something that I did not support and I voted against. There was a lot of concern, too, about the prominence of that location, that it sits up high, and how that would relate to the rest of the look of what's going on over there. And we didn't want to have parking in front. We didn't want to adversely affect the appearance of that corridor. And obviously it was approved for a data center with kind of a begrudging backup request that it could be a warehouse. And then lo and behold, here we are, and it's going to be a warehouse. So it's already zoned that way, and I get that. But for the landscaping that's in front, is it specifically identified? Is it going to be like a high coverage so that you can't see those parking spaces from the front of the building?

I don't think we've gotten to that level of detail. They'll just have to provide what's required in the ordinance. There'll be some shrubs and trees that would be required to be planted.

I think that's important. I think that not having those parking spaces visible from the street is a compromise that at least tries to protect that image of the corridor through there as much as possible. So could we do that through, like, an SB2 process, or could we just make that a – is it our – Sorry, I forgot if it's already in SB2.

It's already in SB2. Okay. So you could add those requirements tonight if you wanted trees spaced a certain way. You can also postpone it, and we could continue to work through it. But it is something you could add to your motion tonight if you wanted to.

I talked to the applicant about that before. That's something that I think would make sense. And so it seems like that's not a big deal.

If they offer something tonight, you would just add it to your motion. Okay. Thank you.

Anybody else? Yes. Go ahead. Thank you.

The safety concern that they're expressing is a concern to me, especially because there's loading dock in the back. I'm not sure how many employees there are going to have, but if they're asking for parking in the front, then it makes sense for me to allow that and support it. It's not a zoning matter. They're just asking for the parking variance, correct?

Yes.

Okay. 25% is the request.

Okay.

Yeah, and just given the overall development that has happened in that corridor, it has already evolved into more of an industrial than I think what it was initially intended for. So I would be in support. Do we know if Mbappes has had any objections?

We have not heard from them. Okay. So whether they have objections or not, we don't have anything in writing.

Okay. If we haven't heard from them and some of the neighbors, I don't see any reason not to approve it. Thank you.

Anybody else? Okay, well, I met with them again. If you remember, we initially were against the whole development of that as a data center, and we relented somewhat to help the church members as trying to, because they were on a time frame that they might lose an opportunity to purchase a new space for their church on Regent. Well, it didn't happen because they ended up deciding, well, it wasn't what we really wanted or needed or didn't have the money at that point. And so now they're going into right off of 114 and pre-park. And so at the end of the day, two things occurred, which kind of sours me a little bit on this at this point. Because of the 161 overlay, it'd be different if they were up higher and they could deal with that. But they want to maintain the option that they basically said that, oh, well, you know, we've got Encore that has said they would either add to the capability of the station. And so we went ahead and tried to accommodate both for a data center. And now they want to keep the data center and put a warehouse. Why? Because you know it as well as I do, David, it's five years' study on Encore for any kind of power. So I guess where I'm getting a little tired, we're going forward with some changes at the beginning to try to accommodate, and then they come back and then change it again. So I'm really having to have a hard time to either support it or go against it, only because And I told him that. I said, look, at the end of the day, you're going to have a situation there that's going to, you're going to have to do something on that 161 overlay. And if you're going to put a warehouse, what is the reason why you don't have parking up in the northern part? Well, it could be safety. Well, I'm not sure that's safety up there. Okay, but at the end of the day, I guess at the – I think we're going to be dealing with this tonight. But I'm just saying that at the end of the day, we got into this and we got to a point where we approved it for a data center. And they want to maintain it and yet have a warehouse there. So, you know, think that tonight. You all have an ability to decide how you want to vote. I'll wait my turn until I then make that call. Okay? But I want to give you some history. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay, Jocelyn.

All right. And the last case is on 400 East Airport Freeway, 2026-122ZC. It's an SP-2 for PO. They have educational training uses. They're actually currently in aviation training. They have – it's kind of neat. You can actually see a little airplane. At least we saw an aerial. It's got a little airplane in the back. And so it's a – aviation repair site, and they're wanting to add electrical poles out in the back and add electrical line worker training. So they're proposing an SP2 for CN. We switched the zoning a little bit to allow some flexibility of uses and then add the outdoor vocational training and line worker programs. Staff recommended approval. PNC recommended approval 9-0, no opposition or support. So here's the site. I believe it was in a former life. It was in auto sales. Again, you can see the little plane here, which is kind of neat. The intention for the pole installation will be in the back, and there will be a site plan here in a second. Future land use, zoning, and notification. So again, here's the location. I think it's 36 poles, I believe, somewhere around that that they plan to put back here for the training. Again, they'll keep the aviation training, just want to add the electrical pole training. And some pictures of the property. I'll be happy to answer questions.

