 Go ahead and get started again Again, I'd like to welcome you to the Fort Worth Chambers Largest 16th largest or this is the largest event that we hold each year. It's the Largest and I think there is a record here of 1300 people and So yeah, that's great and as I like to think about it. It's 1300 of mayor Price's closest friends So anyway, please feel free to finish your lunch and I'm gonna go ahead and recognize some of our special guests and sponsors here today So as our presenting sponsor, I'd like to recognize Simmons Bank and Representative by represented by Terry Smith who is the regional chairman for Fort Worth Dallas. So thank you Terry and I'd also like to introduce our platinum sponsors and As I mentioned your company's name if you would stand the representative stand and please hold your applause until I'm finished making the introductions So platinum sponsors are Baylor Scott and white all Saints Medical Center Janice Whitmire chief operating officer BNSF railway company French Thompson director public projects and systems design Chase Bank Todd rich Bert Ritter birch, sorry about that Todd. I knew I was gonna stumble here Fort Worth marketing and commercial banking Community Foundation of North Texas Rose Bradshaw president and CEO Encore live Walter Kinsey owner and CEO fine line Tony Lee chief operating officer Frostbank Hadley Warner. He's a regional president Tarrant County Kelly Hart and Hallman Mary Ann Ald managing partner and red productions Red Sanders president producer and dreamer All right. Thank you all very much Also like to invite you to look at your programs and in the programs You'll see our gold silver and bronze sponsors, and I want to thank you all for your investment in the chamber Now at our head table. We also have some special guests. We have the honorable mayor Betsy Price from Fort Worth We also have Mark nerden He's the president of Bank of Texas Fort Worth region And by the way Bank of Texas is our presenting sponsor this year for the Forte awards for small business of the year We also have Jason Whitley. He's the host of inside Texas politics Most of you have seen him probably on WFAA channel eight Jason And we have Bill Thornton our president and CEO of the Fort Worth chamber And we also have numerous selected officials here today, and I don't want to miss any one individual so When I call the name of your governing body if you'll please stand and again If we'll hold our applause applause until all the groups have been introduced Senators and representatives from the US Congress Senators and representatives from the Texas Legislature Judges commissioners sheriffs other elected officials from Tarrant County Board members of Tarrant County College District board members of Tarrant County Regional Water District council members of the city of Fort Worth Trustees from the Fort Worth ISD Mayor of Arlington Jeff Williams Mayor of Dallas Mike Rawlings Mayor of North Rachel Hills Oscar Trevino and Former mayors of Fort Worth Mike Moncreef and Ken Barr So I want to thank you all for your service. I want to thank you all for your service to the citizens of our communities Okay, now I'd like to turn our attention to the Forte award winners We like to recognize the recipients of the Fort Worth Chamber small business of the year Which we last year revamped and lost launched the inaugural Forte award But first before I get started I want to tell you just a few stats about the importance of entrepreneurs to the chamber About 90% of the chambers 2,000 business investors are small businesses with less than 50 people 65% of the new jobs in the US economy are created by small businesses. That's according to the US Department of Labor and Statistics In almost 62% of the Texas 2017 GDP growth resulted from efforts from companies fewer than 100 employees These companies really do make up the heart and soul of our Fort Worth business community And whether they want to stay a small business or become a fortune 500 company the chambers there to support them I also want to thank our sponsors For giving the small business this platform to shine and to model their best practices as Fort Worth's finest entrepreneurs So our presenting sponsor for the Forte award this year is Bank of Texas. So thank you mark Also, we have platinum sponsors for the Forte award, which is Clifton Larson Allen LLP and The Neely School of Business Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation TCU and The media sponsors are the Fort Worth business press and gold sponsors are listed in the program that you have in front of you We also want to thank the members of the small business community for their leadership and helping judge this expertise So let's let all these folks have a big round of applause. I do want to mention that this year's competition Changed a little bit in past years. We had put them in categories by number of employees this year We changed it to category by industry So the 12 finalists competing fell into the following categories consumer and retail manufacturing and distribution professional services and emerging business of Those four businesses were announced as category winners at a January 24th event held in the near Southside by the Chamber Then a blue ribbon panel of