Council - Regular Meeting

We'll call the City Council meeting of July 6, 2026 to order at 7.15 p.m. and ask the City Recorder to call the roll.

Council President Briggs? Here. Councilor Berrientos?

Here.

Councilor Blosser?

Here.

Councilor Fitzgerald? Here. Councilor Holzapfel?

Here.

Councilor Jantz?

Here.

Councilor Schilling? Here. Councilor Shane?

Here.

Councilor Spivey?

Do we have a quorum let's please join me in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Thank you. Brian, do we have any introductions tonight? All right, we'll move right on to public comment. Before we do that, I have a script I need to read. For the record, please provide us with your name and whether or not you live inside the city limits. You have up to three minutes. It's your turn to talk and ours to listen. You are responsible for the content, even if it was written by someone else. please direct all comments to the mayor do not direct your comments to individual counselors staff members or the audience defamatory or libelous comments will not be accepted is it expected that you'll maintain decorum and respect for each other a wide variety of viewers watch these proceedings therefore we would kindly ask that you refrain from the use of offensive language and name calling distractions take attention from the speaker the audience city council members and city staff are asked to focus on the speaker during their time by being respectfully quiet and the first person i have up is susan buckingham

That's not about pickleball.

Oh.

Hello, my name is Susan Buckingham and I am here tonight to express a concern that I have regarding the increase of motorized bikes and scooters in the parks and on the walking paths in our city. There have been numerous times that I have been walking on a trail or path and have been passed by an electric bike, e-bike, or scooter without any notice or warning. This concerns me in terms of my own safety, my dog's safety, and the safety of others who have also experienced this. The situation became even more concerning last Wednesday at the city park When a young person wrote across the footbridge at high speed on a bike came close to hitting my seven year old granddaughter and ultimately collided with the young girl on a skateboard. She was injured and taken by ambulance from the scene, I was not surprised that this happened and i'm sure there are other instances as well. I would like the Council to consider some options that would be proactive in helping to lessen the possibilities. of more accidents and make the parks and walking paths safer, please consider the following. Revising the outdated municipal codes regarding city and park policies around motorized e-bikes and scooters as there has been a tremendous increase in these modes of transportation in the past few years. Increasing and adding signage to make sure that people are aware of the regulations. There is only one faded, outdated sign on the footbridge stating that bikes are to be walked across. There are no signs along walking paths that tell the public what is allowed. along with regulations, reminding people that people walkers, that people who are walking have the right of way. And when riding up to someone, they should announce their presence before passing. Perhaps contacting the local paper and social media outlets and asking them to promote safety, public awareness regarding the increase in number of accidents would also be helpful. And involving the local schools in more awareness of the etiquette and regulations through our local police would be effective. Since I am not here to just criticize or complain, I am more than happy to be involved in any way I can to help make these suggestions happen. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Susie. All right. Next up, I have Anne Hurd.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm here to give you just a little update on the Friends of the Dallas Aquatic Center. We sent out a summer newsletter to our email list of, I don't know, 3,000 or 4,000 people. And this is what it said. It's been a busy year so far. The leisure pool has been resurfaced and the whale slide replaced the fountains that were no longer cost effective. You, our donors, donated $12,000 to fix a spa, and the therapy pool continues to be repaired. It is getting a larger heat exchanger and a new backflow valve, hopefully open in two weeks. And the joint effort class that usually is held in that pool, they have... very nicely agreed to do their their class in the leisure pool so that's really helpful these projects even though there's a seven degree difference these projects are made possible by business banner yearly payments and your donations to fdac thank you since we started in 2019 we have given the trust account with the city for pool repairs and maintenance $292,922.31. We also have $3,909 in savings, grants, and scholarships, and $10,449 in checking. That's over $307,000 raised for the pool by you and local businesses in eight years. This balance includes the $82,500 we received in May from the Scatterday family bequest in their wills. And then we tell them about how if there's over 70 and a half and they have an IRA, they can make a qualified charitable donation distribution to any charity they want without having to pay any tax to the government. And we already have several patrons who do this. And then I give our name, phone number, I mean, address and our EIN number, a nonprofit number. Projects in fiscal year 26, 27 may include to say may include i can't say are going to be but it is going to happen new chairs and tables for the party rooms locker room upgrades hvac system upgrades and whatever comes along that needs to be fixed and replaced we believe that we have the best swimming facility in the willamette valley used by so many people thank you for your continued support of your wonderful dallas aquatic center and then we just put our board names, Ann Hurd, David Morelli, Kay Graven, Dean Sprague, and Nancy Wilson. And in the last few weeks, they've made an HVAC repair of $10,000 that allows more air to more hot air to be taken out of the facility and um also some doors were fixed that needed to be fixed and the therapy pool is probably going to cost and that's like 13 000 the therapy pool is going to be about 5 000 probably so we're in good shape thank you thank you ann do we have anyone else in the audience who wants to testify tonight

