City Council - Regular Meeting

¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ © transcript Emily Beynon . . . . . . . . Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. We'd like to welcome you to the Tuesday, August 18th Radio City Council meeting. As always, we'll start out by reviewing the agenda items. We do have some executive session items. We have a good, healthy work session on our regular meeting agenda. On consent, F1, consider approval of the minutes of the August 4th regular city council meeting. F2, consider resolution adopting the official population. What's that number again? What was the population? 47-727. 47-727. Close it up and confirm it. 47-727. Councilman won't beat you to a punch. F3, consider a resolution approving an MOU with the City of Fort Worth for City of Kellogg's participation as a member of the Trident Center.

That's a work session item as well, so we do a presentation about what that information is so you guys can kind of understand what that program would look like.

Awesome. And then F4, consider an ordinance approving a negotiated settlement between the Atmos City Steering Committee and Atmos Energy Corp. Mid-Tex Division. It comes up once a year. Yes, sir. Any questions on consent items F1 through F4?

I've got a comment on 4. Yeah. Being a newbie to this group, this was like trying to read Arabic for me. that in the future, new people get advised what the heck this is before we just ask the judge on it.

Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. It's a good comment. Do you have any questions now, though?

Not after I spoke to the person I spoke with. Thanks for running that down. Did you try to, like, I'd also reach out to staff, but if they have trouble about there's not enough items out there this one had quite a few items on it but yeah but that's a good way in the future spent that the atmosphere and the encore when we do encore to and it's it's a lot of gobbledygook as well sometimes yeah and we do this every year just this mostly yeah they did so that will see the steering committee works

We work with them to negotiate a rate. So that's one of the reasons we do it each year. So the way it typically works, Atmos will say, we want to raise rates by this percentage. The steering committee then works through various legal counsel or the counsel group to then get a reduced rate on that. So it's negotiating a collective use rate. So we do that each year based on whatever Atmos, as you said, Encore as well, come through and we'll negotiate those. So we have the power of the cities to get a better energy cost. yeah you'll see that and to his point um this was um for for a new person a little more challenging it is uh it is written by the the steering committee council that's how they they've told they provide us that order and say this is what we want you to adopt so i apologize for the you're not wrong even when i go through it it's definitely not it's our standard how we would uh

maybe come in and do a short new councilman. There's a person assigned to this area and they agreed they would love to do that to get them on board as far as.

Heck, every councilman. Doesn't hurt. Yeah.

For sure. They would be willing to do it. And so when they reach out, I'll mention it to them. than that, Mayor. According to what she gave me in a five-minute speech was how much money they're putting back into new infrastructure and stuff like that. I'm looking at an atlas name and it tells me that I'm also going to be making a decision on their pensions and retiring medical benefits. I'm like, I didn't know that was part of the game. They would like to come in and talk. Sure.

Let's connect them. Good work. Any other questions on consent agenda F1 through F4? Okay, awesome. H1 is, and thank you, Councilman Armstrong, for digging into that. Let me know and connect and figure out how to get that information to the rest of the council. H1, consider resolution approving Chapter 380 agreement. to the city's economic, according to the city's economic development policy with Hopps Keller Incorporated at 200 Keller Parkway, authorizing the city manager to execute the documents if we approve. Any questions on H1?

Yeah, I would have preferred this than an exec. I know we've talked about it twice, but usually, staff, when we do these type of negotiations or Chapter 380s, an exec, we get to a finalized set of numbers that the majority of council agrees with, and then we first go to But anyway, if council would be willing, I know we have a hefty exec agenda. Because this is the first time we're seeing the finalized numbers. I know Economic Development saw it last night, I believe, the final numbers for the first time. And I did watch that, so I got to see some of it. But if the majority of council doesn't care, that's fine. But generally, we view these things in exec for those type of discussions pertaining to items like this. And then we come out here and vote on them and discuss them. But if the majority of council doesn't care, it's not a mountain to die on. just a personal conclusion.

I agree with you generally. In this case, because we've already looked at it twice now in executive session, I think it's fine to hear the presentation.

But we haven't seen the final numbers.

I think it's fine if we hear it. It's on the agenda. And then if we have reservations about it or anything like that, we can table it. not put the cameras on personally?

No, I'm just saying whether it's legal or chapter 380s, that's why we do it. Otherwise, we would have just gone to the dais to begin with. That's why we went through exec the first time. So again, I'm not going to die on this mountain. I'm just saying I have nothing to hide. I just prefer the general process. That's the way we do it. But again, it's not the end of the world. We can move on.

Has the numbers changed since we last saw them in executive session?

So the total ask is the same. The only thing that changed is that the Fort Worth fee got taken out.

But you're correct in terms of there was even adjustments last night at the Economic Development Board.

The threshold. And the percentages. We will have a slide showing you what the staff proposal was, or is, and then what KDB proposed last night, so you can kind of compare.

Okay. Yeah, so the numbers really didn't change that much, and I remember discussing the forward fee at some point as a group. So I don't... They excluded it. Yeah, they excluded it. I guess for that reason, because they haven't materially changed at all, I'm okay with moving forward. seven folks so yeah I'm fine if we don't I was just and in the future though generally we finalize and then we go out there okay I'm interested all right okay age two public hearing considering SUT approximately 1,815 square foot detached garage For the new colleagues on council, most of this is just testing my reading comprehension. Better than Armin. Any questions on that one?

I've gone out and looked just over the fence at this. It's a big place, nice place. I don't think it's going to be visible from the road.

H3, also a public hearing, considered ordinance, approving UDC amendments, the town center medical overlay area, relating to allowable uses, providing penalties, authorizing publication, and establishing an effective date. And this was kind of like a cleanup item, right, Sarah?

So it's basically identical to the item you did two weeks ago for town center. We just... To be honest, when we first did the item, we missed that there's a separate use chart for medical overlay because we're just not in that district very often. So this is identical to what you saw for Town Center. It's changing grooming and veterinarian clinics from permitted by right to SUP. Matches exactly what you did for Town Center two weeks ago.

Okay. Awesome. Any questions on H3? All right. And then H4, consider resolution. the city council to adopt a tax rate that will be lower than the no new revenue rate we're going to call it the mayor pro tem deverly and councilman will rate any questions on h4 all right So the council is now recessed so that the council in compliance with provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act as authorized therein shall go into executive session to consider matters allowed therein and as stated in the agenda specifically section 551.071 consultation with attorney, closed meeting, a governmental body may not conduct a private consultation with its attorney except the governmental body seeks the advice of its attorney about pending or contemplated litigation or a solvent offer or on which We have four items listed, discussion of possible legal action relating to the Westlake Data Center, Beverly Grove, Bella Casa Phase 2 zoning discussion, and a sanitary sewer extension policy discussion.

Unity like you have Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Perfect unity. And Lord, may everything that's decided tonight bring honor to people in Keller and prosper each citizen. Lord, now, the rest of this evening, may everything we do bring honor and glory to your name. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

If you'd please stand for the pledges.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God.

Texas Pledge.

On the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible.

All right. We do have some action to take, but one thing I would like to do beforehand is we have a proclamation and presentations, and um you know sometimes the the best news comes at the beginning of a meeting and I've had the the honor of honestly taking a program that was handed over to me and um doing a the mayor's internship program and when I first got a hold of it you know we kind of didn't know what to expect or what it was going to be about but you know as this council will tell you um as a as a as a team, any time we have an opportunity to engage our residents, we're certainly going to do that. And so we had a lot of applicants. Seriously, I can't remember Marsha, where she's at. But our HR director, Marsha, fielded a lot of applications, made a couple of recommendations. And it's been a special honor for me and alongside Marsha and her team to help facilitate this internship program. Reese Patrick is one of our interns that successfully completed the program. He's actually moving into Baylor today and wanted to be here. So really appreciate you, Reese. And then we do have Mr. Aaron Peterson here. I can't say enough good things about Aaron and everything he's going to accomplish throughout his career. I think he's, you know, tip to the troops here, probably looking for a career in public works, actually, or a related field. Really talented, really sharp. I'm just glad he didn't tell me he wanted to be mayor because I'd have been out of a job. So if you wouldn't mind in just giving a round of applause and recognizing Mr. Aaron Peterson for completing the program. And Aaron, if you don't mind coming up, share one or two things that you found to be interesting. Only the interesting things, not the bad ones, but I'm joking. But share some things that you learned and then we'd be happy to present you with this certificate of recognition and then we'll take a picture.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. I'd say what I've really had a light shown on through this internship is that as Americans, we may focus a lot on the squabbles of Washington, D.C. and whoever happens to sit in the White House. But the reality is, is that what happens in this room really impacts our lives every single day a lot more than whatever happens over there. The ability to have firefighters respond to emergencies, the ability to have paved roads and not drive on a dirt path everywhere, that's decided in here. And the ability to have police show up to your house is also decided in here as well. And the kind of housing that is in your community, that is also decided in here. I am very appreciative of the mayor's office and the city council as a whole for this opportunity. And I hope that this program in the future can bring more positive things to the city of Keller.

Well said, Aaron. Nice job.

Right back here against the wall, yeah, and I'll get up high.

Yeah, that's whatever. We need a little center. Squeeze in. Do we need to squeeze in?

You're good right there. Good right there. All right, everybody ready? Congrats, brother.

Thank you.

Okay, before we get into the rest of the agenda, I'm going to go ahead and go kind of out of order, because we do have action to be taken from our executive session, and we have a motion from our mayor pro tem, Shannon Doverly. Shannon?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. A lot's occurred over the last three weeks, and I just want to thank you for your leadership of the city in the last three weeks. A lot's happened. You've done an amazing job, and For the citizens out there, just to let you all know, the council, but especially the mayor, had been tireless in his advocacy for the residents. With that, I'd like to make a motion to authorize the city's special council and the city manager to take all steps necessary to take legal action regarding the proposed data center.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Councilman Will? I second. We have a motion and a second. Any questions? If not, let's go ahead and take a vote. Councilwoman Brennan?

Aye. In favor?