judges they grouped and selected one of the one for the overall Grand Forte award winner And which I'll announce their name here shortly The judges looked at workplace environment core values community engagement and that helped make their decision for them I do want to tell you that the scores were incredibly close In fact, there was fewer than five points difference between all the competitors So I encourage you to look at the profiles in of the businesses the details are in the program that you have Because these are four exceptional enterprises So as the as I mentioned the names of the companies would represent as please stand So for emerging business, which is businesses that have been in existence for less than three years We have sixth Avenue Homes co-founders Jamie ice and Jimmy Williams You'll stand Sixth Avenue Homes is a one-stop shop for buying selling renovating and designing homes and Fort Worth In manufacturing we have Silver Creek materials Robert Dowell owner Silver Creek materials of recycling compost mining and organic products leader in the area of retail and consumer We have tribe alive. That's Carly Burson who's the co-founder and CEO Tribe alive is an ethical fashion brand focused on moving the industry towards a more sustainable approach And in professional services, we have elements of architecture Debbie Fullwiler, and she's the president Elements of architecture creates environments that shape the human experience Alright, so now for the big moment and the Grand Forte award goes to Sixth Avenue Homes Right, I want to thank all the outstanding entrepreneurs that make Fort Worth such a great place to live and work and Also for their leadership in our business community And now I would like to invite to the stage Terry Smith Fort Worth Dallas regional chairman for Simmons Bank and Terry will introduce Mayor Price Terry Thank You Lonnie. Good afternoon. It's great to see all these people that came out today in the cold and rain I know the chamber and everyone here. We appreciate everyone's attendance And thank you all for coming on behalf of the nearly 300 North Texas associates of Simmons Bank We are proud to once again be the title sponsor for the mayor state of the city address to the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce At Simmons Bank, we are a 17 billion dollar regional financial services company operating in seven states with a 116 year history of serving the financial needs of consumers Entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes Helping them achieve their personal and professional successes. So how do we make our businesses successful? I? Believe there are a multitude of formulas for success Our theme at last year's meeting revolved around talent and I think we all agree that talent is certainly a key ingredient for success But talent without effort will fail every time We have to put in the work to be successful Every business owner and executive in this room knows how much work it takes to maximize the potential of our business models For 2019 the city of Fort Worth has a nearly two billion dollar revenue budget That would rank in the top 50 largest companies based in North Texas So yes, our city is big business and Since we all know how much work it takes to make our businesses successful Just imagine how much work it takes to make our city successful and oh, what a success it is Cowtown Panther City a Suburb of Dallas Hey mayor, well, that's our history But Fort Worth has become so much more Fort Worth is a shining star a city on the rise and is now the 15th largest city in the country business-friendly quality education Culturally enriched and an entertainment destination Now all that didn't just happen. It took Work our city staff works hard And it can be stressful. I Know this by the number of times that I've shared stress relief sessions with city manager David Cook at the Fort Worth club about six o'clock in the evenings Our city council works hard too, but no one individual works harder to grow and enrich this city than our mayor Betsy Price Mayor price has been a tireless public servant for nearly two decades Nearing completion of her fourth term as mayor She has put in the work Work on promoting jobs strengthening education and improving mobility Mayor price has worked and made significant strides along the path of her vision of a healthy Engaged and fiscally responsible city She knows what it takes and she has delivered So yes being mayor is hard work So why does she do it? Because it's worth it Fort Worth is worth the work And we appreciate the efforts put forth on our behalf by all of our public servants No matter where we live They're working for us So mayor, it's time for you to come do your work here. So please help me welcome our mayor Betsy Price So as we're driving around the city, okay What do you see? The mayor says a lot that Fort Worth is a city coming of age and that's exactly what I see I See it's a city that is rooted in this small town great environment. That's experiencing this massive growth That's embracing creativity embracing our Western heritage There's just so many possibilities and the people here are ready to try to make it happen You know for worth is just right on the cusp of We're we're growing