 Good evening. My name is Brian Byrd. I have the honor of serving as the city council in district 3 in Fort Worth. This is our town hall meeting to talk about what's going on in the city particularly as we approach budget season right now. One of my great honors in life is to serve as your representative to this city on the city council. This is the city that I grew up in. We've raised our kids in. We've built our businesses here. And we just love Fort Worth. And I know that you do too. This is a chance for you to hear from the folks that run the city to provide our police and fire, the streets and roads, libraries, parks, all the things that we rely on for our city government to provide. And one of the reasons that I tell people that I enjoy being on council so much is that I get to work with some really wonderful people who are highly skilled and we just we work really hard, but we also enjoy what we're doing. So what we're going to do is we'll have a few guests on. I'm going to ask some questions. You're able, I think in some way or another, to call in and ask a question or send us an email, that sort of thing. We'll try to get to all the questions that we can and hopefully you'll get yours answered if you ask it. So our first guest this evening is the city manager of Fort Worth, Mr. David Cook. And you know, maybe if you've never met David, it'd be good if he would just kind of tell us a little bit. You know, David, how long you've been the city manager? Where are you from? That sort of thing. Very good. Hey Brian, thanks for having me on. It's also a pleasure working with you. So a little background. So I've been with the city now six years. So I came in June of 2014. I'd spent previous career in North Carolina working in city county government in the private sector and had the great fortune of being able to come to Fort Worth to be city manager back in 2014. I will say that it's been a challenging year in 2020 and we may talk about some of that with COVID and the things going on around the country and here in Fort Worth as well. But to me, there's no greater privilege than to work with the public to serve the people and make sure we leave Fort Worth better than we found it. That's great. I love that. Thanks for that. Well, we're glad that you're here. All right. I've been knocking on doors the last month and I can tell you the number one thing that people want to talk about is what's going to happen to my property tax rate. Now, we're about to set it, right? And close it in two weeks from now. Two weeks from now. Right. Council's going to vote on it. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think about 25% of yours in mind. Everybody's watching property tax bill pays for a good portion of what the city does. Tell us about what the property tax rate for that portion of the bill is going to do. Okay. Let's jump into that because I think everybody wants to know about the property tax rate, but really what they want to know is that they're going to end up paying more in taxes or less in taxes or the same amount. Very good. Very good. And there's two parts of that equation. One is the value of the property and everybody is received by now something from the turn appraisal district or one of the other appraisal districts that Fort Worth, you know, we're now in what five counties. So we get, we have citizens in a number of different counties that get these tax bills. But anyway, so you have a value of your home or whatever. And then you're going to multiply that times the tax rate. So if your values go up a little bit and the tax rate comes down, then you might pay the same amount or less. If the value goes up and the tax rate stays the same, even though the tax rate didn't increase, you might pay more in property taxes. And the converse could be true. If the value goes down, tax rate stays the same, then you'll pay less in property taxes. The property tax rate, which the council is responsible to set, will remain the same in next year's recommended budget. So for fiscal year 21, we're currently in fiscal year 20, the tax rate is recommended to stay the same. And there's a few reasons for that. Well, first, let me go back. I hope the public recognizes that the council has reduced the property tax rate each of the last four years to almost 11 cents or somewhere 11 or 12 cents. And so that's a tremendous benefit to the citizens over time. And I also think it was great because it makes us more competitive from a property tax rate. I believe, and I think the council did too, that our property tax rate was too high. And there was a goal to reduce it over time. And we've been doing that. But the property tax rate for next year is recommended to stay the same. Part of that is we've seen the lowest increase in values. So of all the valued property in Fort Worth, taxable value, it grew by less than one half of one percent. We haven't seen that in six to eight years. And so when the values actually don't go up, right, we needed to generate the same amount of property tax revenue year over year and the new growth that goes with that. But the property tax rate bottom line is property tax rate stays the same next year. Okay, got you. So chances are then a homeowner like myself would see an increase but a very small increase overall in the amount of taxes that I'm going to pay on the city portion of my property tax bill. Is that a fair statement? So I think it would, let me generalize it, because you can't, there's no such thing as an average, right? Nobody's an average. If you, if your value went up about three percent, right, your tax rate, your tax bill is going to go up about three percent because the rate's going to stay the same. Okay, got you. All right, thanks for that. Okay, so that's how at least some of our budget gets paid for. The rest of it, good portion of it is through sales tax and some other things. Give us a few highlights in this coming year's budget if you don't mind. Sure, let me start with the real big, big picture because each year we spend about $1.8 billion. This city of Fort Worth is a huge enterprise and a lot of that relates to what we call the enterprise funds. And these are really different business operations. We're responsible for three general aviation airports. We're responsible for a regional water and sewer system that serves more than the city of Fort Worth. We have a stormwater utility. We run and operate a landfill. So when you think about all the things that the city does, you know, people focus on did you pick up my garbage, police, fire, and maintain the streets, which we do out of our general fund. And that's only that's about $720 million. So it's still a substantial enterprise. But our total enterprise is much bigger and it's $1.8 billion. People see those costs through water and sewer rates. Those aren't going up either. They see it through the stormwater bill, which is on, again, the water bill, but there's a stormwater fee. There's an environmental fee. The environment fee is not going up. Stonewater fee is not going up. So we've really tried to maintain the budget at really current levels. And there's, I can get into that in more detail. COVID hurt us this year a little bit. And we had to cut back some operations. We've had to downsize the workforce. But I think next year will be more difficult. And so keeping the tax rate the same, keeping water and sewer rates the same, keeping the environmental fees the same is part of a longer, I think, budget issue that will carry over multiple fiscal years. So we need to be thinking about not just next year's recommended budget, but the year after that, and I think the year after that. So we're trying to hunker down might be the right phrase in some of this. Well, we are in Fort Worth, Texas. I think hunker down works great. Hunker down on this budget is really one of the things that we're currently doing. But we're keeping the tax rate the same. And so what I think we're able to say is we're able to meet our commitments. So we're still implementing the 2018 bond program, the 2014 bond program. We're still growing at 15,000 to 20,000 people a year. So we're still a growing city. So we still have to be able to invest in infrastructure and maintain the infrastructure that we build. So we're keeping our level of effort at the same, when we say keeping the tax rate the same, our level of efforts keeping track too. And so we're trying to again hunker down, get through, I think it'll be a couple difficult fiscal years and still do what we need to do for a growing city. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that. Okay. I think we have a few questions that have come in through some of our viewers. And let's hear one or two of those. All right. Okay. How does the city determine where money is put for street repairs, sidewalks and street lighting? Okay. You want to take that one? I'll take that one. So this is for sidewalks, street lighting and street repair. And just a little context on this. One of the more common questions that I receive when I'm knocking on doors is, hey man, when is my street going to get fixed? Great. Great question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how would, how would, how would you answer that? So those programs are funded out of transportation and public works. And a number of years ago, this is within the last five years, we created part of the tax rate. We call it pays you go. It's essentially our cash commitment to maintaining infrastructure. And so we set aside six and a half cents of the property tax rate for a lot of these maintenance efforts. So sidewalks, street lights and street repairs would partly come out of that. Yeah. That dedication of the property tax. We have increased that over the last four to five years. We kept it at the same rate for next year's recommended budget. So that amount of money also grows each year. The Transportation Public Works Department has a list of priorities of all the road needs. In fact, they grade the streets. I think it's every three years, all the streets get rated in full worth. And they're graded, I think, A through F, right? And so as we work on the ones that are on the lower end, Ds and Fs, Cs, Ds and Fs, we know which streets those are. And we know what cycle they are to be fixed. So if citizens have a question about where is my street, we can tell you what it was mostly recently rated as and when it might be on a list to get rehabbed one way or the other. Sidewalks, there'll be a list of priorities on sidewalks and on street lights, the same thing. We've now invigorated all our street lights. We've invigorated all our sidewalks. We're trying to figure out all the conditions therein. And again, so we will be addressing the needs of street lights, sidewalks, roads based on the conditions that they're in. Well, and is it the case then that the streets, for example, that are the worst rated, let's call them the Fs, are the top of the list in terms of which street is getting on a list right now on a contract but getting rehabbed right now. That's what I tell. I say, hey, they get graded and the worst ones are on the top of the list. That's how we do it in four worlds. I think that's a good way to do it. Thank you. All right, let's hear another question or two. Why does so much time and attention go to the Las Vegas trails area? Aren't there other parts of District 3 that also need extra assistance? Yeah, I can take that one. I think that's a legitimate question. I think that the Las Vegas trail area gets a lot of attention, particularly in the press, in the media, because there's a lot going on over there. You have the first ever community center. You have the first ever Boys and Girls Club. You have crime that's dropped double digits, and yet it's still on the west side of Fort Worth, not just District 3, but on the west side of Fort Worth. No other area has still more crime, more poverty, more unemployment than the Las Vegas trail, and nothing's even close. And it's sort of like the sick patient gets the doctor, if you will. It requires our attention. And yet there are other places in District 3 where we work very, very hard. I'll just run through a few of those over in West Cliff or West Cliff West area. We work very hard on the problem of the West Cliff Shopping Center, which is struggling and has had some potential buyers, but we have to make sure that doesn't turn into some more stealth dorms, that sort of thing, because stealth dorms in the West Cliff area are a real problem. In the Overton Woods area, we've done a lot of work on a potential flooding issue there, and are the stop signs working or not for controlling speeding in the Tanglewood area? We have lots of speeding on Hartwood, and we're working on some driver feedback machines there. And Ridgley North, there's an issue of lighting, and so we're working through the lighting problem. I'm going to go on and on and on, but each one of our neighborhoods gets a lot of attention from both me and from Michael Crane, who's the district director. And what I always say about Michael, you can count on this. Pretty much anything good that comes out of my office is because of Michael Crane, because he is always on it and gets things done very quickly and very efficiently, and he always responds to people. So that's how I'd answer that question. David, anything else you would add to that? No, I think the way you answer it is also similar to how other council members would talk about right there district. There are some areas in districts that are in real need, and yet that council member has to address the needs of the entire district. So very well said. Very well said. Okay. Well, I think, David, that that's all the questions for you, if I'm not mistaken. Go with that. You could. David, thank you very much for being on today. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure. All right. Good. Thank you. Okay. Our next guest is Chief Ed Krause, the Fort Worth Police Chief, and he's taking a seat next to me here. I've had the honor of working with Chief Krause through some very difficult times here, not just in Fort Worth, but the entire country. And so I've asked Chief just to talk a little bit about the budget, but then we're also going to get into some of the issues that have come up for us that a lot of people are talking about. So Chief, the first question is about the budget, but listen, man, when people talk about you, you are one of the most beloved human beings in this city. And I can tell you that if not the most beloved, I think somebody referred to you as the fifth beetle the other day. That's a good thing. So way to go, man. But I think it's well deserved. But before we get into a lot of things, can we talk a little bit about the police budget? And if you could just highlight what's coming up, what changes are you recommending that we do this year? Sure, Councilman Burt. I appreciate that opportunity. I've been giving a presentation about the CCPD budget for several weeks now and some of the changes that we've recommended to the city manager's office and the council to consider as they go through the budget process. I talk a lot about the CCPD because that is an area where we have flexibility. The general fund, most of what is in there is tied to personnel costs, salaries and benefits. So where you see an increase in the general fund, it is typically tied to a meet and confer, which is the contract we have the city has with the police officers in the city. And if they get contractual raise or a step raise, those dollars are figured into the general fund because that's where most of our personnel are. And so if you see an increase in the general fund, it's typically tied to those. But the CCPD is where we have a little bit more, like I said, flexibility. So the citizen of Fort Worth that came out to vote for the CCPD election in July voted for that CCPD, the Crime Control and Prevention District, to continue for 10 years. That doesn't mean we have a budget that's going to be set for 10 years. Every year, police department staff will come forward to the city manager's office and the council and say, this is how we're proposing to spend these projected revenues for the next year. So every year we'll be able to tweak what we've done and based on input from the community and input from city leaders and where we need to place that money. This year, with all the public discourse locally and nationally, we saw some opportunities to do things a little bit differently. So one of those things is as we came up to that CCPD election, we saw there's a lot of confusion about what Crime Control and Prevention District actually pays for. And as we started looking at the budget, we recognized why. There are people in the police department, including police leadership, that wasn't sure why this particular item or that particular item was funded by the Crime Control and Prevention District. And as we looked through that, we thought if we don't completely understand it, how is the public supposed to understand it? So I'm just going to give you an example. Okay. So back right around 2010, the department decided we needed to increase the SWAT team based on the size of the city, the growth we've had, and best practices dealing with the size of the SWAT team and other similarly sized cities. Well, in order to fund that at the time, the extra money was in the CCPD. So we created an expanded SWAT program and added eight officers in CCPD. But the other 20 officers were housed in the general fund. That's where their funding came for. But instead of moving that over to the general fund at the next budget year, it just remained in CCPD. So now you have two different funding sources funding the same component of the police department. And that doesn't make any sense. So this year, we said, let's clean up some of that stuff. Let's make it easier, more transparent and easier to understand what's being funded by which account. So we took those eight officers out of the CCPD, put them in the general fund. We didn't cut the SWAT team by eight officers. We simply put them all in one general fund. So the SWAT team, same number of officers, just clearly defined in which fund is going to pay for them. And then we looked at the general fund should fund as many traditional services as we can put in there. So we took other units such as the SRT special response team, the criminal tracking unit. We moved them into the general fund. Those are more traditional policing services. We took some of our other units like our bike patrol from West 7th Street and downtown and moved those into the general fund. So we swapped some units around to make it clear what fund funded which group of officers and put them where we