All right. That motion passes 6-0. I will make a... some brief comments because we don't take this action lightly. As it relates to the town of Westlake's proposed data center, we have now pursued every diplomatic avenue available to us. We raised our concerns, made reasonable and substantive requests, and formally asked Westlake to address the impacts this project could have on our community. Westlake is proposing a 1.1 million square foot data center just 506 feet from Keller's backyards. Yet despite our request to meet with Westlake leadership to discuss options for reducing this development's impact on our citizens, our concerns have not been meaningfully addressed. That is why we have unanimously voted this evening for the City of Keller to commence immediate legal action to protect the interests of the City of Keller and our residents regarding the proposed Westlake Data Center. We find no joy in this decision. But we are confident that exploring every legal avenue is in the best interests of the City of Keller and our residents. City councils are required by state law to conduct the public's business transparently and out in the open. However, after reviewing Westlake's process and procedures in connection with its proposed data center, we have serious concerns about whether the spirit and letter of applicable law have been followed. A judge or jury will ultimately determine the merits of our legal claims. So we will continue to stand alongside our residents and pursue every lawful avenue available to protect Keller and the quality of life our community has worked so hard to build. Thank you. And thank you, colleagues, for taking action tonight. All right. Well, now it's time for us to do persons to be heard. This is a time for the public to address the city council on any subject. However, the Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits the city council from discussing issues which the public has not been given three business days notice. Issues raised may be referred to city staff for research and possible future action. Each speaker will be allowed three minutes to speak. Do we have anyone signed up to speak? We do. Looks like Riona Beardy, if you wouldn't mind. And on deck will be Holly Doty.

Good evening, mayor, members of the council, Keller residents, neighbors in Westlake, and community leaders. Today, I wanted to add on about the proposed data center next to the Marshall Ridge community. My name is Riona Biradi. I'm 13 years old, an eighth grader, and I take accelerated courses. And I know that I'm young, and I know I may not understand everything about building a data center. But I do understand what it means to have a home, a neighborhood, and a future that we care about. I am not against technology, and I use it every day. I understand that data centers help power the internet, artificial intelligence, and many of the things people use every day. But just because something is useful does not mean it should be built anywhere. There are many reasons I believe we should be careful. History has shown us that industries sometimes tell communities that something is safe before all of the consequences are fully understood. Think about lead paint. According to the World Health Organization, many countries in Europe, including France, Great Britain, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Spain, and Sweden had formally banned residential lead paint by 1927, but the United States did not take that step until 1978, which is five decades after. Some people say because powerful industry groups lobbied the government, hid health risks, and marketed the toxic material as safe for public use. So when children got sick, the industry blamed parents and the poor living conditions instead of the paint. The lesson is not that a data center is the same as lead paint, because it isn't. The lesson is that we should not wait until harm is obvious before we take people's concerns seriously. If a company says that our technology is safe, that should not be the end of conversation. We should ask, what happens if the protections are wrong, and who will be responsible if the community experiences consequences that are not expected? Promises aren't the same as protections. And if a data center can be built somewhere further away from homes, schools, and neighborhoods, then why shouldn't we consider that option? Some people may say that the project will bring jobs and money to the area. Those benefits do matter. But our community should not have to accept every possible burden simply because a project promises economic benefits. I am 13 years old, and I can't vote yet, and I can't sit on this council and make a decision. So I ask you to think about what this project could take from us later. We should not be afraid of progress, but we should never be so excited about progress that we should stop asking questions. Before moving forward, I ask you, Mayor, Council, Westlake and Keller leaders, to listen to the community. carefully study the potential impacts, and then make your valuable decision. Thank you for your time.

Well said. Thank you. All right. We have Holly Doty, and then on deck, Stuart Rennie.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, and other city staff. My name is Holly Doty, and I've been a resident of Marshall Ridge since 2008. With the temporary restraining order now in place against the progress of the Westlake Data Center project as a result of private litigation, an initial two-week delay has been secured. This is a critical first step, but as we all know, a two-week delay is not the finish line. It is a window of opportunity. We cannot afford to let up, and we need the City of Keller to use its full resources and platform to continue applying relentless pressure. We are not standing here idly asking you to simply Fight this fight and fix it for us. Over the past several weeks, our community has shown that we are engaged, informed, and deeply invested in this battle. We are doing the legwork. We are digging into municipal records, reviewing meeting minutes, analyzing state regulatory codes, and sharing research we uncover with your team. While our dedication is tireless, understanding the full intricacies of municipal land use law, administrative code compliance, and zoning statutes is not a daily profession for most citizens. This is where we need your expertise. The city has the professional capacity, the municipal staff, and the retained special legal counsel to examine these matters at a depth we simply cannot achieve alone. And where internal resources end, the city has access to the experts who can. We ask that your team and special counsel scrutinize every step of Westlake's process from the beginning, from how they modified the PD 3-8 permitted use zoning change, all the way through their currently paused resolution 26-25. Look for every procedural defect, every uncertified document, and every statutory vulnerability. We also ask that you explore broader legal avenues, including looking into litigation patterns, and past legal challenges involving Powerhouse and Hillwood across other jurisdictions, such as the Joliet, Illinois case, to see what strategies have proven effective. Even with the motion that has been passed tonight, we urge you, please find a clear path of decisive action, not just rhetoric. We truly appreciate the support you have shown our community thus far, but we must have your continued action, resources, and institutional commitment if we are going to win this fight and protect our neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you. And Ms. Doty, just in case it wasn't clear for the record, it is an item that's been noticed and we just voted on it. Yeah, I just want to make it clear that we did vote to put the full weight of the city behind this. So thank you for being here. Stuart Runney and then Angela Matthews is on deck.

Lady and gentlemen of the council, a few months ago I addressed this council regarding the increase in and surveillance of this community. via flock cameras. Since then, things have become significantly worse. Chattery versus United States has held geofencing warrants as a violation of the Fourth Amendment and likely threatened the use of flock camera data for investigation and prosecution. A data entry error resulted in four police cars chasing and blocking an illegitimate car reviewer in a car given to him by the manufacturer. The flock software discarded some of the numbers in the license plate on the vehicle and returned a false alert. Luckily, no one was hurt in a felony stop, but a private citizen who had done nothing wrong was detained for over an hour initially at gunpoint. The LAPD has stopped using the FLOC ALPR system amid concerns about who controls the data and how the data is used. The Johnson County, Texas Sheriff used the FLOC system to surveil and investigate a woman for legal activity that he disagreed with. Police officers in Milwaukee and Kenosha County, Wisconsin, Orange City, Niceville, Monroe County, Florida, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Boner Springs, Sedgwick, Kechi, Kansas, Costa Mesa, and Riverside County, California, Monroe County and Shelby County, Florida, Louisville, Kentucky, Jerome County, Idaho, Brazelton, Gwinnett County, Coffey County, Georgia, and Prairie Grove, Illinois, have been charged with using flock data to stalk, harass, kidnap exes or romantic partners, both current and old, and simply look up someone they, quote, found attractive. This is the tip of the iceberg, as these are only some of the known abuses that have occurred over the past two years alone. These actions are resulting in ongoing efforts to craft laws to restrict this data. But these are reactive, and lawsuits against these devices are multiplying at a terrific rate. Flock has just itself announced face-saving changes that will solve almost none of these issues as they have very little impact on any of the things that are being done. This council would be well advised to consider acting now before something happens in Kerala or nearby, before someone is injured or killed by a false alert generated by a flock software, or before a rogue officer or official with malintent uses the system in an inappropriate manner. I'll also add, I find it interesting that the former mayor still posts on Facebook under the title Mayor and broke the whole Westlake thing first while he's running a campaign for another office. You guys might want to ask him about that.

Thank you, sir. Angela and then Alicia Ostermeyer.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, I've been in this room so many times and I've never spoken at this podium and I like it because there's not very many people behind me. So I want to start by just thanking you. Um, I want to thank you for taking the action that you're taking. Um, five 16 land on court. Um, our house is 550 feet from the building. So I know you all are working tirelessly having been the wife of a mayor. In this town, I know how people can be loud and people can be absent. And so I thank you that you're serving them all, regardless of which category they fall in. I don't have to go into much more of my speech because you've already vowed to take action. Thank you guys for the ones that were there last night. I think it's powerful to stand in front of Westlake's council and tell them that our council is going to fight. So I appreciate all of your efforts Everything that you're doing, the houses you're showing up at, the emails you're responding to, I know it's a lot. Thank you.

Thanks for being here. All right. Alicia? And I think that's all we have signed up to speak. If there's anyone else that would like to speak, though, just visit with Kelly real quick if you don't mind.

Hello.

Thank you.

My name is Alicia Ostemar, and I live on 1735 Sterling Trace Drive. So I'm pretty front of the Marshall Ridge subdivision. So the data center is very close. So thank you, thank you for agreeing to join the fight. The power of Keller to join in the legal action is huge. Truly makes me choke up. Thank you. And really, that was the key reason why I was here, but you took care of that. But all the things you already know. If these waves travel two and a half miles, that takes in a lot of people of Keller. Ridgeview, Marshall Ridge, Llano Court, also across 377. And so thank you. like the banner said, of a house that's on the corner of Borland and Mount Gilead, it reaches them too. So thank you for understanding the impact beyond just those right there. And Westlake can make it pretty, which they do, and they do beautifully, but it's not the site that matters. It's the noise, it's the hum, it's the impact on people's health. So thank you. And as mentioned, history, it does take laws and things. It takes time for them to catch up. Lead paint, great example. Cell phones, another. Cell phones have a negative impact on mental health, especially young people. And Keller, I know, has put in place rules to keep phones away from kids. And that, from what I understand, is serving them well. And so this is another case where there's not a lot of research and there's not a lot of information to back up why it's a bad idea to put it in a neighborhood. So thank you for standing for this. Please dig deep. The little bit I know, and gosh knows I'm not an expert, is noise is one thing that's very tangible. very measurable, and there's studies to prove it is dangerous. So thank you again, thank you for listening, and thank you for supporting us.

Thank you. All right. I think that's everyone. Thank all the speakers for being here this evening. All right, for our consent agenda. Item F1, consider approval of the minutes of the Tuesday, August 4th, 2026 regular city council meeting. Item F2, consider resolution adopting the official population as of January 1st, 2026 for the city of Keller, which according to Councilman Greg Will, is 47,727 people. Did I get that right, Councilman? You did. All right, thank you, sir. F3, consider a resolution approving a memorandum of understanding. Actually, we're going to pull F3, and we'll have Chief present on that if you're comfortable with that, Chief, right after we get through F1, 2, and F4. So pulling F3 off consent, we'll go to F4, consider an ordinance approving a negotiated settlement between the Atmos City Steering Committee and Atmos Energy Corp. Mid-Tex Division regarding the company's 2026 rate view mechanism filing, declaring existing rates to be unreasonable. adopting tariffs that reflect rate adjustments consistent with the negotiated settlement, finding the rates to be set by the attached settlement tariffs to be just and reasonable and in the public interest, approving an attachment, establishing a benchmark for pensions and retiree medical benefits, requiring the company to reimburse ACSC's reasonable rate-making expenses, determining that this ordinance was passed in accordance with the requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act, adopting a savings clause, declaring an effective date, and requiring delivery of this ordinance to the company and the ACSC's legal counsel. All right, Mayor Pro Tem, motion?

