City Council - Regular Meeting

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[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] October [Music] 23rd, 2025. Pleasure to have everybody with us at this time. Chana, do we have anyone wishing to speak?

No sir, we do not. Okay. City operations update. Chris, no update today, sir.

Okay. Well, then I'll go ahead. I've got a proclamation for if Heather would and uh family advocacy people would join me up at the podium. [Music] Oh yeah, come come come. We have a proclamation for domestic violence. We're very very blessed in our community that several years ago under the leadership of Land Canada and his wife Rose, we came forward with the family advocacy center and people like Carol Susat came and joined and continued to make sure that we had a facility. We've had some challenges with that facility, but we we still are carrying out the services that uh are so desperately needed within our community. And I want to just personally thank each and every one of you for what you do and your commitment to this uh challenge that we have within our community and within our society. So we have a proclamation for uh the month of of uh October I guess is am I in the right month?

Uh yeah October for the month of domestic violence. So whereas domestic violence is a pattern of abuse behavior in intimidate abusive behavior in intimate relationships used by one partner to exert power, gain control over the other and can include physical, sexual, emotional, financial or physological threats or actions. And whereas nationwide one in three women and one in four men will experience domestic violence during their lifetime. And whereas almost one in 10 American children have witnessed one family member assault another family member. And growing up in a household with with violence can negatively impact a child's development. And whereas the family advocacy center seeks to provide compassionate support and healing to the victim victims of domestic violence by providing and coordinating community response that includes comprehensive criminal investigation, crisis intervention, information and referrals, safety planning, education on criminal justice process, linking with community resources and confident consultants services. And whereas domestic violence awareness month provides an excellent opportunity for the citizens to learn more about preventing domestic violence and to show support for the numerous organizations and individuals who provide critical assistance to the victims. Now therefore, I Rick Stoer, mayor of the city of Irving and the Irving City Council to hereby claim the month of October 2025, domestic violence awareness month in Irving, Texas. Thank you. [Applause] you give me an opportunity, I will for sure. Good afternoon, mayor and council and city staff. We're so thankful that uh you recognize the issue that domestic

violence is for our community members. We are so honored that this year we have an art installation that is happening right now at the Irving Archives and Museum. Uh this was a partnership between the Irving ISD high school students and the art department as well as the Irving Archives and the advocacy center to bring that exhibit. We had about a hundred students and their parents come last night to view the installation. So we hope that you stop by. It's open until November 2nd and it's our students um expression about how domestic violence impacts victims and the hope and the resources that are available for those impacted by domestic violence. So, we're very thankful. The Family Advocacy Center is a multid-disciplinary team. So, you see advocates, therapists, and investigators up here. We know that it can't just be solved by the police department or just by advocates. We all have to be working together for this cause. And we also recognize that we need lots of different options and resources for victims. So, we do offer therapy, but we also take children who've witnessed domestic violence to summer camp through Camp Hope. We took 35 kids this summer to Camp Hope. Um, all who had experienced some form of domestic violence or related trauma and the outcomes are really incredible of what we're seeing with our kiddos. So, thank you for supporting us and this mission and the impact that we're able to have on the lives of our residents and citizens. Thank you.

Thank you. Do a photo.

How do you want to do it? Do you want to do it? Okay. All right, everybody. One, two, three. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, we'll go ahead and move on to the regular agenda. Items number two and three are work session meetings and regular minute meetings from October 2nd. Item number four is approving addendum number two to professional services agreement between the city of Irving and Brinkley Sergeant Winon Architects Inc. in the amount of $98,850 for the facility condition assessment and master planning services for the public's works department and police department. Item number five is approving change order number two to the contract with Humphrey and Morton Construction Company in the amount of 46 $460,33

for the West Irving Creek Improvement Channel project. Item number six is approving a change order number three to the contract with uh Laroy and Falls in the amount of $338,479 for the fleet maintenance facility construction project. Chris, sometime when we get closer to the end of that, let's plan a tour to go look at that new facility and just if we've got some before and after pictures, I think it would be very impressive for people to see. what we had and what we now have.

Yes, sir. We are opening the first phase and we're going to have an open house for the first phase, but we're going to wait for the ribbon cutting until all the phases are completed and that'll be coming up here in the next month or so.

Thank you. Item number seven is approving an economic development agreement with JPT Graphics, Inc. in the amount of $10,05 for the facade enhancement uh to the building located at 212 West Irving Boulevard in downtown Irving. Item number eight is approving amendment number one to Systems and Software, Inc. in the amount of $919,759 for the information system agreement and hosting service agreement. Item number nine is approving amend amendment number two to the professional services agreement between the city of Irving and Parkell Smith and Cooper Inc. in the ex not to exceed amount of 500,000 for on call municipal solid waste engineering service. Item number 10 is approving the purchase of a Tri-Tech Software Systems, a central square uh technology company in the amount of $22,78962 for public safety systems software support and maintenance. The bids are of which we have 11 or 12 number 11 and number 12. Any questions on either one of those? Item number 13 is a is a resolution of objecting to the proposed elimination of DART bus route. Do we want to just hold this off and we'll discuss it when we have the other discussion item a little further down the line. Uh item number 14 uh zoning cases. Ah

how are you sir? Good. How are you man? Good to see you.

Good to see you. Well, good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Ken Bloom, man, planning manager. First item is item 14 is the special fence plan 2025-270 at 2 715 West Tanglewood. Request is for an 8ft tall fence uh within the 15t required uh sideyard setback on a reverse French lot. staff finds it does not meet the criteria for a variance for special fence plan. BNC recommendation the vote was approved with the vote for approval was tied four to four. So by rule that is not a recommendation for approval. So it's a recommendation for denial. So that's it's a denial but it's a tie vote. Uh there were six responses in support. Uh there was also a petition with 13 names and signatures. No responses in opposition. Uh, so this property actually faces Tangle Wood. So that it's a dress off Tangle Wood here and then this is Ryan Street coming along this side. So the house behind it faces Ryan and that's what creates the reverse frontage situation. You can see even here on the aerial the existing fence is 15 ft back and that meets the requirements. What they want to do is put the new fence uh about a little over a foot about a foot and a half back behind the property line uh along Ryan Street. Uh the conditions for special fence plan approval uh can't violate the intent of the ordinance, adversely affect surrounding properties or public safety, and there must be special conditions that exist. Uh, so here's their site plan. It's kind of turned 90°. So north is on this side. If you're trying to orient yourself, this is now Ryan

Street. This is Tangle Wood. That's where they want to put the fence. Uh, so viewed from Tanglewood. This is the ex property is exists now. The existing fence 15 ft back. And this kind of shows where the edge of this uh box is kind of where the fence would be if it were if it were built. This is a view from Ryan Street. So, if you're viewing this, the new fence would be in front of this tree over here, but behind the sidewalk. The adjacent property, their driveway is on the other side, so it doesn't affect their driveway. House across the street has the same situation. They have uh their property uh their fence is is up against the property uh building, so they don't have a reverse front uh exception that they need. Uh the applicant mentioned I'm going to go back a moment to the area. The applicant did mention at PNZ uh there were some similar situations on Pioneer nearby. And I want to point out that these two houses have a reverse frontage situation as well. This house has a permitted fence that is at least 15 ft back from the property line. This house right here has a fence that does not appear to be 15 feet and I was unable to locate a uh any sort of permit for that. So just to clarify that if that comes up tonight and uh with that uh again staff does not find uh that it meets the criteria. We don't see any special conditions that exist. So uh staff's finding be happy to answer any questions

questions. Dennis. Yeah. So, they're want to build a a 6ft fence. Uh I believe it's an 8ft tall fence. Yeah. Eight. Mhm. Go back to that picture um where it shows looking down uh the side that one. Okay. So, the fence 8 foot fence would come out and would be past that tree. It would be kind of like Yeah. It's hard. That tree would be inside the fence. Yeah. And did the owner give a reason why they want to do that? Is that just to capture more yard? Have more yard? Yeah. Okay. Is there a visibility issue traffic-wise? There's not a traffic iss visibility issue. Where do they want to put it? No.

So, no traffic visibility issue there. There's no traffic issue. They just want to utilize that side. Okay. All right. Mark, let's go back to that same picture if you don't mind. So, so yeah. So, the way you're describing it, Ken, that fence would be to the east of the trees. And if you were to, if the vantage of the camera was over a little bit, you would see that um beyond there that it's just front yards all the way down the street. Mhm.

So, that this would it would very much change the look of the neighborhood if that fence was was all the way over to the sidewalk um the way they're asking for it. um which I that's why you have this issue with these um sideyard setbacks because obviously people want that's their backyard. They want to maximize that but it would it would very much change the look of that of that neighborhood by having the fence all the way over there. I don't know if y'all can envision that or not, but or if y'all saw actually drove by there or not, but um it would it would be a very it would be a very large change from the way it is now, which is that um those to look at that street has these um front yards that are not encumbered in any way. So, which I think is the whole reason why we have the ordinance the way it is.

Okay, any other questions, comments? Al Ken, did I hear you correctly when you said it's going to be a foot and a half back from the sidewalk? A foot and a half back from the property line, which is usually just behind the sidewalk. Yeah, seems Well, okay, you answered me. Thank you. Okay,

any other questions? Okay, we'll move on to the next one. Okay. Item number 15 is in case 2025-74 at 1629 Glen Valley Drive. It's request for R SP2 for R7.5 with variances to the side setback and maximum size of a carport in the rear yard. In the rear yard uh staff finding is no unnecessary hardship. PNZ recommended approval 7 to one. We did have four responses in support, none opposition. Uh this actually started as a code enforcement case and it uh then they came in and asked and tried to get a permit. The permit was denied because of the zoning violation that's here. And basically so that's that's where we're at today is the zoning case. Uh they're asking the existing carport is about 730 square ft. So it's about uh 330 ft larger than the maximum size that's allowed in the ordinance. And uh what the other issue is that the carport is right up against the property line. You'll see this in a photo in a minute. And we require 3 ft to be set back for it. Uh I will say that even if this variance is granted, they'll still have to do a little at least a little modification because they are still required to have a gutter system that would allow keep the water from draining off the carport onto the neighbor's property. So that would there still need to be some modification even with that approval. Uh this is the front of the house. So carport's not in front, it's in the back here. So you kind of see the view. This is the property line and you see the the carport is just right up against it and it kind of extends back behind the building and just the other properties in the area. So again, uh we did not find that there was a hardship here. uh be happy to answer any questions.

Questions? Mark. So the uh for the just the installation of a gutter, they they could do that now the way it is or would they actually have to change that roof line at all? If they put the gutters in, they would be over the property line the way it's the way it is right now because they got to move that change the roof. They they would at least have to move it at least at least a little bit just to get the gutter on so it takes the water and brings it out and it the the 3 ft is is there is there a functional reason for 3 ft or how would you what's the explanation?

It's what we have in in the ordinance as being an appropriate setback for a carport mainly so to allow room for you to install gutter systems on on the uh structures. Yeah. Obviously, gutters fail, you know, where they get filled up and then you're still having the spillage issue. So, it would seem like 3 feet accounts for some of that, too, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, three three feet makes makes a lot of sense. Okay, Dennis. Yeah. I just got a cur curiosity question. So, that's a shed roof. Does it shed back or does it shed to the front or which way does the shed? This is actually a trailer. You can see the hitch down here. But I'm talking about the roof itself. the roof itself

between the shed go back up this way toward the toward the house. Yeah. Yeah. I go back one slide. Yeah. It's it's it there's a little bit of an optical illusion that's going on there with the photo, but um the the carport itself is about take it to its closest point about 30 ft. Uh yeah, which way is it draining? Tilt of the roof. Right. Right. Hard to tell from that photo.

Okay. But either way, go the gutter would be on the long horizontal part, not the sides. The gutter would be on this side or the other side. It would be required to drain towards the street. That's that's typically the way these are are done. Mhm. Now, you can't go along the right side because the point because it's it's going to the gutter the gutter is going to be where where it where the water sheds too. Yeah. Right there. So, cuz when and and I'm I'm just I'm just trying to get a clarification on, you know. Yeah. If it went backwards, it would be going essentially onto these other properties like 920 and 7 as well. That's why you need the three.

That's why it has to typically go towards the street. So, it's hard to again it's hard to tell from this photo if it's if it's the angle of the camera or if it's the angle of the the roof of it itself. So, okay. Any other questions? Okay. Okay. Next one. Okay. Uh item number 16, the applicants requested postponement. If you'd like, I'd be happy to go through this or we can skip over it. 16. Okay. Yeah. Okay. 17.

17 is zwing case 2025-212. This is at 512 North Sour uh from CC Community Commercial to detailed site plan for community commercial with variances to the required parking and the drive aisle width. Staff uh finding is no unnecessary hardship. PNC recommendations for approval 5 to2. We've had no responses one way or the other. This is a property that's uh just to the south of the family advocacy center. It's a small little piece is about uh 80 just under 8,500 square ft in size and the existing building. The applicant's been working on renovating the roof, renovating the interior. Uh they want to open a beauty salon. uh they've stated they're only going to have uh the one person in there, but it is a 1600 square foot building. So, we have to um assume it's going to be occupied as a 1600 square foot building. So, with that use, it would be 10 spaces required, seven spaces are what are proposed. So, it's a three space variance. Um perhaps as big or bigger issue is the drive aisle. It's its narrowest point 13 ft and its uh widest point is 16 ft with the existing 12t driveway. Uh driveway really can't expand because there's a utility pole right there and traffic is okay with leaving the 12t driveway. Uh but this is still a six 13 to 16 ft drive aisle with so that is a variance from the 24 foot which would usually be required when you have perpendicular parking spaces.

Is the subject property And then this is the looking to the south. This is so this is that existing driveway and the pole. This is roughly the part property line just for to help you visualize. This is all vacant back behind it. Uh and again the uh city property to the north. So again, if this were uh a different type of use, it wouldn't have as much of a parking requirement. uh and then they could perhaps fit the parking on the lot and uh work with a better drive aisle uh with but as it is we don't uh see a hardship is evident and therefore um that is our finding on that and again PNZ's recommendation was uh approval by a vote of five to two be happy to answer any questions on this

Al. Yeah, I can on the 13 foot, excuse me, 11 foot variance and we're looking at a 24 foot um I guess basically driveway or aisle. Is that obviously seems like it's really making it pretty tight. I'm sorry. It's making it very tight. It it it's tight. Yeah. and it be a lot of maneuvering to get potentially get back and forth without encroaching onto the adjacent property. Great. Mark,

I think uh watching the P&Z meeting that uh part of the explanation for why there was sufficient parking is because these it's a beauty shop and there' be staggered appointments. And so with that being the case that the idea that they would need all 10 spaces would be be filled up all the time didn't seem to be the case. And so made sense to have allowing a smaller number of parking spaces seemed to be okay. Anyway, which made sense. Any other questions? You know, the biggest concern is as long as it's a beauty shop, it's okay. But when it becomes something else where and really I'm, you know, I'm trying to figure this out in my little mind, but if it's 13 feet and you've got a car on the edge there, you're going to have a hard time getting back out of that that one spot unless you back all the way back out onto the street. David.

Yeah. I went out there and saw it and she took a dilapidated building and made it look better. I think that thing's been sitting there for 50 years. So, she went out there, made the building look better. That's about as much parking as you're going to put on that spot. I mean, unless you tear down the building and build a thousand square foot building or, you know, it's it's a weird property, but that's about as much you can squeeze in that place. Mark, we can we restrict it to the the seven the variance to just this owner or is that just causing a lot of trouble? Did it

like a SUP or something like that? Could we do something to make it where the use is restricted just to this owner? No, unfortunately we zone the property. KO, if you want to jump in, but no, we zone the property, not the person. This isn't an cup kind of situation. So, is zoning it'll go with the land? Now, yeah, I think I 15 Did you tell me it was 1500 square feet? Uh, approximately 1,600. Okay. That's going to house more than one person or stall,

you know, being a hairdresser or whatever. So the potential of it growing, I can't believe they're putting all that unless you thought that there was really an opportunity for them. Yeah, that's my feeling. So at least two and maybe three. So at the end of the day, it's going to be really tight in and out. So okay, thank you. All right, on to the next one. Okay, item number 18 is in case 2025-216th is at 400 Western Boulevard. This is the Long John Silvers property. Uh requesting a detailed site plan for heritage crossing corridor mixed use uh with variances to the heritage crossing district design standards. Uh staff does not find a hardship. PNZ's recommendation was for denial by a 6 to2 vote. Uh property sits again here at the corner of Irving Boulevard and Okconor. Uh it actually has three tracks. if they rebuild, they would have to uh replat the property as well. This is across from Joe's, Starbucks, and Bank of America. Uh they their desire is to basically scrape the site and uh rebuild a their new prototype. The Heritage Crossing District has uh stated goals and essentially the the it intends to create a safe accessible environment for pedestrians and uh therefore requires the buildings to be adjacent to street frontage. So what the applicant wants to do again is demolish a side uh the existing building, build their prototype and put the uh the building would be right here. the the these are existing entrances off Okconor and Irving Boulevard. Uh the drive-thru would start along the uh really back here is the first menu board. So it would start around over here where this white line is kind of go around uh along

the entire Okconor frontage and then all the way to Irving Boulevard until you get uh out right here. So uh there are uh is basically an or auto oriented design. Um they're asking for uh five variances here. The first one is shown here is the primary building frontage being oriented uh to the interior parking lot. They do have a a an entrance over here, but the two doors and the sidewalks, everything are it's all oriented towards the parking lot over on the on the west side of the building. The primary entrance design for the front door. Again, uh there is again there's a door, but the front is really off of we believe off of the interior over here. The drive-thru lanes uh should not be located along Irving Boulevard at all. Uh and it is uh does come around on the north side of the building along Irving Boulevard. Uh there's required street screening. They're required to have uh 3-ft tall uh vegetative screen. The as you'll see in the photos, the city has put in some uh very nice uh landscaping and and work on Irving Boulevard. So, it really isn't needed, we agree, on the Irving Boulevard side because it's basically already there. But on the Okconor side, it's it's most definitely uh would be a variance and it would be needed. And the uh no more than 60% of any lot French can be uh with a drive-through lane and on the Oconor side you really have uh 73%. So quite a bit. Uh one of the questions come up is could you do a drive-thru with kind of product with this uh lot in this configuration? We've kind of mocked it up and you know we do note that this uh hasn't we haven't run this through

traffic in the traffic access manual and everything yet but uh our rough mark markup does show that you could have a drive-through. This is Okconor, excuse me, this is Okconor over here.