thought it made more sense. So that was one of the changes we made with CCPD. Another thing we did was increase funding for certain programs. We have a crisis intervention team and it's based on a co-responder model where we place an officer with extra training and mental health peace officer dealing with people in mental crisis and we team that individual with a mental health crisis worker from MHMR of Tarrant County and they respond to calls for service together. That way we have a mental health professional and a police officer on the call when they respond. And in addition to that they do follow-up visits with people that we know have mental health issues and to make sure that they don't devolve back into crisis. So that can be making sure they have access to the meds or access to a physician. So we were able to do that a couple years ago. We got a lot of accolades. They got a state award. They've been doing a good job but there was only six of them doing the job. And so we were only able to do one shift Monday through Friday. Part of the panel of police experts that came and looked at our department policies, procedures, training and processes said that's great. You need to do more. And we agree. So we've decided to expand that team. We have two teams of eight instead of one team of six. And that's going to allow us to have a crisis intervention response on two shifts seven days a week instead of one shift five days a week. So again there's still room to expand more but that's a step in the right direction with this budget. We're also implementing a new program where we have a lot of calls that we send officers to that don't necessarily need a police officer responding to them. This is one of the great ideas we had out in the community. We said let's go ahead and give that a shot. Let's try that. So we're proposing hiring 10 employees that will go out into the community and answer those non-emergency, nonviolent calls in the community to save our police officers to respond to more emergency situations. So we believe we'll be able to take a large amount of calls off the police officers. They'll be responded to by this new team after they're hired and trained. And that they'll be able to answer those calls. So those calls that typically hold in the queue for a long amount of time because their lower priority will be answered in a quicker fashion. Additionally the priority one and two calls will be answered quicker because the officers won't be stuck on a priority three or four report call. So that is a program we're going to start up again proposed in this in this year's budget and if it's successful it's something that we'll look to expand in future years CCPD budgets. I think these are all fantastic ideas. The mental health piece is something that people are really interested in unique solutions for one of the things we've seen in health care when it comes to mental health for example is medication non-compliance you know and how do we solve that and I know there's there's lots of discussion going on right now whether it's through Peter Smith or MHMR through you guys but one of the things I've heard you say before which I think is spot on is that we're asking our police officers to just do too much and your team is available 24-7 365 and as the backstop for pretty much everything whether it's a loose dog when no one else is available or all the kinds of things that you want a police officer therefore and then a bunch of things that okay we really don't need a trained sworn officer with a badge with a gun to respond to that these ideas I can tell you are resonating with people as I'm talking to them and and one of the questions that people have is how do you keep folks safe on the the the team that won't have a police officer with them right you know how do you make sure they're going to be okay when they're going out when sometimes you've had a police officer do that so that's a fair question it's something we consider deeply because we don't want to put someone in a situation to get them hurt or killed because we didn't think this through but as we look at this we look at our code compliance officers our animal control officers that go out to these non-emergency calls quite a bit because it deals with their specialty and you know they don't have a police officer they don't have a gun on their hip when they go out to those calls or the specialized training of a police officer so what we've looked at a very specific set of calls that can be handled by that group calls like welfare checks you know would you check on my neighbor calls like I've had a minor accident and we don't want to send this group out on the freeways where it's a lot more dangerous but if it's a side street accident and all we need is somebody go out there and tell them how to exchange information and guide them in that process that's definitely something we can send an officer to as long as there's no confrontation going on so after a weekend we'll have business owners go to their business and occasionally they'll find that it's been broken into sometime over the weekend their business was broken into they don't need a police officer to go out there to take that report for something that you know happened over the past couple days there's no threat ongoing threat there so we can safely send somebody else there who's trained to take that report trained to look for signs of evidence and collect that evidence if they need to so we've looked at which calls are conducive to this kind of program we've also researched with other cities we've looked at Denver's policy north which on Hills has been doing this for a while and so we're taking what other people have learned and bringing that in and then we understand there's a training component for our call takers the people are answering the the 911 calls and non-emergency and they just if we guide them and the correct answer or questions that ask based on those answers we'll be able to determine is this something that requires a police officer or is this something one of our new civilian employees can answer right yeah i would imagine that the person taking the call would need the right kind of training on on these sorts of things to make sure they send the right person on this absolutely um shift gears just a little bit thanks for though that by the way i think we're heading in the right direction there and i think we're we're responding i think in the the right way to the national discussion right now on policing i want to talk about a moment that just made me so proud here in fort worth we had a lot of just folks demonstrating after the george floyd murder in minneapolis and i'd like for you to talk a little bit about the moment that that you kneeled and really brought some what i thought was a wonderful moment not just for our city before our state for our country and you know one of the questions i think that a lot of people had was what led what led up to that what made chief krouse take that knee at that moment so i i never want to make anything about me or or my actions um but what what we saw out there was a confrontation that was amping up and and i said what we saw out there we're at the joint operations emergency operations center watching on camera what was unfolding and instead of having things ramp up i thought if we went out there and and let's let's engage in a conversation i think my officer seeing me out there may help calm the situation on that side maybe the the citizen seeing me out there will help calm things out there um so i just went out there and started talking to individuals in the crowd um and some were very emotional very angry understandable they just wanted somebody to listen i'm happy to be that person to listen i i'm a person led by my faith um assistant chief julie swearing jim was also with me went into the crowd with me she is also a woman of faith and a tremendous police leader and as we talk to these individuals we we just got a sense that there was a way to connect there and so julie had said hey you know what we need is prayer would you be willing to pray with us and when several people in the crowd said they would like to pray with us i said this is great let's take a knee it's been said we're never more like christ than when we serve others and i i've said before we're never more like each other than when we bow down and humbly worship our savior because how how can you look at the person kneeling next to you on your left or right and think you're any better than they are um so that's that's what leads me that that's what led to that that instance happening yeah thanks for talking about that i uh that moment was captured in a in a photograph that went around the world uh and something you say just now uh about it was something i've never i've not heard you say about uh that particular moment uh to have one of our community's major leaders kneeling right beside everybody else who was out there were all equal at the foot of the cross were all human beings who deserve uh the dignity required of just being a human being created in the image of god and therefore valuable um and uh i think that was a tremendous statement of leadership that uh you were able to provide at the right time also assistant chief swearinger was able to do that appreciate you both on that on this vein and last question i have for