Yes, sir, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move we approve consent items F1, F2, and F4 as presented.

Thank you, sir. Councilman Will? I second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Let's vote. Councilwoman Brennan?

Aye. Yes.

All right, thank you. All right, so that passes. Five, two, one. Five, zero with one abstention. All right. Chief, for F3, you have a presentation. It's considered a resolution approving a memorandum of understanding with the city of Fort Worth for the city of Keller's participation as a member of the Trident Center and authorizing the city manager to execute the agreement.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of council. I was expecting work session presentation, not regular session it's all good so I don't y'all have these presentations so I'm not gonna go in much detail on everything but I will be here to answer all the questions you have and I definitely want to hit specific points to make sure there's a good understanding of what this is so a real-time crime center is not new to the police profession around the country most metropolitan areas have these and they have had them for a while of in the Metroplex I know Dallas Fort Worth Arlington and now Plano have real-time crime centers And it's, again, it's in most metropolitan area. This is interesting time for us because Fort Worth is trying to make it regional and trying to expand this capability and these resources to its regional partners in Tarrant County that alone do not have the funding or the personnel to be able to have this kind of a resource. So they're trying to reach out and make it a more robust center. So the core functionality, you can't read this very well, but basically, There's three different core functions. Number one is data unification. It aggregates technology systems, CCTV, 911 dispatch, vehicle databases into a single operational view. Number second one is real-time intelligence. It dispatches live event updates in threat context to responding officers before they arrive on scene. And then finally, proactive crime monitoring. It identifies emerging incidents that are going on and active crimes in real time to enable rapid deployment that we might not know or be aware that's going on in adjacent jurisdictions, but it's coming our way, they will have a little bit, a big picture view of the crime that's happening around us in real time. At the very end of this presentation, I'm gonna give you a single example of the success of the Fort Worth Real-Time Crime Center, and we could provide many, but this is just an example that they are experiencing. So, number one is, One of the biggest benefits is it provides information to the investigators in the field before they even arrive on scene, especially for the more critical incidents, the aggravated assaults, the violent crimes. And so they're crunching data of vehicle information, premise history, persons associated with the vehicles, and they're analyzing this information and and certain circumstances identifying suspects before officers are even arriving on scene for some of these critical incidents. The problem is that most agencies in our area don't have the funding and personnel like I mentioned before, so they couldn't man a real-time crime center or afford all the technology or staff it. The other part, and so the biggest part, is we want to be able to neighbor with our partners, and we want to be able to share information, but we need to have the ability to do so. What Fort Worth did is they started their real-time crime center back in 2012 as a test pilot proof of concept with just Fort Worth. And that was consistent with most metropolitan big cities around the country. And so when they realized that it was a benefit for them, they officially founded their unit in 2015. So they've been working as a real-time crime center for 10 years. So they have the experience. They've gone through the challenges. But so now when they started to think of the concept of expanding beyond their borders into the regional capacity to help a lot of the smaller agencies like ourselves, they did a test pilot back in 2023. That was with the Haltom City, North Richland Hills, Watauga, and Richland Hills PSAP, which is their communication. They share a dispatch center like we do with Colleyville and Southlake. And so that was their proof of concept. And after the successes there, they realize that they can expand it to the surrounding Tarrant County agencies to be all one and to provide this. And so that's what brought me here before you today. So some of the benefits, like I mentioned already, the faster information sharing with our partnering agencies, the smaller staffing requirements for each agency instead of trying to shore up a real-time crime center by ourselves, we're just one part of this bigger picture. The detectives have direct resources for not only the assigned cases that are real time, but all their existing crime and existing cases that we have for our detectives that are here in Keller. Obviously, the reduced technology costs and basically to mobilize field units quicker from more agencies around us because they have the big picture look at it versus waiting until the crime comes to you and it happening. So it takes away the responsiveness. Again, the 10 years of experience I mentioned before. So Trident will They're about to break ground and build this Trident Center. It's going to be in the same area where they currently have their real-time crime center. They've allowed us to come and view it, tour it, and they've also offered the same to any of you that would like to see it. They'll be there so you can actually talk to the people running it and doing it, and you can see it real-time what it's about. And I highly encourage to do it because once you go down there, excuse me, And you see the capabilities, and you see in one room is the real-time crime center, and the other room is the fusion center with all of our federal partners. In the other room, it's an intelligence-based. It is the mecca for the intelligence-sharing Homeland Security Initiative for the Fort Worth Police Department in Tarrant County. And they're very, very open to any of you coming to tour it. So they're going to... through the sharing of all these agencies that participate, they have a model of organizational chart that has supervision, that has an advisory committee, that has IT tech support, and it's going to have about 19 officers assigned covering 24-7 coverage to provide this service to all these agencies. So right now, these are the current agencies that are in the process of doing exactly what I'm doing now. The first step is to sign the MOU. to commit to the resources as they build it, and they build the IT infrastructure, these are the agencies that are gonna be a part of this. And I did confirm as early, right before the meeting started, that these are, all of these agencies listed are still, have every intention of being a part of it. They're all in the process like we're doing it right now. So what is next is after the MOUs, the standard operating procedures are going to be created, which is going to be provided by the advisory committee, which is comprised of representatives from all the agencies. So it's not just Fort Worth PD running the show. They're taking advice and input from this advisory committee, again, from the various agencies. involved. And you can see that the training, the construction, they're already behind schedule from these dates that they initially provided. But they're looking in hopefully mid to late 2027 being completed with their construction for the product. And then So what they're asking from us is, number one, we're going to provide access to our records management system, our CAD software, our dispatch center. They're going to have a radio channel so they can communicate directly with our officers on the street. They're not going to have to go through dispatch and a talk-around channel. So if our officers want to talk directly just to them and not take up time on one channel, they have the ability to do that. So they can speak from agency to agency as they see a crime or a pursuit or something going from city to city or they're tracking a suspect vehicle from a crime that happened maybe in Fort Worth. They can be talking to Keller units directly knowing the direction of travel to save time going through dispatch. So it's just a time saver. They want more access to our criss-crash data, arrest information, ALPR, video feeds, basically anything that they can access that they have as an open resource that they can, they will, they're going to have access to. So as our officers are responding tactically, they are going to be looking at every resource to try to identify and anticipate best to handle and address, uh, identifying suspects and arrest them if possible, if needed. They're asked of us based on agency size. It's different per agency. It's based on our sworn numbers, and they've asked for one employee. That is absolutely doable from our detective unit. And basically, by giving them that one employee, that now opens us up to all of the resources this Trident Center provides to all of our cases in Keller. So we would take the caseload off of that one, disseminate it against the remaining detectives in CID, but now we've opened up these resources from an investigative value to help our overall CID that would take, really is a lot more time-saving. Again, the advisor capacity would be on a rotational perspective. I think it's by year they switch out between the various agencies that are represented on the advisory committee. I've already spoke to the primary radio channel and secondary talk-around channel. That costs nothing for us to do that. and then sign the MOU. So here's a schematic of what the Trident Center is going to look like. And so again, I'm not going to read all of these things to you. This is just a summary of different enhancements it's going to give to us operationally. On this one, though, on that second bullet, though, to filter out raw, unverified data that a lot of times you're susceptible to 911. If we have a critical incident, the amount of 911 calls that come in, you have to spend a lot of time verifying the validity of each of those reports. They give assistance to our dispatchers so that they don't have to worry about doing that to give us more actionable, tactical information to the officers on the street. On this one, I'd like to focus your attention to the second bullet, a team that can assist killer criminal investigations with their caseloads by providing much needed resources to help clear their cases and improve case clearances. Again, if it's also, I'm sorry, I'm trying to go backwards. Second to the last bullet, the enhanced situational awareness, if these are critical instances that result in a barricaded person or a hostage situation, it's providing more big picture information to command on the ground in a much more timely manner to make more quicker tactical decisions. Luckily, We don't experience a lot of crime in Keller. And that's what's great about Keller is the crime rate. But those high risk, low frequency type incidents, it just takes one. And to have this type of resource back behind you to help with those command level decisions and those tactical decisions are crucial. So I just want y'all to spend just, I'm going to read this just real quick. One success story they gave, and the link is provided if anybody watching wants to click on it. But basically there was a road rage shooting which occurred in Fort Worth. It was a random shooting which resulted in the driver passing away. The homicide occurred very close to Fort Worth in the Haltom City border. The crime center went into coordinating with Haltom City Dispatch. And the vehicle, while Fort Worth tried to identify the license plate of the vehicle, the vehicle was identified using ALPR data within 15 minutes of the shooting. A broadcast of that vehicle was made through their radio channel, their PSAP. And the suspect vehicle was scanned on an ALPR camera in a different jurisdiction, North Richland Hills, which was broadcast. Units were then dispatched to that area between Haltom City, North Richland Hills, and Fort Worth. And the vehicle was located in Haltom City and by Haltom City and Fort Worth patrol units. And the suspect was arrested within an hour of shooting. And it was a random shooting just by converging all this information. These are some of the crucial successes of these capabilities. And really, it's all going to be individual of the type of critical incident it is and the type of crime as to what type of resources will be used to help try to find the suspect and place him under arrest. And I know I went through this pretty quick, but I'm open to any questions you guys might have. Thanks, Chief.

It's like really impressive marshalling of resources there. How long is the agreement?

It's by one year. One year? Yeah. It's one-year increments. Okay. So for some reason... So basically you're committing to it. You don't have to re-sign. It's just... And then it's 30 days you're out. Yeah. As long as you get 30 day out notice.

Yes, sir. So for some reason, that's laid plans. We need to get out of it. You know, we can pretty conveniently. 30 days. Yes, sir. And then what was the total fiscal? I know there's one employee involved. The personal cost of one employee. Okay. Those are my questions. Thanks for going through this. I don't know if it's the big stage, but the lights are brighter. Any questions, council? If not, we have a motion from our mayor pro tem.