This is Irving Boulevard on this side. So, keeping the building in roughly the same place, uh adding a little front patio uh for pedestrian, uh you could have a drive-thru come in. The first menu board could be right here, which gives plenty of space till you get to an or to the order pickup window over here and then exiting to Okconor. And you have all of this space in here for the internal parking SEC circulation. So, this is the existing property. So, this would all be demolished. And I have here a co uh pictures of two of their prototypes that they've built in in other locations. I do want to note that they are not asking for any variances to the building design standards which can be applied in the heritage district. It's one place they can be. Uh and those requirements include uh no wood materials uh no ephus and the use of two approved masonry materials uh at a minimum. Uh what they're showing here would not their prototype design actually wouldn't comply but they aren't asking for any variances. So we assume that what they ultimately pick will will meet city standard otherwise they would have to come back through. That being said, this is all we had to work with to kind of show us examples of what they would be doing. Uh this is a good example in terms of showing the the driveway as it comes back from the driveway and out to the street. And this kind of shows that landscaping that the city put in. This is why we don't think that a screening uh additional screening is required on the Irving Boulevard side. Again, you can see very nice work here. Uh again, the building would be demolished. Uh the sign they have explicitly said that they want the non-conforming pole sign to stay again just the landscaping on the north side. Bank of America back behind and then this is the drive-thru. This is

also where their existing drive-thru is. Uh there um there is no screening right now if they were to follow the ordinance. That's more or less what it would look like uh with a 3-ft tall uh hedge row. So it would help a little bit. Uh then the interior of the site as is right now again the non-conforming 25 foot tall pole sign would remain. This just kind of shows the existing site and then kind of what the what their prototype would be as well. So again uh from staff's standpoint um we've evaluated the proposed variances against the intent of the heritage crossing district development standards and collectively we believe that these variances shown here conflict with that intent uh that which is to promote a pedestrianoriented corridor. And so since the applicant is demolishing the site and the site is of a sufficient size to accommodate the standards and I think we've uh found some ways to creatively uh do a drive-thru that would meet that um staff does not find that there is a hardship in this case. This is not a use. It's a hardship case. So uh or variance case. So that's why the recommendation or finding is a hardship. Be happy to answer any questions. Al,

yeah, this reminds me of the same debate we went through with Starbucks and for the same thing with the the window and the pass through and all that. So, the staff is recommending denial.

Staff finds no hardship. There are some differences. It's some similarities and differences with the Starbucks. The applicant, for example, has verball you mentioned the windows. The applicant has verbally said that they would put uh similar type windows like what you have on the Starbucks. uh but they have not put that on the site plan so we can't hold there there's nothing that we can hold them to. Uh the other thing is that the the Starbucks has uh had some queuing difficulties since it opened. Um but even it also had uh requirements for a mix of masonry materials, additional landscaping, a monument sign and none of these things are part of what the current proposal is here at the Long John site. Ken, I guess in your discussions from the staff side, if they're going to scrape the building, that means that whole section is going to be open for design or new design.

Mhm. And so would you all, what I'm looking at is the one that you all recommended from the staff that looks like a kind of a horseshoe to get in and out. It's still coming in uh coming in off of Irving Boulevard going out on Okconor. Am I correct? Yes. Okay. It's going to get a little little trafficy there. So, okay. But are we looking at what they put up there? I mean, I'm trying to understand this. This is what they are proposing. Okay. Yeah. Got it. Thank you.

Abdul. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um I'm very much familiar with that location. I go often over there. Um it's a very old building. It's um you know when you're going towards um south right in the front before we have other new developments down on the street. This is the first building we come across and it's very old and I'm glad that they are going to tear it down to build a new one and um I would like to see the new one coming up uh with the new design and whatever that that is needed but um I was looking at the the applicant is demolishing the existing building and the lot size it adequate to accommodate the standards the staff does not find any unnecessary hardship. So I would say that I think we would like to see some new developments in that area and this is one of them. So thank you Mark.

So with the discussion about being oriented to the parking lot we don't have a rendering actually so we can actually see that. Uh the applicant showed a rendering at PNZ but we don't have a copy of it. Okay. But yeah, you like the way you what we have are their prototypes that Yeah. This is what they showed basically at PNZ. Can you go back to the slide that you were just at with the the drawing? Yeah, that one. So So the the parking lot there is to to the left and that's where that that's where the front is is facing the parking lot. Is that what you're saying? But it's oriented to the parking lot,

right? The two doors over here. And so then so then if you're driving down Irving Boulevard when this is built, you just see a sidewall of the building. That's the way it would be be constructed, right? It would just be a sidewall off of Irving Boulevard. Yeah. Yeah. And uh and I I call from the PNZ meeting that I think the applicant was saying that the reason why they're not showing anything oriented to Irving Boulevard is because they don't have a prototype that would fit this lot. That's correct.

Yeah, I I'm I'm with Abdul. I mean, I'd love to see the new construction, but I I I kind of agree that um I don't know how we have a new restaurant there that's oriented inside to the parking lot that way and not to Irving Boulevard, not even to Okconor. So, thank you. Other qu Dennis. Yeah. So, I am kind of curious about your first two the front entrance being orient to the interior parking lot and apparently that's only in the Heritage District because that's not in the rest of the city, right? Correct. Why? because Heritage Crossing is a district that's designed to be pedestrianoriented uh and to favor the pedestrians and to be comfortable for pedestrians from a safety and sec and uh comfort standpoint.

But to me, it's a burden to the developers. It's it's a it's a it's a disincentive to somebody who wants to build something. We got this all over town. You know, I can I can name off the restaurants you got where the front of the building faces the parking lot. McDonald's, you know, Wendy's. I'm just all over town. I don't understand why you I understand you trying to make it walkable, but let's get real. That's Irving Boulevard. I mean, that's Okconor. Okay. Ain't nothing to the west of it. So, where are they going to be walking to, you know? So I'm I'm not understanding that requirement to have this building on this corner have to have the front of it facing O' Conor. People are going to drive to that building and most of them are going to go through the drivethru to get something. So they're not going to be walking over to make to to Long John C to eat, you know. Um and if they do walk, they're going to get out of their car in the parking lot and walk to the door. So I'm not understanding that. I think we need to take a look at that that because you're you you you're creating a hindrance of people who wants to come and develop in your downtown area when you got that type of stuff. So, you know, I I like the idea. I'm like Abdul. I'm like Mark. You know, we want development down there. We want to get rid of some of these old buildings. Let's not make it too hard for people to do this. So, John,

thank you, Mayor. Um, I do agree with Dennis on one point that it is creating a uh disincentive for this kind of development downtown. Uh, and for that for that reason, I'm not in support of the case. Um, we are disincentivizing the developments that we don't want to see down there. uh we're trying to incentivize the developments we do want to see and we're trying to direct the development that we see downtown into what we would like the entire area eventually to become. That's why we have the cups on auto oriented developments. Uh you know, that's why that's why we're putting all this money into building this walkable, nicer area. We just had the uh we just had the popup event that uh Better Blocks uh did downtown. Um uh there's another there's another event down there coming up uh in just over a week. I encourage all of my colleagues to uh to try and be there if you can. There are a few more. They do they did actually they actually did a pretty good job with putting that popup. But those sorts of things where you're incentivizing these walkable things. Yes. Right now what are people going to do if they want to go eat Long John Silvers? They're going to drive down there. They're going to go through through the drive-thru. Yes, there's nothing to the west of there right now, but there will be. No comment. Uh but there will be, you know, the the point the point of the point of this form-based development that we've got in place in the Heritage Crossing District is that we are trying to direct the development. We're trying to shape the future of that area. And this kind of development, as much as it would fit anywhere else in

the city, it doesn't fit with the vision that past councils and to my thinking, this council has for the future of that area. So for for that reason, I'm against it.

How I guess I'm trying to figure out what do we want there? I mean, that's one of the things we may want to think about. how do we entice whether it's going to be a franchise or whatever so that we really are helping because that's a that's a key corner and I remember what we went through with Starbucks and the angst that we all had because we wanted to see that there. So I'm kind of saying okay well let's try to incentivize whatever makes sense going there. So thank you.

No other questions. I think the challenge they're running into is with most franchises when you've got an older building like this, if you want to keep the franchise, they're going to make you clean it up and do something different. And that it's hard to believe, but Bruce Burns convinced me one day to go spend a couple hours sitting there. That is a busy place.

They sell a lot of stuff out of there. And so I what I what bothered me, Ken, was the assumptions. We're assuming that they're going to they know what the standards are that they're going to use two types of this. I'd like to get see if there's a way we can tie this thing down a little better with them. And I understand what they're telling you. They don't have a prototype that fits. But to me, obviously, they have a good business there. Uh they have a a nice lot there. Uh and they want to clean it up just like the McDonald's did a few years ago. They scraped that one and rebuilt it. Uh, I'd like to see if we could get some type of a working relationship with them where they could come in with a different pro a different lo cal of how the product would fit because you're telling me that the materials got to be different. So, that's going to make the building look different. So, that's going to affect how they eventually do it. So, my take on this is I would like to see if there's a way we could work with them to tie down those details. You know, that's more and more what I hear from developers and stuff is there's assumptions, but when you have assumptions, that means you really don't know. And so I I would rather have something that we actually know rather than we assume they're not going to do this and then they assume they are going to do this. So neither assumption is right.

We we've had multiple conversations with them and we did um they're they're not local. They're out of of that's what I figured Kentucky. And uh we we did get on a Zoom call with them and we uh we actually asked you do you have something that's a more urban type of of product and their answer was no we don't. Uh we they are they are aware we did make them aware at the meeting and multiple layers of the design requirements of the materials requirements. So we we have tried to work with them. Okay. Well, that that tells me what what I need to know because if you've tried and they're not willing, then we know where we are.

But if you if we haven't tried, then that's another story. But since we have, I appreciate knowing that.

All right. On to the next one. Okay. Item number 19 is on case 2025-243. It's at 2713 Douglas Avenue. Uh it's an SP2 generally site plan for R six with a variance to side and rear yard setback for an accessory structure. Staffing was no unnecessary hardship. The PNZ recommendation was for approval uh by an 80 vote and we've had no responses one way or the other. Uh so the it's just uh basically a 10 1/2 by 10 1/2 building. It's about 11 1/2 ft tall. Because of the height, it actually is required to be uh 6 and 1/2 ft back from the side and rear property line. It's actually where it's located is 3 and 1/2 ft uh more or less uh from the side and rear uh making a basically a three-foot variance on each side. What's interesting is there is also a utility easement back here uh that includes Encore U power lines. Uh the applicant did actually meet with Encore uh and did and this letter should be in the packet did actually get an email uh saying from Encore saying that they were okay with the building being located where it is. If this case is approved, they still need to get a license to encroach from the city, but they've already uh basically gotten that from uh from Encore for these lines that are overhead here. These are code enforcement photos of the existing building. You can see it's proximity to the property line. Uh you really can't see it from the front. Uh so again uh the request is uh for the to keep it at uh the current 3 and 1/2 ft uh from the side and rear property lines. Uh staff believes they could move

it uh if they you know so there's no unnecessary hardship. Um, with that, be happy to answer any questions about this one. Questions? Okay, on to the next one.

Okay, item 20, 2025-282 is at 922 East Fifth Street. This is a variance to allow a covered patio to encroach in the front yard setback. Uh, we did not find a hardship on this. PNZ recommendation was for approval 6 to2 and there were no responses. So the applicant started construction uh without a permit and uh the the building buildings on this street the residences have a 30 foot established setback and so they are building it would be basically an 8 1/2t variance. It' be 21 uh.5 ft from the uh from the front property line. Uh applicants stated that their reasoning for this is to try to keep water from coming into the building. Uh this is the structure. Uh they did after they were uh notified, they did a little bit of additional construction as is noted in the staff memo. I want to clarify that that was done to help stabilize uh this. As you can see, they did not finish this out. They just were trying to keep it so it was stable while the process was going on. So this is what they have right now. Um, but it does show basically what it look like once it is uh finished out in terms of the the size and height of it. Uh, there are uh the neighboring photos here. If you drive around the neighborhood, you can find a smattering of of uh front patio covers that kind of encro seem to encroach a little bit. Uh, it's unclear when those were built or if those were done with any permits. There's there's just kind of a variety there. Um, but that being said, uh, we didn't find a hardship with this case. Uh, and so, uh, be happy to answer any questions that you have.

Questions? On to the next one.

Okay, next one. Uh, item 20, uh, excuse me, item 21, 2025-309 at 412 Elaine Drive. This is a site plan for R six with a variance to allow a carport to encroach into the front setback. Uh staff finding was no unnecessary hardship on this one. PNC recommend denial. We did have one response in opposition, but it does not trigger a need for a threequarter vote. Uh so the subject properties here off Elaine U. And if you go to Oops, sorry went too fast. Uh that's the the neighbor way down here is the one that uh did write in the opposition. If you look at the surrounding area, uh this is roughly a quarter mile. Uh there's a couple carports there in the area, but none right on the street or on the immediate streets over here. Uh so the applicant is proposing to have a 20ft carport, a 20 foot deep carport, 19 feet wide. And the setback is 30 ft in this area, but the home the where the garage door is is actually 35 ft back. So 20 foot carport doing the math ends up being a 15t variance with 15 uh foot variance over there. And then this is the garage. It has been enclosed as it has been uh converted uh apparently about 20 or 30 years ago. So even though the garage door is there, it's not actually a garage. It's there's that's actually a room back behind it. Uh you see properties adjacent and again uh we did not find a hardship. PNZ recommended no. Be happy to answer any questions.

You go back a couple. Is that was there a circular driveway there? That's the house. Yeah, that one. Yeah, that's the neighboring house. Okay. Yeah, this is a subject property right here. That's when you moved fast. I wasn't quite sure. Yeah. I'm John. Thank you, mayor. Um, so you said the the car or the garage has been enclosed as a as living space. Was uh was there a permit for that? Do we know? I believe so, but it was uh the applicant said it was enclosed. She's it was enclosed when she moved into the house and she moved there about 30 years ago. Uh so it goes way back

deep and deep into our permit records. Yeah. Al, if you could put up that uh photo of the front. So, what we're talking about is actually building it out right there. Okay. Yeah. More more or less. Yeah. It's a big variance. Thank you. Okay. On to the next one.

Okay. Item 22, zoning case 2025-311. is at 660 Walnut Ridge. It's PUD 2 for SP1RAB uh restaurant with alcoholic beverage sales and variances to the minimum parking requirements and parking space dimensions. The staff recommendation is for approval of the RAB and the parking depth variance denial of the variance of the number of parking spaces. PNZ recommended approval with all the variances by a 7 to1 vote. Uh we do have one common form in support or excuse me in opposition. It is one that surrounds this property. So it is 35.4%. So a 3/4 vote will be required for approval of this case. So this is the site of the former Benigans. Uh it was damaged by fire and demolished and the applicant is rebuilt. Uh you have the hotel kind of surrounding here. This is the property it wrote in the opposition. Um it is in the pud. There's the opposition map. And so the applicant has uh built a building. It's about 8 thou a little over 8,000 square feet. It's about 3,000 square feet larger than the previous building. They had to remove a few parking spaces, but uh they're asking for the same parking variance uh that was on the site when the Benigans was in business. that had had pre had been repealed a few years ago and now he's asking to put it back on as he rebuilds the site. So he's asking for the same one space per 2.85 seat variance. Um that would be uh based uh on the number of 50 parking spaces that are on the site. That' mean he could have 143 seats. As I mentioned is an P2 or is SP1 RAB. This is a multi-tenant

site. So he's asking for RAB for multiple tenant sites. So each one will come in and have to get their own TABC license and their own um and have to meet their own individual 4060 requirements that we can do that now because we don't require floor plans. So because because of that we can kind of zone the building and say this is going to be a building where alcoholic beverages served. There might be multiple tents. Again, each tent has to meet their own individual 4060 requirements. Uh the other issue is the dimensions. Uh these parking spaces were built originally back with the original restaurant at 9 by6. Uh there's really no place because of the utility easements and the other utility structures that are here. There's really no way for them to kind of expand out to 9 by 18. Uh so we're okay with them uh supporting keeping this 9x6 over here. Uh these were originally also 9x6. The applicant has restriped these to be 9 by8 and so now they have 35 spaces that comply. Uh and so we're only ask so the applicant's only asking for a variance on the 15 spaces on the north side. So this is the new building is built. These are the front parking spaces here. uh just the surrounding property. Uh you've got the hotel back behind. So again, uh staff's recommendation is approval of the RAB zoning and the 16 foot spaces on the north side, not of the parking variance because we believe they can reduce their seating to meet the uh one per 2.5. Um but otherwise um be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions? David. Yeah. Thank you, mayor. Uh, so this will require seven of the eight of us here tonight, right? Yes. So, seven of eight. And what was the opposition letter to this that were is making us It's in your packet. Basically, they said that they um there were a couple of issues. One was it was a competing restaurant to their restaurant. Uh they had some questions about whether people for this space would be end up parking on the hotel property and walking across. Uh th those seem to be the primary concerns.