you just as this national discussion has been going on uh you know you're the chief of the police force in the 13th largest city in the country people look to you and they want to know uh what are you thinking about this where's your heart on this we're you know what has your thinking and reading and writing your discussions with other police chiefs uh been and taking you uh to this moment right now well and that's fair and um i will i will tell you this this deal with george floyd his uh his murder it it impacted the profession like i've never seen anything impact the profession before what we saw was uh pretty quickly even before a lot of protests started police officers net or police chiefs nationally getting on their social media to condemn that act and that is something you didn't see widespread prior to this uh police chiefs from one agency coming in and openly criticizing officers for their actions in another agency um it may have been a one-off here and there but but as a profession you didn't see that and then you saw police chief after police chief getting on they're saying this is wrong enough enough we gotta step in and stop this and then the major city chiefs association um uh had it held an emergency conference call and they came out and said we have to say something as an organization that this has got to stop this this is not right we have got to be better and so uh to my knowledge everyone in that organization agreed that yes this is something we want to put out and put uh signature to paper and condemning that act um and that that just spiraled i mean this the protests have continued in in some cities even to up to today uh but what you're seeing is a groundswell and policing for change that we have not encountered before and if you can look at the change that's happening across the country and i'll be on some of it maybe knee jerk change um and and maybe not well thought out um but people recognize there's a need to change and they're acting on that um i would hope that time and care is used in making sure we're getting the right change yeah change that we can sustain and change it can last and actually change the profession for the better yeah uh i think so too and we want to make sure it's well thought out we want to make sure we're listening to the people uh that are demonstrating we want to make sure we're protecting their right to demonstrate peaceably which i think our city has done a great job uh in doing that particularly the group led by don l ballard i think has done a fantastic job uh demonstrating here one of our most important freedoms is the right to gather absolutely and i know that you will i know that i will will always protect the person's right to do that here in the city of fort worth if they're doing it in a peaceable manner uh chief thank you for that and we might have a question or two for you uh from the audience we do um chief you did touch on this partly but i thought you might want to expand on it um we've heard quite a bit about the changes to the ccpd budget but we haven't heard much about the police budget in the general fund that police budget is increasing by about five million can you please tell us where the budget increase is coming from and where we can find those line items yeah so again as i said earlier the general fund is pretty well set with personnel costs and that's where most of that is salaries and benefits for the officers that are housed in the general fund uh we did not see any increases to the training budgets or the operating expenses for the different units most that is tied into personnel cost has there been any pressure in fort worth to reduce police funding no um the the the issue in fort worth was whether or not to renew the crime control and prevention district um there was um several groups calling for people go out and vote against that you know we had a very low voter turnout as we do um with those elections um of the people that voted 65 percent voted to continue that election what is to note is we had more people come out to vote against that than we ever have in any other election and and i think that's important that even though the majority said we support continuing this election there is a larger number than ever before coming out and saying we don't support this election so i think that's something we have to keep in mind as we move forward with each of these budgets that we put forward each year to make sure we're getting community input and make sure we're doing things the right way and yeah the that 35 percent that voted against ccpd are still citizens of fort worth and you and i are duty bound to serve them to listen to them and i want them to make sure if they're watching this that just because their vote went against it and it passed that they still count we're still listening to them they still matter uh to this discussion going forward well they and and the other other side as well i mean it's it's that balancing act um but one of the things i have not had is any pressure from any city leader to try and politicize the police department and i appreciate that beyond what any any of you city leaders could understand for us to be allowed to listen to the input make strategic decisions with finances and budgeting and personal allocations that we think are in the best interest we the police department think are in the best interest of the city um it's that that is that in itself is a kind of support that any police chief would love to have good wonderful wonderful thank you any other um chief cross what are we doing to systemically change the fort worth police force so tragedies do not occur here in our city so we have implemented a a lot of policy most recently our use of force policy was updated at the end of uh july um what we found out from the police reform expert panel um is that we have pretty strong policies in the fort replaced department what we are lacking is in translating that uh policy to highly effective training and also the accountability piece on the back end so in this change to the use of force policy for instance um we have a requirement for an officer who uses force to also now put in the report what de-escalation attempts they used or attempted to use um so we've had a great de-escalation policy for the past couple years but what was pointed out to us was where's the accountability piece when de-escalation isn't used right and so we put that piece in there and then we also put as that use of force report gets forwarded up the chain of command each level of command has to go through there and look to see was that de-escalation used was de-escalation attempted we have to make it part of the ingrained nature of not only our officers but the supervisors throughout the organization that that is an essential component so we're doing that with several different things de-escalations won you know the eight can't wait organization they they graded us as having six of the eight policies in effect and we have had several of them in effect for for quite some time many many years but there were two that they said we're lacking on so we changed those with the use of force policy revision and I got to say I know you have run the show coming up but Kimberly Neil the police monitor has been fantastic since she showed up here and a lot of the stuff that the expert panel has pointed out Kim and Denise pointed out before that and we had already started changing it so it made that transition very easy but so those last two eight eight can't wait policies we've already submitted them to the eight can't wait organization said hey we've now got this in our policy we'd like for you to go ahead and look at it and and you know mark off that we got all eight so we're waiting on that chief I think all that is fantastic and I'll get to interview Kim here in just a minute and talk about how we human beings just do better when there are good accountability systems that's me that's you that's everybody and so thank you for addressing that right now I'll tell you I appreciate every one of our police officers so much Alling Pennington who's the NPO over in Ridgely Hills there's not a finer human being in the whole world same with Bel Haddad in Ridgely North and Officer Grinnell's and Officer Carpenter in the Las Vegas Trail area I could go on and on and on and these human beings literally risk their lives every day so that my family all of our families can have safety here in Fort Worth in the city that we love so much thank you very much for providing that for us chief we appreciate you my pleasure appreciate it Dr. Bird okay thank you all right okay our next guest so to speak seems a little bit like the Carson show I suppose although we could have some music in the background make a little bit better but that's all right the next person is Kimberly Neil I'm really excited about talking with Kimberly she's new so we're going to ask you to talk a little bit about where she's from and so on and so forth and then we'll get into kind of discussing what is the office of police monitor and so Kim welcome thank you and since you are new I think you've only been here since March can you just tell folks who are watching a little bit about yourself sure sure I'm born and raised in Washington DC and I have spent most of my career in the government field whether it be federal state or local