Motioning again. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move we approve item F3 as presented. Thank you, sir. I'll second.

We have a motion to second. Let's take a vote. Councilman Brennan. Aye. Thank you. All right, and that passes 6-0. Thank you all. Thank you, Chief.

All right.

Next, no old business, so item H1, new business. Consider a resolution approving a Chapter 380 economic development program agreement pursuant to Chapter 380 of the Texas Local Government Code and pursuant to the city's economic development policy. with Hopps Keller Incorporated at 200 Keller Parkway and authorizing the city manager to execute said documents on behalf of the city of Keller, Texas. Hey, Anna.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Anna Irwin with Economic Development. Tonight we are bringing you a presentation to consider an economic development program agreement with Hopps Kitchen and Bar, which is located at 200 Keller Parkway. The zoning is Old Town Keller, and here is an aerial view of the property. The project will bring a 7,000 square foot high-end Pan-Asian steakhouse to 200 Keller Parkway, which is located in Old Town Keller. The groundbreaking for the project took place earlier this month. The applicant is investing over $2 million in plans to create 70 to 80 new jobs. And here are a couple conceptual photos of the project. Okay, I'm going to walk you through a timeline to explain how we got here today. HOPS submitted its incentive request in April after permitting and pre-construction work had already begun. Council then directed staff to explore expansion incentive options with the Keller Economic Development Board. In June, the board discussed a performance-based structure that would reimburse a portion of eligible fees at project completion with the remainder tied to future revenue milestones. Council supported moving that proposal forward, which then went back to the Economic Development Board last night. And tonight, we are bringing you their recommendation to approve or deny or make some changes. As a reminder, HUSH opened in the fall of 2022 and provided the following projections and sales actuals for both restaurants. So here you see the projections for HUSH were approximately two million for their first year. I'm sure everybody in the room has been to HUSH, and this is their actual sales. So the same group is bringing this high-end steakhouse, and these are their projections for the first three years. Here is a list of the permit and impact fees that the applicant already paid for, and this is what this proposal would reimburse over time, minus the Fort Worth impact fee. So the remaining reimbursable amount is a little over $159,000. Okay, at the June Keller Economic Development Meeting, the following incentive structure was suggested and supported by the board. Under the proposed structure, as I mentioned earlier, the eligible permit and impact fees would be reimbursed once the CO is issued, the certificate of occupancy. The remaining fees would be earned over four years as the business meets minimum annual taxable sales thresholds. Each payment would require a verification of those sales, tying the city's investment to sustained performance and protecting its return on investment. This is the original proposal that staff brought to the board. And next I'm going to show you a revised proposal from the Economic Development Board. So at last night's meeting, of the ED board, the board revised the revenue thresholds to more closely match the projections provided by the applicant. And I've marked the changes brought forth by the board in red. The changes recommended are different revenue thresholds and different percentage of reimbursement on years one and three. And the next is the return on investment. So we stopped here at year five, but just know that year six and on would still continue to grow. But we would be here at the 133% from an ROI standpoint by year five. And then under the staff attachments, you'll find the incentive policy. I wanted to pull out some of the sections that apply to this incentive request, which are under section one, it meets the incentive policy goals. So it enhances the commercial viability and sustainability. It attracts desired business and private investment. It encourages redevelopment in Old Town Keller, creates employment opportunities, and expands the city's tax base. Section three meets general eligibility. So there's a long list, things like zoning. that are important. And then section four, it meets high priority business, which it's high quality full service restaurant, high priority geographic area, experiential retail that is family friendly and will attract visitors from outside of Keller and high sales tax generators. And here's a summary of their request. City Council has the following options when considering an incentive request, approve as presented, approve with modifications or additional conditions, including the recommendation by the Keller Economic Development Board, table the agenda item to a specific date with clarification of intent and purpose, or deny, and the applicant is here if you have any questions.

Thanks, Anna. All right, this is not a public hearing, so, Any questions for staff, for the applicant, who I believe is here? I'll just really briefly say how excited I am for everything that y'all are doing as the owners of Hush and Hops. It's bringing a new level of vibrancy to Old Town Keller. right up the alley of what our citizens want. You know that as business owners and entrepreneurs, but I'm really excited about this and thank the Economic Development Board, our staff, colleagues on council for getting us to this point. With that, we do have a motion.

Councilman Armstrong. Mr. Mayor, motion to approve new business item one. Thank you, sir. I'll second.

We have a motion to second. Let's go ahead and vote. Councilwoman Brennan.

Yeah, A, yes.

Approved. All right, and that passes 6-0 unanimously.

Can I ask a clarifying question just for me? Is this with the, yes, with the recommendation from the board?

It was your motion. I think I was comfortable with the recommendation from the Economic Development Board.

Okay, perfect. I just want to make sure.

Yeah, the incentivized, yeah. That's the one I- You want us to restate it? Are we good? We're good? Got it, Kelly? Awesome.

Thank you.

Well done. Good catch. H2. It is a public hearing to consider an ordinance approving a specific use permit for an approximately 1,815 square foot detached garage located on 1.108 acres on the south side of Ottinger Road located approximately 968 feet northeast from the Florence Road and Ottinger Road intersection, legally described as Lot 1A, Block A of the Inspired Ranch subdivision, zoned SF36,000, lot size or greater, address 1289 Ottinger Road, Jonathan Savas, applicant, owner.

Thank you, Mayor. I have the aerial and zoning maps. The subject property is zoned SF36. The applicant this evening requests an SUP for a approximately 1,815 square foot detached garage with an average height of 15 feet 8 inches. That structure is proposed to fulfill the zoning requirement for a two-car garage on the property, and there are two SUP triggers for the structure. The proposed site plan shows that the structure will be located behind the front facade of the existing home and will conform to the setback requirements of the SF 36 zoning district. It is shown here. There's actually an existing building at that location that will be demolished and replaced with this detached garage if it is approved. The detached garage was designed with black metal panels and a single slope roof. The average height of that structure is approximately 15 feet 8 inches. Exterior is planned to match the home's overall architectural color scheme. Here's a brief look at the floor plan. The proposed structure is to be used for storage space for vehicles, equipment, and household items. They're not proposing any commercial business activity, retail use, or industrial operations with this building. The main home is currently under construction, but is approximately 6,000 square feet. And as I mentioned, there is an existing 1,500 square foot building on the property that will be replaced with the proposed detached garage. On July 16th, we mailed out 11 letters of notification for this public hearing, but staff has received no public feedback in response to this request. Section 8.02 of the UDC states that when considering an SUP, the City Council shall consider the following, whether the use is harmonious and compatible with surrounding existing uses, the activities requested by the applicant are normally associated with the permitted uses in the base district, the nature of the use is reasonable and appropriate in the immediate area, any negative impact on the surrounding area has been mitigated, and that any additional conditions specified ensure that the intent of the district purposes are being upheld. At the July 28th Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, the commissioners unanimously recommended approval of the STP request as presented. Here is a reminder of the request for you this evening. And City Council has the following options when considering an STP request approved as submitted or with modifications, table or deny. Staff and the applicant are here if you have any questions.

All right. Thanks, Alexis. This is a public hearing. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this item? If not, Councilman Wohl, did you have a question? I do, but I can wait until the public hearing is closed. Oh, you had a motion to close the public hearing?

I will also make that motion, yes.

I'll second that. We have a motion and a second. Let's take a vote. All right, public hearing's closed, according to Councilwoman Brennan, right?

Yes.

All right. Yes. Thank you, Councilwoman.

Councilman Wohl?

My question is for the applicant. All we have is this computer-generated drawing of what the building's going to look like. Is it going to be substantively similar to the design features of the primary residence? I just wanted to make sure. Correct.

The primary residence has a black standing seam metal roof, and this basically will be constructed out of the same material, single-slope roof. As you can see on the trees to the left, it will be basically behind all those trees in there, And it's designed to match this house. It's all metal construction. It's all black, to answer your question. It's a pre-engineered metal building from a reputable manufacturer.

Thank you.

Glass inlay garage doors and stuff like that.

I just wanted to make sure we knew what we were voting on. I appreciate it.

Yeah, no problem. And I appreciate you all. This is a year ago you all approved this. Now we're at this point. So just keep kind of marching forward. So thank you for, again, hearing me out. Absolutely. Thanks for being here.

All right. If there are no other questions, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you for working through the journey. With that, I move we approve item H8 as presented.

H2?

Sorry, that's H2. I apologize. It's been a long day. H2 as presented. Thank you. All right.

Councilman Armstrong? Second the motion. We have a motion to second to approve item H2. Let's take a vote. Councilwoman Brennan?

Nay.

Thank you.

Yes.

That passes 6-0. Thanks for taking the journey, as the Mayor Pro Temp said. I look forward to it. Congrats. Thank you very much. Of course. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. H3, also a public hearing. Consider an ordinance approving amendments to the City of Keller UDC adopted by Ordinance No. 1746, dated July 7, 2015, by amending Article 8, Section 8.18, Town Center Medical Overlay relating to allowable uses, providing penalties, authorizing publication, and establishing an effective date.

Thank you again. So we have a very brief presentation. This might look very familiar. A similar amendment just for town center, not town center medical, was approved by the council at the last meeting, August 4th. So the proposed changes are to amend the use table for town center medical overlay zoning. to change kennels grooming only and veterinarian clinic from its current status, which is permitted by right, to SUP. An amendment to the UDC requires public hearing notice to be published in local newspaper. We published that in the August 1st edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, but staff has not received any comments from the public regarding this UDC amendment. At the July 28th Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, the commissioners unanimously recommended approval of the UDC amendments as presented. And city council has following options when considering a UDC amendment, approve as submitted or with modifications, table or deny. Staff is here if you have any questions.

Thanks Alexis. This is a public hearing and it is an exciting ordinance. Is anyone from the public here tonight to speak on item H3? If not, I'll make a motion to close the public hearing. All right. Dr. Rankleaf?

I second.

Well done, sir. Motion to second. Let's take a vote. Councilwoman Brennan?

Aye.

All right. Public hearing is closed. Any questions for staff? All right, I'll make a motion to approve item H3. Dr. Rankleve, do you have a second?

I don't know what's going on, but yes, I will second.

Okay. I defer to my Councilman Rankleve with his powerful second. I don't know what's going on. It says Shannon on this.