Thank you. Mark and then now watching the P&Z hearing the applicant. Uh his business model is designed for all those hotels that are around there and so he's expecting a lot of foot traffic over. So I I I agree with the PNZ's recommendation on all on all fronts that um to allow the AB and the parking variances that are requested. Mhm.

How can Ken you brought up that he was wanting it for the alcohol beverage uh piece but not for the individual subletes that he may or may not have. I mean I wasn't sure I understood what what you were saying. He can ask for the RAB for the entire site. Each individual tenant will have to get their own TABC license and will each individually have to meet the 4060 requirement. So they you can't aggregate the 4060 uh like you do at the music factory. Uh you you can only each one will have to kind of stand on its own as far as that goes.

Okay. So he's doing his part and then it'll be the rest then they'll have to do theirs. Correct. All right, next one.

Okay. And next item, the final item, uh, item 23, zoning case 2025-312 at 2020, excuse me, 2828 Winslow Street, SP2 with a variance to the side building setback. We do find that a hardship exists. PNZ recommendation was 80 in favor and there was one letter in support. So this neighborhood right here kind of Finley to the north and kind of Posey to the south. This kind of this neighborhood here was built at a time when the sideyard setback was 15 ft. It's now 20 ft. Uh even the plat for the property shows uh the side building setbacks at 15 ft. Uh this is um the applicant basically their their house burned down. They want to rebuild on the same foundation. Uh that was the house before the fire and that's the property now. They again they want to build on it foundation. And the other houses again in the neighborhood such as the one just across the street here also have the 15t setback. So it's not out of line with the rest of the neighborhood. So, we find there is a hardship. PNZ recommend approval uh for the 5- foot variance and be happy to answer any questions.

We're just happy they're rebuilding. Mhm. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ken. Uh the next item, we'll we'll skip the dart and go to the last cleanest. I know we have several people here from the uh chamber and others. Beth, I want to uh

congratulate you on your uh good work on Wells Fargo. Uh very much appreciate everything you did. Uh it's not often you get the governor to call you out and talk about the good things that you've done. And uh when I was up there shaking hands with him and Beth came up, she said, Beth Bullman from the Greater Overling House Cleaners Chamber, he says, "Beth, I know you very well."

And so Beth, I appreciate that commitment that you have with the governor and the economic development team. Uh the Wells Fargo is a prime example of that. and uh the work that you're doing. So, thank you and congratulations on a great uh great day in Irving yesterday.

Thank you, Mayor and and Council City Manager Hillman. Uh yesterday was a five-star day in Irving and really the result of uh what I believe is our community's competitive edge, which is our teamwork and collaboration and focusing on the existing customers we have the privilege to serve. So, City Manager Hillman, Assistant City Manager Sanders, uh your entire team, uh Mayor and Council, thank you all for being there. Um and you know, we took five minutes to pause and celebrate uh and tell Charlie and his team great job and we're back to work. Um so today I have the pleasure uh to just reflect on uh the team's work through the Irving Economic Development Partnership for uh fiscal year 2024 to 2025. So this is going to be taking a look back at um you know from October 1 of 2024 to September uh 2025. in your council uh briefing uh booklet, I provided a very thorough year-end report in writing. I know that's not what everybody prefers. So, we also do a quick snapshot so y'all are able to communicate with your constituents of the results. we delivered. I have a copy of the PowerPoint that I'm going to go through here today highlighting um a really great year of our incredible teamwork on behalf of business industry and Irving. And then we do have two fee for services contracts with y'all. I included those in the packet in the spirit of transparency and how we perform against those contracts. So the economic development services contracts you can see our KPIs um and how we uh met or exceeded those KPIs. Same for international affairs in

sister cities. We really value that this is a public investment into economic development and we know there might be times where your constituents have questions. So we go a step further and outsource um with sunbrand solutions. Dr. Scott Wa Scott Weisson. He's a professor at the University of Dallas. He takes a snapshot of the wins that our team created over the past year and looks at what was that return on public investment. And then we also go back to do a five-year snapshot in the work. So, uh, Dr. Weisson's here with us today. Um, so Mayor, if you're willing, we'll hear from him shortly. And then we love seeing the positive coverage of Irving, Texas in the news. So we did a snapshot of uh the media clippings from out from this past year and then as just a courtesy I provided our midyear report. So mayor, with your support, I will go ahead and uh get started. Today I'm going to be covering kind of an overview of our key performance matrix, our business attraction and retention outcomes, our international engagement, and small businesses and marketing highlights. And just for the record, I'm Beth Bowman. I have the privilege to serve as the president CEO of the Irving Los Cleaners Chamber and the Irving Economic Development Partnership. I'm joined today by our chairman of the board who just took over October 1st, Harry Lake, president CEO of COA Partners, our board vice chairwoman, Heather Stroop of our small business services, and my colleagues, Diana Velasquez, who's our vice president of economic development. She does an incredible job working with our existing businesses and also generating opportunities to backfill our pipeline and bring new prospects home to Irving.

and Joe Chapa leads our international affairs in our sister cities efforts. So Irving continues to outperform regional and national benchmarks across most indicators. Our local economy remains resilient due to really three key areas. So, our DR our strong corporate recruitment, sustained retention activity, and our expanding small business investment throughout the city. This momentum really reflects on both private sector confidence in Irving and ongoing commitments to a businessfriendly environment. As we just reflect on the success from this past fiscal year, our team had the pleasure to secure 32 new recruitment wins. These recruitment wins represent nearly 2.8 million square feet of commercial space, 557 million in capital investment, and nearly 2,000 new jobs right here at home in Irving. This screenshot shows really a reinforcement of Irving's reputation as a headquarters of headquarters in North Texas. That our value proposition continues to resonate with companies seeking connectivity, a central safe location, workforce access, as well as affordability. Retention continues to be where our team spends most of our time. As we take a look back on last year's retention success, we had 19 expansion and retention wins totaling more than 1 million square feet of commercial space, 15.3 million in reinvestment.

And we were able to retain over 3,000 existing jobs and bring 52 new jobs home to Irving. Beyond corporate projects, our our team continues to see strong entrepreneurial and retail growth. Over two dozen new businesses open citywide this year from local favorites like Coffee Cove to Toziki's Mediterranean Cafe to new concepts such as Beam Light Sauna and Maria's Mexican Kitchen. These openings reflect a healthy local ecosystem that supports small business investment and lifestyle amenities that our residents and our workforce get to enjoy. Thank you to each of y'all that shop Irving. Just want to continue to encourage you to continue to shop Irving. The Texas Workforce Commission has released the unemployment numbers for August 2025. Irving continues to have low unemployment, lower than the state of Texas, as well as national unemployment rate. So Irving's unemployment rate came in at 4%. The state is at 4.7 and our national unemployment rate is at 4.5. These results are not seasonally adjusted and Irving's unemployment rate has continued to remain at or below 4% since March of 2022. As we look at our submarket occupancy rates across the city submarkets, our office and industrial rates continue to remain stable or improving. When we

look at Los Kolinus, we continue to show healthy absorption while South Irving and Freeport industrial spaces are maintaining high utilization above 90%. And this data that you're seeing on the screen comes from Co-Star illustrates a strong demand and confidence amongst tenants and developers, but we definitely have an opportunity to capture tenants coming into our community and fill in that vacant space. So, we transition to um international affairs and sister cities. This team is operating at its peak, consistently delivering top-notch results on a global scale. I just want to really give a shout out to um Councilman Zapont for his leadership in this area as well as Mayor Stoer, Mayor Pro Tim Block, Deputy Mayor Pro Tim, Kronowit, um Councilman Webb, y'all have throughout the year really stepped in when we've had inbound international delegations and helped us host. Um you see here a picture of Mayor Stoer addressing an international um delegation and audience at the Irving Infrastructure Summit and Joe on our team um worked with the city team to deliver that event. In addition, the team was a part of six trade missions inbound and outbound, one international cultural event, two international visits, and participated in four trade show events. Some additional highlights. We had the opportunity to participate in the Sister Cities International Diplomatic Dinner, an annual award celebration in Fort Worth. We sponsored and co-organized the International Panel Texas, the Gateway

to the Americas at the Irving Infrastructure Summit. So, a photo that you saw in the previous slide and participated in the 55th International Paris Air Show with our partners at Texas Economic Development Council in France. As we transition to amplifying telling the Irving Los story, there's a couple of examples of these in your packet from site selection magazine. the infrastructure issue. We've got it flagged where you can see um our ad, a workforce that works. [Music] And then we also in the Texas economic development guide, which is the guide that Governor Abbott and his team use as they're generating business development opportunities uh for Texas in terms of economic development and tourism. Our built here best here campaign was shown in that guide and both of those samples were uh presented in your packet. We're also taking advantage of digital opportunities. Our digital presence continues to grow. This year, we've had over 245 new targeted followers for a total of over 25,000 followers. We've added 60,000 views on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X. And our digital marketing campaign recorded 1.5 million impressions. We like seeing Irving positively positioned in the national news. So, here's just a couple of uh highlights of some above the fold press that our community was able to benefit from the great work that our team produced over this past year and the companies that are based here at home in Irving and the

positive impact they're making in our community. Abbott to invest millions in Irving facility for exe small business continues to be the backbone of Irving's economy. We had about 3,500 business contacts this past year through our economic development advisory council which is led by Travis Wilson, one of the executives with Wells Fargo through sales tax permit letters, business connections or coffee breaks or mixers and then we partner with the small business administration through score counseling. Fernando is going to help me tee up just a video. Many of y'all helped in our small bis blitz. You know, this is a program where throughout a week we go and visit 1,000 businesses in Irving, Texas, and say, "Thank you for having your business in Irving and listen to how we can help them continue to be successful in our community and leave behind a resource bag." So, Fernando, invite y'all to take a look at this video. Over 8,500 small businesses call Irving Losus home. And we're really excited this week to be able to collectively work with our volunteers and go out and say thank you to our small businesses for choosing to have their business right here at home in Irving, Losen.

96 to 99% of businesses in the US are small businesses. So it only makes sense to provide the guidance and support that they need in order to be successful.

We want to continue to be a conduit to that connectivity and we want to continue to be a part of inspiring commerce to take place where our companies and our small businesses can have a local address with global access. There's still opportunity for growth here and it's really great for people to be advocates of small business because that's what's going to keep everything going. We end the week with a small business celebration and small business resource fair. We take all the votes that have been cast and award them with the best in their category right here at home in Irvine.

It's very important for us to give back to the community and understanding how important the Chamber of Commerce is and this event really showcases all the talent that we have in our city. Bringing everyone together to celebrate like this is just such a fun event and these are a great thing to be a part of. It doesn't matter how many events I go to, I feel like I always meet someone new. Everyone here has a huge heart to support our city, which is great. I know the work they're doing is amazing. I know the work we're doing is amazing and we all collaborate together to serve the city.

Just helps us network and grow and just get to know what other businesses are doing. They're like-minded and just celebrating everybody's success. We don't do it for the recognition, but it does mean a lot and it makes us feel really special. Thank you for being here. Thank you for investing in Irving. Thank you for employing all of these people. We recognize you and we're here for you as a city and as our chamber. Again, Mayor, Council, City Manager Hillman, your team members that helped us uh reach out and thank uh 1,000 small businesses. We started this program uh 6 years ago and we have officially personally thanked uh 6,000 businesses. So, we're going to continue to do it this next year with the support of our board. Um moving on, uh also from a site selection perspective, our team's responsible for providing business intelligence to our customers uh day in and day out. again really making sure they have the latest news of what's happening locally and amplifying the opportunities in our community. It's just an example of uh some of the trade shows and domestic trade missions that our team participated in from FDI Institute live to consult and connect in New York City. So we lean in a little bit more from the business retention and expansion side. We've had uh over 300 retention visits both inter in person and virtually connected with over 3,400 businesses to date. As I shared earlier, delivered 19 retention wins. We've got about 150 prospects in our pipeline. 55 we would say active, meaning throughout any week the team's working on securing those prospects to become wins. and we sent

over uh 1,000 new sales tax permit letters to say welcome home to Irving to those businesses. I also want to um just thank our um immediate past chairman Steve Love for encouraging us to lean in. You know, in Irving, we're known as the headquarters of headquarters, but we have a lot of manufacturing taking place here. So, um, at each of your play settings is just a little shirt that we encourage you to wear proudly of Irving that, um, is, you know, a location, you know, in a city that is built to build. It's got a little tag, and I'll just amplify this message on the back of the tag. This shirt is really a token of appreciation of the important role that each of you play in showcasing our community's industry and talent. Together, we're celebrating the innovation, products, and people that make Irving Lascalenus a hub of industry and talent. And that's so true. So, y'all please wear these proudly. If you need another one, let us know. But to those of you on council um that were able to attend, city manager Hillman, your team, and assistant city manager, um we were all excited to kind of get a peak behind the operation of these businesses and what's happening right here in Irving. Fernando, if you'll roll, uh that National Manufacturing Week recap video, we'll give you a little insight of some of the businesses we got to visit this past year. As we kick off celebrating National Manufacturing Week in Irving, it's really our inaugural opportunity to make sure our community really understands

the businesses that are located in Irving. businesses that have a local address with global access what's really happening behind their doors.

It's so exciting for us to have this first time manufacturing week where we get an opportunity to go and see some of the businesses here in our community like Owens Corning Corning really being a great place to work. We're proud to partner with the local community um around us with the local schools and as well as just let the our neighbors know that we are here. We want to partner with them to keep the environment and area as safe as as we can. Our partnership helps companies like Smith Interconnect and manufacturers do business easier. We want to make business easy for them both from providing workforce to be able to retain their workforce and be able to grow their business. When companies come here, they know they have support organizations as well. So, it's a very welcoming city, but also a city with a lot of companies here. When you need help, you just look around the corner. There's going to be another company to help you out.

Again, thank you, Councilman FAF and Assistant City Manager Sanders, Mayor, uh, Councilman Zapont for participating in National Manufacturing Week. We know we have a lot of asks in front of y'all, but our goal is to continue to do this event next year and give a sneak peek inside the great work that's happening in our business. I shared earlier in my presentation that we had uh retained an independent consulting firm of Weisson Brand Solutions to perform a one-year and a five-year return on investment study of the benefits of the city of Irving's receiving from its public investment in making um that it's making into economic development services and international affairs sister city services. Dr. Wson's full reports are in your briefing booklet, but at this time, um, mayor, council, I present to you Dr. Scott Weiss.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Click right here, this side of the mouse to advance the slide. Right there. Oh, it's right there. Yes, sir.

Good afternoon. So, like previous years, uh the chamber did an excellent job this year. I was trying to think before I got here, how many years have I done this? I can't remember, but there's never been a bad year. They do an amazing job. Uh so, we're I'm walking through just four quick slides to kind of highlight some of the success uh from the chamers wins this year. So, for every dollar the city of Irving publicly invested in the economic development services, we you received or resulted in $594 in economic output, $328 in worker earnings, which equates to $16.92 as far as taxable u sales or 17 cents in additional sales tax for Irving and $143 in additional property tax for Irving. But most importantly, at the very bottom, it says, "One direct job was created for every $518 in public funding from the city of Irving." That's uh truly amazing. So, I won't bore you with every single number on here. The two key numbers are this first line here, that's the investment uh in the economic development partnership. So, it's $2.6 million. The second to last line is the total additional taxes collected by the city of Irving, which is 4.2 2 million. That results in 160% return on investment. The chamber has had years with higher than that, but I joked with Beth earlier, I'd like to invest in something where I could get 160% return on my investment regardless of what that investment is. If we look at the last five fiscal years, same thing. For every dollar the city of Irving public $926 in economic output, $434 in worker earnings, $22 in additional uh local taxable sales or 22 cents in additional sales tax and $1.71 in additional property tax. A

direct job was created for even less money for $350 in public funding resulted in a direct job. And then you'll see on the next slide, but I wanted to put it here as well. For the last five fiscal years, the return on investment has been 193%. So once again, if you look at this top line here, this is the public investment the last five years, almost $12 million, but that's resulted in almost $23 million in additional taxes, which once again is 193% return on investment. U like I said, I can't remember any year where it was just a phenomenally high number. Uh Beth and her team, as she just pointed out, work very hard to retain businesses and bring in new business. So, uh I can't say anything anything more than what a great job they're doing. So, does anybody have any questions about the numbers

questions? Okay.