government in the ethics and compliance field and policy procedures and doing some oversight in a lot of fields in the government as a whole recently I've been with Fort Worth for six months and recently I came from Cincinnati Ohio where I was the director of a civilian oversight agency there over the Cincinnati police department and so I spent five years there and it was we had a different type of civilian oversight of policing we actually had an investigative model where we actually did separate investigations in addition to the police department's investigations as well as the role of the police monitor as well so it was a more involved role however it required a lot it's one of your more expensive roles of civilian oversight and I believe that the police monitor role itself is one that is a much more sustainable role because you can really do some systemic changes or make some systemic changes within the police department that you're working for so I'm happy to be here in Fort Worth good thank you we're we're delighted that you're here it's been an interesting first six or so months for you hasn't because hasn't it because you got here in March and then almost immediately the COVID quarantine hit everything absolutely and that sort of interrupted your ability to do what pretty much anybody does when they first arrive somewhere is to really get to know the people that were serving yes and then we had a George Floyd incident which was just so horrible yes and it ignited a discussion about policing all over our city and our own city has wrestled with this in the past with yes and in fact one of the reasons why we decided to create your position was because of December of 2016 with Miss Jacqueline Craig and what happened there and then in October of last year just a tragic event that we're all grieved about so much with the Tatiana Jefferson and a young woman lost her life and and and it also is in the way that I see it is good timing for you to come on the scene and and help us think through this and work through this as we're all locked arms wanting to work through it together and I think we all have the same goals in mind I believe in the police monitor position I was a proponent of it as soon as I heard about it and studied it can you talk a little bit about what is a police monitor who do you report to why does it work and what are some of your goals and mission as you work along this so the police monitor role is one in which we monitor the police department monitor the investigations monitor policies and procedures and the changes to those policies and procedures make recommendations to the police department as it relates to its investigations of police officers as well as its policies and procedures and then also look at training look at recruitment and all aspects of the policing that we can help make our police department the most effective accountable police department to the citizens and so the monitor's role is important in the office of the police oversight monitor's role is important because we're working hand in hand with the community and with the police to ensure that all voices are heard to ensure that policing is in fact impartial and unbiased and to ensure that policing overall in the city of Fort Worth is transparent and so in that time in the six months that we've been here even though we've kind of been confined due to COVID we've met I would say hundreds of stakeholders across the city of Fort Worth virtually initially we started out meeting face to face but of course I went to virtual real quick within my second week of being here and that has been an enlightening experience because we've learned so much from the city leaders we've learned so much from the community across the city of Fort Worth the diversity in the responses and the the input that we get from the communities is just so great and to hear all the great things that are being done in the communities as well as when there are certain eight certain stakeholders that will work in directly hand in hand with police and are really moving forward and improving on police and community relations has been really a really a learnable experience for our office. I report directly to David our city manager and and our office is actually within the city manager's office we have a little corner in the city manager's office and we have really in a short time we have of course our deputy monitor Denise Rodriguez we have an office manager Vanessa Campos and we hope to be hiring a couple other individuals pretty soon as well as bringing in some interns from the local law school here downtown pretty soon as well so we are really moving forward to really impact some positive changes and as a chief reference we've been working hard collaborate with the police department on making changes to the use of force to early intervention we are in fact attending trainings over at the police academy both with the recruits as well as the in-service personnel to see exactly what type of training they're receiving and you know the thing about making changes to policy and procedure is great but we have to see it full fully impacted and fully through the process and so what's great is that we've made the changes but we want to make sure that trickles down to our personnel and so for example the duty to intervene that has been in the news lately is one that the police department has had due to report was also added to that particular procedure but we were actually able to go over to the academy and see the recruits actually employ that scenario where they actually played it out where you know where an officer may have been a little bit too passionate about their encounter with the citizen and so other officers knew it was their duty they played it out the scenario and then had to report on exactly what their actions were and that is something that really trickles down to how we police I have a police police or enforce the laws in the city of Fort Worth so it's been really great. I love all of that I love the accountability piece as that was just mentioning to chief crafts we human beings we need it we just do better when the right accountability is in place even though you know I don't particularly like it when I when I'm held accountable none of us do but we know it makes us better and isn't that one of the reasons why it's important that you report to the city manager rather than within the police department talk about that a little bit. Oh absolutely well you know if you're going to have what we call civilian oversight of police or law enforcement then it would never work within the police department so I have my counterparts across the country who do this have been doing it just as long as I have and some longer and it's consistent across the country that working within a police department you you can never impact the change that you need to impact if you're working directly within the police department. Now of course if we had a chief like chief crafts then it may work but of course that's the fifth beetle but of course when they leave then you know you have a different you could have a different dynamic and so you want to make sure that the independence piece is so important to civilian oversight and it's it's important because you want to make sure that no city official is interfering with the autonomy of the office of the police oversight monitor and so that independence piece is ever so important if you're within the police department then that piece wouldn't be considered independent. My last question for you it goes like this talk about what what you would like your sort of legacy to be say five years from now looking back what difference do you want to say this is what this is the difference we got to make here in the city of Fort Worth. To be frank I would like people to say well she actually knew what she was talking about so you know because we're doing a lot of engagements and I know that some members of the community are concerned that the engagements are kind of a feel good kind of a you know a placeholder kind of just make allowing us to drag things out and it's really not the purpose of the community engagements the community engagements are to number one collect information but most importantly it's to engage the community to make sure that the community knows that their voices are heard and that we are all of us not just the police department but my office and everyone else is accountable to we are accountable to the citizens of Fort Worth and so you know every time you know a group says to me well we represent a certain set of folks in the city of Fort Worth then I'll have another meeting with someone that says that they don't represent me because I have a whole different set of issues and so the community engagements are important for that reason alone and then in addition to that what we're doing in these upcoming community engagements that we're having started next week is we're going to have both police and community members there so we want to you know we want to kind of redevelop the dialogue if you will between police and community to discuss some of the concerns that both citizens and frankly police officers have been forthcoming with in the surveys that we completed in August that piece has been very enlightening for for my office the comments that were given and what's so intriguing