No, it says Charles Rankleve, sir. What's going on? All right, we have a motion. Second from Dr. Rankleve. Thank you, sir. Let's vote. Councilman Brennan? Aye. All right. Item H3 passes. We're going to get through it. Item H4, consider a resolution of the City Council of the City of Keller, Texas, to consider a proposal to adopt a tax rate that will be lower than the no new revenue and voter approval tax rates and providing an effective date.

Thank you, Mayor, City Council, Brian Rubble, CFO. Tonight we are here to consider setting the max tax rate for the city. Just as a reminder, this is the maximum tax rate that can be approved and adopted at our September 15th meeting. We won't have time to change our mind to go above that, so tonight we're gonna set the maximum that it can be. Just kind of as a reminder, the budget adoption and tax rate adoption requirements per this Keller Charter and local government code. Our proposed budget was filed on August 13th. That was this past Thursday. We will post a notice of the proposed budget. We'll hold a public meeting on the proposed budget. That will be at the September 15th meeting. And we are required to adopt our budget by September 27th. That is again scheduled for the September 15th meeting. For the tax rate adoption per tax code, we're required to consider a proposed tax rate. That's what we're here to do tonight. We'll post the tax rate notice in the newspaper, the website, and our PEG channel. We will not have to hold a public hearing prior to adoption if we go with the proposed tax rate tonight that is under the no new revenue rate. Then we will adopt the budget. Again, that will be at the September 15th meeting. And we will also adopt the tax rate at that meeting. This slide should look familiar. It was the same slide as we had two weeks ago. We'll have several slides just as reminders from that presentation. This is the property tax history going back to FY18. You see off to the right, the voter approval rate is significantly higher than the no new revenue rate and proposed tax rate. That includes the unused increment that we have been banking and storing for going below the no new revenue rate. You also see going back to FY19, all the way through the proposed tax rate, the city has been at or below the no new revenue rate. Nine straight years. Well, we've actually been, have we been below the no new revenue rate?

Yes. Yeah, it's not even so at or below.

Yeah, it's not, yes, it's not even at or below, it's just below.

How long have we been at or below? Nine straight years. No, but like, were we above the state's no new revenue rate 10 years ago? Then is that what I can reasonably infer?

In 18, we were above the no new revenue.

Yes, right here in FY18. Yeah. We've been below it ever since? Yes, sir. Okay, so good work.

Added on 19, and then from there on out, we've been below.

Oh, awesome. Yes, sir.

All right, this is our proposed levy over here on the right. Here are proposed columns. We put a red box around it just to make it a little bit easier. You'll see that our current taxable value, 8.6 million for FY26, it has decreased significantly. to just under 8.2 billion. Our no new revenue rate is .300418. We're proposing a .300417. This will actually reduce property tax revenue for FY27 by about $363,000. The levy gained for new properties coming onto the tax roll at the proposed rate is about $160,000. This one just shows all the various truth in taxation rates. I want to focus mainly on this middle column. Again, it's our proposed column. You'll see down here in this middle row our average taxable home went from $478,600 in the current year, FY26, decreased about $19,000 to $459,000. As such, the no new revenue rate actually goes up because the values went down. Based on our proposed rate, however, the average homeowner will see an annual increase of $7.34. So not per month, total annual increase of $7. Going over to the right, just a little bit more information if we were to go with the voter approval rate. This is the max rate before voters have to vote on it. That would be .312. That would be an increase of $62.66. The voter approval rate with the unused increment from the past three years would go all the way up to 35,6099. That would be a $263 increase. But again, we are focused on this column right here, just $7.34 annual increase. So tax rate options, again, focuses on this middle column here in the red. We got our $7.34 increase. We added this column over to the right, the zero levy rate. This is just what the tax rate would be if we said we want the exact same property tax Revenue that we had in FY26, that would be a tax rate of 30.6115 cents. That would increase the annual tax bill for the average homeowner of $33.53. Just again, more information, but again, we are proposing this rate of 300417. Another familiar slide, tax mitigation going back to FY14. So in this timeframe, the city has decreased property tax rate and gone to the maximum state-allowed 20% homestead exemption. So over that, because of this tax mitigation, the average homeowner is saving about a little over $1,200 per year from what they were paying in FY14, or about 5.67 months of services. So tax bill cut almost in half in that time. This is just a nice visual illustration of what the average homeowner is getting per month in services for their $115.08. Public safety adds up to about 51%. of the total. That's pretty standard across cities like Keller, right around 50, just over 50%. The 26, 27 proposed budget for general fund by category, total budget of 47.8 million. Personnel services by far the largest expenditure category. We see a budget increase of 4.85%. Happy to announce this is the largest increase for public safety in at least the last 10 years. Really proud that we are able to do that this year. The other big change here is this decrease in transfers to other funds out of the general fund. That's primarily cash funding CIP projects. So with those changes, only a 1.1% increase in the general fund budget. FOR FY27. SOME OF OUR LARGE ONE-TIME EXPENDITURES IN THE GENERAL FUND ALONG WITH THE COMPENSATION THAT WE JUST MENTIONED. JUST A COUPLE THINGS I WANT TO POINT OUT. $500,000 FOR TOWN HALL PATIO REPAIR. LOOKING TO RENOVATE THE TOWN HALL PATIO OUT THERE BEHIND CITY HALL. or town hall, and the pothole patch truck, a little tongue twister. For $330,000, we're really excited about this. This will allow us to more efficiently fix potholes with fewer staff and do things quicker. So really excited about that one. And then the 30,000-foot overview of the budget real quick. It's an operationally balanced budget. It just means that our Ongoing expenditures are at or below our revenues. We are proposing a tax rate below the no new revenue rate. Again, ninth year in a row for that. Total personnel net increase of about 4.25%. That is for all funds. That includes, like I said before, largest public safety compensation adjustment in at least 10 years. and we're adding one FTE to the KDC budget. This budget will continue our investment in streets and sidewalk infrastructure by about $3 million. This will be the fifth year of the tourist number two fund. We do have rate adjustments to city water and wastewater fund. We are maintaining all replacement funding, including that pothole patch truck and a backhoe that was on the previous slide. and the repair of the town hall patio. That's a new goal for council this year.

Yeah, to be clear on that one, though, it's not like a beautiful renovation. We're just trying to make sure the thing doesn't fall off the back of town hall, right? Absolutely, yes. It's a foundation thing.

Yes, this is more of a foundation structural repair than anything else. Awesome, thanks. Yes. Real quick, budget timeline and our next steps. As mentioned before, we published our proposed budget on Thursday. Tonight, we will vote on the max tax rate. Again, we won't have time to go above that, so we'll vote on whatever. We can go below. We just can't go above what we vote on tonight. A week from tomorrow, so a Wednesday night meeting, we will have the tourist number two board meeting and budget workshop. The following Wednesday, we'll have our budget town hall at Tagen. Public welcome, casual, come hear more about the budget. Then on our regularly scheduled council meeting on Tuesday nights, we'll have a budget and tax rate adoption. That'll be September 15th. And then finally, the budget will go into effect on October 1 when our next fiscal year starts. So what we need tonight is a resolution approving a maximum tax rate. We are proposing a tax rate of 3,0041 cents, 417 cents. A max tax rate of 3,00418 could be voted on and would not require a public hearing because that is the official no new revenue rate calculated by the state. you can set a maximum tax rate up to 35.6099 cents that would require a public hearing but no vote from the citizens. And with that, I will be here to answer any questions that you may have.

Thanks, Brian. Mayor Pro Tem.

Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And obviously, we're not going to talk really discuss the budget approvals until September 15th. But I just wanted to make sure I got that. So you were saying the valuations of the houses went down about 4% or $19,000. And even with that, we're still looking at a rate below the no new revenue rate. Just clarifying. That and with massive inflation. Thank you.

Yeah, I think, you know, we're definitely in a different fiscal climate than when I first joined council back in 2020. You know, we're feeling different constraints as a city, but I think it's very amazing that we've gone nine years in a row below the no new revenue rate, all while supporting our staff, maintaining excellent quality of service. And so I just want to say thank you to our staff in particular and our residents for supporting us in that effort. It's amazing to see, you know, when you think about real dollars saving over $100 a month of what it would have been. I mean, it's rare that you see government entities leave about $3.2 million on the table, and we could have recovered that from our residents. We could have taken that out of our residents' pockets without a vote, right? Yes. Because that's the incremental rate. So for a city... our size to show that level of self-restraint is truly impressive. We'll keep preaching that, whether it's at the budget town hall at Taysian, which I hope you all attend. It's going to be, well, it's not going to be that riveting, but it'll be important, and there will be Taysian. So there's that. There's Crockett, Texas-style lobster, I guess, according to Mayor Pro Temp. But in all seriousness, in doing that, all while giving the largest increase to public safety in the past 10 years, that's amazing. Because that's definitely, based on the feedback I get from colleagues, exactly where we want the budget to be focused, public safety and infrastructure. So I just want to say kudos. It wasn't easy getting there. We probably had more gnashing of teeth this year than any other budget that I've been a part of. Erin, thank you. Brian, thank you. Marsha, appreciate you. And thanks to the team. With that, do we have a motion? Councilman Armstrong?

Mr. Mayor, motion to approve item H4.

Sir? Councilman Rankleaf?

Mr. Mayor, second.

Thank you, sir. Councilwoman Brennan, do you have any remarks? Are you ready to vote?

No, I'm ready to vote.

All right. Let's vote.

Aye.

Thank you. All right, and that is, our item H4 is approved, 6-0. With that, we do have a couple of work session items, and so we'll probably go ahead and tackle the work session before some of the executive sessions so we can get staff home, but we'll see you in work session. All right, we're back. Our projector has not turned on in work session, so we're going to be replacing that light bulb and starting our work session out here. So item D2, I think Sarah and her team have a presentation to discuss possible unified development code amendments related to fencing. Not the sport, I presume.

I'm sorry?

Not the sport, I presume.

If you guys want to talk about the sport, we can shift gears.

Probably more fun. No, it's important. All right.