incredibly fast and we are right on the cusp of doing really really big times When I first started here in 1994 Fort Worth was not the 15th largest city in America It really is amazing to see all the development all the building and see companies relocate to Fort Worth, Texas You've seen everything on 7th Street. How much it's down town how much it's changed We see the growth in Fort Worth and I thank Betsy Price for everything she's doing to bring people into Fort Worth All right, let's head into the school. All right We've been in the top fastest growing cities for the last 15 years We won't continue that growth if we can't have an educated workforce. So I'm the community volunteer for read Fort Worth I've been doing it for about two and a half years and I did it for one reason That's because Betsy Price asked me to do it We started read Fort Worth because we lost two companies to Austin They felt like our workforce wasn't gonna be there when they needed in a few years We appreciate the read Fort Worth program We have several organizations that have come through that partnership and do one-on-one reading with the students It is affecting change and the children are improving Somebody has to come along beside the school district and be their partner. They're doing a great job But we need to move that up a level and they can't do it a lot. It's about jobs. It's about the health of your community It's about engage people who understand how the city works and the other piece that I'm passionate about is the health of this community Mayor has always been focused on health. She's a biker. She's out doing all kinds of things Our company was co-sponsored to have blue zones come. It has to do with people living longer Healthier lifestyles. It's a lot of work. It isn't just checking the box You have to actually change the way you do things. It's a real commitment We're the biggest city to be blue zone certified All of that makes you a more attractive community for businesses, too So those are probably some of the things you're most proud of that you're not just in the middle of they've been implemented And they're kind of done. They're not done That's just the first step The key for Fort Worth is our ability to partner together Partnerships are not easy man, but the communities that are doing it great are those communities that are willing to partner Dallas has many communities within it. Fort Worth has one and we have the ability to Get a lot of things done because we can bring together a relatively small group of people set a plan and move forward Fort Worth has become a big city, but it's retained that hometown feel and it has that small town heart It's not just your big city anywhere. USA. It's a city of great character right up a great character For what it's friend Fort Worth is trailblazing Fort Worth is worth the work Inside Texas politics made the drive over this morning. Thanks for having me. Thank you I'm delighted to have you with us for we jump into Q&A. I want to make just a few comments to people here You know, believe it or not. This is my eighth state of the city It's hard to believe it's been that long and it has been a wonderful ride. It's been a wild ride I'll give you that as we've grown from 17th to 15th largest But the energy this job gives me the passion that I have for this community It's just makes me want to get up every morning and dance across this stage You know, it's a 24-7 job if you're not careful and my family has sacrificed so much My sweet husband Tom who can't be with us today because he's home with the flu I think he got it from his wife and My children my brothers and sisters and all of our dear friends and my two oldest grandsons Chaplain price here with us over here. They know that lots of times I don't miss many parties many birthday parties, but lots of times. I'm late or not they're long So thank you to my family for their patience in this job For my fellow council people you all you men and women are incredible in what you do You know, we discuss a lot of issues and we don't always agree on all of them but we have a way of working through our issues and Everyone understanding in classic Fort Worth fashion that we have to put the city first and we have to work together To bring success to Fort Worth It's a complete contrast to what you see at the national level and I think our council members deserve a round of applause for that Fort Worth's come a long way Jason since we started as an outpost in 1849 on the Trinity River We're a city that's made up of great character of great characters and Fort Worth ends have grit and a bit of a renegade spirit But all in all we're fiercely loyal whether you're the first time in Fort Worth Or whether you're a fourth or fifth generation people love Fort Worth and Fort Worth truly is worth the work I'll continue to work on it and it's great. So Jason. All right. Let's jump right into this Q&A We're gonna address a number of topics you see them behind us here. So let's start with finances first This is the the pension has made the biggest news lately is something we've covered at channel late as well, too It was in danger of running out of money as everyone probably knows in the next 20 to 30 years or so a Compromises reached retirees