Okay.

Thank you.

We're done. Am I correct, Jocelyn? Okay, that's what I mean.

Mr. Mayor, if I may. Yes. On the next agenda item for the work session, we have item number six, which is a structural alteration of a covered patio at the Toyota Music Factory. We do have a representative from the music factory here. May I recommend that we go to that agenda item first? Sure.

Thank you.

Okay, good afternoon, Jennifer Ramirez with Community and Economic Development. I'm here to present a request that the city has received for a structural alteration at Toyota Music Factory. At this time, this is not an action item, it's just an introduction to the request that may come at a future date for your consideration. So this request is for a covered patio at the Toyota Music Factory on the east side of building B1. The location is highlighted here on the map in yellow. It's just across from the existing Bar Louie on Building B1. The applicant is proposing a black metal frame exterior covered patio that also has a glass surround. This is for an existing, excuse me, a new tenant lease that they have secured for Roots Chicken Shack. The project scope will also cover the existing parallel parking spaces that are there today. So those will go away, but they will still be maintaining the overall parking requirement that's required at Music Factory. In addition, they have confirmed that they will still maintain the minimum sidewalk width as specified in the existing zoning site plan. So this is the current storefront, again, just across from the backside of Bar Louie. On the left is the proposed Root Chicken Shack. That's where this new patio structure is proposed, again, to cover the existing parallel parking spaces. On the right side, Music Factory is proposing just to add the concrete pad in the parallel parking space at this time. Once they secure a new tenant on the right side, then they'll come back for a structural alteration. Hopefully that architecture, they've confirmed that that architecture will match what they're proposing today, but they won't know what that plan looks like until they secure a lease on that side as well. So this is the proposed patio cover. So it's hard to see from here, but they're proposing that there'll be a gap here between the storefront and the new start of the patio. So there'll be approximately 11 feet of sidewalk there first before they start the new patio. Again, the new patio will be in the existing parallel parking space. The purpose of this patio they're saying is to improve the guest experience. So on this side of the building they don't currently have any outdoor patio areas. They feel like by adding this it'll be more inviting to customers to gather in this area. So this is just another view, what those elevations would look like. And if I can draw your attention to the bottom right here, this is a side profile of the elevation with the storefront being for this most right here of the slide. Again, the sidewalk first. then the patio cover, and then on this side would be the drive aisle. So as an alternative, we have discussed with Music Factory maybe switching these two elements, providing the patio closest to the storefront, having the sidewalk leave that barrier between the drive aisle and the construction. This is their preferred plan here, but they are open... to alternatives. They want to propose this initially. So because of that, we've had some back and forth comments. Several of the departments at the city have made comment about the proximity of that new construction adjacent to the drive aisle, making sure that there's going to be protection from those vehicles that may be backing out of Bar Louis or coming around the corner, driving down that drive aisle. So the applicant has said that they're willing to provide reinforced concrete curb there, maybe some steel bollards. Consulting with our public safety partners, the initial recommendation from the city is to provide static crash-rated bollards. So there's still some discussion there to be had on what exactly will be the final proposal there. Of course, they will need to show this on plan that's approved by all city departments. So at this time, what we're asking is just feedback from city council. Is this a good plan? Do you like it? Anything that you can provide to us on this proposal. In the future, or at this time, there is a zoning site plan in review by city staff. If City Council is supportive of this, it will go to Planning and Zoning Commission on July 6th, and then come to City Council for consideration on July 16th, as well as a request for a structural alteration.

Comments?

Yes.

David, or excuse me, Abdul.

Who's paying for it? The tenant.

Okay. Mark. I appreciate the proposal. It's been a challenge to get people to go to those internal restaurants, and so adding that patio makes it very visible that that's what it is. And so I like the idea. Obviously you have the safety issue that needs to be addressed, but I think it's a great idea.