So this is really just an introductory discussion. Just like any other code amendment that staff brings forward, there's always the option to do nothing. But the reason we wanted to at least do one single work session is we've found increasingly that the fence code in Keller is written for new development. So it presents challenges primarily for residential homeowners in established neighborhoods as we're trying to apply that code you know, to replacement fences. We've identified certain sections that are unclear, maybe a little bit confusing, or even silent, so the code doesn't even address certain things that come up somewhat routinely. And again, this is primarily affecting residential homeowners. Tonight, we're just looking for direction to either leave it as is, and we'll leave this issue where it is right now, or to do some further work session discussions, some additional research on the staff side, so that we can work towards some amendments later this fall. Just to give you a little bit of context in terms of how many fences are coming through the permitting office every year, in the last year, so this is data from our current system, 277 permit applications received in the past year. All but five of those were for residential properties. That's because most of our non-residential properties are required to do screening And so those are coming through as landscape screening walls with engineering foundations and things like that. So averaging anywhere between 20 and 25 fence permits per month. So this is not an exhaustive list of some of our concerns in the fence code. And again, some of these are things that have been brought up to us, not all identified by staff, but First is the property line distance requirement. How far off your property line a fence has to be in certain situations. And I've got some images that will illustrate that a little bit better here in a moment. Residential fences in front of a neighbor's home. This one in particular, I'm not sure we want to make any changes to. This was amended back in 2021, but it's been brought up with us by several neighbors. So we wanted to at least affirm with council that we're happy with the way the code reads. Open style fence requirements adjacent to trails, open space. parks, and then the kind of adjacent issue is interior fencing. So we've had residents that have been required to do open style fencing on their property, or maybe the developer a decade, two decades ago did open style fencing, and they want some privacy. So they ask questions about erecting some interior fencing. Drive gate setbacks is another issue. We've had several CBA cases over the last few years on this. Entry features to single lots. This probably sounds like a weird, what is she talking about type of phrase. This is usually for larger lots where they want to construct almost, the best way I can describe it is like the entrance to a ranch where you might see like the last name over the entrance. Again, usually on a large lot. The problem is the code is silent on how tall that can be, what can it look like, is it considered a sign? We don't have any regulations on that because typically they want the height to be understandably higher than the rest of the fence. Sport court fencing height, we've seen an increasing number of pickleball courts in backyards, basketball courts, batting cages. The way the code reads is the fencing for those types of amenities cannot be seen from a neighboring property or from the street, which presents a little bit of a challenge for almost all residential lots, even the larger properties in town. And then wood fencing on non-residential properties. This is again another thing that I'm not sure that we want to change in the code, but it's been brought up to us by a couple of property owners and something we may just want to affirm going through the process. Quickly going through some examples, and I don't have an example of every single one of these issues. If we do decide to go through with code amendments, we'll dive deeper into each one of them as time allows at future work sessions. Looking at the property line distance requirement, so on the left is an image of 357 College Street. It's directly across from Bear Creek Park. What the property owner wanted to do was replace a fence that he's had for decades. It's a privacy fence. That neighborhood has been there for many, many years. The current code says you have to be four feet off the property line. The issue there is that if you look at the aerial, they've done a lot of landscaping, trees, and it's not just them. A lot of the properties along that stretch have done gardens and other seating areas, just utilizing the space in their backyard. And then when they come in and want to do a replacement fence, they're told, oh, well, you're going to have to cut into all of that that you've established in your backyard maybe for decades. This one actually went to ZBA. They had great support from their neighbors, and it was approved in 2024. Um, we've had at least one other case on that stretch that's come up. Um, and we anticipate more in the future, again, just because of the way that, uh, code is written, where people feel like they're losing a portion of their backyard just to replace a fence that may have been there for, you know, longer than probably most of us have been in Keller. Um, residential fences in front of neighbors homes. So again, this was part of the 2021 amendment. If you look in the UDC, you'll see an image that very closely resembles the image on the upper right hand side of the screen. The idea being you can't have a side yard fence, a privacy fence, any closer to the property line than 25 feet if it's in front of the front of a neighboring property. So, let me get this. So on this one, here's the front of their neighbor's property. this fence has to be 25 feet back. It can be four feet back if it's open style. And of course, the response is we're not being able to utilize our backyard. We want more privacy. This is one, again, we may not want to change, but this particular property owner has really wanted it to be brought up with council. A few others have brought the same concern. Occasionally, we have other situations like this one over here. 923 is actually all owned by the same person. They wanted a privacy fence right here, which is actually technically in front of this property, the front of this home down here, but it's a full 200 feet away. So there's not really much wiggle room in the code right now, though, other than going to ZBA if you're wanting to do something outside of the black and white guidelines.

So you're saying the front of the property is the front door, not the road in this case? Or am I looking at this map wrong where the dotted line is?

So this property owner at 923 has this whole corner lot. On Tad, it's split in two, but it's all one property. They wanted a privacy fence down right here, which is technically in front of.

Yeah, you were saying it's in the front of the one on the bottom of the picture. Keller Smithfield's on the left. Correct. And that's what I'm saying. You're basing it off the front door, I guess. Yes. Okay. Yes. That's what I was asking.

Just a few other examples, open style fence requirements adjacent to trails and open space. The two top images are different views of the same area. So one of the properties along 1522 or along Kingwood Drive wanted to go in with a replacement fence. I believe theirs is this one right here is the one that was in question. because they're adjacent to the trail, technically the code says they have to go back in with open style. Of course, the response is no one else has open style, we want the privacy, we're gonna put an open style fence with privacy fences all around us. We also don't want open style fence feet away from the trail. Somewhat similar situation, the images on the bottom are both of the Chase Oaks activity node area. where you've got kind of off the screen over here, you've got the actual activity know where the playground and the basketball court are, and then all of this drainage easement area, open space. And we kind of have a hodgepodge back there. It's not unique to this area where you've had some people that probably have replaced fences in the last few years come in with open style. And then other people that have had that privacy fencing.

I've been asked that. Why, especially like in Chase Oaks and other Why do we require the open fencing? I don't mean to put you on the gun here, but what's the thought process on that? Because I get asked by residents and I don't really have a good answer.

So what's in the code right now is that if your property backs up to trail, open space, drainage easement, a park, you have to do open style fencing.

Right, right, but I meant the why. Is there a reason that we did just visual aesthetics?

I think the visual openness, and I'm sure there were other reasons put in place by people that are much more knowledgeable about fences than I. No, fair enough. I think especially in certain areas, along a trail or sidewalk, sometimes the feeling of having more of an open space with the open style fence is nice. I mean, I think like the top image, everybody has a different opinion, but it's not always a great look to have that hodgepodge of privacy fences because everybody chooses different wood, different style pickets, different stain, and then as they age at different, you know, they're always going to look kind of mismatched. But those are all my guesses.

No, that makes sense. I get asked, I'm like, other than code.

Sure. Yeah. Thank you. And then this is one more example of the open style fence requirement adjacent to a park. So up to the north kind of off your screen is the Keller Smithfield activity node. Some of the property owners along Bear Run have expressed concern. Technically the requirement is for them to have open style fencing. They've been concerned about wildlife and just other access to their property by doing open style fencing. They would rather have the privacy there next to that tree stand and This is a picture taken from the parking lot at the activity node. Obviously these folks have privacy fencing right now, but at some point, maybe 10 years, maybe more, if the code stays, the technical requirement would be open style fencing for their lot. And then lastly, this is one that comes up quite a bit. Properties that have open style fencing either because we required it or because the developer chose to put it in or maybe it got agreed to as part of the plan development, they desire more screening, more privacy for their swimming pool, their kids playing in the backyard, whatever it is. And so we get asked all sorts of things. Can we zip tie stuff to the open style fencing? Can we put up nets? Can we put up panels? Can we, you know, these folks put up some privacy fencing, some wood fencing. Right here, this is actually two sides of the same entrance to the same neighborhood. These folks have a little bit of privacy fencing for their backyard, but the rest of it just has some screening. And I'm sorry, this is kind of a dark picture, but the code doesn't really speak to that interior fencing. And can you technically put up a privacy fence, you know, a couple feet away from required open style fencing? The preference is always live screening. You drive all over town and find that where somebody's had open-style fencing and they've planted pretty dense shrubbery along that and let it grow long enough, it does provide pretty good screening. Usually the response we get when we recommend that is they don't want to wait for that to grow in. A couple things, just referencing what different codes are relevant to this possible UDC amendment. Local government code 211 gives cities the ability to regulate things like fences and then UDC section 9.07 deals with single family fencing, 9.08 deals with non-residential fencing. Next steps, council direction to proceed or council direction to leave the code as it is. We would be doing probably a future work session either with the council if we were to proceed or with the planning and zoning commission depending on the council's desire. We want to do some review of guidelines in other cities, draft language for the specific issues identified in the fence code. We're not looking to rewrite the entire thing. There's a lot of really good stuff in there and a lot of stuff that's working really well, especially for new development. The focus, I think, for staff on this was making it more user-friendly for residents, especially those, again, in established neighborhoods. You know, if you're coming in as a developer and building a new subdivision, you need to follow the basic code, but we're trying to build in a little bit more flexibility for those folks in existing neighborhoods. Happy to answer any questions. Thanks, Sarah. Yeah.

I mean, y'all have any questions or comments for Sarah before we weigh in on? Would you bring up, if you don't mind, the slide where you were asking for direction, basically?

This may be a little bit more simple.

Yeah. I mean, any thoughts, Council? Yeah.

on you know unfortunately we might have to go one by one and if i don't know like some of them seem obvious to me when there's a hundred feet in the front of the house is the front door pointing north but 99 of citizens would consider the front of the house what's facing the road and people pulling the driveway just because someone chose to put their door on one side and the other neighbor wants a privacy fence and then also the open fencing the green ways i get that um because you want it open but We do have those rare situations where people want privacy for their pool and their kids swimming, especially if they're next to a road on the end of a greenway. So if there's situations where we can make pragmatic changes like that, I'm always for it. Fencing is one of those things that might seem mundane, but it affects everyone intimately. And I can remember the mayor one time advocating for residents for almost six months on a fencing issue. So these things can go on. Yeah. So if we can make changes that are practical and easy, I get they affect everyone, but some of these things, like that one resident that I would comment on, that seems like they should be able to put a privacy fence there. Look at the hundreds of feet before the next house. So anyway, just my two cents on that.

Thanks, sir. Can I jump in if you have any? Councilman Brennan, do you have anything? I always want to make sure you're here.