about those surveys is that many of the issues that came out of those surveys were ones that the community had but also police officers had it they just worded it a different way but at the end of the day what's an example of that well an example is that that both police and community members want more engagement they want to be able they want to be a part of the problem-solving team so if they have concerns in their neighborhood it's great that the police department is doing problem-solving but some community members feel like that they're not being engaged that they feel like they live in the neighborhood every day and they want to be a part of that conversation and so why not have a community engagement where you can bring people to the table in all of our six police divisions and talk about some of those issues and so so we hope to kind of just restart that dialogue we know what's happening in some communities but some communities feel like it's not happening in theirs and so we want to give that opportunity to community members and police and the police are saying the same thing they want to be able to reach out to the citizens more and do more community policing and so the example that the chief gave as far as repurposing some of the money to create these civilian positions that is absolutely wonderful because it allows police officers to not only pay attention to the more priority calls but it also gives them I think the ability to do more community policing because we do we that was heard very severely or seriously in those surveys that the police the many police officers our patrol officers want to do community policing they want to be able to learn their communities and talk to their communities and talk to their community members and know who they are and so I think doing those civilian positions will give them that opportunity so I think that's a great great idea that's certainly one of the principles that we've heard you talk about and that we've heard Chief Kraus talk about that the community policing which includes preventative policing and getting to know an area isn't just within the domain of the neighborhood police patrol officer it's for all of the patrol officers whenever they're on duty to be engaged in that manner absolutely and that's exactly what the police officers were saying on the survey they love their MPOs but they want they want to also do the same thing that the MPOs are doing so hopefully we can we can afford them that opportunity at least some of them that opportunity to do that well I I love how you're you're using the general principle if we want the right kind of change in an organization then then go ask the people who are closest to that's right where things are taking place because they'll probably know what the right answers are and the right change needs take place that's very good yes okay I think we have a couple of questions for you yes you mentioned this Kim but could you maybe expand on what true independence looks like for an effective police oversight program so I think that true independence looks like really is pretty much what the chief said about the police department that you know there are no no one's politicizing the process no one's politicizing what we do no one is telling us what to do or how we should opine in a particular case or how we should opine in a on a particular policy or procedure that we are truly independent and unbiased and objective and how we handle each and every review of the police department whether it be a complaint whether it be a policy and procedure whether it be training and so that is true independence has the budget been updated to reflect the new positions that you need and will you be allowed to hire despite the hiring freeze so yes so the the budget's been updated in the city manager's office to in fact increase two more positions within our office and so is that everything that we'll need we'll have to we'll see we'll assess the situation with the two new positions and then we'll you know if we need more then we'll definitely approach that during budget season next year and as far as the autonomy of the office it will remain the same the office will continue to be in the city manager's office I guess until we're busting out the seams and they put us out the city manager's office so we'll see how that goes yeah if by the way Kim if somebody has a concern about an interaction they had with one of our officers how do they let you know about that so they can call our office at eight one seven three nine two six five three five they can also email us at four I'm sorry at oh I forgot the email at police oversight yes at Fort Worth police oversight.gov and also they can actually go into our website and our website is once they go into the city's website we're one of the departments listed but our acronym is OPOM so if they just google OPOM for worth then everything will come out. What is the extra O in there for? Office of police oversight monitor. Okay OPOM. Yes. Don't worry I'll get it down. Yes. As quickly as possible. Yes. Okay Kim certainly it's my opinion I think most people's opinion that the most important thing that we do as a municipal government is provide for the safety of the citizenry the people that pay our bills and you're a big part of that now and thank you for that and thank you for what you're doing to make us better. Thank you thank you. Okay our final guest is walking up now is the fire chief Jim Davis and I've had the pleasure of working closely with Jim over the last two years and I think he just flew in from Iceland or something like that and maybe it's not Iceland I don't know and so Jim and I work very closely together of course here at the city and also at MedStar which provides ambulance service for the city of Fort Worth and 14 other cities here in Tarrant County. So Jim you're kind of new to Fort Worth I say you're kind of you've been here two years it's hard to believe yeah yeah well first of all we're glad to have you thank you first of all tell us a little bit about your background where'd you come from and how'd you get here? Sure thing well first of all thanks for having me thanks for asking me to be here with you tonight I was born and raised in Columbus Ohio and I went went to school there I went to college there I got hired by the fire department in the city of Columbus I worked there for 30 years I went back to graduate school got a degree I went to nursing school I spent about 20 22 years as a critical care nurse all kinds of different settings ER ICU flight nursing those type of things about two and a half just just just shy of three years ago the city of Fort Worth asked if I'd be interested in coming out and taking a look around and I did I came to town actually fell in love with the community almost about this time two years ago I was moving into downtown and starting to work and hitting the ground running and working with a thousand people of both uniform and civilian within the Fort Worth fire department that have have truly felt been blessed that that I've had the opportunity to work with them and be a part of what is now grown into the 13th largest city in the United States so it's great good well we're delighted that you're here and you run a great department chief I know a lot of those folks and I know that you're working with them I know that you're working on some things there and one of the things that people are interested in is all the growth that we're having in it's very worth 15 to 20 thousand people moving here every year in addition to that we have a lot of landmass for a city our size that's a lot of coverage that we lean on you to provide coverage for if we get in a car accident if something happens if there's a fire in in particular you know there's there's there's sort of three kind of focuses of growth and Fort Worth Alliance up north south along Chisholm Trail but the other big one is west in district three where Walsh is exploding and so are some other developments out there absolutely how are you making sure that we stay ahead of that and take care of that so it was actually one of the intriguing things about coming to work here I sat down Mr. Koch and leadership team of Fort Worth it was it was a great opportunity to be a part of something that was continuing to grow which presented a lot of opportunity but yet a lot of challenges too and so when you speak specifically of Walsh you know you you have to appreciate the fact that having I where I came from was in a similar situation where it did not it was not landlocked by other communities and so when you start looking at that those those are great opportunities and you have to really dig into the community you have to find out what the community's plans are you know on your way to Walsh you know you've also got another development out there called Lost Creek that you know we we really have met with we've sat down with we've got a lot of things that we're trying to work with there too we've got property there for a fire station and we're actively working with the city to determine if that is really the best viable alternative for a fire station the money's been appropriated thankfully in the bond levy by the taxpayers and so we feel very confident that you know we are going to be in a situation we'll be providing services there in the next year or so have