will keep their cost of living adjustments as well, too And it appears at Fort Worth to be the largest city not to have to go to Austin To get this figured out which is which is pretty incredible. What the two questions here What lessons did the city learn in the process and secondly? This was a goal of yours getting the fiscal house in order since you took office at 2011 Yeah When I was elected in 2011 and you all know I came from the tax office because they all had to write major checks to me At one point or another if you didn't I probably came to see you. Is that where you got those Ray-Ban sunglasses? That's where I got those Ray-Ban sunglasses hide a little bit behind them But I came to the city and I knew that we had to get for the city to remain competitive To continue to grow to increase our growth to attract young families to keep people aging in place We had to get our financial house in order and that started with what do we do with our pension? Every one of you expect your city leaders when they're elected to tackle the hard issues to tackle the fiscal Issues and to get that straight The pension was the major thing that we campaigned on and set about to fix And I'm proud to say the first change that we made in 2012 kept this pension from being totally upside down at three billion dollars Right now we're facing a one point six billion dollar unfunded liability Now who knew I was gonna face and this council would face this pension twice But what we've learned is that we put a proposal on the table After David Cook and his team worked for nearly three years to find an answer We brought a proposal forward. It wasn't acceptable for our employees and for our retirees So we asked our labor groups and our general employees to come back to the table Heck we actually locked ourselves in a room and spent almost five hours one day and about three hours another day working on this With our friends at the chamber our POA 440 our fire group and our general employees. We were able to put forth a solution Is it perfect? No, but this is an incredibly emotional issue for people. You're talking about people's futures You're talking about their retirement remember city employees don't draw Social Security It's only their own savings and the pension. So we've got a proposal on the table Our charter requires our pension fund requires a vote of our employees Council came together and voted unanimously to accept our changes to increase the city's contributions to leave the retirees Cola and to ask our employees to routine it increase their contributions and Right now our employees are voting. They have two more days to vote We did a whole series of Educational opportunities for employees So they would know what they're voting on and I feel good about this vote And if that happens and I feel certain it will Fort Worth will be the largest city to settle it locally It's a local issue. It impacts all of you as business people and it certainly impacts all of our employees and the retirees Mary as you mentioned the employee vote ends on Friday approval requires 50% plus one Will you have the votes? I think we will it's an odd wrinkle in this particular ordinance that requires not only that We have a positive vote, but that 50% plus one of our 7,000 employees vote And I think with the help of our team that's worked hard on educating people that we will have the votes I feel I hope I'm not being too optimistic, but I feel very good about it. That's where the state of the city is Optimism that's exactly right. This is a great city mayor Let's talk about the bond to voters don't overwhelmingly pass the 2018 bond 399.5 million dollars. It's a new library to new fire stations community center a new police station I believe What's happened what happens in a lot of cities is these bond projects drag on for years you insist That's not going to happen with that's right If we're gonna ask all of you to vote to put your money on the table However, we voted this bond in with no increase in our tax rate. In fact, we've lowered our tax rate And I think we're gonna talk about that But when I was elected in 2011 we started looking at our capital campaign and our bonds and Realized that we still had bonds that weren't delivered from 1994 and Just last year we finished delivering on the 2000 the last of the 2000 bonds We're not different from other cities But when we did this 2018 bond election We promised that if you would approve it and you did at 81% That we would deliver in four years And I'm proud to say that all the arterial roads that are on this bond are already contracted in the design phase Victory forest is well underway a couple of the other community centers This bond package will be delivered on time and within the dollars that we ask you for That's a big win folks when we were dealing with bond elections that were nearly 20 years old to move that to four Excuse me we couldn't have done that without Roger vulnerable and Steve Cook's help in property management while you grab some water there too Let's talk about the property tax rate the city slashed the property tax rate as well, too Besides helping taxpayers you made a good point. This was a competitive move as you mentioned in the video as well, too To better position