Okay. David. Mayor, thank you. I agree with Mark, activating that whole internal area. I wouldn't mind them doing a whole patio across the whole thing and activate smaller restaurants. I love outdoor dining, and there's very few options in the city to go sit outside that dining. That whole strip there has been tough to fill and tough to get people to. Safety concerns, I see the idiots who drive fast down everywhere, but I wouldn't even mind speed bumps over there, Eric, just to slow people down. It shouldn't be a traffic corridor, but it It's the easiest way to go see if there's parking back there than, you know, the parking garage. But I'd love it.

Anybody else?

I agree.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I agree, too. And just a comment. If we were to flip it, like flip the design, swap it out with the sidewalk, with the pedestrians, I think that would shuffle them out into the street, right, into the parking area.

Well, they would have the sidewalk still on the outside, right? So just flip-flopping these two elements. So they'd have the patio here with the sidewalk here.

Right.

But adjacent to the drive aisles, we were saying.

Is this being built over the parking spaces right now? Yes, correct. Yeah, so they would essentially be walking through those parking spaces. Anyhow, so I like this design personally, and yeah, I agree. If we could get that whole little strip there, that'd be awesome.

Okay, Jennifer, you got it done.

Okay, thank you. We'll make it happen.

Thank you. We're going to take a 10-minute break and then get into the last two because there's going to be a little bit of time we're going to need to get into those discussions. Thank you.

A new kind of summer camp.

Well, I got a new mini fridge and I wanted to stock it.

Young Emily Flores was so eager to be the first H-E-B customer in Irving, she convinced her mom to arrive more than 48 hours before the grand opening.

We drove by and she's like, mom, let's do it. One, two, three.

Mayor Al Zapata and Irving City Council members were among the VIPs invited to get a sneak peek at the expansive new grocery store located off 635.

So this is really an icon. And for us to have the first in Dallas County right here in Irving, hey, that's a big one.

For decades, the community has been asking for Irving to secure an HEB.

And they have both an H-E-B and a Jovies in Irving. That's a great win for the city and a great win for the residents.

As they say here, no store does more. More choices, more flavors, and certainly more unique Texas tastes.

What really has impressed me is the variety of items that they have to offer some of the brands of things that I never knew existed.

The selection they have. I just want to start shopping now. As Irving residents walk these aisles, they'll find fresh produce, meats, cheeses, but also something more.

What I hope they find is an incredible culture inside the store. You know, grocery shopping is a task. We all know that, but we try to make it a brighter part of someone's day.

As part of the grand opening, HEB showcased that culture, awarding $10,000 checks to four local nonprofits. including the Irving Family Advocacy Center.

Our commitment isn't just inside the four walls. When we commit to a city, we're here as a great citizen to take care of the community, and part of what that is for us is serving the communities.

Of course, for Emily, there's one thing in particular she can't wait to be served.

The blood HR team.

A true taste of Texas, now home in Irving. Robert Sheik for CitySource. Patriotic pride while welcoming the world.

I'm traveling all over the U.S. and I looked up, oh, today is the match year.

Dominique is here from Germany, traveling on business. She was one of hundreds of soccer fans of all ages, many representing the red, white, and blue, gathered on the plaza at Toyota Music Factory to watch the United States opening World Cup match against Paraguay.

This team's looking amazing.

Three first half USA goals gave this crowd plenty to cheer about.

3-0, I didn't expect that. This is a good place to watch the game and be with fellow fans.

More watch parties are planned here throughout this international extravaganza.

We're a great community, you know? We're really excited. We're just proud to be here.

Every country is different, but I'm happy that everyone is in general welcome to be here and cheer and celebrate Warsaw because it's important. It's for all of us.

As the world unites around this celebration of sport, Irving is embracing the global golazo. Let's go! Robert Sheik for CitySource.

Thank you.

This is a drill. This is a drill. Let's go now. Respond on training 8, engine 7, engine 12, engine 5.

A fire training scenario where the onlookers are the students.

All units respond to the structure fire. This was pretty epic. I highly recommend this to anybody. It was awesome to actually see them in action. I'm actually inspiring myself to become a firefighter.

Lester Hunt was one of the dozens of Irving residents who attended Fire Round 101, a one-day crash course hosted by the Irving Fire Department.

Most people, you know, they see the fire department driving down the street, and that's the extent of the interactions we get on a daily basis. We wanted a program where we could just be out here, answer some questions, and see how we do our things.

While much of the day was in a classroom setting.

We can look at fire patterns and see how the fire was affected by wind or the water we sprayed.