Thank you, Dr. Weissson. And again, those reports are in your packet and he's available if y'all have any additional questions. Um, mayor, uh, members of the city council, I just I I want to authentically thank you. The results that I have the pleasure to share with you are truly the result of our team's effort day in and day out. Uh, when I call y'all after 5, sometimes 11:15 in the evening because that's when our business industry reaches out from your city manager to your police chief to your assistant city manager. People answer the phone and we are able truly to serve our businesses. so the next day um they can continue taking care of business. I want to uh say thank you to our partners at the CVB. Mar and her team do a great job um and Ham and his team at the LCA Dallas at Dur. So many of us work together behind the scenes, but we know we have a lot of asks in front of each of y'all. So, thank you for continuing to show up. Thank you for continuing to roll out the red carpet and pull up that red tape so business industry knows that they can invest right here at home in Irving, but they can also have global access. Mayor, happy to take any questions that you have and again our chairman Harry Lake is here, my team members and Dr. Weissson if y'all have specific questions related to the information in your packet.

Okay. Well, Al's got a question. Then we'll ask Carrie to come up and let us know how how good things are going or not. Al basically, Beth and Dr. Rothman, um what's the prognosis in your mind as to what you're finding out there, especially as we're starting to see some headwinds? And so I'm kind of I know you're out there. I know you're doing the measurements and all. I'm trying to get a sense of where you sense what kind of impact will be to be able to do what you do very well.

So in terms of headwinds, Councilman Zapont, u we are daily in front of our customers and uh you know business industry is still working to provide a place where their employees want to come into work. Some of the customers we've have the the pleasure to serve, they've they've always been open for business. Some that have a higher quantity of workforce, they're really trying to provide that, you know, best in show, which many of y'all saw yesterday uh at the Wells Fargo Workforce Center. And that was a true collaborative effort years in the making. other companies that are in the market and looking, they're shopping. They're trying to recreate that environment. We know um in addition to employers bringing employees back and creating an environment that innovation will thrive. Um you know, the projects look differently. There's not 10 1 million square foot users out there that we're all competitively looking to pay attention to. So, we're taking each project as an opportunity. Also, city manager Hillman is leading some conversations around how do we work to fill some of our vacant space. Um, we are reaching directly out to the brokerage community to our owners of buildings to see are there programs that would help us continue to retain our businesses right here at home in Irving Los. The competition just within this region is fierce. Everybody wants what Irving has and there are tools and there are offers that are flying daily to recruit businesses to a nearby community and then we have to deal with the competition throughout the state and then throughout the nation. We are

seeing an uptick and Joe's been leading this from an international perspective. International businesses looking to set up operations within the United States. They want a central location. So, we're continuing to have those conversations as well. We need to continue to be able to move at the speed of business to keep up with the opportunities and then to always make sure we're providing fresh opportunities where workforce can thrive. I hope that answers your question, Councilman. Well, you always do answer before I even asked a question because you really understood what I was asking. But this is for the doctor because you're looking at numbers.

You have a sense of it. So, are you asking about just in general the economic outlook the next few years? No, I think it's very strong not only nationally, but specifically here in Texas. Obviously, Ross Pro Jr. spoke at the event last week and talked about all the different business opportunities in Texas. Obviously, Irving's at the front of that, as Beth has already pointed out, being the headquarters of headquarters. I use that phrase. I stole the phrase. I use that phrase when I'm talking about Irving. Um, you know, I think this just only but up is is positive the next four to five years.

Other questions?

Other questions or comments? Beth, I would just say that uh you know the challenges I think are going to be greater than they've ever been based on what we're seeing as far as occupancies in buildings and and uh uh you know maybe one of these days we can bring back the at one of our subcommittee meetings and talk a little bit about the age of buildings within the city of Irving and what CoStar thinks uh our potential uh challenges will be over the next few years to actually fill those buildings compared to what other cities are doing to to do those things. And I think at some point we're going to have to face the reality that we're going to have to come up with some type of dollars to use for an economic development fund to to deal with those building rehabs and things of that nature as other cities are now starting to do. Uh you're seeing more and more where 20 30 40 50 $60 million a year being put into their economic development funds to to make sure that they have the incentives to do what we've been able to do in a lot of ways. We were able to do it with the Vistra building where you had a building that had been sitting empty for number of years. I I can't remember if it's 15 to 20 years it was empty and really it just needed a new parking facility and it needed a few other things which we were able to step up through uh as a city and pay for and uh work with the uh development of it. And I think you're going to see that that's something we're going to have to take seriously that we've been we've been kind of skating around the issue for a while. But I think more and more of these buildings are at a point where people if there if there's no good financial reason, they'll just level them and and do something else. And I I I worry that that that's been our bread and butter over the years is to have the office market that we have. And I surely don't want to uh to lose any of that. So I think uh anything over the next you know at least the next six months when I'm here I'd like to really take a good hard

look at what the projections are from CoStar and some of the other uh com and Harry you've got the opportunity you're in the you're in the field day in day out seeing what these buildings are doing and uh you're you're seeing what's on the market you're seeing what's not being taken care of what they're doing in other cities and I think we really need to to have that that insight and I understand it's always a difficult one because once you start talking about it and unfortunately we can't have a decent conversation because of open records and meetings and things of that nature where we can bounce ideas off without being told that we're doing something that we that we shouldn't be doing or saying something that could get us in trouble. But the reality of it is we have to have somebody that's out there kind of helping us and filling in those blank uh spots. So Harry, I appreciate your perspective on some of that as well.

Mayor, if I can before chairman's remarks, just a couple of of comments. We're happy to work with co-star and um deputy mayor prom kernowitz through the planning and development committee to bring them back um over the next six months to get a snapshot or also through our economic development advisory council. We're always going to protect Irving's competitive advantage. And I think we're very fortunate this year to have a chairman of the board that also has the privilege to lead uh KOA. Uh he's a developer uh CEO of that company. So he's living, working, playing in Irving. He's the triple threat. He's our ideal customer. Um and just, you know, over the first four weeks on the job, it's truly been a pleasure uh to work with him. Um, and we're still getting to learn how to work with each other. I've shared this repetitively and I'll just remind y'all, you know, we're always one chair away from it being Irving's best day. Um, like yesterday as we celebrated Wells Fargo's Workforce Center or where our community is just reflecting on could we have done anything better. So, I know we're constantly working with our businesses as executive leadership is changing. We're reaching out to establish relationships. If they're a tenant within a building, we're working with those building owners to say, "Hey, here's what we're hearing. What are y'all's plans to invest in the property internally and externally?" And then always working with city manager Hillman and his team. Hey, the infrastructure around the facility, roadways, access, signage. Um, you know, I just again truly thank city manager Helman for his pro business leadership and response to business industry demands because they're quite often.

Mr. Chairman,

thank you. First, she talk about learning to work with each other. What what I've learned is that um don't be surprised if you get 10 p.m. call at night to jump on a meeting with Beth. So, she she never sleeps, by the way. You have the hardest working president CEO working on your behalf. Never sleeps and therefore I'm not sleeping. But that's okay. You know, I just got a year. So, uh, it's good. Uh, first of all, to Council Member Senta's point, um, you know, there are headwinds and there's things that we have to address and face them. And I'm the glass half full kind of guy. And so, when I think about an inflationary environment that we're all in, you know, uncertainty, you know, terrorists, no terrorists, where we're at. The good news is that we're an infill built out community. So, we have an aging stock, which is one thing we have to address. The good news is that that aging stock is is fairly built. and the cost to improve it or maintain it or get to a class A status again is far smaller than is building a brand new campus, you know, 50 60 miles away from where everybody really wants to be. So, the good news is that the return on investment, similar to what you're doing with the chamber uh and what you do on behalf of uh business, that 160 190% return on investment, that type of multiples is what you can get on existing uh in inventory you have already in our city that has good bones. Unfortunately, it's old bones, but we can restore it with good surgical practices. So, I think that's one thing we we do want to pay attention to. And then the good news, we can take a several of these moments and wins that we've just experienced and create momentum, which I think our set our city is well positioned to do. Um, I did want to uh thank you first of all for giving me a minute to just kind of brag a little bit about the team that Beth and her team is doing. They do a phenomenal job. I've had a front row seat, you know, for a few years now, but now I have like a ultra front row seat and I'm just unbelievably amazed the amount of work product. I mean, the presentation that her and her team have put together here is just scratching the surface. And

one thing I've learned as a resident, as a business owner, we started a small business. My wife started a new cafe, which we didn't need to be doing, but but it's great. But the good news about these small businesses throughout our city is that you don't realize it, but these small business want to serve our city. So like we cooked brisket for 600 high schoolers for a homecoming barbecue game that you know these are things that are happening throughout our city. And so when you support small businesses, you're supporting families. And when you're supporting small businesses and you're supporting families, you're supporting Irving. And what's good for Irving was good for Texas and what's good for Texas is great for our country. So the things that we're doing right here is very meaningful not just within our city boundaries but within the region and therefore uh for our country. So thank you so much for what you're doing right here because this is where really the rubber hits the road. Um and I'm constantly reminded that 67% of our tax revenue is based on commercial business. And so when I think about twothirds of the things that we're doing um on behalf of business is supporting our families uh and basically sub subsidizing in some respects the lifestyles that we all enjoy right here in our city. It's a phenomenal return on investment. So we appreciate all the energy and efforts that you're doing to support the businesses because at the end of the day that's what's helping the childrens and the families that were at the end of the day is what it's all about. And the one thing that we didn't touch on here, but I think was worth touching on uh was then the career inspire event that we had a few weeks ago uh where we had 5,000 a lot of children uh attending the convention center and just being first of all if you're there it's it's a it's it's a wild house so you know you go there if you want you want to get reminded about how it is to have young children seven and eighth graders in your household go there but I'm constantly inspired because we had all the the business community going there and they're investing in seventh and eighth graders, right? These are not employers that are going to employees that are going to start their business one year from the

time they have that conversation. These are these are seeds that are being planted well in advance that almost an altruistic way to think about it. These are things that they're not going to be able to harvest, but they know it's the right thing to do to create this sort of virtuous cycle that's that we're witnessing inside of our community. And that's the community sector. That's the business community at its best. And so I'm inspired. I have a seventh year creator and I also inspired by the event. But when you have like Caterpillar, you know, Microsoft, I mean, uh, Baylor, Scott and White, all these companies that are great stewards in our community pouring into their youth, it goes well beyond the dollars and cents. I love the return on investment. That's why thinking about day in day out on everyone's behalf here. But when you get down to what these children and the families and the future leaders of our community, that all starts with these small incremental decisions that we appreciate you supporting over time and we appreciate the research that you're doing, uh, both as a consultant at the University of Dallas to support, you know, the facts that we rely on to make wise decisions and the best decisions we can on the city's behalf. So, um, that goes a little beyond, I think, what we were trying to get at, but I I'm inspired. We're excited about the year ahead. We want to keep the momentum going and we appreciate your continued support. So, thank you.

Thank you, sir. Beth, one thing that the governor talked about yesterday and and we were fortunate to listen was the trades. And I think there's probably a lot of trades that we have in the city that we don't well, it's we some of us know, but we really don't emphasize enough what's out there. the the programs that they have with the schools for the aviation school, the programs they have with the with Dennis was uh just at a graduating at the welding school. And we heard yesterday the governor talk about a young lady who was living on the streets four years ago and took up a trade and today she owns a home and her month and her yearly paycheck is more than his as a governor. And so I think there's there's opportunities for us maybe to showcase that a little bit more and and and see if there's a way we can can work with our community because one of the things that's always bothered me is the fact that when you look at the 250 60 70 80 whatever the number is thousand people that work in Irving less than 20,000 of them live here

and that's because the 20,000 that live here don't have the talent to fill those jobs. So I think there's an opportunity for us somehow to inspire these moms and dads and others that that to showcase we've got the opportunity for an education program here that will take you to a whole another level of stability within your family. So, I don't know how we do that, but I was inspired by the conversation yesterday and it just made me realize we've got the automotive school, we've got I mean, it goes on and on that and I don't probably know 10 of the 500 that we already have, but I think a focus on that and some way to focus that into the community to see if we can inspire some of our residents to have a better lifestyle because of a year or two's worth of education that we can see if there's an opportunity for them. Thank you, mayor, for that suggestion. And we're happy to reach out to our trades and uh work with our partners to continue to amplify the story of our trades that are here, how they connect in uh to our K through 12 and then also our higher um education and then also who's hiring. Uh there are many jobs that are out there that are left uh unfilled. But it was really great to see Charlie, the CEO of Wells Fargo, really highlight with our chief elected officer in the state, Governor Abbott, on um the job opportunities, especially in the trade areas uh in throughout Texas, but we'll focus on Irving. So, thank you.

All right. Thank you guys. Appreciate it very much, Beth. But thank you. Thank you, Harry. Thank you so much. Uh I think I seen Heather out there as well. Thank you, Heather. And Sam's out there wearing two hats. Past chairman Reed's here. Yes. One of our proud small business owners, past chairman of our chamber. All right. Well, before we move on to the next one, why don't we take about a 10-15 minute break

and we'll go [Music] [Applause] [Music] year 2026 is here and that means Irving City Council just adopted a new $1.1 billion annual operating budget. Let's take a look at how it's constructed. The FY26 budget maintains the city's tax rate of 58.91 cents per $100 valuation. The budget allows the city to deliver exceptional services and promote a high quality of life and adds a number of key enhancements like additional police and fire department personnel, street, water, wastewater, and drainage improvements. enhance library security, park maintenance, and a whole lot more. Now, let's dig a little deeper. Here's a look at how the 1.1 billion budget is divided. As you can see here in blue, the general fund makes up the largest portion, comprising 30% of the total budget. As we take a closer look at the general fund, it's important to note that 70% of general fund expenditures are for salaries and benefits like police officers and firefighters. In fact, 54% of the general fund goes directly to public safety. Here's a glance at how that's funded. 81% of general fund revenues come from property

and sales taxes. Now, let's break things down a little further. For every $1 residents pay the city of Irving, 32 cents go toward police and fire protection and 28 cents go toward water and wastewater services. The FY26 budget also appropriates $213 million to the city's capital improvement program to maintain and upgrade the city's physical infrastructure. That includes the exciting Let's Play Irving initiative, the city's bold vision to elevate aquatics and recreation. Lee Aquatic Park made a splash in 2025. A new yearround indoor aquatic facility at Center Park Recreation Center is slated to open in 2026. And the new Mustang multi-generational recreation and aquatic center is scheduled to open in 2027. Did you know the city of Irving maintains infrastructure across more than 67 square miles and serves more than 266,000 residents? If you'd like a more in-depth look at the city of Irving's budget, grab your hard hat and visit irtx.gov/budget. [Music]

Downtown delights. What do you think? Love it. I see the heart. I see the passion. People turn out to experience Irving's main street like never before. See how this event may be the start of something bigger. Transportation triumph. It's a dream come true. We are inside Irving ISD's new transportation and logistics center and finding out about other big projects on the horizon. Made in Irving.

It's good for the city to be out here and kind of get a sense of of who we are. leaders tour companies to get an eyeopening look at some of what is manufactured right here in Irving. And the special event to mark domestic violence awareness month now on City Source. [Music] Irving is kicking off a new campaign called Keep It Clean Irving and it's aimed at beautifying the city. Hello and welcome to City Source. I'm Thomas Gandandy. Find out more about that later, but we begin with an event that brought about 3,000 people to Main Street and it's meant to be only the beginning of plans to help people reimagine downtown Irving. We checked out all of the attractions. Perhaps nowhere but Irving's Main Street when you find potato, a nighttime spelling bee along with foods and drinks of the world.

We rotate it here for four morning pilates, fresh flowers, outdoor chess, mariachi music, and so much more. All happening along a newly colorful street in the heart of downtown Irving. I'm a graduate of Irving High School in 1981. So, of course, I love this. I want more people to come in. What do you think? Okay. This is a two-day event called Experience Main Street. This is a really concrete example of showing, not telling, what could be down here. Just seeing everyone kind of reuse the space and reimagine what could be has been really great. Right here is the middle of what we're calling a living street.

The city of Irving is partnering with the nonprofit Better Block to make it all happen. The process started with public input. Our goal with this was how do we create a space that people want to come in and hang out and visit multiple folks while they're here. This is so great and it's so great for the businesses down here. We love being able to showcase what we do. Along with those permanent businesses, many other local vendors work to spread the word about what they have to offer. So they were like, "Oh my god, a flower shop on the south side." Friday night saw restaurant crowds overflowing onto newly installed parklets.

We received so many new customer last night. So many. They've been living around here, but they don't even know about this existing restaurants on the street. So now the goal is to keep this Main Street momentum going. This two-day event is part of a larger initiative to reimagine downtown Irving with the goal of making lasting change. So, we're just playing with some ideas, having people come out, touch things, feel things, walk around, and then give their feedback, which can inform a longer term kind of plan and vision for the area. We have beautiful Heritage Park. How do we make that connectivity from Heritage Park down Main Street towards the clock tower?

There are special activities scheduled through December and a temporary business. What we're famous for is our ice cream puff. So, it's a warm Korean sweet style bun filled with your favorite ice cream and cereal topping. Zezy's Ice Cream is trying out a retail location, building on the popularity of its food truck. So, my six-year-old cousin came up with this one. So, this one is hot Cheetos and vanilla ice cream inside of a warm doughut. This new space in Main Street Plaza offers more opportunities to try out concepts. It's a shipping container that's been fabricated and it's really flexible so different vendors can pop up in there.