Fort Worth to compete for businesses to attract businesses Yeah, you know Fort Worth had the dubious distinction of having the highest tax rate of any major city in Texas Not by just a little bit by a whole lot We have that because traditionally we had had much lower values. There's a slide for this, too I don't mean to interrupt you mayor, but I think we have a slide for this as well, too Yeah, and we'll talk about this just a second But as our values begin to rise We had the responsibility of reducing that rate if we're gonna remain competitive for young families for older families For businesses to come to Fort Worth We had to get that rate down Plus if your values going up your tax bill continues to rise It's our responsibility to alleviate some of that burden But what we looked at and I've seen this for years and worried a little bit about Fort Worth's tax base is upside down You can see from this slide. It's 64 percent Residential and 36 percent property commercial line going out commercial. Yeah, thank you That's not healthy for a city folks that puts a huge burden on you as homeowners Part of what we have to change and part of what we're gonna talk about with economic development a few minutes is Increasing that commercial development to do that we simply had to slash that tax rate to remain competitive And in three years, we've moved it down seven cents and that puts us down in the lower bracket for major cities in Texas Which makes us much more attractive to businesses. Well, let's shift topics now and talk about neighborhood investment because Regardless of the city there are neighborhoods everywhere as you know that complain. They're overlooked or ignored Etc. No different here, but three years ago, mayor. You did something explain the strategy and whether it's worked Yeah, three years ago under David Cook's leadership our city manager We looked at how can we make all neighborhoods in Fort Worth? Successful because face it folks if we're honest, it's a squeaky wheel neighborhoods in Fort Worth that have gotten the service Those lower income neighborhoods have been ignored not intentionally necessarily, but they have been It's a slow shift to turn around downtown Fort Worth Renaissance with ad and Johnny and them didn't turn around overnight This one won't either it was 30 years on that project But what we did was take what's the equivalent of a half cent of our property tax It's roughly three million dollars this year and invested in neighborhoods We started with identifying neighborhoods where crime is high poverty is high education issues safety issues Where infrastructure was not where it needed to be? We looked at those issues and we went in and our first neighborhood was in stop six area That was three years ago We went in and put additional police officers on the streets many on bikes so that they know their neighbors neighborhood NPO neighborhood patrol officers had additional help we Replaced street lights because who's gonna get out and get to know their neighborhood and be proud of their neighborhood if it's dark at night And crime goes up where streetlights aren't in we put in sidewalks so that people could get out and get engaged in their neighborhood And the next neighborhood we tackled was Ash Crescent Stop six is Gina Bibbins and Ash Crescent is Kelly Allen Gray's neighborhood and we also took code in to clean up That was a big deal and is it working? Yeah, it's working our data shows that crime has gone crimes against property It's gone down 25% since we started that effort in stop six and Ash Crescent and Prostitution and drug crimes have dropped 53% But the really heartwarming part is people feel better about their neighborhoods and our building permits are up 48% in stop six and Ash Crescent. That's a big win for those neighborhoods Our next our next neighborhood will be the north side is Jim Lane always says the shark north side inside the loob And that's in count the member floors this district and that's a three million dollar investments It will be the same thing sidewalks reduction in crime code will be there cleaning up I'm very very pleased with this effort and it really is changing neighborhoods People feel good about getting out in their neighborhood again and mayor for the squeaky neighborhoods who haven't been Touched by this yet How do you ensure the integrity of the neighborhood remains that longtime residents aren't pushed out by all these new building permits? Yeah, long-term residents. That's always the issue gentrification. So often comes It's an issue that every city struggles with how do you address that? But the idea here is not just to increase the values but to increase the pride in your neighborhood So you want to stay there to increase the ability for children to go to their neighborhood schools to drive Education forward all of those will keep people in their homes and keep it just from gentrifying and turning over as well As putting in new investments Mayor let's shift topics now to race and culture at something's been on a lot of minds lately It's been in the headlines been on TV stations as well including channel 8 in December the racing culture task force made the Recommendation release of recommendation rather council accepted it now