Do you have anyone online? No, we'll close public comment and move on to the next item. The consent agenda, the approval of work session minutes of June 15th and the city council minutes of June 15th. Uh, if there's no discussion, I need to entertain a motion. Move by councilor Shane second by councilor Spivey. Um, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed passes unanimously. Um, Let's see here. Reports or comments from mayor and council members. Any council members have anything to report tonight? If not, we'll move on to reports from the city manager and staff. Brian.

Thank you, Mayor Slack. So we have two topics tonight. The first one is a recommendation from the Public Works Committee, and this is regarding improvements to the intersection at Jasper and Ellendale up in the northwest corner of town. So the committee looked at making some improvements to this intersection. Part of it was born out of a development application up off of James Howe Road that was going to, they studied the different intersections for the added traffic that that development was going to uh incur and uh the recommendation from their traffic study was to in uh to create new turn lanes at the jasper and ellendale intersection for vehicles both eastbound and westbound traffic to turn off of ellendale onto jasper and so as part of that we looked at also other intersection improvements that could be made at that intersection to include enhancing pedestrian safety so we're looking at not only having the striping redone at that intersection but also adding A little bit more narrow of a crosswalk at that intersection to allow pedestrians to be able to cross more safely, be more visible to the motor vehicles that are going through that intersection, east and westbound. That improvement would include the installation of rapid flashing beacon signage so people can pedestrians can push the button activate the signs to flash indicating that there's someone wanting to cross the street. So the vehicles have been notified and stop for those pedestrians. So in total, we're looking at doing that project. We looked at different options also adding a center turn lane. West of that intersection along Elendale all the way down to Leavens. The committee recommended to not do that, but just instead to opt for the turn lanes at the intersection as well as the pedestrian improvements with the flashing beacons. So the different options that the committee reviewed are included in attachment A to this report. The recommendation from the committee and for staff is to move forward with option two, which enables all modes of transportation to have their safety elements included, including the bike lanes, the vehicle lanes, the turning lanes for the vehicles, and the pedestrian crosswalk at Jasper and Allendale. There's a recommended motion on page seven of the report to have staff move forward with those improvements as shown on attachment A option two. And then the staff would contract to get that work done this summer and into the fall.

Councilor Schilling, I have to apologize. I was gone public the last committee meeting when I was up in Canada for the week. During that time, did we have any public testimony?

So we did. We notified the neighbors who live on the south side of Ellendale between Jasper and Leavens because each of the options restricts some on-street parking. The option that we selected will remove on-street parking for the first five houses west of Ellendale on the south side. So again, we had the neighbors, we notified them, we knocked on their door, we also gave them mailings, and they did come to the committee meeting and testified. And each of those neighbors have an option to be able to accommodate parking either on site or in the near vicinity. And so, yeah, this was the option again recommended by the committee, it has the least amount of impact it. It restricts parking, again, because of the turn lanes for those first five houses on the south side. Was the third house represented? The third house was represented. And they were still asking not to do it? Their concern is with some mobility issues that they have. And we talked about particularly getting their mail. But they do have an ability to park their vehicle off the street. Their biggest concern was being able to access the shared mailbox off of Allendale. So we talked through what that would look like.

I bring it up is at the meeting if if we're going to do something at the intersection, I'm not sure that I want to revisit this again. And what I mean by that is, we all know that the city plans that we, we have to eliminate parking on both sides of the street and that would be option option 1. And so when I was originally against this, either I'm totally against it, or I think we should go for the whole thing and get it done and do it right so that there are turn lanes for the businesses in and out, because it's not just this intersection. And I know that there was an accident, but it was technically unrelated. A pedestrian got hit by a scooter, whatever. I mean, a scooter got hit by a moving vehicle.

The scooter hit the vehicle.

Right. Does that knuckle come out further so it'll be further away from the vehicle? whatever that sign is.