Organizers believe they are only scratching the surface of all of the potential here. Come down here to the heritage district, shop, eat, walk around, enjoy what you have here because the way we can help our businesses is by patronizing them. and they believe these activities may be some of the building blocks for success in downtown Irving. We love the Heritage District. We love Irving and we are here to make everything better downtown.

And there are events every week and the next big event on Main Street is a Halloween celebration. Learn how to do Michael Jackson's thriller dance at 6:45 p.m. The movie Hocus Pocus will show at 8. And throughout the night, people can enjoy vendor markets as well as food and drinks available for purchase. And yes, there will be plenty of candy. Find out about all of the ongoing events at irvingtx.gov/experience mainst. Inside some buildings you may drive by every day, products you use are made. From corn chips to roof shingles and a lot in between, there is major manufacturing activity right here in Irving. Leaders mark National Manufacturing Week by going behind closed doors to see some of the work that's happening. We went along on one of their visits.

The front area is all of our production design, creative design. From the front bullpin, the back of house. This is our production floor just for screen printing to small production areas. If you guys like the show, how it's made and everything in between. I'm a giant shark nerd, so there's shark stuff everywhere. These business leaders are getting an all accessess look inside Pinpoint merchandising in Irving. We're one of the more soughtafter partners for designing, manufacturing, importing custom apparel and accessories globally. The visit comes as the Irving Economic Development Partnership marks National Manufacturing Week.

It's really an inaugural opportunity for us to highlight the manufacturing that's taking place right here at home in Irving. There are so many diverse and neat companies in Irving that do things that you interact with every day. During the week, leaders visited companies throughout the city of Irving. We have a lot of hidden gems in Irving that no one knows about and we're here to see it. Here at Pinpoint, screen printing is considered a smaller portion of the business. We do multi-7 figures in offshelf production. Then the team is especially proud of what's called cut and sew, more customized work. Consider this hunting jacket for the Dr. Horton Ranch.

We created this camo pattern. It's a functional hunting camo using elements from the ranch's topography, the actual topography. We went full nerd on this one. So, we have DR molded into the actual zipper pulls, right? And here is a brand everyone knows. Pinpoint recently became a supplier for Bies. My wife and kids and I celebrated when we got this order because I thought it was so cool. You could fill Cowboy Stadium with how many of these they make. It's crazy. Yeah, it's awesome. And it does not stop there. This is Chaa the Frog. This is the Rainforest Cafe mascot. Pinpoint merchandising is a diverse business.

If you go to store.crossfit.com, that store is built by Pinpoint, operated by Pinpoint. All the product lives here, is picked and packed through here. There is a lot of work happening here. But you can see that it's not all serious. We're a fun company. We do fun things. We hire fun people. We work with fun brands and I've been fortunate enough to be able to make having fun a consistent priority as we grow the business. And he chose Irving as the location for his company's new headquarters. I love Irving just because of the the access to the airport. We'll fly folks here and they'll spend a day or two and we'll look through samples and fabrics and we'll look at concepts that we designed for them, meet the design team, meet the sourcing team, form a relationship.

He is sharing his formula for success with an audience eager to learn. I love a great business story. I think what we want people to take away is that there is a whole lot of neat stuff happening here in Irving, Texas. People on this tour will have new stories to share as they explain why Irving is a great place to put your business.

Several of the companies that leaders toured throughout the week did not want cameras inside because they want to keep their processes confidential. See related stories on our business and economic development playlist at youtube.com/thecity of Irving. Keep it clean, Irving. That's the name of a citywide campaign to keep neighborhoods and business areas clean, safe, and welcoming. It starts in November and will run through April. Dale Demerest is the city of Irving's code enforcement manager. And he's with us today. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me.

Of course. And let's get started with the overview. What are some of the goals of this effort? The goals of this effort is to provide an opportunity for our code officers to get into these neighborhoods on a more comprehensive approach. Um because we can't be everywhere we need to be throughout the year. It's nice to be able to get the entire team into an area and take a look at it and see if we can't clean up and and help revitalize the neighborhoods. What are some of the things you're going to be looking for? Uh we're going to be looking for high grass and weeds, trash and debris, trash out early, junk motor vehicles, anything that could create blight or creates blight or anything that could create any kind of nuisance or life safety issue. So, let's go deeper into the specifics on this. A lot of city teams are involved.

That's correct. We have four departments involved. We have code enforcement, police department, municipal drainage, and sanitation that are all going to be involved. Um, we'll divide the city into eight we as we have into eight areas. And each area has a specific date that we'll go out and work that for a day. Our team of inspectors will go out and work the entire area all in one day to find as much as we can find as far as violations that exist. And the city website has the dates of when officers will be in any specific zone. Correct. That is correct. It's on the website and it's available to look at right now. Now, the goal is voluntary compliance, but what happens if you don't get that compliance?

Um, the same thing is going to happen with this as it does with any of our code cases. We're going to write a notice of violation to that person for whatever violations we find. They'll be given the same amount of time that we would give them any other time, and we'll follow up. If it's not been brought into voluntary compliance, then we'll go through the process of possibly a citation if necessary. So, what should people do if they see concerns in their own neighborhood? They really should go on to the Irving website to report a concern and view it there. It's a best way for us to track what we're getting from the public and how it can better help us manage our areas better. And again, what's the overall goal of this? Overall goal of this is clean, safe, vibrant neighborhoods as our as our uh policy has been. And uh so we're just trying to get in and see exactly what we can find for violations in that area. Try and get the neighborhood cleaned up, try and make it a safe place to live.

Code enforcement manager Dale Damares, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me.

Find more details, including a schedule and map, at irvingtx.gov/clean. Irving's family advocacy center is marking domestic violence awareness month with a special art exhibit. Irving ISD high school art students created works based on the theme with survivors always. This is the opening reception at the Irving Archives and Museum where we found out more about the exhibit and the cause. I was overwhelmed at the artwork the students did. Uh the first time I was able to view it, they had so much insight about the impact that domestic violence has on individuals and they were able to do such a good job of showing a message of hope and healing.

There are some very talented kids around here. Um and also just very meaningful pieces that I think give a range of messages. I would like to tell them like you you're going to be okay. There's hope. That's what I decided to put in my artwork. This phrase one day I am going to grow wings. Them knowing that people were actually going to be seeing their work and how impactful it is. It gave them more reason to put their whole hearts into it. We're really looking at how there strengthened collaboration that working together and supporting each other, the agencies, the community, the individuals. That's really where healing begins and how it continues.

The art will be on display through November 2nd. Leaders and project partners turned out to celebrate the grand opening of Irving ISD's new student transportation and logistics center. At the ribbon cutting, we learned more about the facility's benefits. [Applause] Leaders cut the ribbon to celebrate the opening of Irving ISD's new student transportation and logistics center on Pioneer Drive. I am such a proud proud superintendent. Right now, our drivers, monitors, mechanics, and staff now have a home that reflects the value we place on them.

Wow. Attendees got tours to see some of the new features which include meeting and training rooms, upgraded bus parking. It was just gravel and dirt along with a bus wash and this massive maintenance space. It is a big upgrade over the makeshift facility they've been using. And we had a shop where you couldn't even put a bus inside. You could only put the front of it to work on. Uh the rest of it has to be stuck outside. Irving ISD transports about 7,500 students on more than 100 routes every school day. The district has more than 150 buses. So, first of all, we turn on the amber lights.

David Rubio has driven Irving students to class for 16 years. I do this type of job uh because I love it and I I do love my community. He wanted to be here for this grand opening of his new workplace. It's a dream come true. Uh we've been waiting for it for years. It's nice and big and it's it's just beautiful. This center is the latest project completed as part of the 2023 Irving ISD bond package. We're not stopping. We still have a lot of work to do.

Among several projects underway, construction is beginning on a new career and technical education center. Then check out the progress on the new Barton Elementary School. And the most eye-catching is the new fourstory Crockett Middle School. All projects approved by voters moving forward. They are investing in our students who are future leaders. And I am so grateful. All of these projects are exciting for me because this is it's going to help our community. It's going to help our kids. And also it shows that, you know, we value our kids. And that starts with getting them to class safely on buses serviced at this brand new transportation and logistics center. They've been needing this for a long time and our students deserve it as well.

And you can learn more about other upcoming projects in the district at irringisdbond.com. [Music] Welcome to ICTN's pets of the week. Normally you see Egan Dobson with me, but Chestnut, you can see, wanted to take over the scene. So, we're giving him a little bit of a moment in the spotlight while I get some kisses from Chestnut. But to find out his full story, let's use some seasonal magic to bring in Egan. So, a real welcome to Egan Thompson now. And Chestnut, so much personality and so much love to give.

So silly. Such a sweetheart. Obviously, huge cuddlebug. Loves to give little kisses. Um, sweet, sweet boy. For only 6 months old. 6 months old. And how did he come into the animal care? So, he came in as a stray. One of our officers picked him up. Some things that we know about Chestnut is that we think he might be a boxer mix. He's very obviously very curious of the world. Uh he is dog friendly. He's in a really big play group with a bunch of other different dogs. Um just a happy silly boy. And there's a chance to get him at a discount right now. Yes, we have our pick a treat special where anybody can pick a treat from the cauldron and on that treat is a discounted prize.

So Okay. So, he picked one that would be a $20 adoption. And there are others in here. Okay, I think we got everybody back uh from the break. It's about 3:05. We'll go ahead and get started. Again, the next item on our agenda is item number four, which is an update on the DART bus routes 225 and 255. This is something that uh has been talked about quite a bit. I've been, you know, very vocal over the last four or five years on this concern about uh the number of routes we're losing and and uh the goal link is supposed to cover it, but Chris has had those opportunities to share with Nardine where he can't get from even his house to here because Golink won't get him here. So, it really it sounds good, but it doesn't work across different uh areas. So, it's just kind of we've segregated the southern sector now that they really can't get anywhere north of of uh Rock Island Road. And so, that's really our concern is because a lot of the majority or a lot of majority that doesn't make sense. A lot of the individuals that live in the southern sector work in the northern sector or have doctors or have to go there for dialysis and things of that nature. So, there is not an opportunity. I wanted to highlight uh there was a letter from Tyler Wright uh concerning a quote in here. So I want to just clarify that quote. The quote that uh he put in here was about me saying that I would uh be happy if I never saw another dart. Let's see. To me, it would it if I never saw a bus in the city of Irving and we just went with an overlay goal link zone that feeds to the TR and the orange line. That would probably the most

beneficial thing for our city. Now, that if you go further into the discussion, it's always easy to pull a quote out. I brought up the fact that we had had a conversation and we had getting a we had received a prize for $6 million, I believe it was, to do our whole city and feed into those two. And if you go even further up into my conversation, I mentioned that we had put over $30 million in a three or four year time frame into DART. And I would rather just have five of that million back. they can spend the rest and we could hire via to do our whole city and feed those two elements. So that's what the quote was if you would go back and listen to everything and I called it a go link zone because I that's similar to what VIA would be doing for the city of Irving. So I just wanted to clarify that before we start. So because that just came to us this morning and that's why I said what I said and what it was in relation to. Now, Dan's got a whole presentation here. The staff uh did some extensive work under Chris's leadership to ride the buses, ride the trains, and spend a lot of time on this. And so, they've compiled a lot of information. They've shared this information with Dart. So, it's not something that we are not willing to share and show show people what was going on. So, Dan, we'll let you get started.

Thank you, Mayor, Council, Staff, Manager's Office. talking today about the DART bus routes and we have some representatives from DART here today too, the 225 and the 255 and how DART in this next coming year is getting ready to remove these from the Irving system. That's what we're focusing on here today. A lot of the information I'm providing today are from DART documents. So, this isn't made up. This is what they're providing us. We'll go over the mission statement. And I think it is important to understand what is their mission, wrership by city, performance targets, response to deficit performance, the goal, performance and service areas, the routes 225 and 255 which are the focus of this discussion today. Fisc year 25 quarter 3 highest ridership local and local coverage. The rail stations and bus route connections that's critical to interlink all the different modes together. together we all succeed. The Ernstston Young, that's what the EY stands for. That was a snapshot in time, but it still tells a story about operational costs. And operational costs are just that. They're not debt costs. They're not other costs, but it's a snapshot on a cost for a service provided in this city. Irving impacts in discussion. I'd also offer up any question on any of the slides. I'm not just just holler. So, let's look at the mission statement, and we're going to read most of this is to provide a sustainable system of innovative, affordable, reliable, safe mobility options that enhance the quality of life and stimulate economic development in the Dallas area. DARD aims to build and operate a safe, efficient, and effective transportation system to improve mobility and the quality of life for its riders. That's their core mission is to provide also sustainable system, innovative,

affordable, reliable and safe mobility options to enhance the quality of life and stimulate economic development. And they do that by building and operating a safe and efficient and effective transportation system. And DART is just what it is in the 13 Texas municipalities. This is from quarter three. We're going to go from left to right on this. It's the different cities and it talks about We're going to start with the bus. The bus is the heavy lift. We have the third highest bus routes wrership per city third quarter. Dallas has got a little over five about 5.4 million. Irving's highlighted there at 310,000. Next would be Richardson and so on and so forth. trying to illustrate we have seven routes in Irving. Seven routes are being utilized in Irving. People are on them. We're the we're the third highest, second highest. The LRT, that's the light rail transit. That's the train. There are many different trains. You have blue line, you have the green line, you have the orange line, you have the red line. But in Irving, we have the orange line. It's interesting. We're the second highest ridership by city at 244,000 with Dallas 10 times larger. It's interesting. Plano, which has the red line, and the orange line also goes up into Plano, too. So, I'm unclear on if things are counted twice, but we're going to say it's within the city because it says ridership by city. that Plano is just short of us by a little over 10,000 for the third quarter when indeed it parallels 75. One of the busiest corridors in all of Dallas Fort Worth. So that's interesting. The Trinity Railway Express Dallas is showing in third quarter 137,000 and we have 45,000.

It's interesting. We have two stations. Dallas has three. We also have we do not have a street car microtransit which would be the via or the go link zones. We're the second highest at 101,000. Dallas has about 200,000 and then paratransit is at 12,000 for a total of 715,000. When you look at the accumulation of all the different wrership totals, dark numbers, Dallas has about 75% of the entire wrership of the entire system. So they're consuming 75% of the assets in utilization.

David Dan, just uh real quick on these numbers, is this annualized data? Is this one quarter? Is this quarter three of this year? This is the third quarter. Yes, sir. Okay. Because a lot of the a lot of the slides I got saw from Dart aren't labeled uh where I received this from their third quarter. Okay. This is Yes, sir.

It's not annualized if that's your question. So, we're have 310,557 individual, not individual riders, but people who got on a bus and got off or right? That's a good question. Is it individualized or did one rider take more than one trip on that? So, it is is is not I cannot tell you with the data given here that it's 310 unique riders. It could be 250,000 riders, but they take multiple trips on that line or on the different bus lines. For instance, the 229 route has over has about 125 stops if you go from the Heritage Station into Valley Ranch and back. So, if they took that from the Heritage Station, went to Valley Ranch, went to shop at Sam's and Walmart, and came back down, that's more than one ride. It's it's it's one unique rider on the system, but accounts for more than one trip. Like when you take an airplane, if you were to go from Dallas and let's say you take you want to go Dallas to Houston, but you got to stop, let's say, at Austin first, that's considered two trips, but you're one unique rider with two trips. So airlines break it out the same way, but I do not have that granular number. Okay. Performance targets. Each route of service is compared to performance with other routes of the same type. If the performance is less than 75% of the average or service trips 133% above the subsidy provider the service is the service is deficient. I don't have any information on how our lines the 225 or the 255 they're certainly looking to remove those next year. How did it perform against others in the system? How do we know ours are the worst? I don't know. We're just believing because that's what we're told. If all applicable measures are deficient, the route fails to meet the targets. The deficient performers for Q3

would include seven bus routes out of the whole system. Two are in Irving, three shuttle rocks, three shuttle routes, and three goal link zones. So let's talk about a response to deficient performance. They have two years to establish a writer base through adjustments, changes that may happen within that period. Routes that fail to meet the performance guidelines are subject to review and follow-up actions that may include targeted marketing, service frequency changes, 20 minutes, 40 minutes, hour. And in in all honesty, too, when you're dealing with a bus system, a transit system, the buses and trains are all pulsing. You don't want to get the bus, you know, 30 minutes before the train. You want to try to get them as close as possible. So, it's it's really quite the dance. Service periods, service day adjustments, you may run at a different time in the morning, have a 20-minute headway, but in the afternoon have a 40m minute or 1 hour headway.

Hey, Dan. Sir, so the two-year period, how long the 255, I think it was, how long was it in?

I have that in the following slide, Councilman. And it's okay. And uh it's a little over a year, about a year. and a quarter rescheduling eliminating non-productive route segments that could be rerouting consolidating two routes or consolidating uh together replacement with the go link service and you know you can always just eliminate the route. So if of in if any of the above are not met. So let's talk about ridership by mode. Mode is the different way you ride. The blue is the bus like we mentioned earlier. Bus is the heavy lift here. It's about 311,000. LRT, that's the light rail. 300 or 245,000. The TR with my eyes it looks like 26, but your eyes may see it as 16, but I'm going to say 26. I'm going to go nice. The Golink is 101,000 and paratransit is 12. This is Irving. These are every numbers.