a fire station out there we plan our hope is to break ground by the end of the year good the station's been you know architecturally designed and we're in the process now of just making sure that it's in the in the exact right spot it needs to be considering all of the growth Mr. Dickerson Ryan Dickerson is a new leader out there for the properties they've got some new growth anticipated plans they've been meeting with the other partners in the community the other ranches out there which are going to provide other opportunity and potentially other need for services as you know as you've mentioned there's a lot of freeway out there already and there's a lot of traffic pattern through that freeway with hazardous materials and stuff that we do still provide services too so making sure that we're there is a part of it making sure we're there with the right response is is our main focus yeah yeah very very good and and that Lost Creek site for the fire station really has been discussed a tremendous amount since I was elected three years ago yes and I know there've been some hiccups trying to get that done a lot of stuff I don't really understand I'm not a real estate guy but something about water or sewer so I'm glad to hear you say that by the end of this year maybe December we should be breaking ground on that that's the anticipation provided that we can get the issues resolved on that particular property and if we have to look at other options we've we've been meeting with the city to make sure that we are strategically looking at placing that fire station in the best location possible to provide a timely service to the residents and guests of that area with the future development plans we believe that that the site it's possible to get there and we're still working with the city and community partners to get there yeah very good talk a little bit about MedStar and the way that the fire department partners with MedStar to make sure that we get not only just somebody on scene but even before we have somebody on scene we're helping people provide care yeah that's actually a great point you know we we have an elaborate 911 system here the fire department the police department provide emergency response obviously from a police and fire perspective but what the public doesn't always understand is that police and fire also provide a good deal of medical care to our community MedStar is a authority it's a governmental authority by code by statue and they are the ambulance provider and 911 EMS provider for our community and as you mentioned 14 other communities in the area and we work collaboratively with them on a day and a day basis to do several things one make sure timely responses to the community for their need specific to the type of call it is based on whether or not it's a basic life support call or more advanced life support call or somebody might possibly be critically ill or injured we make sure that between the police 911 dispatchers the fire department dispatchers the MedStar 911 dispatchers that the highest level of of illness and injury that folks what we what we like to talk about is a zero minute response time we leave people on the phone with them the entire response it might be a three four five minute response but we make sure that there's somebody on the phone with them giving them pre-arrival instructions and we do that purposely to make sure that people are taught over the phone to take care of the emergency themselves until our help arrives in the form of either MedStar fire or police and so from there then what what ends up happening is that the fire department you know everybody thinks of the word fire they think that we're we are an all hazard agency that we're we have 130 paramedics on our fire department we provide a high level of care under the same medical direction and the same protocol of MedStar and the police department and what we do is we make sure that we have a unified approach in the best interest of the community when it comes to that care and that we ride to the hospital with them when necessary we make sure that we're there ahead of them if they're coming from a different area town and we have a fire station that's strategically placed in a community and if they get there and they need help they know all they got to do is ask for it and we're there to support them and help them it's a big deal to have you and your team available 24 7 365 scattered in stations all over the city so that we can get to people when they need it because if I'm a citizen and I call 911 dog on it I expect somebody to be there and take care of us the zero minute response I think is fantastic because there's a lot of first aid care that a normal person can provide and so is it the case then that the dispatcher or whoever that person calls and gets a hold of is kind of walking them through how to stop a bleeding how to see PR these sorts of things exactly that's exactly it you know these protocols are developed through a lot of medical direction a lot of research based science that talks about what and how you interact and talk to people when they are stressed the things to say the manner to say it to get their attention in order for them to concentrate to do what you're asking them to do at the same time that we're trying to get them help by finding out where they're at in a phone number to call them back if we get disconnected you know the biggest thing that an 911 dispatcher needs to know is where are you at where is help needed right everything else is secondary to where are you and once we get that then we figure out what the problem is if they're not awake then are they breathing if they're not breathing do they have a pulse do we need to start CPR that is probably one of the highest medical issues we have you know from a fireside you know it's where's the fire are you trapped where in the house are you trapped can you get out those type of things so we don't leave people alone during those times we make sure that we're talking them down from their stress and we're concentrating on trying to get help started and we're very we've got really a professional group of people in all three in all three groups and they do a great job getting people to concentrate on providing a level of care at what is a very basic level for the most part getting CPR started getting bleeding stopped as you talk about and making sure that people that are need to be moved because they're in a dangerous position or moved and those that aren't aren't moved so you know you've you've kind of hit it on the head there yeah yeah a lot of medicine is knowing what not to do that's true a lot of times isn't it yes well I think your medical background I think is so important in this and so helpful in this I think your partnership with the different agencies is huge we have tremendous leadership from Dr. veer vithalani who's the medical director over these systems and your team the the police department and all the wonderful folks at med star my last question for you is about text 911 oh very can you talk a little bit about the what's coming in regards to text 911 so the terry county 911 board which oversees the the 911 communication system for the county is on in a project that we were hoping to have done here by the end of august but with the covid stuff we've kind of hit some delays and being able to get into 911 centers but across the country the the next phase of 911 is going to be a text to 911 system and that is a benefit to people who are in a situation where actually making a phone call to a 911 dispatcher potentially puts them at risk you know a lot of those situations are police emergencies to be honest with you and so with that there's an opportunity now in terry county that been supported by the mayor by counsel as yourself by the city manager's office to make sure that we have that next generation capability where people can text their location and 911 they get a response back from the dispatcher making sure that they have communicated that yes we got your text and it's not off out in the cipher land somewhere that was one of the biggest things that we found from the virginia tech school shooting is that kids were hunkered down in classrooms texting and it was going to nowhere so making sure that there's a response to that is a big educational part of this and then making sure we have the system set up in a way that we can give those pre-arrival instructions that are so important that we just talked about yeah well and I think you're making a good point we'll have our work cut out for us once the system is in place and making sure everybody knows that it's available for them to use if they are in a situation absolutely described okay yeah great well we have a couple of questions i think okay do we partner with neighboring cities like ben brook and elito to get assistance on coverage so that's a great question and and yes we absolutely do there's two different forms of assistance and coverage and we give and we get one is mutual aid and one is automatic response so what's the difference in the two automatic response is a program that's set up in which we work with our neighboring partners to make sure that the closest emergency vehicle goes to that scene of the emergency to make sure that there's no delay in care and that we are working collaboratively as communities to