Yeah, so it does. With the pedestrian improvements, the sidewalk and the curbing would extend a little bit further into the travel lanes than it does currently. And so a scooter or a pedestrian, if a scooter was coming in the opposite travel of traffic like they were in this case, they would have to go out further and hopefully would be seen by a vehicle. Is that going to be a flashing signal? It would be a flashing beacon. We also did discuss...

whether or not to proceed with the full project in 2028 or to revisit it. And the decision on the board was to revisit it, not to push forward with a full project. I think there needs to be a review of the transportation system plan, because I know that this is based on that. And that section specifically, as well as the section west of Lyle School is affected by that TSP that needs to be revisited, in my opinion.

Yeah, I'm in reference to that specifically. We had the last meeting of the technical advisory committee. I think that's the right title for the new transportation systems plan that's in the works. And that intersection was identified, the Jasper-Ellendale intersection was identified as one of the high priorities that need fixing. So it's very much on the radar.

That's why... The option two is on the board because it addresses those safety upgrades at the intersection without taking away from the local community and the lifestyles that they have. My concern is the additional road. west of the intersection. The intersection is a safety concern. There's issues with people passing on the right, cars that are going eastbound turning north onto Jasper, and this will provide laneage for that. It'll provide safer pedestrian crossing. And so it addresses those intersection issues with as little impact as possible to the local community. But I don't

necessarily agree with the TSP as it's written well and the TSP that exists now is is its days are numbered because we're getting ready to create a new one that's much more up-to-date and reflects conditions as they are today not as they were 10 years ago One other thing, this probably won't go anywhere given that the recommendation is what it is, but I'm, what's the right word? Disappointed that we didn't opt for a center turn lane between Levens and Jasper. And the reason for that, the reason it disappoints me is that this proposal serves... The pedestrian part is fine. The pedestrian part's great. I'm talking about vehicular traffic specifically. This proposal solves part of the problem, but not all of it. If you're going eastbound on Elendale and you want to turn north on to Jasper, you either have people backing up behind you, which creates congestion, or doing something very dangerous, which is going around on the right. This fixes that, but you have the same problem a little further down the block with people turning in to the grocery outlet parking lot. You have the same issues exactly. People zoom around on the right or they back up and have to wait. And I would much rather see a solution that addresses all of the problem and not just one piece of it and leaving the other to fend for itself.

So to respond to that, there is a solution that does that, and that's option one. Again, I presented all the different options for the full council so you can see what the committee looked at. The committee's recommendation, again, was option two. They felt that that center turn lane was not needed at this time, that it's something they wanted to revisit in 2028. But if the full council would want to choose option one, you can certainly do that tonight. But again, the recommended motion is carried forward from the committee, which is option two. Councilor Schilling.

The committee's recommendation for option two over option three was...

Option three takes away from current safety design on the roadway. It adds a share row on a major traffic way, which would put biking traffic, specifically the youth of the community, in danger, whereas currently there are bike paths that they can use. And option two continues with the use of the bike paths. And so the concern that we had with option three was that we've gone backwards on current safety regulations. a lot of the public input was about the people in that neighborhood with disabilities and limited access to their own properties that it would create substantial impacts to their lives on the sidewalk or were they in the bike lane i don't know if they were in the sidewalk or bike lane um either way the the improvements that are being proposed i wouldn't have solved the issue with the the accident discussion does someone want to present a motion i'll move the approve the intersection improvements of the jasper street and ellendale avenue intersection as shown on attachment a option two by counselor wholesapple do i have a second

Second. Second by Councillor Jans. Any further discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Passes unanimously. All right, on to the next item, Brian.

Slack. So the second item regards our City charter and ad hoc committee appointments. So the city council, after a recommendation from the public administration committee directed staff to start advertising for the appointment, the members of the city charter ad hoc committee. Again, this committee will review the city charter, make recommendations. To then engage with the public on the suggested revisions to the city charter to gather that feedback after they gather that feedback, they'll make a recommendation to the council on potential revisions to the city charter. The council would then consider those and decide whether or not to put the charter amendments that are proposed and recommended on the ballot. And so we. the council agreed to the formation of a committee that made up of seven members. Four of those would be non-elected and then three would come from the elected leadership in the city. And so upon a solicitation of applications, we did receive four applicants. Their applications are included in this report. Each of them are qualified to serve on the committee. The qualification was that they are registered voters and that they are residents of Dallas inside the city limits. So each of the applicants that you have meet those qualifications. So staff has a recommended motion to appoint those four committee members. I will note there's a spelling error on Sophia's last name. Her last name is Lozano Venegas, not Vegas. I think that was auto-correct. But then... The other three members come from this body. And so I would recommend the one you make that motion to approve the four applicants that you have. And then following that, we should probably have a discussion among the council on the membership here of who's interested in filling those last three slots. If we have just three people that are interested, then we can make a motion to appoint those three. If we have less than three, we should make a motion to appoint those that are interested, and then we'll have a vote among the membership to appoint the third member. If we have more than three people, then we'll have a vote to determine which three of those that are interested to serve on this committee. We have ballots, and we'll walk through that after we have the discussion. So I think, Mayor, what I would recommend is to start with the recommended motion, which is on page 12 of the packet. And then we can figure out what the interest of the city council is on serving on this committee.