Dan, I think this slide really tells me a lot because you go back to 2020 and you look at where the blue line was at that time and then you look where the blue line is today. Yes, mayor. So look, you have less bus ridership today than you had. I would contend if you went back to 2010, it'd even be more disappointing.

That's not to believe when the wrership was at its peak. And I think and this has been you know the discussion that I've had uh you know the challenge you have is that with a large board you can say something but that's you're one. So unless you have a contingency you really can't address these. So several of us were on the finance committee five six years ago and we started to try to look at these things and all of us were removed from the finance committee. So, I mean, it's a whole different scenario here because if you look, the amount of money that D that Irving is putting in from 2020 till now is probably 3540 million more into the system, but yet our wrership is less.

Yes, sir. And I think so this tells me a lot and this is where the bone of contention came about with the whole wanting to understand what it cost to ride. And this was where the eny was born from was the city saying how much does uh in our city does it cost to run the bus and pick up the people we have for the dollars that we put in. And from there it went off the rails because we never we still today don't have that number uh because couple of things. Number one, Dart doesn't have a counting system other than with the use of an actual ticket. They have a counter. And that gets to your point, David. You may have somebody that rides the bus here today on one of our routes and then they get on the the light rail or the TR and then they get off of another one and then they come home at night. So when you look at the total numbers for the city of Irving, that one person may have used six different modes and been counted six different times. Could have been the bus to the train to the to the other back to the train back to the bus. So you don't know even if if you have a return on these. There's no there's no real and that's what we were trying to get at. It wasn't and that's that's been the challenge. And so I I I'm just going to be completely honest on how we're why we've got ourselves into the situation we've got ourselves in today is because we can't get real answers and we're continuing to spend more dollars. And that's, you know, and I, and again, I've never said that we shouldn't be able to understand where the money is spent because every one of us around this table knows where the dollars are spent within our city. And Chris has got one of the

most detailed books that that's available for any city. And so a certain amount of that I don't expect them to be as detailed as Chris is because I don't think many people are. But I do expect that we could understand. But yet today we're talking about letting other people pick and choose the type of service they want, whether it's bus or paratransit or rail. And we're going to get a charge for that. We don't know how busy the bus is going to be if we do have a bus. We don't know how. But we do know that we're going to charge less than the full penny for that individual to to utilize our facility. Now, there'll be a search charge as well, but it'll still be a lot less than than the full penny that we're putting in. And that's that's really kind of the crux of where we're trying to get at if we're going to develop a regional system that works outside of the 13 member cities and others are going to be able to tap into it for less than a penny. And those of us that have been paying it for 42 years, the full penny, we're still going to have the debt of billions of dollars on our back, while the others are just using their penny for firemen, policemen, parks, libraries, reducing their tax rate. And and it's it's just a legitimate question to have. What's our return on our investment? And it's gotten completely that we're, you know, Mark and I were just talking about this that you have people telling, "Oh, Irving's terrible and Plano's terrible and, you know, they're trying to destroy the whole thing." We're not not trying to destroy anything. Just trying to see what's our return on investment. And there's this transit group uh that Tyler's in in charge of and they're you know they are a young group of people who are dedicated to transit which is which is is uh commendable but uh

condemning me so that Frisco or somebody else can be part of the system or Plano is wrong. If they want Frisco to be part of our system, bring their penny. Or else, if we're going to be open to everybody, then let's reduce our penny and say, "Okay, what does it really cost the city of Irving?" And maybe we only give 90 90% of our penny because we have we do have a lot of available service. We are we are using the system. So, it's not like we're going to get away with not paying for that. So, I just want to put some of this in context. that's been blown out of proportion as to why we're trying to accomplish something, why we're trying to have a conversation about this rather than than just pull and pull. And uh and it doesn't any do any good to, you know, say, well, everything's terrible because they want to understand what this is. And the unfortunate thing is the 25%. We need to understand where that number came from. The legislation that created DART specifically states you can only reduce the penny in 25% increments. So unless the legislation has changed, if you were going to do anything as you would have to do it in those increments. So there's a lot of things that haven't really been fully vetted out there as to why the number is what the number is, why it was presented the way it was. It's not, you know, the number could be a 5% where we're looking at today. The number could be 10, it could be 20, it could be less than that, but until you actually know what your costs are, that's you you you can't reach that number. So, Dan, uh, thank you for this slide. It gives me I think gives a good perspective of the fact that we still do not have the writership that we had in 2020.

Yes, sir. after tens of millions of dollars. Okay, I'll continue. Thank you, mayor. This is the go link here. We're going to talk a little bit. It was redesigned, expanded in June of 24. Um, the Irving Wrership has done very good in that. These are the average weight times that they have and this is the number of people production per hour that they have for that. So the goal link is doing well in Irving. Mayor, can we go back one slide? So So three three people per hour is what we're Yes, sir.

Well, Dan, this is where I have a problem with the numbers. you just it's 19.7 people per hour and you multiply that out by a quarter and that's 43,000 riders and then I see 100,000 at the top and it's I just can't get my head around any of the numbers that I'm seeing on these slides as far as passengers is what our goal is to take care of our citizens and our passengers and I see 100,000 and if you just do the math on the per hour rides quarterly it's 43,000

I would offer up that there may be an element in the slide that Dart did not put in there and that would be the number of vehicles available in these different zones. I don't know that this is a singular vehicle. It is eight. I don't know that for instance Cypress waters they say five per hour. If they had two or three cars would each car be carrying five.

But these are the pro just the issues I have with the numbers of we need to take care of our citizens of getting to and from on a public transportation. We'd really have to know the numbers of who's riding. I I agree, sir. And I would also offer up the clarity of how the numbers arrived at would be critical. I'd also tell you on bus rider routes, they don't always have the same number of buses for the whole entire day. It may be six buses in peak hours and four uh buses in and off peak hours. So, I don't have that granular detail, but certainly when you're looking at numbers like this, it it begs the question that you're providing to me. Yes, sir. We'll look at the goal link zones and we're going to start here with the Cypress waters. Cypress waters is this blue area here. What I did was took the original slides that we had with Dart and we use their maps to put the GIS map here to give you an idea. The belt line station got the bullseye here on the left is the big red dot here on the right. And then it kind of these it's a heat map. We've all seen heat maps. if we don't the the brighter the colors tells you the more people but I think in li there in lies um ones up in this area that's like where the universal uh technicalmies are at the different you know the automotive stuff the different little uh the colleges there certainly the universities up there too uh this is the area when you get to the airport where UPS is at so that could be airport riders the heavy area you see here is along MacArthur up into the ranch area which is the Walmart, the Sam's Marketplace, and Walton are certainly the two busiest. Uh, and when we did the 229 route, when we evaluated that, we got the high route uh ridership there as well. So, this is all following MacArthur here, the North Central Irving, and you'll notice that we have a lot of rail stations, all in red. We have the Irving

Heritage, and Mr. Rob Smith told me that the Irving Heritage now overlaps the South Irving. So Chris has a chance of making it all the way to work on time. And um but there in lies the issue and you see a little bit of overlap here. Otherwise, they take you to the one half of the road. You're going to have to find the the go link on the other side of the road. So that's how that is. North Lake College is certainly a hot spot. Kroger over here is some of the other ones up on MacArthur and the downtown Heritage and that's the University of Dallas and this is where that one route goes in between are these two rail stations and I'll show that in greater detail on a following slide. Oops. Let's hit the south side. I accidentally went over that. I apologize. Once again, the heritage it's in two zones. So, we got it in two zones, but you can see the different areas around this portion of our community. Shady Grove, Seventh Street, Sixth Street, some of the outlying areas. Fiesta Mart is really the Albertsons. I don't know that that part of their map system has been updated. And then the we have a lot of wrership in this area here, and I don't quite understand that one, but that's that's what they have. I don't know if people are migrating over from the other side of Belt Line on the west side to utilize that.

Isn't that uh the West Irving TR station? No, sir. This is belt This is belt line right here. West Irving would be over here. Further over. Yeah. Yeah, we'll have that on. We should have it on the following. Hey Dan. Sir, can you explain the response when you had suggested to just make Irving one go link zone uh in our meeting or were you going to cover that later? Yes, sir. are. Oh, okay. Yes, sir. Okay. I just need to wait.

And if I don't say the response, please remind me. I got it right here, though. Okay. This is by Passport Park. This is where Dallas Fort Worth International Airport says Valley View is putting in the large warehousing district in Amazon. And um the Walmart, which is in this area right here, obviously, is is the big red dot there. A lot of people. And up here on Cheyenne and up in these areas here, you can see there's a lot of different users up here. Also, belt line is just where the two colors are coming together. The salmon color as well as the light green. And that's shopping. That's your your Kroger's, your other ancillary uh retail stops. Where did the red dot go? There it is. And then down here, sir, this is the West Irving station at this point. Councilman, [Music] I think one of the titles is incorrect on these slides, but cities with we're over here in the red. Cities with 90% inner city trips, I look at that as being outside of the city. I think they meant intracity. Um, but 71% of the trips are outside of her. They they get onto the system and they go somewhere else, which would make sense. And then would say 28% of the trips are within the city. And they're saying this is about 3,00 3100.

That's weekly, right? Uh it's week or weekday. Okay.

I would think it's a week day on this one. Looking at the number. So we're going to talk about the 225 right uh route first. It provides service along Nursery Road, Carl Road to connect downtown Irving Heritage Station to the University of Dallas and to the Orange Line. There's 24 stops on the route. This route's been in place for a long time, many years. So, the route here, you can see this, it does in Irving have the lowest ridership of all the routes. Uh, no notice was given. If was given, we've not really, it hasn't been, it's one thing to give notice, it's another to give notice. you know, it's it's you feel submarine sometime that well, we put it out there, you know, in some some document somewhere. I I don't think staff has been blistered with, hey guys, look at what's going on here. The bus route is embedded with one of the two with one of the top five go zone links. This is the North Central Irving go zone link. I you know, we looked earlier, it gave if it's a deficient route, there's different options. Do you do you change the frequency? Do you notify? I'm not aware of any notification or any marketing to say, hey, you know, guess what? We're getting ready to get rid of this in our next year's budget. Can we improve wrership on it? I mean, if you have a product, you at least want to sell it before you discontinue it, I would think. But I'm not aware of that happening. But let's real importantly though, this is the downtown heritage station here at the bottom and this is the University of Dallas. They both were hot spots on the on the heat maps, but it's connecting an in if you're coming from certainly the west part of the community. Could be Fort Worth. It's a region. It all connects together. This could be your connection up to the university or to get on the orange line to go where the orange line takes you. So, it's a railto-rail connection also. And interestingly on this is if you don't make that connection with the 225

route, your next opportunity is Victory Station if you need to go up into the Carolton Denton area. So I'm unclear on why the the notification was just at a month. The 255 this was started June of 24. So it's been a little about a year and a quarter I suppose. The route has only been in service I say for a year. Well they said in their area plan which we met on a few weeks ago that they have two years to perform. This hasn't been in place for two years. What marketing has been done? What has been done at frequency there? Could you change the route a little bit? Don't know. Uh to provide additional services. There's 28 bus stops along the route. So, let's look at this one once again. It leaves a rail station and goes to a the college, Dallas College, North Lake, and a rail station up here on the orange line. Interestingly enough, the area plan that they came to talk to staff about talks about opportunities for for say for success. I call I call it here suggest for multimodal connections. They want everybody within a half mile of a bus route. This blue 231 is a bus route. 255 is a bus route and they got 229. Between 231, which is the one on the left to this one is one mile. Interestingly enough, between the red and this blue is a mile. So if you remove the red, you now have a mile swap through the middle of our city here, residential and businesses down to Fifth Street. Technically, they're not within that half mile. So what you're telling us in your area plan you want to do, you're doing it here. You've had a year. It hasn't had a chance to blossom and really develop ridership. It's it's only been in place for a year. So you know, you think of the individuals utilizing this. So, um,

I'm just confused. I'd say the area plan and what and what's being actually done are two different things. The bus route is embedded within one of the top five highest go link zones. Then options, what options were implemented? We're just told it goes away. And then it connects to two of the highest passenger nodes in Irving. North Lake Dallas College North Lake and TR Irving Heritage Crossing GO zones. We had a discussion on this North Central Irving. Once again, uh, Councilman FAF, the writers per hour number of units, I think that's all embedded in there. How they actually come up with that, I can't answer. I'm certainly focusing on the green numbers to the left of the red dot. North Central Irving 635. That's right here. Cypress Waters 338 weekday ridership and Passport Park 305. One of the questions we did ask, thank you, Councilman Web, was we have three Goling zones, but you had the inland port down here, which is the size of Irving. Why couldn't that be right here and be one go zone for the entire city? There was no response given after the question was asked. I was the response was well we're re-evaluating the configuration of this one. Well, not all in the dart zone to begin with, but if you did a go zone there and that's the busiest of them all, you know. Wow. It'd been nice if we could have had it up here.

Hey Dan. Sir. Well, actually the he did respond. Um and what and what he's talking about what I'm talking about is uh Dan Al and myself we had a meeting uh on uh the last Thursday last week. Thursday. Yeah. Right. For RTC uh and their their response was it would be too expensive uh to do that because it would require the vehicles to drive longer distances. uh because they want the vehicles to drive like no more than like three and a half miles or three miles, which is why you got these zones. So, it it it cames down to money for DART uh more than anything.

Absolutely. You're absolutely correct. Thank you for reminding me. High ridership. These are local coverage bus routes. We got the 230 which basically Dallas Fort Worth airport to Dallas also in this area here. The two connect the green one which is the 229 that's where the Irving Heritage TR stations at. But that's interesting. So there's a commuting to the Amazon and to other airport related uses. And then you have this the 229 here. That's highest writership of local coverage. I'm assuming when they put that out and publish that that's for the entire system. So this was a bit perplexing to me and the report had changed since it was originally put into y'all's packet. But if you remember in an earlier slide and I'm going to go back to it, slide four. If you're looking on there, Irving in the light rail was the second highest with 244,000. I don't know what limits they're using for the orange line on that. So, I'm a bit con, you know, I I'm just telling you what they're putting out here. But when you go back to the other slide, they say as a wrership per hour, it's the low. It's the lowest. And it's confusing to me because when the Orange Line got built, all the all this study showed it would be the highest of all the routes going to the airport, the largest employer in the region. Going to the airport, which generates not just the most economic impact in the whole North Texas region, but also jobs, people, and all all sorts of good things. We're glad for the airport. So, this one's confusing. And now that you're going to get the silver line, it may get cannibalized more.

Don't know. So, it'd be nice to know what the limits were that they're looking at for this slide. Councilman Webb, this is the comment that we were having at that same meeting. In green here represents the light rail and TR, which would be commuter rail station here in the city of Irving. We have the beltline station, North Lake College, the hidden ridge station, Duran Convention Center station, Los Kenus Urban Center, the University of Dallas, Orange Line, Heritage, and the TR West. Red is going to indicate stations with no connection to a bus route. There is one. There's two. There's three. There's four. And when they get rid of route 225, we have five. Five of eight. Do you consider go link a connection to a bus route? I don't know. I think of a bus line. So the question was asked to the CEO. I asked her directly how many stations in the system the whole system rail stations both TR or light rail do not have a bus feeder to them wasn't real fast and I understand it's a pretty granular question didn't have an answer but Rob said maybe five at the most that's it well that's us so I guess no one else has this issue But when you think about all the effort that went in to the orange line and to get these stations and now we're not fully utilizing the stations. That's

I don't understand. I would think that you would focus a lot more on this especially beltline because you could go up to Freeport where the universities are up there. So this is the Ernst Young study. As they say it's a snapshot in time. Well, the time is now. So, let's look at it. They're saying bus operational costs. This isn't inclusive. There's other costs, but whatever cost Ernstston Young had, this is what they showed. Irving spending 15.1 operational costs annual. Buses are 304 million. Light rail. Irving's contribution is 16 million and that's 189. So if you just do very basic math, granted different routes have different lengths, different frequencies, different vehicles. The bus, just to keep the math simple, seven routes, you take the 15.1, divide it by 7, it's 2.1 million, almost 2.2 million per route. We're losing two. Six six light rail stations. That's the orange line. That's the 16 here. 2.7 million per station. That's the operational cost. Dan, if I may, if you could go back to that, mayor and council, as you can see there under the Ernston Young study, it's showing that a cost allocation of 15.1 million for bus with the average per route of 2.16 million or just 2.2. So,

yes, sir.

So, for the two routes, it would be according to Ernston Young 4.4 million. However, when I asked what was the savings at the budget meeting that we held with DART at this with the city managers, I asked what is the savings? In other words, what are we as DART what is DART saving by not having those two bus routes? It was 2.3 million. So, I'm not quite connecting the Ernstston Young numbers of 2.16 million per route versus a savings of 2.3. So, is the Ernston Young study of a cost allocation higher or is DART not high enough in its savings? I I don't know. And I think there's just some confusion between the numbers there.

Yes, sir.