Not really, other than I'd I can relate to people having a hard time with the requirement that you have open style fencing along your backyard. If it's next to, is it a green space or parkland or a trail or whatever the rule was associated with that? Cause people have pools and stuff back there and you know, people want privacy and I, and I get it. Not everybody wants to do all the gardening and bushes and plants and stuff. It seems like we should have some,

leeway on that particular one um that's my two cents thanks councilwoman by the way some of us just don't have that skill set some of us like plant things and then they die so i'm joking i'm joking good comments um councilman armstrong one of the photos is in my neighborhood in

that fence has been an issue since the last at least 10 years. The original change in that backyard, the resident came in and put that wooden fence up against the stockade or the wrought iron fence. And then it was, they were asked to move it back. They claimed that it was that way when they bought it. There was pictures proven that it was not there. So they did move it back and it's moved back almost two feet from the wrought iron fence. It's not maintained very frequently. And then there's one section that's about six inches from the wrought iron fence again, and it's not maintained at all. It's unsightly. And when you can't maintain it with a weed eater or you're not gonna spray it to kill the vegetation in there, it devalues a property. So I think there needs to be some more work done on it to give staff leeway and code enforcement the opportunity to be able to have some teeth in something.

Yeah, well said. Mayor Pro Tem?

Actually, Councilman Armstrong, the way he ended was kind of what I was going to push for. Maybe that's the easiest way to give you all the power to do that, but if you all need clear expectation, unfortunately some of these situations are very specific, even though they happen a lot. So I don't know, Mr. Mayor, unless we want to update specific code, unfortunately maybe as it comes, or maybe you come back with the three or five most common ones like you did here. and just say, hey, can you 100% clarify, which kind of did, but, you know, just my two cents.

Yeah, I think I'm kind of where the mayor pro tem's at, and what he said there, and maybe pick the most common ones that are creating issues, I mean, you're right, Shannon, I always go back to the, like, if the fence has been there for 40 years, and has caused no harm, it's probably okay for the fence to be there another 40 years type situation, and so if we can As you said, Sarah, continue to hold new development to a high standard and find ways to make our code a little bit more resident-focused for existing neighborhoods. I think that's smart. The only thing I would tell you is I wouldn't spend a lot of time looking at other cities. I think you all have enough experience that you kind of know. You kind of know what needs to change, I think, instinctually. And if there are other issues that pop up, we should probably revisit an ordinance like this from time to time. So thanks for bringing it forward. I don't think there's any other problems. Did you have anything? No. Greg, you good? Okay. So I think that's probably the direction that you needed. Thanks for bringing it forward and looking forward to tackling that one. All right. Who has the D3, the sculpture designs for the roundabouts? Yeah, I just made that plural. I was going to say that. Just like slip a tongue? Slip a tongue. Yeah. Jordan, how are you?

I'm good. How are y'all this evening?

Good. Thanks for asking. I mean, if Alonzo gets his way, we're going to need like 25 sculptures for the City of Keller, so be ready.

Well, it's just one sculpture of you, right, that's going in every roundabout.

People start crashing. So ugly. All right.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. So tonight I have a presentation of some roundabout sculpture options. These are three artists that have had rotating sculptures within our Old Town Keller rotating sculpture program. So the first one up is Fred Rosette. and he currently has a sculpture in Old Town color called Wishful Thinking II. We call it the dandelion sculpture. This is the recommendation from the art board for the one to put at Mount Gilead in Borland. It's a series of dandelion sculptures. The dandelion is universally recognized by people of all ages and cultures. Designed to enhance the public setting, the sculpture brings both elegance and a sense of playfulness appealing to people of all ages in the community. If this one seems a little too small, he does have other sculptures exactly like this, just different sizes and heights. So sizing can be changed. And if we wish to purchase it, it is at a price tag of $8,000. The next artist is Pascal Pryor. This is an option that she gave us and recommended for the size of roundabout that we have. For permanent install, she does recommend to repaint it with automotive grade paint or at least have a powder coated finish to last longer. It is currently on lease in Baytown, Texas, but the artist can pick up early if needed. She also has these two sculptures. The one on the left is currently at her studio and the red flowers on the right is currently in Old Town Keller. And then lastly, we have Jeffy Brewer. He was an artist that helped kickstart our sculpture, rotating sculpture. So he had the blue heron in Old Town Keller. So this particular sculpture has been sold, but he can rebuild it just depending on the size and material we would want it built out of. He recommends a 20-foot sculpture. So depending on material, a 20-foot steel sculpture would be $31,500. So tonight, we are just looking for a recommendation for which sculpture mayor and council would like to see at that roundabout, and then we can move forward with the purchasing.

Thanks, Jordan. Well, anyone that's seen me comment over the years on public art knows that it's usually a foot and mouth moment almost every time. So just to start, are the sculptures permanent? Is that the idea?

So we would purchase a sculpture and own it and it'd be permanent in the roundabout until future mayor and council decide they want to switch it out or it gets damaged and we want to replace it, but it would be permanent.

So yeah, it's not like it's going to be a rotating thing? No, sir.

It'd be permanent.

Or some poor soul gets out there and like lifts it up and leaves it everywhere. All right. So is there a picture of all three on one slide?

There is not, but I am happy to go back and forth whichever you would like to look at. So the first one is wishful thinking.

Okay.

The dandelion, this is a recommendation from Artboard. The next one is either a fish, which is on lease right now, and the sunflower is at her studio available, and the red flowers are in Old Town right now.

Great.

And the last one is the heron that would have to be built.

Okay. Can't get cattle egrets out of my brain when I look at that. So I'll just be really straightforward. I love the idea of the sculpture. I'm just one of six here tonight. So if we have a foot-in-mouth moment, then they can clean up whatever I said. But I'll be honest with you. I would love to see something a little bit more like Keller-centric in terms of, because we only have two roundabouts, right? Three? Where's the third? This will be the third. Oh, so this is for the new one. Got it. Yes. So I was looking at Johnson.

No, sir. Yeah, Mount Gilead and Borland. Got it. So it's going to be a smaller roundabout.

All right. Perfect. Yeah, it would be really cool to see something that has a little bit more of a Keller connection. That's just my immediate, like, instinctual feedback. there's some things that, you know, tie into this town, whether it's the water tower, the railroad, Samantha Springs. I mean, there's just things that, you know, when I look at these sculptures, I don't know, was that a consideration or a factor that was really weighed?

The, what we brought to art board was...

This one looks like my yard a little bit. Sure. The dandelions.

Yeah, previous council directive, from what I was told, was we wanted to either... purchase a piece we have within the rotating sculpture or use an artist that has been within the rotating sculpture program. So either way to support them in a way that supported our program. So these were just options that we've had or artists we've had. The other rotating sculptures are either oddly shaped that wouldn't fit in the roundabout So these specifically were just picked from what we have already had. We can go back to the artist and see if they can come up with something customized. That price tag would go up if we go that route, but I'm happy to get options.

Okay, and this comes from the public arts?

Public art board, yes, sir.

Okay, cool. That's helpful for me. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I love this kind of stuff. That said, Councilwoman Brennan, She's very artsy, and I would love to hear her opinions on this in a second. I defer to the arts board in a lot of these. I like that one. I like that they're choosing ones that are 14. That one was 20 feet. I will say this. I have to go through Colleyville a lot, and their statues are fine. I like that these are very different. I have no problem with the mayor's recommendation, but I kind of like the one the art board did, although the color of the other ones was interesting. But I really like the idea of putting sculptures in these roundabouts. It's kind of the point I wanted to speak to. So I know in one we have a tree, but if we do sculptures, I really like that. And I think they're actually more durable and we don't have to worry about watering a tree or plants and so forth. But when it comes back around, I'd love to hear Councilwoman Brennan's thoughts.

Thank you, sir. Councilman Armstrong.

Got just a couple of questions. Number one, why are we going different for this roundabout than we've done the other two? That's one question. Because the other one at Johnson, it's just full of plants. Sure. Okay. And the second question will be the money, I'm sure, has already been discussed and allocated somewhere prior to me getting here. But I'm going to be probably the least one that's artsy on this group in terms of If we are going to go artsy, I would prefer it to be more coloristic like you're talking about. But if you'll answer those, thank you.

Yeah, it was just a recommendation to change the roundabout just to get sculptures more into the town and bring art throughout the community. We do have a budget within the public art board that we get a percentage from development and commissions from artwork. So that budget can only be used to purchase art. So this would be coming out of that budget that can only be used for the purchase. Awesome.

All right.

Councilman Will. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I'm assuming you've already thought of this, but I just want to, for my due diligence, ask the question anyway. Are these going to be up on pedestals or something so that way somebody looking at their cell phone doesn't? take out a $30,000 sculpture just based on the tire marks on the current roundabouts. I want to make sure that we're not going to throw money down the drain.

Yes, sir. So the way the roundabout is designed, it is similar to the one on Bear Creek Parkway where it's going to have a spiral wall leading up to the center. And so it does slightly, slowly elevate, and there will be an eight-foot round platform that it will be permanently put on. So there is some buffer between where the road is drivable on versus where the statue will be, and there's some walls that can help interfere with wrecks. Not saying that somebody going insanely fast can't go through the wall, but there is some barrier light. And there is going to be uplighting. Kimley Horn is in the process of designing that, so they're planning on uplighting to put lights on the statue and make it a really pretty centerpiece for nighttime. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely.

Good question, Councilman Will, Councilman Rankleaf, and then Councilman Brennan. We'll go to you next in case you have any comments.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah. Oh, you're going to talk.

Okay.

Sorry.

I'm happy to yield my time to the resident.

No, you know what? You just go right ahead. I'll go last.

Yeah, I agree with the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem and Councilman Armstrong. I think it'd be nice to see these a little bit more Keller-centric, I would add, though, too, that when we think about like a train or a water tower, maybe also include maybe wildlife as part of that consideration as well. I mean, we do have wide open spaces and lots of trees. And from time to time, I do see white-tailed deer and all sorts of other stuff out here.

But not a statue of a tree, right? That's not what you're saying.

No, not a statue of a tree. I just want to be very clear. We have lots of trees.

Statue of a tree. Absolutely.

Thank you, sir.

All right, on that note, Councilwoman Brennan, please weigh in.