The highlight was out here. as attendees witnessed firefighters respond to a structure fire as part of a training drill.

This is a really, really good educational class that a lot of residents need to be looking out for in the future. It's something that they can then take back to their families and take back to their neighborhoods as well. And this is a great class to learn about what they do.

Seeing these crews respond so quickly impressed everyone in attendance. And for hopeful firefighter Lester, the class was especially impactful.

I was hyped about it for the entire week, and this overexceeded the expectations of which I had.

Fire education, as hot as it gets. Robert Sheik for CitySource. A new kind of summer camp.

Well, I got a new mini fridge and I wanted to stock it.

Young Emily Flores was so eager to be the first H-E-B customer in Irving, she convinced her mom to arrive more than 48 hours before the grand opening.

We drove by and she's like, mom, let's do it. One, two, three.

Mayor Al Zapata and Irving City Council members were among the VIPs invited to get a sneak peek at the expansive new grocery store located off 635.

So this is really an icon. And for us to have the first in Dallas County right here in Irving, hey, that's a big one.

For decades, the community has been asking for Irving to secure an HEB.

And they have both an H-E-B and a Jovies in Irving. That's a great win for the city and a great win for the residents.

As they say here, no store does more. More choices, more flavors, and certainly more unique Texas tastes.

What really has impressed me is the variety of items that they have to offer some of the brands of things that I never knew existed.

The selection they have. I just want to start shopping now. As serving residents walk these aisles, they'll find fresh produce, meats, cheeses, but also something more.

What I hope they find is an incredible culture inside the store. You know, grocery shopping is a task. We all know that, but we try to make it a brighter part of someone's day.

As part of the grand opening, HEB showcased that culture, awarding $10,000 checks to four local nonprofits. including the Irving Family Advocacy Center.

Our commitment isn't just inside the four walls. When we commit to a city, we're here as a great citizen to take care of the community, and part of what that is for us is serving the communities.

Of course, for Emily, there's one thing in particular she can't wait to be served.

The blood HR team.

A true taste of Texas, now home in Irving. Robert Sheik for CitySource. Patriotic pride while welcoming the world.

I'm traveling all over the U.S. and I looked up, oh, today is the match year.

Dominique is here from Germany, traveling on business. She was one of hundreds of soccer fans of all ages, many representing the red, white, and blue, gathered on the plaza at Toyota Music Factory to watch the United States opening World Cup match against Paraguay.

This team's looking amazing. Are you ready?

Three first half USA goals gave this crowd plenty to cheer about.

3-0, I didn't expect that. This is a good place to watch the game and be with fellow fans.

More watch parties are planned here throughout this international extravaganza.

We're a great community, you know? We're really excited. We're just proud to be here.

Every country is different, but I'm happy that everyone is, in general, welcome to be here and cheer and celebrate World Cup because it's important. It's for all of us.

As the world unites around this celebration of sport, Irving is embracing the global golazo. Robert Sheik for CitySource.

Thank you.

A fire training scenario where the onlookers are the students.

This was pretty epic. I highly recommend this to anybody. It was awesome to actually see them in action. I'm actually aspiring myself to become a firefighter.

Lester Hunt was one of the dozens of Irving residents who attended Fire Ground 101, a one-day crash course hosted by the Irving Fire Department.

Most people, you know, they see the fire department driving down the street, and that's the extent of the interactions we get on a daily basis. We wanted a program where we could just be out here, answer some questions, and see how we do our things.

While much of the day was in a classroom setting.

We can look at fire patterns and see how the fire was affected by wind or the water we sprayed.

The highlight was out here. As attendees witnessed firefighters respond to a structure fire as part of a training drill.

This is a really, really good educational class that a lot of residents need to be looking out for in the future. It's something that they can then take back to their families and take back to their neighborhoods as well. And this is a great class to learn about what they do.

Seeing these crews respond so quickly impressed everyone in attendance. And for hopeful firefighter Lester, the class was especially impactful.

I was hyped about it for the entire week and this over exceeded the expectations of which I've had.

Fire education, as hot as it gets. Robert Sheik for CitySource.