And there's a lot of conversations about with the Dart board about donor cities versus don cities. Well, if it's if we have uh if the cost per rout's only 1.15 million on average, if it's a 2.3 million savings by not having those routes and expense savings, does that mean there's $7 million there in the Ernston Young study, that is a cost allocation over to Irving that isn't there? And is that going to be similar circumstances to any of the other modes of transportation that were studied? And it's difficult because we don't have any backup on any of these commuter rail 34.8 million operational costs. That's operational. Like I said, there's other costs involved in there too. Maintenance, debt, and issuance and all that. I find this interesting because for some reason, and I say that quite candidly, 17.6 6 million is their Irving responsibility and Dallas is 17.1 yet Dallas has three stations and we have two one of which they don't even put a bus route to. So if Irving has two TR rails stations at 8.8 million just we're just cutting the baby in half. We're a Solomon here. We have an $ 8.8 million investment annually with operational costs that we're not putting a bus to. We're not getting maximum out of our investment. So, here's the Irving impacts. Bus routes were reduced from 7 to 5. That's a 29% reduction in fixed route services. $4.3 million reduction in operational costs. I'm just going straight down.

Again, that is different than what DART had mentioned,

right? And and I guess if Dart says the number is lower than that, then u they can provide it the backup on how they got to it. I'm sure they're going to have to go to Golink. Can Golink handle it? Don't know. Rail the rail station with bus access from four to three or a total of three of eight stations. 38% of our system light rail stations have or all stations have bus access. 38%. 10.7 million operational costs without full utilization of a station with bus transfers. North Texas Central Go the North Central not Texas North Irving Golink services will have additional demand that must be increased to accommodate riders. They've got to go to the rail. There's a few only a few shots and can they get there in time? Don't know. Nope. The North Central Irving Golink is the second busiest Golink zone in the Dart service area and the numbers I have on the very last bullet slide have been uh refined by our our budget team and they're higher. I believe they're 8 million higher if you want to respond to that.

Yes, sir. Thanks, Dan. The amount of dollars as we understand uh that went to DART from the Irving area for fiscal year 25 was right about 120 million. So all things being equal, that could go up for fiscal year 26. We all have to see how those numbers play out, but the base right now is about 120 million. Al Dan, as you remember are some of our questions that we started to end up with. One of them we still haven't had or at least we haven't seen the full map of the full number one DART system and I'm going to guarantee you they have a 10-year map that I would think where they would like to go like places up in, you know, beyond Frisco, beyond Prosper and places like that. I mean, they're looking at because that's how they do a mission creep to get more federal funding. Period. Okay. So, but when I look at what we put in and 110 now going up to what 117

120 this year, these numbers are too are low. Okay. Well, yes, sir. That's even worse. Yes, sir. And then you take a look at what the numbers are giving us. I mean, it doesn't compute. I don't care how you cut it. So anyway, I'm just, you know, we've had this discussion when you and I and and Dennis were together with them and and I remember Rob looking a little sheepish when we started asking him these kind of questions. So anyway, keep going, please.

Okay. Well, I think we're pretty much at the end here, but so some of the Irving statistics here, it's third highest ridership by city for light rail, which was in that slide on page four. highest ridership locations are all at the rail stations. The one the one infrastructure element we're using, we're keep cutting back on. Again, we have two of the high five highest bus ridership routes. This is according to their information and Irving has three of the five highest ridership in Go Link. So, I think Irving's demonstrating it would like the service. It just wants you got to get on it. So, I don't know what we're doing to increase ridership. I don't know what we're doing to sell the product. That's all I have, sir. Dan, I think that you know, and again, I'm I I'm trying to say this without sounding like I'm fr Well, I'm frustrated. Uh but but the challenge you run into is how do we get Dart to focus on writership? Because even in the goals, I mean, Naen has it's a contract, everybody knows it, potential $80,000 bonus. There's not one of her not one of her goals is to increase wrership. Not one of her goals is to look for outside money. So if we don't have I mean yesterday we opened a facility that's garage is on top of the light rail stop. It's just as easy to you're closer coming out of that light rail stop than you are their garage. And I was checking with their HR people to say have you had any communication with Dart? No we haven't. and you know and and so it's how do we how do we

get DART to understand that we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars and it just seems like there's no no interaction with our with our writers. What started this whole discussion for me and I think Dennis hit on it is if we have 500 to a thousand people riding on this system today we and I asked this question and I was not didn't they just said goal link will take care of it but I don't know how you can if you've got a thousand people you know are writing or 500 whatever the number is how do you know those 500 are going to transition to a goal system And the other problem I've had is for some reason there's this belief that everybody has telephones and everybody has the ability to call these things up and we have a large share of our city and I don't want to sound negative because you know even myself trying to figure this out is I'm old so I don't do as well as I should but there's a lot of people that would not know how to get on the goal link. They know they can go to the bus stop and somebody's going to pick them up, but they don't know about how to call or how to schedule and how to do these type of things with the goal link. And what I was the most concerned about these, and this is, and I've said this for ever since we started about this, is how are we going to take care of those individuals who do not know how to do anything other than go to a bus stop and get on the bus to go get their, as you've seen, the hotspots align. There were grocery stores, there were medical facilities. I mean, it's, you know, and and it's an aging population.

Uh, and you know, I won't steal Dennis's thunder, but I heard this the other day about what he and his church are doing for for a young man. They have a homeless individual that was given a job out at the airport, and he was trying to ride the bus, but the bus wasn't always running on time, so he was about to lose the job. So his church, his parishioners, his people are actually taking that young man to work every day so that he can have a job. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.

Uh those are the kind of things that that uh is very frustrating to me because uh we had this big dog and pony show where a bunch of people from Dallas and this writers group were all stirred up and coming down that we were going to prevent people from being able to use the service and cut back on our on our paratransit and stuff. And all of us said no. All of us had been saying no. But we went through that whole ordeal and stirred those individuals up. And at that same meeting when we're talking about we got to cut money, the board voted to give each of the board members more money to travel. Now, how can you how can you look people in the eye when they're a person that's blind coming down there afraid they're not going to be able to work? A person in a wheelchair concerned and oh yeah, well, we got, you know, big bad Irving, big bad Plano, they're taking your money away. We may take your route away from you. Oh, but by the way, we're going to increase our money that we each get to spend as board members, and we're going to increase the bonuses this year. I mean, there's not been a real effort to understand this. We've just been painted as bad people because we've asked the question. And I believe in my heart because of the fact that Chris and I have both been involved with this that we as a city have been targeted because of our involvement on certain routes and things and certain other things. And my reason for justifying that is I was on that budget committee with four other people. One of them was publicly

humiliated and resigned because of his job by a group of people from Dallas. Two others from Dallas were asked not to fulfill their positions. One resigned, the other's term was up. So I I I feel like we've been targeted as a city because we've been asked. I think we've been targeted because we just want to know the questions. David, in your business, you couldn't turn something like this out. None of us could. But yet, we're just supposed to take it. And if you're at a big board meeting like this and the majority of them say they don't want to deal with it, there's two items on our agenda coming up that you could we can't even bring items forward more than one twice in a one-year time frame. So if we want to talk about this, if we bring it to a subcommittee and the subcommittee doesn't turn it forward and a month later I bring it back to another subcommittee, they turn it down again, I can't even bring it back up for two years for it for for one year to have a discussion. Those are the things that they're doing at the board so that the cities cannot get involved and ask questions. And the only way we've had any type of reaction from them is when we threatened. And I don't like to threaten people. That that doesn't accomplish anything. But if nobody will respond and work with you in a just way, that's your only options. And so when Dennis brought this forward, I was very thankful because there's this perception over at Dart that I'm the only one. I'm the bad guy and I'm not even talking to you guys and I'm telling you all what to do and what not to do and uh it's it's all about me being a bad guy and I'm not really representing my city well and I'm not feeding you all the information. Well, I probably am not feeding you all the information and

probably giving you more today than you want to know because of my frustration. I didn't want to publicly have to go through some of the craziness that we've had to go through. But when Dennis brought this forward, I was very thankful. Dennis, I and I told you that I appreciate finally this gives us something else that maybe with a resolution from this council, they'll respond rather than just say, Rick, you're only one of four that voted this way, so we're moving on. Dennis, I apologize for Oh, no.

I got on my soap box. No, no, no problem at all because my soap box is building uh the more that I uh interact um with all of this. Um you know um yeah um and Rick and and I thank you for putting that u resolution on. I actually myself came up with that resolution. So, you know, I appreciate Rick. Rick been taking a lot of heat, you know, uh, from citizens and from people. And I think, you know, that, um, you know, we need to support the fact because he's been trying to tell us for years what he's having to deal with. Um, number one, uh, just my own personal perspective, I have a problem with any type of board that has one city having a monopoly. Uh, that governor's model is wrong. It should be changed. uh because you know when you're dealing with these kind of money, one of the things that amazed me was as they constantly talked about the wrership uh and everything but only 7% of their funding come from ridership you know and I'm like okay you're making a big deal about ridership but you know your money is coming from cities you know um but uh at the end of the day I came to the conclusion that these two cuts uh also had to do with budget cuts for DART for the whole system uh because uh Miss Lee actually told us that they had to cut their budget. Um and uh cuz they had a bad year. Her exact words, we had a bad year and we opened a civil line. Okay. Well, I didn't tell you to build a civil line, but you you did that yourself. But like I told her, I said, "Well, what happens if you have another bad year next year? Are we gonna you gonna cut some more of our service?" She really couldn't answer that question. And that's what concerns me is that uh if they keep having bad years, you know, then they're going to continue to cut our services. Um so um from the

meeting it became very apparent, you know, to me that um you know that they don't have answers to a lot of questions. I even asked them um cuz at my church is the homeless day center and we do pick homeless people up but there are homeless people that ride that bus from downtown um Irving upshore road and get off at the stop right there at Finley that's gone so I asked her I said what's their alternative she said go link I said they don't have cell phones okay what they do well they can use telephone really I mean this is kind of information that we were being fed. You know, they had no answers. But I can tell you what that eventually their their plans is to have this whole city be Golink. Uh I've never done Golink. But my question I raise to anybody is just like the kid at my church. Well, he doesn't live at my church. They they live in apartment complex. But he goes to work every day, same time. So I don't know how Golink work. Does he schedule a trip every day for the same time? You know how it work? Is that what they do?

Yes, sir. Mhm. And you schedule it each at the night before,

you know, and then what's the difference between a bus cost and a goal cost is something that I'd like to know because I can tell you, you know, uh I think there's probably going to be an increase in that transportation cost for that one person. And we got people like that that are depending on the bus to take them to work every single day. Now, you got to have a person to remember, you know, to, you know, schedule their ride every single day. And, um, as I told them, I said, you know, in my letter, I understand that you have a system to run, but I also have citizens that I'm looking out for for their transportation needs. So, um, you know, I sit on the transit 2.0 subcommittee for RTC. You know, and of course, you know, their big vision is to expand transit to these outlying cities. And the thing that concerns me, and Miss Lee said it at our transit s transportation summit, that she was willing to allow aloc all allequart services to other cities. Now, wait a minute. They don't have to give up their penny. So, you going to have them alocart service, but you're going to keep making Irving pay their one penny. And that's kind of the mindset at at RTC2 and with this Transit 2.0. Uh so equity is important to me and I'm going to, you know, look out for as much as I can which is why, you know, I'm still asking DART uh don't cut those wraps. Um you know, figure out a way to uh get your funding and, you know, because it's important to us. Um the other thing, let me see. I had a couple of notes here. Um, okay. So, anyway, that's that's kind of what it was. Again, um, I appreciate All he's not here and Dan, I definitely appreciate you coming to the meeting that day because you really shed some light on some things that I needed to hear, that we need to hear, and that they needed to hear. Uh, but at the end of the day, you know, to all my

colleagues, we're going to have to really uh, hold DART accountable way we can. And I agree with Rick, you know. I mean, I'm an unknown now. All of a sudden, everybody at Dart wants to talk to me, you know, literally. I mean, from my response to my email, you know, to being asked, "Hey, do y'all want representatives from Dart at your meeting uh tomorrow?" I mean, like, really? I mean, I'm, you know, uh, board president taking my personal cell phone number at a DRMC meeting say, "I'll call you now all of a sudden simply because basically I responded to their email when they told us that he was going to be cutting these routes." So, I don't know, you know, how we're going to do this, but we definitely need to make sure that we as a council send a loud message to Dart that this is just not Rick um that's having a problem with them. Um, it's all of us. And I'll conclude by saying this. I was a little teed off at the beginning of the meeting when the DART uh Dallas representative who was in the meeting began to blame Rick for the fact that, you know, Irving did not know that these routes were being cut, you know, and I didn't say anything to him then. Uh, but I thought that was wrong. And that's exactly what he did. He said, "Well, Rick knew about this, you know." And I asked him, I said, "When did y'all make this decision to, you know, cut these routes?" like what a month and a half ago, you know. So, at the end of the day, I agree with Brick, I agree with Chris, you know, having had my taste of Dart over the last two, three months, you know, that's all I'm going say. Okay. Well, that's kind of where we are, guys. So, we'll kind of see what we come up with and work through it. I'm sure there there's representatives here. I'm sure they'll listen to the tape. They'll respond hopefully accordingly. Uh Chris, thank you for your commitment and we'll

continue to see how we can get some numbers that make sense.

Chris, thank you, mayor. For me, as we look continue to look at the different governance model options and finance model options, the mayor and I have been part of a mayor city manager working group that the RTC and the NTC have put together. We've been working as city managers uh from uh different cities from six different cities. There were three resolution cities, three non-resolution cities to try and come up with some different suggestions and recommendations for the larger mayor manager group on governance model, finance model and some service discussion, service model discussions as well. We have another meeting on Friday. We will be reporting back to that group by November 1st. That was the direction that we were given. I believe that we do have a a governance model proposal that I I believe is going to be something that will be a good discussion at that mayor manager group. Right now we don't have yet I believe a productive finance model uh recommendation. We just don't have that as yet. That is I think an important if not the most important after the governance of what we need to be looking at in the end. I think what we need to be really focused in on all member cities need to be focused in on is getting butts and seats. It's the usage of the system where we can see a return on our investment. That's what all cities are looking for. And the more marketing, the more advertising, the more reach out that Dart can do, I think the better. The wrership numbers from 10 years ago, Dan, I believe were in excess of 70 million 70 million riders. And we're we're in the 50s now. And that's up. It is up post pandemic. And it has now reached and exceeded what it was pre- pandemic, but pre- pandemic

was much lower than what it was even 10 years ago. And yet all of our investments have gone up as cities from our sales tax. The more that people know and understand what Dart is, what it can do, I think the better. I think again more marketing and advertising is a simple very very simple example. I was in Love Field actually for our last meeting with the city manager subgroup and at Love Field as you come down the escalators from where you come down from the gates. The moment you get to the bottom of those escalators and every 30 feet feet is about a two or three foot wide dot that's all colored and it says Uber and Lift and ride share this way and there's literally one of those big colorful dots every 30 feet. I know it's every 30 feet because I actually counted the steps. So, you can't go 30 feet without knowing exactly where to go for your Uber or Lift. I would love to see that for DART. Say if you want to go catch the Orange Line into Irving or into Dallas, follow these dots every 30 feet. Even on the little lighted windmill that they have at the uh baggage claim area, it actually has Uber and Lift and has arrows pointing do that at DFW. Do that at love. Do that even more. The more that people know and understand where to go and how to use it, I think the better. That's just a simp example. In the end, it comes down to just butts and seats.

Okay, we got an executive session. Mark, you got uh

Yeah, I just wanted to to say um the the the the statements are out there in the public um and by DARP members putting this all on you, mayor, is completely um unfair and inaccurate. Uh those of us here on the council have very much appreciated the information you've brought to us. Uh letting us know what's going on with DART and of course we can see the numbers ourselves. $120 million a year paid into DART and the return that we're getting on that which is minimal and now we're talking about even further reductions in in our bus service. You know, we on the council obviously have a duty to look out for our our citizens tax dollars and to be good stewards of that. And so it's our obligation to actually ask these questions to see if those monies are being properly spent and they're not. And uh it's it's being wasted. Uh we see our tax dollars actually being um sent to benefit other communities and dart to our detriment. And uh people that need transportation are are not able to get it. And so so we've looked at VIA and other sources for how we can actually uh provide that transportation that is needed by people in our community. When Kyle Taylor was here, of course, he's the director of Urban Cares. would tell us that he could he could not even give bus passes away for DART because they were not useful to to anybody. So, these these are important questions and all of us on the council share these concerns and and we we want to see uh good public transit being offered to the community in a way that's going to be effective um and useful to them and uh that is going to be you know efficient and DART is not providing that and and the response to that is to blame Irving for just being a a complaining a complainer about all this. That is not the proper response. The proper response should be to recognize the deficiencies that are actually in the system, the waste that is going on and to see how the system can actually be improved so that it actually accomplishes the goals that

that Dan talked about which um are none of them are being are being met from where we from from where we can see and it's perfectly clear that it's not and um at this point um there's nothing being proposed actually to fix that. So, I just I just wanted to say from my perspective that this is not something that's a Rick Stoer issue. It's a it's an Irving issue and we all recognize that and we appreciate the mayor's and Chris's work and Dennis's work too uh for bringing all this information to us and and working to try to fix it. Al,

thanks, Mayor. Hey, Chris. Um, you and I have talked about what your approach is, and I think it'd be good for us to really understand not only what the approach is, but I think something, mayor, we need to really kind of really think about because we need to have a strategy as to where we want to be by this time next year if we're going to move forward and because we got to make that call 2006. So both what you're trying to put forward Chris and both what we have to decide what's going to be our strategy at the end of the day what we are going to do and are we going to take it forward because at the end of the day whether we like it or not we're caught and the more we start throwing rocks well all we're doing is throwing rocks and so I I really think we've got to really take some time to really lay it out. You have your approach that you've been working on with your city managers, mayor. You've done what is gentleman's work and trying to keep us where we need to be because we are kind of again the hole of the donut. But I really will say to you, no matter how we beat our chest and how much we say, hey, you know, how unfair it is, we're not going to win it. So, we got to have a strategy to get to where we want to get. And if the strategy is very simply put, we're going forward. We're prepared to then get out of dart. We need to take it to the vote as we're supposed to do and so be it. But we got to be really understanding what the implication will be of that vote

and what the cost is going to be because whether we like it or not, we're going to have to put a lot of money up to get out. Period. And it's not anything other than I'm trying to take a a positive approach to plan ourselves and strategize out of this if we're going to get out. If not, then we've got to figure out maybe we just let them do the elimination that they're going to play with and we try to figure out when we look at our own costs versus what it would take us to get out over eight years. We may want to start having that subcontract with some I don't know Golink or somebody else like that and provide it to the people that that are our citizens. But where's our strategy? So, I'm just reaching out. I really think it's time for us to really get focused on this because if not, then we ought to quit beating ourselves up.