Right. Do I have a motion?

I move to appoint Mike Vaughn Kenwood, Sophia Lozano-Vegas. and Tyler Lonsford to serve on the ad hoc charter committee. Second.

I have a motion by Councilor Briggs, second by Councilor Shane.

There's a correction. It's Eric Vaughn, for the record.

Eric with a C. Okay.

Eric Vaughn. And that was my mistake. I can't blame that on auto-correct. Mr. Vaughn. Yes, Mr. Vaughn. Right.

Right. Second, it was the counselor, Shane. In discussion, all those in favor, say aye.

Aye. Opposed?

Passes unanimously. Now going on to figure out which three of you.

I guess maybe I'll start with the question of, and you can maybe raise your hand, and then we can discuss the level of interest, but who's interested in serving on the ad hoc committee? Maybe raise your hand. I got David Shane, Anthony Blosser. Larry, anyone over here? So that's three if Schilling bows out. All right. So David Shane, Anthony Blosser, and Larry Briggs. No one else has interest? All right. So then someone should make a motion to appoint those three to serve on the committee.

Second. moved by councillor schilling and seconded by councillor shane to appoint anthony bosser larry briggs and councillor shane to the committee all those in favor say aye aye those opposed passes unanimously all right Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Is there any other business?

I have a question on the public testimony. Aren't we discussing currently speed limits for the bike paths, but we haven't addressed the parks, have we?

Yeah, so we have. In fact, we've had the first reading on that ordinance already. So the second reading will come back before the council on July 20th. And so we have implemented or are going to implement potentially a new ordinance on Speed limits in our parks and on our trails, both paved and unpaved, on motorized e-bikes. I don't know if it contemplates scooters, but at least e-bikes at 10 miles per hour. We'll install additional signage to address that and make people aware of that. And if it continues to be a problem, like we do with our road speed limits, we'll figure out a mechanism to do some enforcement on that. But certainly we have noticed the increase in e-bike usage in electric scooters and know that we need to get ahead of that. And I appreciate the comments tonight. And I think that there's some signage that's existing that can be updated. So we'll have some conversations in-house to be able to address those deficiencies.

Some new signage.

Yes, and new signage where it doesn't exist.

Can we also post... We need to do some education on scooters because scooters are not allowed to be operated by anybody under 16 or 18. It's 16, right? Yeah, I agree with that. Scooters are not allowed to be operated by anybody under the age of 16? Like that, and I also... Is that correct? Yeah.

Or they're considered bicycles by the state.

I think we can... You know, certainly put out some public, you know, education on, you know, the use of scooters, bikes, what's appropriate, what's not appropriate, because we are seeing, you know, accidents, you know, both the scooter at Levins, not Levins, but Jasper and Ellendale, the accident this last week in the trail. I think there's a need to, you know, be on top of this of how to operate these, these

it possibly areas where they're not allowed like over the bridge in the park or places like that and that gives rise to a broader question on the same subject do we have the ability to um ban motorized vehicles anywhere or has that been preempted by the state yeah maybe the width of the maybe the width of the path they can't

i'm thinking in terms of the testimony we heard yeah i think we need to i think i think there's probably some law that we need to look into to answer that question i don't know the answer off top of my head but we can look into that you can't do anything well we took state grant money for the rickroll creek trail so therefore we're mandated but like in our city park it's city park you can they could be totally banned

I would think you probably could do that, but again, we'd want to look at the law to be able to understand what the rules and regulations are on that. Yeah. So there's continued discussion that we want to have probably at the Public Administration Committee on this topic. Yep.

All right. If there's nothing else, I'll adjourn the meeting at 742.