Let's go ahead and move forward. We've got a couple items, really important ones I'd like to have us deal with. So at this point, I'd like to start with our code enforcement operation strategies, because we've got people that have been here waiting. So I want to be sure that you can get home in time before dinner time. So at this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Shane Diller, your Code Enforcement Director. The presentation before you is going to outline some operational strategies we are looking to implement in fiscal year 27. The highlights here are that what I'm going to talk to you about is going to increase our proactivity. It's going to improve our responsiveness to complaints and our effectiveness through specialization and increased oversight in the field. And then it's going to enhance and create our short-term rentals program so that it's not reactive as it is now, but proactive and include an inspections component. Something to consider as we're discussing this is that 94% of what I'm going to talk to you about is... cost recoverable through the STR fee increases we'll talk about, and then the other operational savings are actually offset by more than the 6% in the structural operations savings that we have in next year's proposed budget. Everything we're doing here is data driven. So in the code enforcement realm, and specifically since 2022, we have looked at our code complaints. We've looked at our caseloads. And we started in 2022-23 with a heat mapping project where we began to map all of our cases and all of our complaints. And we resized the patrol districts that our code enforcement officers work around those so that we were trying to be as effective as we can be in the right size areas. And then, of course, in 2024, we performed our hotspot study. That was a partnership with the police department and the University of Texas at Arlington, where we looked at the impacts of code enforcement frequency of patrol, especially in areas of crime hotspots that were identified with the criminology staff at UTA. That study taught us that in addition to the code enforcement work impacting positively the rate of property crimes, that if we were to get down a street every seven to nine weeks, we would have one of two things occur. Either we would be able to find all the code enforcement violations that were present, or we would be actively working what's there. rather than a property languishing for a period of time without us having visited it proactively or requiring a resident to call in a complaint, we would be eyes on enough to where we would catch everything going on there. Then we just completed our Keep It Clean Irving initiative. where we took the entire property standards team and some of the multi-family team and we went to each of our eight patrol areas and the whole team worked that area for a couple of days and they went and made sure that we visited every single parcel in that area in that two or three day period so that we had an intense snapshot of what the area looked like there. And in addition to finding violations and getting some code enforcement work out of that, it also taught us that as we studied the after effects there, that doing some type of focus patrol like that increased our proactivity rates from an average of about 55% each month of cases being proactive versus complaint driven. to 85% being proactive versus complaint-driven. And so molding a program together to where we can continue to be strategic and focused in the way we patrol will allow us to catch code for violations and get those addressed before residents need to call in and complain about them. So I'm going to talk about this reorganization here. What you see is a proposal for what the department would look like in fiscal year 2024. It would have four divisions, three of them being operational field divisions. That's an increase through reorganization, not adding of staff, of one division in the field. We'd have customer service. commercial and zoning enforcement, and that's one of the specialties I'll talk about. Your neighborhood enhancement, which is going to be a second specialty I'll talk about, where there's going to be more intense focus on neighborhoods. And then our multifamily housing program, which already has some very good successes in recent years. So the only thing we'd change there would be the STR program addition. So starting with the neighborhood enhancement team, what we would do is take our current property standards team of two supervisors and eight officers, and we would retool that a little bit so that there would be a manager that we would reclass from our current in-office administrator, put that position out to where it's field-focused, and then have two supervisors and six officers who would do nothing but patrol the neighborhoods themselves, the single family residential neighborhoods. And we would be able to likely increase our patrol from the once annual we do now through what we call our sub-district patrol system to one proactive patrol every nine weeks in those residential areas. And then it would allow us, again, through specialization to increase that focus, shrink the patrol areas the officers have to look at, and those officers would become even more expert at the neighborhoods they're working, the problem areas in those neighborhoods, the issues that are occurring, because they're going to be relieved of the larger area they're currently working that includes a lot of commercial properties and corridors and those sorts of things. But we're not going to leave the commercial properties and corridors out. The two officers we would take out of the property standards team, we would move into a reorganization of our current building and standards program and have them add to there specifically to focus as sort of zoning officers. They would intensify their focus along our corridors and in our commercial properties. They would become expert at zoning enforcement and business regulation enforcement. And then with the advent of conditional use permits that we're beginning to see and the questions we've had from the Council and the public about how exactly we proactively monitor the approvals that come through zoning, they would become our experts at that sort of thing. We'd be able to increase our attention on making sure that as zoning cases are approved or conditional use permits are approved, that what is approved or denied is enforced effectively and that the expectations that you've set through that process are met. We would keep the advances we've made in the last couple of years in our building and