All right, sounds good. We'll go ahead. Uh KO, you want to read us in executive session and we'll Yes, sir. The time is 4:10. The Irving City Council will convene into a closed executive session to receive legal advice pursuant to Open Meetings Act section 551.071. [Music]

And Fiscal year 2026 is here and that means Irving City Council just adopted a new $1.1 billion annual operating budget. Let's take a look at how it's constructed. The FY26 budget maintains the city's tax rate of 58.91 cents per $100 valuation. The budget allows the city to deliver exceptional services and promote a high quality of life and adds a number of key enhancements like additional police and fire department personnel, street, water, wastewater, and drainage improvements. Enhanced library security, park maintenance, and a whole lot more. Now, let's dig a little deeper. Here's a look at how the $1.1 billion budget is divided. As you can see here in blue, the general fund makes up the largest portion, comprising 30% of the total budget. As we take a closer look at the general fund, it's important to note that 70% of general fund expenditures are for salaries and benefits like police officers and firefighters. In fact, 54% of the general fund goes directly to public safety. Here's a glance at how that's funded. 81% of general fund revenues come from property and sales taxes. Now, let's break things down a little further. For every $1 residents pay the city of Irving, 32 cents go toward police and fire protection, and 28 cents go toward water

and wastewater services. The FY26 budget also appropriates $213 million to the city's capital improvement program to maintain and upgrade the city's physical infrastructure. That includes the exciting Let's Play Irving initiative, the city's bold vision to elevate aquatics and recreation. Lee Aquatic Park made a splash in 2025. A new yearround indoor aquatic facility at Center Park Recreation Center is slated to open in 2026. And the new Mustang multi-generational recreation and aquatic center is scheduled to open in 2027. Did you know the city of Irving maintains infrastructure across more than 67 square miles and serves more than 266,000 residents? If you'd like a more in-depth look at the city of Irving's budget, grab your hard hat and visit urbanx.gov/budget. [Music]

Downtown delights. What do you think? Love it. I see the heart. I see the passion. People turn out to experience Irving's Main Street like never before. See how this event may be the start of something bigger. Transportation Triumph. It's a dream come true. We are inside Irving ISD's new transportation and logistics center and finding out about other big projects on the horizon. Made in Irving. It's good for the city to be out here and kind of get a sense of of who we are.

Leaders tour companies to get an eyeopening look at some of what is manufactured right here in Irving. And the special event to mark domestic violence awareness month now on City Source. [Music] Irving is kicking off a new campaign called Keep It Clean Irving and it's aimed at beautifying the city. Hello and welcome to City Source. I'm Thomas Gandandy. Find out more about that later. But we begin with an event that brought out 3,000 people to Main Street. And it's meant to be only the beginning of plans to help people reimagine downtown Irving. We checked out all of the attractions.

Perhaps nowhere but Irving's Main Street when you find potato, a nighttime spelling bee along with foods and drinks of the world. We rotate it here for four morning pilates, fresh flowers, outdoor chess, mariachi music, and so much more. All happening along a newly colorful street in the heart of downtown Irving. I'm a graduate of Irving High School in 1981. So, of course, I love this. I want more people to come in. What do you think? Okay. This is a two-day event called Experience Main Street. This is a really concrete example of showing, not telling, what could be down here.

Just seeing everyone kind of reuse the space and reimagine what could be has been really great. Right here is the middle of what we're calling a living street. The city of Irving is partnering with the nonprofit Better Block to make it all happen. The process started with public input. Our goal with this was how do we create a space that people want to come in and hang out and visit multiple folks while they're here. This is so great and it's so great for the businesses down here. We love being able to showcase what we do. Along with those permanent businesses, many other local vendors work to spread the word about what they have to offer. So, they were like, "Oh my god, a flower shop on the south side." Friday night saw restaurant crowds overflowing onto newly installed parklets.

We received so many new customer last night. So many. They've been living around here, but they don't even know about this existing restaurant on the street. So now the goal is to keep this main street momentum going. This two-day event is part of a larger initiative to reimagine downtown Irving with the goal of making lasting change. We're just playing with some ideas, having people come out, touch things, feel things, walk around, and then give their feedback, which can inform a longer term kind of plan and vision for the area. We have beautiful Heritage Park. How do we make that connectivity from Heritage Park down Main Street towards the clock tower?

There are special activities scheduled through December and a temporary business. What we're famous for is our ice cream puffs. So, it's a warm Korean sweet style bun filled with your favorite ice cream and cereal topping. Zezy's Ice Cream is trying out a retail location building on the popularity of its food truck. So, my six-year-old cousin came up with this one. So, this one is hot Cheetos and vanilla ice cream inside of a warm donut. This new space in Main Street Plaza offers more opportunities to try out concepts. It's a shipping container that's been fabricated and it's really flexible so different vendors can pop up in there.

Organizers believe they are only scratching the surface of all of the potential here. come down here to the heritage district, shop, eat, walk around, enjoy what you have here because the way we can help our businesses is by patronizing them. And they believe these activities may be some of the building blocks for success in downtown Irving. We love the Heritage District. We love Irving and we are here to make everything better downtown.

And there are events every week. And the next big event on Main Street is a Halloween celebration. Learn how to do Michael Jackson's thriller dance at 6:45 p.m. The movie Hocus Pocus will show at 8. And throughout the night, people can enjoy vendor markets as well as food and drinks available for purchase. And yes, there will be plenty of candy. Find out about all of the ongoing events at irvingtx.gov/experience gov/experience-enst. Inside some buildings you may drive by every day, products you use are made. From corn chips to roof shingles and a lot in between, there is major manufacturing activity right here in Irving. Leaders mark National Manufacturing Week by going behind closed doors to see some of the work that's happening. We went along on one of their visits.

The front area is all of our production design, creative design. From the front bullpin to back of house. This is our production floor just for screen printing to small production areas. If you guys like to show how it's made and everything in between. I'm a giant shark nerd, so there's shark stuff everywhere. These business leaders are getting an all access look inside Pinpoint merchandising in Irving. We're one of the more sought-after partners for designing, manufacturing, importing custom apparel and accessories globally. The visit comes as the Irving Economic Development Partnership marks National Manufacturing Week.

It's really an inaugural opportunity for us to highlight the manufacturing that's taking place right here at home in Irving. There are so many diverse and neat companies in Irving that do things that you interact with every day. During the week, leaders visited companies throughout the city of Irving. We have a lot of hidden gems in Irving that no one knows about and we're here to see it. Here at Pinpoint, screen printing is considered a smaller portion of the business. We do multi7 figures in offshelf production. Then the team is especially proud of what's called cut and sew, more customized work. Consider this hunting jacket for the Dr. Horton Ranch.

We created this camo pattern. And it's a functional hunting camo using elements from the ranch's topography, the actual topography. We went full nerd on this one. So, we have DRH molded into the actual zipper pulls, right? And here is a brand everyone knows. Pinpoint recently became a supplier for Bies. My wife and kids and I celebrated when we got this order because I thought it was so cool. You could fill Cowboy Stadium with how many of these they made. It's crazy. Yeah, it's awesome. And it does not stop there. This is Chaa the Frog. This is the Rainforest Cafe Mascot. Pinpoint merchandising is a diverse business.

If you go to store.crossfit.com, that store is built by Pinpoint, operated by Pinpoint. All the product lives here is picked and packed through here. There is a lot of work happening here, but you can see that it's not all serious. We're a fun company. We do fun things. We hire fun people. We work with fun brands. And I've been fortunate enough to be able to make having fun a consistent priority as we grow the business. And he chose Irving as the location for his company's new headquarters. I love Irving just because of the the access to the airport. We'll fly folks here and they'll spend a day or two and we'll look through samples and fabrics and we'll look at concepts that we designed for them. Meet the design team, meet the sourcing team, form a relationship.

He is sharing his formula for success with an audience eager to learn. I love a great business story. I think what we want people to take away is that there is a whole lot of neat stuff happening here in Irving, Texas. People on this tour will have new stories to share as they explain why Irving is a great place to put your business.

Several of the companies that leaders toured throughout the week did not want cameras inside because they want to keep their processes confidential. See related stories on our business and economic development playlist at youtube.com/theity of Irving. Keep it clean, Irving. That's the name of a citywide campaign to keep neighborhoods and business areas clean, safe, and welcoming. It starts in November and will run through April. Dale Demerest is the city of Irving's code enforcement manager. Andy's with us today. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me.

Of course. And let's get started with the overview. What are some of the goals of this effort? The goal of this effort is to provide an opportunity for our code officers to get into these neighborhoods on a more comprehensive approach. Um because we can't be everywhere we need to be throughout the year. It's nice to be able to get the entire team into an area and take a look at it and see if we can't clean up and and help revitalize the neighborhoods. What are some of the things you're going to be looking for? Uh we're going to be looking for high grass and weeds, trash and debris, trash out early, junk motor vehicles, anything that could create blight or creates blight or anything that could create any kind of nuisance or life safety issue. So let's go deeper into the specifics on this. A lot of city teams are involved.

That's correct. We have four departments involved. We have code enforcement, police department, municipal drainage, and sanitation that are all going to be involved. Um we'll divide the city into eight we as we have into eight areas. And each area has a specific date that we'll go out and work that for a day. Our team of inspectors will go out and work the entire area all in one day to find as much as we can find as far as violations that exist. And the city website has the dates of when officers will be in any specific zone. Correct. That is correct. It's on the website and it's available to look at right now. Now, the goal is voluntary compliance, but what happens if you don't get that compliance?

Um, the same thing is gonna happen with this as it does with any of our code cases. We're going to write a notice of violation to that person for whatever violations we find. They'll be given the same amount of time that we would give them any other time and we'll follow up. If it's not been brought into voluntary compliance, then we'll go through the process of possibly a citation if necessary. So, what should people do if they see concerns in their own neighborhood? They really should go on to the Irving website to report a concern and view it there. It's a best way for us to track what we're getting from the public and how it can better help us manage our areas better. And again, what's the overall goal of this? Overall goal of this is clean, safe, vibrant neighborhoods as our as our uh policy has been and uh so we're just trying to get in and see exactly what we can find for violations in that area. Try and get the neighborhood cleaned up, try and make it a safe place to live.

Code enforcement manager Dale Damarest, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Find more details, including a schedule and map at irvingtx.gov/clean. Irving's Family Advocacy Center is marking Domestic Violence Awareness Month with a special art exhibit. Irving ISD high school art students created works based on the theme with survivors always. This is the opening reception at the Irving Archives and Museum where we found out more about the exhibit and the cause.

I was overwhelmed at the artwork the students did. Uh the first time I was able to view it, they had so much insight about the impact that domestic violence has on individuals and they were able to do such a good job of showing a message of hope and healing. There are some very talented kids around here. Um and also just very meaningful pieces that I think give a range of messages. I would like to tell them like you you're going to be okay. There's hope. That's what I decided to put in my artwork. This phrase, one day I am going to grow wings.

Them knowing that people were actually going to be seeing their work and how impactful it is. It gave them more reason to put their whole hearts into it.

We're really looking at how they're strengthened collaboration that working together and supporting each other, the agencies, the community, the individuals. That's really where healing begins and how it continues. The art will be on display through November 2nd. Leaders and project partners turned out to celebrate the grand opening of Irving ISD's new student transportation and logistics center. At the ribbon cutting, we learned more about the facility's benefits. [Applause] Leaders cut the ribbon to celebrate the opening of Irving ISD's new student transportation and logistics center on Pioneer Drive.

I am such a proud proud superintendent. Right now, our drivers, monitors, mechanics, and staff now have a home that reflects the value we place on them. Wow. Attendees got tours to see some of the new features, which include meeting and training rooms, upgraded bus parking. It was just gravel and dirt along with a bus wash, and this massive maintenance space. It is a big upgrade over the makeshift facility they've been using. And we had a shop where you couldn't even put a bus inside. You could only put the front of it to work on. Uh the rest of it has to be stuck outside.

Irving ISD transports about 7,500 students on more than 100 routes every school day. The district has more than 150 buses. So, first of all, we turn on the amber lights. David Rubio has driven Irving students to class for 16 years. I do this type of job uh because I love it and I I do love my community. He wanted to be here for this grand opening of his new workplace. It's a dream come true. Uh we've been waiting for it for years. It's nice and big and it's it's just beautiful. This center is the latest project completed as part of the 2023 Irving ISD bond package.

We're not stopping. We still have a lot of work to do. Among several projects underway, construction is beginning on a new career and technical education center. Then check out the progress on the new Barton Elementary School. And the most eye-catching is the new four-story Crockett Middle School. All projects approved by voters moving forward. They are investing in our students who are future leaders. And I am so grateful. All of these projects are exciting for me because this it's going to help our community. It's going to help our kids and also it shows that, you know, we value our kids and that starts with getting them to class safely on buses serviced at this brand new transportation and logistics center.

They've been needing this for a long time and our students deserve it as well. And you can learn more about other upcoming projects in the district at Irvingdbond.com. [Music] Welcome to ICTN's pets of the week. Normally you see Egan Dobson with me, but Chestnut, you can see wanted to take over the scene. So, we're giving him a little bit of a moment in the spotlight while I get some kisses from Chestnut. But to find out his full story, let's use some seasonal magic to bring in Egan. So, a real welcome to Egan Thompson now. And Chestnut, so much personality and so much love to give.

So silly. Such a sweetheart. Obviously huge cuddlebug. Loves to give little kisses. Um, sweet, sweet boy. For only 6 months old. 6 months old. And how did he come into the animal care? So, he came in as a stray. One of our officers picked him up. Some things that we know about Chestnut is that we think he might be a boxer mix. He's very obviously very curious of the world. Uh, he is dog friendly. He's in a really big play group with a bunch of other different dogs. Um, just a happy, silly boy. And there's a chance to get him at a discount right now. Yes. We have our pick a treat special where anybody can pick a treat from the cauldron. And on that treat is a discounted price.

So Okay. So he picked one that would be a $20 adoption. And there are others in here all the way down to free. Mhm. All the way down to free. 60 or less. And Chestnut, like you said, so curious and so fun. and a chance to get him at a discount to enjoy the holidays and even a little costume with you. And y'all are planning some fun here at the animal care campus. Oh yes, we're getting ready for obviously the spooky season. We're asking for pumpkin donations as the DFW Humane Society and Irving Animal Services will be doing a staff pumpkin decorating contest. And so people can vote on that or how's that going to work?

Yeah, so we're going to share it on the 28th from the 28th through the 31st. People can vote on Facebook, either like a photo or come in and vote in person, and then whoever um gets, you know, the most votes obviously wins. And that's just a way to kind of keep the morale up, keep the team happy, especially as y'all have been going through construction, a lot of things here, right. Right. 100%. It's just a fun time. We're going to see who's creative here and just have fun with each other, I guess. Yeah. For us, it looks like you have fun every day with people like Chestnut around. That's true. I can't not have fun with Chestnut. And that's not the only fun you'll be having. Staff and pets are going to be dressing up in costumes. Yes. So, we're going to be celebrating the spooky season again. And staff is going to have costumes along with a pet of their choosing.

All right. We'll be covering that and posting it at youtube.com/the city of Irving. But for now, let's find Chestnut a home or share this video with someone who might be interested. Thanks so much. Thank you.

You can find the animal care campus at 4140 Valley View Lane. You can check out the websites you see on the screen for the latest operating hours and to see more adoptable animals. [Music] We have several big stories coming up for you on the next edition of City Source. Construction is progressing quickly on the new Fire Station 8. We are with firefighters as they get their first look inside the massive facility. And here is another big new addition. See the grand opening of the Wells Fargo Corporate Campus in Lascalenus and the American Heart Association brings its annual HeartWalk to Levy Event Plaza. See the big turnout and hear why the cause is so important to those participating. Those stories and much more next time on City Source. Here is how to connect with us. You can email us at ictnvtx.gov. Our YouTube channel is youtube.com/the cityof Irving. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss anything. And we always appreciate it when you leave us some positive comments and show us love. And look for updates on events and initiatives across the major social media platforms at the city of Irving. And that's it for this edition of City Source. Thanks for watching. Stay healthy and we'll see you next time. [Music] Dr. [Music] [Music]