the city manager has 90 days to figure out how to implement this Which the 90 days is coming up? You said this is something we have to own we have to address but implementing these changes that's gonna cost a lot of money Yeah, it could cost millions of dollars. Is the city ready to spend that? I think we are the racing cultural task force brought to light a lot of issues that no one intentionally was Ignoring it just happened as business went forward as we moved our neighborhoods moved our business They really peeled that bandaid back and took a hard look at fort worth Tough conversations on what needed to change in fort worth and what had been impacted Is it a perfect report? Probably not there are those who disagreed with our method that we didn't listen to this and that but it's a great start It's a really good start and this task force worked for 18 months on it If you face it foot worth is a tale of like most big cities in the nation Mayor Rawlings would agree I know Like most big cities in the nation It's a tale of two cities the ones where there's great opportunity Integrity and fortitude in the neighborhoods and oftentimes lower incomes that tend to be tended to be neighborhoods of colors Whose rich culture has been ignored? I think the city is definitely committed the estimate is three million or more We will hire an equity officer to help us implement this plan And we will be leveraging a lot of our private dollars with our foundations to move this forward I'm pleased with the report. I think looking at hard issues is just something we have to do And i'm ready to roll our sleeves up and go to work and mayor you mentioned the critics critics have said this is This should only be the beginning So the question is how do you ensure that this is this conversation continues? This is only the beginning. I think you have to keep it front and center The city will have to hire someone who's an equity officer who's charged with implementing this plan Or david cook our city manager will have to assign an acm to do it We're looking at everything we do at the city through an equity lens and it's data driven If we take a hard look at the data that we have and move that forward based on data and equity It'll stay on the front burner and educational be the big piece and we're going to get into education a minute Let me back up a minute too because I mentioned Mayor Rawlings knowing recently about Dallas today I want to thank may it mike stand up mike is here rawlings Most of you know that mike and I were elected the same day and within a week had met to decide How we could drive this region forward together mike has been a champion for this region and He's a champion for dallas and fort worth two and so have I tried to be we've done great work together This picture was taken on a dfw trip in paris and we may we wowed paris for dfw Mike is termed out as you know So mike we're going to miss you, but you're not done yet. I'll continue to keep you working. Thank you for your friendship And thank you for your hard work Mayor let's shift off to economic development fort worth is reinventing itself In this area here too with a new plan and you told me something that's fascinating major companies know dallas But they don't know fort worth What have you done to help change that? You know that was one of the challenges when we did our economic development strategy a year and a half ago And the chamber did their fortify plan It came to light. We've kind of been seeing this for some time It really is it's dfw which is alphabetical of course right mike I say it's fwd and it drives him crazy But people just don't realize who fort worth is or what we have to offer When you ask in that survey what size fort worth is the average person in the nation? And guess we're 48 and we're 15 So we've moved forward on incentive packages working with all three chambers We looked at what we need to encourage innovation businesses Fortunately as a result of that we now have amazon air's largest facility We have uber elevate coming in designed at bell helicopter To encourage economic prosperity for all to encourage innovation But just as importantly as recruiting new businesses, how do we focus On growing our own businesses? How do we continue to raise that profile nationwide? The airport's been a big partner in helping that The chamber organized a trip. We took business leaders education leaders Myself and many others to kansas city kansas city has done a really good job Of one vision for kc from education to economic development and raising their profile on a national level And why not copy other people's successes? It gave us a great chance to talk about one fort worth And what we have to see And that's a big piece of this is the strategy though just attracting these you know behemoth businesses How do you make sure you get the you know the small upstarts? Now part of our expansion is how do we continue to focus on? innovators and the backbone of any strong economy is mom and pop operations Entrepreneurship we have a good record of doing that of looking at incentives for them Working at the back the business assistant center with tech fort worth UNT health science center and alliance has an incubator that started two or three small