support our residents but also make sure that they have help in a timely fashion so mutual aid on another on the other side is a much more elaborate system where the city of fort worth is an example has a responsibility to provide mutual assistance to other municipalities because there are certain things that we get federal funding for such as our explosive ordinance unit our bomb squad such as our hazmat team we get federal money for that to make sure that they are mission ready here in the fort worth area and because of that we as the city also commit that we will make those resources available to a region from a regional approach and so yes we do we work on that there's a there's a collaboration of the fire chiefs of all these cities that represent at meetings to make sure that we're having good communication and that we are working collaboratively together in the best interests of the public and we we do a pretty good job of that here there's there's good interaction and good communication yeah we're all better working together and working in silos for sure we appreciate that I appreciate how has the fire department been involved in the COVID-19 response in particular testing wow so that's a that's a big question I and you know I appreciate you asking that question one of the goals I've had since I've been here I believe that there's a good opportunity in major cities across the United States to tie public safety and public health more collaboratively together there's there's a lot of overlap that if we work together and we just have good communication we can figure out ways to help and as an example one of them is through testing very early on in the COVID response I think we would all agree that that the volume of testing was not where it needed to be and so we made sure that you know we had the support from the city leadership and what we did is we turned around and and the the forward fire department's in a unique position because we have the skills with our health care experience and our hazardous material experience our our ability to go to significantly challenging runs where there's the potential for illness and protect ourselves you know we use that same mindset and hazardous material response using the tools and the equipment the training we were in a unique position to do this and so we've we've been out we've done over 15,000 nursing home exams and tests in of patients and staff and nursing homes we've done over 15,000 at this point we're working in conjunction with the Tarrant County Public Health Department on that they assign a nursing home that has got a case cases that they're concerned about and we we go out and we do the testing there we've been working with Sergeant Ed Bach in the forward police department who have been absolutely knocking it out of the park in the community testing along with the folks from Tarrant County Public Health and Brandon Bennett and Cody Montana, Winniham from here in the city of Fort Worth to do community testing and get it out into each council member's district we have testing available now we've got good teams that are out there that are highly trained to do it and we can get it turned around in a in anywhere between a 12 and a 36 hour window depending on what tests we do and so if people feel they need tested we need to make sure that people know that the testing is available it's accurate at this point and we need them to get tested 98% accurate it is it is and the testing company like you to like like me to tell you it's 99% because they have a 1 to 2 so I'll err on the side of cautiousness 98% I think that's better and our last question it's not about the fire specifically but more about the district in general you've talked about Las Vegas Trail can you tell us what you've done to help another economically depressed area in your district Lake Como sure we've spent a lot of time working with the Como leadership we working with our planning department put a plan together to take it to the regional transportation cog and apply for a grant so that we can streetscape Horn Street Horn Street is the arterial that runs north and south right down the middle of Como almost down the middle that's you it's a little bit on the west side we were successful in obtaining that grant I think it's in the seven million dollar range the city's going to add another million to that I think that project is going to roll out in 2023 range and the other big thing of course that's happened in Como is we were able to break down and complete the Como Community Center which is right there on Horn it looks fantastic and it we just need to be able to use it more right but we've been inhibited in doing that because of the COVID situation but we we've been able to use it for testing for COVID so we're putting it to use the best that we can I'm in close contact with Ella Burton with Dorsey DeBose and all kinds of folks in the Lake Como area as things come up I also appreciate very much Commander Cynthia O'Neill who's the Commander of the West Division of the City of Fort Worth Police Department and she and I work very closely in taking questions or concerns or reports things like this thank you very much for the question well Chief before you go I'll tell you that first of all we appreciate you and we appreciate all the folks that serve as firefighters in the city of Fort Worth about two years ago they invited me out to the firefighter 101 where they take knuckleheads like me and put us through the paces and they taught us how to put on all the gear and they taught us that somewhere in that process firefighters face a significant increase in cancer and we're seeing that and we're trying to get that figured out but but our folks who are firefighters they know that they're putting themselves at increased risk of cancer and a shortened life we appreciate them risking their lives for us I also got just a little taste of how physically challenging that job is and that you know they put the hat on me and the tank which I know only weighs like 40 pounds it felt like 140 they made a fake fire and and I grabbed the hose and fortunately there was a real firefighter behind you yeah and we went in and I tell you within 10 seconds my heart was beaten out of my chest my legs felt like jelly and that was only just literally a minute and a half into the process and we appreciate these guys taking good care of themselves so that they can take care of us my parents live down the street they live in rich country of states and they live down the street from one of our firehouses right there on 183 and for the last I think it's 26 years now no no it's longer than that this is going back to 1985 what is that 45 years 35 they have on on christmas eve they've taken food to the firefighters that are over there and they always say you know they look at the map on the wall and they say no my house is right here don't forget about me but but they just do that as an expression of thanks and my cousin lives in in california as a firefighter near and the end of his career and battling we've all heard about the terrible forest fires over there and last year he lost a dear friend who'd been on the force with him for 20 plus years it's a dangerous job whether you guys are fighting fires or you're out on a freeway taking care of an accident and just want you know how much we appreciate you well I appreciate it and and I would like to just real quick I'd like to point out that you know I I appreciate you mentioned mentioning the cancer you know heart disease cancer behavioral health as far as post-traumatic stress our big issues the suicide rate and the fire service nationally is a problem that concerns me I've been here two years and I have to make sure that I thank you and I I thank the members of council the members of city manager's office because I really can look at the members of the fort worth fire department and the public and say that there has been effort put forward and support behind and financial support behind the health and the wellness of the Fort Worth firefighters and we are making strides in that regard and if I have one goal here as the fire chief in this city it's to make sure that I give everyone on the opportunity to go home safe at the end of their shift and but I can't do it without your support your members of council support city manager support so but personally I want to say thank you thanks for that chief appreciate you being here tonight really do thank you well that's all of our guests and that's I think all the questions that have come in thank you for tuning in for the district three city hall and feel free to reach out to us district three the number three at fort worth texas.gov please make sure you wear your mask when you're out in public so we can keep this covid thing suppressed so that we can make sure our economy keeps coming back and folks it is coming back let me say how much we appreciate everybody that was here tonight and also appreciate our wonderful mayor who has been leading all of us through this and a couple of folks have commented on the support that they receive from city council and that that we don't politicize things listen a lot of that is because of the leadership that mayor betsy price has brought to this this organization in this city and we appreciate her very much thank you very much for turning for tuning in