standards program and in the retooling and relaunch of our vacant buildings program and then add to it through the transition of this staff to create a program that we think would be more effective than the broader sub-district patrol system we use now. Our customer service program, we would reclass our senior administrative assistant to a customer service supervisor. That's needed to backfill that administrator that we're moving into the field as a manager. And then we would add, through the short-term rentals program, a customer service representative who's going to take on the work that's going to come with the influx of required inspection scheduling and increased communication with short-term rental properties. in addition to improving holistically our customer service connection. Right now we have two administrative assistants who tag-team the customer service function in addition to trying to support the field divisions, and having this customer service representative hired on would be able to have a point person who's solely focused on customer service, allowing an improvement there, we think, and then also the... improved support to the divisions that the administrative assistants would perform, which primarily would keep the officers being able to work in the field longer throughout the day with those administrative assistants picking up paperwork and other duties that the officers right now have to come back to the office to perform. And then last, we've got our multifamily program. Our multifamily program has added staff in recent years, and we've added several programs to try to increase the effectiveness of our monitoring of our apartment complexes and fourplexes. They currently do a quarterly exterior patrol of complexes and our mobile home parks. They do a monthly patrol of the exterior of our fourplexes, and then we have our annual licensing inspection of the interior of those properties. And then what we would do is add to that the short-term rental inspection program. We would hire two staff. They would take on both the interior inspections of the current roughly 200 or so short-term rentals that we have registered and then also improve our investigation and complaint response to short-term rental concerns so that it's no longer a reactive other duty as assigned out of the multifamily team but have a proactive team of two inspectors that would be able to lean into doing that So what I need to do this is, of course, the STR inspections program specific staff of the two housing inspectors for the inspections and the investigations and a customer service representative. Those would be three additional staff. There would be vehicles that would come with those two field inspectors. And then they need to reclass two positions, the office administrator to a field manager, and then the senior administrative assistant to the customer service supervisor that backfills that administrator change. And then we've got one title change in there that's no cost. We have a programs coordinator that's been running our building standards programs, and they would have a title change to field supervisor so that they've got the same title all of our other field supervisors have and would run that commercial and zoning team. Let's talk numbers. So everything you see in red is a cost. Everything you see in green is a fee offset. I won't get too detailed here except to say that when you get down to the offset, what we're estimating, and that's an estimate right now, is that we would find about 340 short-term rentals operating. We currently have just slightly under 200 registered through working with Lodging Revs, the company that mines the internet data for us. We know that there is a significant chunk of short-term rentals currently operating in our multifamily complexes, but those are very difficult to identify and to enforce right now because you have to really spend some time working with apartment complex managers and looking at the list, at the host name and information and figure out, okay, does the complex know this host? Do we need to go in and try to book these rooms to understand where they're at? And staff time has to be spent doing that. And we think that as we move into that space that we could find roughly another 140, 150 or so of the short-term rentals that are operating just in our multifamily complexes on top of the 200 or so we know that are operating in the single-family homes. So If we charged, and this is all driven through the costs through the supplemental related to this program, and then a rough estimate on the very low conservative side of about $12,000, the program would run about $340,000. So if you've got $340,000. short-term rentals, the math is pretty straightforward there. We would charge $1,000 each year for a short-term rental registration. We currently charge $300. The highest we see in the region, I won't name the city to dime the amount necessarily, but there is a city in DFW that charges $1,200 annually for a short-term rental. So we would certainly be on the high end of that. But that would be something that would allow us to know that if you're going to operate a short-term rental in the in the city You are invested financially in doing that through our registration fee If not through the other require meeting the other requirements that we've already imposed in the code and what you will see come before you in the next few months with zoning changes and other regulations that we were We're bringing before you I talked about that operation budget savings. So we've looked at our operational budget next year, and with reductions in things like demolition costs and property cleanup costs that we've estimated and have not had to expend funds on, we think that we can continue to operate and still do all the work we need to do and reduce those operating expenses by about $96,000. When you look at the $18,000 in the red on the right that is uncovered from this, that's that 6% that's uncovered from this program change, we actually are going to net back about $78,000 next year if the math all works right. Now math is not my strong suit, but I've had other people look at this and they concur with my numbers. So not to belabor this at all, I'm happy to take any questions in a moment here, but what we're looking for today is consensus from the council, both on the STR inspections program specifically and those staff that we're proposing, in addition to those couple of financially minor, frankly, reclasses to accomplish the other operational objectives, and then support for where we're estimating the short-term rental fee at this point.