Yeah, so, yeah. Yeah, I appreciate the Public Arts Board's work they did in coming up with options for us to look at. For me, the last one, the one that's the tall blue bird, that's $31,500. I think that's a bit much. I think having something, a bright color right there doesn't really fit in. Mount Gilead and Borland's kind of rural. And so, I mean, I rather agree with the art board's recommendation of that dandelion. I think that's pretty cool. And it's kind of, you know, it's vegetation. I know it's not Keller themed, although some people who don't do very good job in their yards have a lot of dandelions. So one could argue that dandelions are Keller themed. And I think that You know, we have to think about budget also. And I think they did a good job of kind of giving us a wide gambit of choices and budgets. And the day in line seems reasonable to me, price-wise. I don't know if for something like that, whereas the last one didn't. Certainly, I don't like the bright colors. I don't like the red flowers and the blue fish and the blue flamingo. I just think that just doesn't fit in to what that location looks like. So yes, this is right up my alley, but I will yield to whatever everybody else wants to do.

Yeah, great comments, Councilwoman. What are the prices again? So the heron is $31,500.

These two are $4,500 and $6,750. The fish is $6,500, and the dandelion is $8,000.

I wonder, just a thought, if we kind of blend the ideas being discussed, I wonder if we go with the, seems like the design and aesthetic of the public arts board recommendation is, I mean, I agree with Councilman Brennan out of the options, I wonder if we go to that artist and say, hey, could you kind of come up with some ideas that, not just Keller, but Councilman Rankley's point, are also very Texan in nature. That could be pretty cool, and maybe have them do just a small handful of mock-ups. That's such a broad way to describe it. You could do like a... kind of a ranching theme. You could do a cowboy theme. We'd get Chris Wiley's vote if we did that. So anyway, that would be my personal feedback, because I would probably go to that artist and say, hey, let's go that direction. But Mayor Pro Tem, what do you think?

Yeah, I agree. Mr. Mayor, that's fine. I was just going to add, for those listening and to our new council members possibly, and ask the city manager, the funds for this come from the arts fees from developers when they develop, right? So for those listening... The payment for these is the money paid for by developers, and they develop within the city. A little small portion of that goes to art, and that's where the funds for this come from. Just wanted to clarify that.

And that budget can only be used for the purchase of art. Good point.

Councilman Armstrong?

Mr. Mayor, if I had to pick one, and we go with the choices that I would agree, this one is probably named appropriate since it's closest to the potential data center.

That's dry humor. Gotta love it, Councilman. I hear you. Keller will be heard. Dr. Rankleaf?

You know, it's really hard to follow that. I just want to be really clear. I don't want a statue of a tree around about.

Come on. That's good. Good feedback. Councilman Brennan, any cleanup comments? Or have you kind of shared your piece?

Yeah, I'm good. I'm the first of all of wants to present. I like to be in line the best. And if somebody wants to go back and revisit the theme and do something, I had no problem with that either.

Awesome. So, you know. As Councilman Rankley stated, we don't want a tree. Maybe as I was trying to explain at commission, a couple of just concepts. I don't want them to toil away for just tons of time, but just if they have some easy to understand, easy to mock up concepts that incorporate Texan or Keller themes as well, then that would kind of give us probably a small handful of options to choose from, and maybe we end up going with the dandelions.

Yes, sir. I will do that. Thank you.

Thanks, Jordan. All right. Impact fee program credits.

E-4.

Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers, Alonzo Lignon, Public Works Director.

Let me see if I can get the right one up here. All right, here we go. This evening what we're going to be talking about is the impact fee credit and the policy that's required to support this. In plain vernacular, what are we talking about, why should we care, and what is required of this body is what we're going to cover. What we're talking about is Chapter 395, which is the impact fee state tax local government chapter that talks about impact fees. It requires, as a result of the last legislative session and was required to have it in place in 26, that if you have an impact fee program, you have to also have an opportunity for credits towards those who exhibit or have integrated into their design water conservation. So instead of just charging them for taking water, give credit for any reductions in that design. The purpose of the policy is to establish a uniform citywide process. You'll notice that this is written to support Fort Worth's long-term water goals demand. Fort Worth is who we buy water from. We are under contractual obligation to be just as restrictive as they are or more so. And what we have this evening is an outline of what their program looks like. I'm going to jump to the end, but we're still going to go through the next couple of slides. My recommendation is that we adopt or pattern ours completely after what Fort Worth did rather than to come up with a novel credit scheme for Keller. So that's why you're going to see reference to Fort Worth in this. The idea is to encourage voluntary and permanent water conservation as part of their development design. The types of credits are two-fold, residential slash irrigation on one side and non-residential on the other, for 5% and 2% respectively. Credits are to be applied only to those that voluntarily propose that water conservation. In the simplest of layouts, they propose what kind of water conservation they want to put into place. They have a metering system that validates that over the next five years. At the end of the five years, it gets evaluated by, in this case, Keller. And then if it meets those projections that they had predicted, then they get rebated that 2% or 5%. Two and 5% on what? What does that really mean? These are Keller-specific impact fees for water, and our impact fees vary by the size of the water meter that is installed to the property. Five-eighths is the standard, and then it goes all the way up to massive hospital size. And you can see the last two columns on the right, two and five, five and 2%, the amounts that would be credited back per unit at the end of five years. I think this is important because it illustrates the amount of break even that's gonna be necessary to meter it, to monitor it, and to do that for individual units as you go through. And so what our options are for this evening is to adopt the Fort Worth credit or to develop a Keller unique one. There really should be a third if we adopt Fort Worth's before this body acts on it. We'll go back and we'll make the references specific to Keller. We reference the Keller Water Conservation Plan. We reference Keller's water conservation goals, we reference Keller's impact fees so that it's not a word for word, but it's 99.9% going to be the same as what Fort Worth has. That's what the ultimate recommendation is, is to move forward with Fort Worth's impact-free credit program. What does that mean? for us. So let me see if I can pull up a PDF. So here's what we have here. So this was adopted by Fort Worth in January of 26. It's nine pages. I'm not going to walk you through all of it. I'm just going to walk you through essentially what we're just going to swap out. We'll change the header. We'll refer to our water conservation plan, our regional conservation efforts, which is going to be the same with TRDWD. These are all just definitions. Then we get to the meat of the credit, which essentially says it's going to be, and we'll reference our own water conservation plan. It's voluntary. It's going to be collected on water. I'll take out wastewater because we don't, we wouldn't credit that back to the wastewater. And then we have impact fees are only eligible if they are sustained for five years. I wanted to go through this in a bit more detail because this says that there's a minimum 50 single family unit to be done. When you're Fort Worth, that happens every day. When you're Keller, not likely to happen very often. We may want to reduce that to a more reasonable number. But by the time we start getting down to 20, 15 units, as you saw in the presentation, we're not talking about a whole lot of return for five years of constant effort. And then finally, the 2 and 5% would be repeated as well. We've reached the end of our pages there. Oh, no, we haven't. I'm sorry. We would also... change out this to reflect exactly what we have in our water conservation goal document, which is not 68 gallons per capita per day. It'll be closer to the 75, which is what we have. But again, we'll colorize that. And then we have other things that we would monitor throughout. In the end, and you can see that while it's not a complicated policy, it is involved and takes a lot of hands on. I'm not saying that it's right or wrong. I'm saying that we are required to by the state to have a conservation or a credit policy with an impact fee policy. In the end, we're not sure how many developers will take advantage of this, but this helps us to check that box.

Okay. Thanks, Alonzo. So, Mayor Pro Tem?

I was just going to, so you kind of answered it at the end. I was going to ask if it actually, because water conservation is a big issue, and I know there's several council members that are looking into doing a task force on water conservation, but does this have, do you think this will have any actual tangible effect? in development of using newer technologies in water conservation? Or is this more of just checking the box because looking for actual results?

So the actual results I think are going to be better realized in our water conservation plan as it encourages a multitude of actions. Much like, and I briefly went over it when I, the Fort Worth one referenced there, table 3.4. we have a table as well in our water conservation program, which has a whole lot of steps that you're supposed to be taking anyway. This rebate or credit program are for those that go beyond that. And so I would be speculating on how many developers of one, two, three, 10 lots would be willing to do.

Okay.

I was just curious.

It's admirable.

Thanks, Shannon. So I guess if I was, Karen, did you have something?

I did. Go ahead. Just a couple things. Of course, I like this idea. I like the fact it's not mandatory. You're not making anybody do it. It's giving an incentive to save water because we know water is a long-term issue for the state of Texas, and that's a good thing. I like the fact also that it's measurable. So we're not just topping talking points. They have to demonstrate it by data over a five-year period. And so I thought, well, it doesn't hurt anything. I mean, somebody doesn't have to do it, but I think anything we could do to encourage people to conserve water in the state of Texas is a good thing.

All right. So it's a program that we're required to implement by the state?

We had to have some kind of a credit policy with the Impact View program. What I'm recommending is that we use Fort Worth's policy rather than to have a novel one.

Has the Capital Improvement Advisory Committee reviewed this?

They have looked at it, and their recommendation was to bring it here and not to have something unique to Keller.

Okay, and did they have any specific recommendations? They did not.

The recommendation was use Fort Worth's. Don't develop something unique.

Okay. I just want to make sure that we got their input. So we don't need to vote on it? That's correct.

This is a work session item just for information. I'll return in a month, and we'll take formal action on it.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks, Alonzo. Unless the council has any other questions on it, then Karen, you good? I'm good. Okay. All right. So we do have a few executive session items. Thanks, staff, for getting us through the work session fairly quickly. I'll go ahead and read off the required language. The council meeting is now recessed so that the council in compliance with the provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act is authorized therein shall go into executive session to consider matters allowed therein as stated in the agenda according to section 551071, consultation with attorney regarding ITEMS B, BEVERLY GROVE, BELLA CASA, PHASE 2, ZONING DISCUSSION, ITEM C, ITEM D, SANITARY SEWER EXTENSION POLICY, AND ALSO UNDER SECTION 551.087 OF THE TEXAS GOVERNMENT CODE TO DISCUSS AND DELIBERATE REGARDING COMMERCIAL OR FINANCIAL INFORMATION THAT THE GOVERNMENTAL BODY HAS RECEIVED FROM A BUSINESS PROSPECT TO DELIBERATE THE OFFER OF A FINANCIAL OR OTHER INCENTIVE TO THE BUSINESS PROSPECT DESCRIBED BY THE SUBDIVISION SPECIFICALLY RELATED TO ME DEVELOPMENT, AND ALSO UNDER SECTION 551.072 Deliberation regarding real property, 1000 Bear Creek Parkway. All right, going to exec. All right, we're back from executive session. It's 1029, and there's no action to be taken. We need a motion to adjourn. Motion. Second.

Thank you.