successful businesses I really think it's the whole picture if you're going to have prosperity for everyone You have to look at how do you incentivize neighborhoods other than the ones that are already growing? For business, how do we get additional businesses in the south side? How do we get additional businesses in the wedgewood southwest area? And part of that is focusing on mom and pop operations and potential incentives for them You know, it's all about it's the bottom line economic development is going to be about social economic issues How do we fight poverty housing child care and one issue that affects everybody's core city services? Let's let's focus on core city services for a moment There's an effort to transform the basic city services And there's a good example the city has in los vegas trail. Yeah, tell us what's going on there How these different departments are working together? I think most of this crew knows about lvt rise Which councilmember bird and td smires from united way are heading up It's an effort to change a neighborhood that really saw a rapid track trajectory and crime a loss of vitality we came together with Core city services led by the city attorney's office one particular hotel in that region Was responsible for about 50 percent of the crime mostly narcotic crime and prostitution But we were able to under state law bring our city attorney code compliance and the police department To the table and really put the pressure on this hotel to either shut down Or clean up their crime. I'm proud to say that effort of coming together working collaboratively Has seen a huge reduction in the crime in that hotel and overall too Fort worth has some pretty good numbers to announce overall crime. Tell us about that. Yeah, the uh Justice center the brennan center for justice at nyu announced recently their crime statistics for major cities for 2018 Fort worth saw the second largest drop in overall crime of any major city And the largest drop in violent crime in the nation That's a big win We truly We truly are blessed with being an incredibly safe city and that's a result of our hardworking police department Fire department code all the city, you know, I want to take a second to and talk about our police officers these guys go and women go out on the street for you every day And so that we can go home safely and this year Unfortunately on september the 14th. We had what no one wants to have we lost carpool garret hall Garrett is survived by his wife subpoena and two children and subpoena is here Somewhere over here. I think hey subpoena subpoena But I know that subpoena would like to thank the citizens of fort worth in tarrant county for the outpouring of love as your Mayor it was a terrible loss for everyone But as mayor it was heartwarming to see how much love and care Came out of this community for our police officers. We should never forget what they're doing for us Fires just as important. We've got a new fire chief chief davis chief davis is right over here chief And some interesting initiatives Some interesting initiatives the chief is taking on infant mortality. Yeah chief davis came to us from columbia And he was a helicopter nurse critical care nurse as well as fire chief He's come up with some really interesting things fort worth in tarrant county has the unfortunate Distinction of having a very high infant mortality rate. We're about 6.7 deaths per thousand nationwide. It's about 5.6 per thousand But in some of our neighborhoods, it's as much as 22 22 per thousand Chief davis has a plan to help tackle that when our firemen are called They answer 110 incident calls a year 110 thousand And about 60 percent of that 110 thousand is medical When they're called to a home where there's small children They're gonna look at infant safe sleep. Is there a crib or are they sleeping with their parents? Which is a big indicator for sudden infant death Many things is their child abuse potentially and they plan to help these parents to alert the other authorities Heck they're even gonna offer cribs to parents and teaching about it. He did it in columbus Had a great downward trend as a result of it chief davis has partnered with assistant chief ed Crouse and chief fit sterile so that now police will begin to take this on too So look for more information on infant and I do think we're going in the right direction and this will drive us even further down Chief, thank you and thanks to pd for partnering with you actually delivering cribs Actually delivering cribs Water department the water department for worth had a big win there too, huh? We did jd powers associates surveys people nationwide About the water quality and how people feel about their quality and fort worth came out 12 pies in the quality awards mic I'm sorry. Dallas was a little below us this time But that's okay. That's a big. Thank you for our water department, but it's also a big. Thank you for our friends at trwd They're our raw water suppliers They keep a winning awards for what they supply to us and who we supply to a stable supply of water They're adding an additional 150 miles of water pipeline from east texas And working with us on the trva project. That's a project that's gotten a lot of press, but together We will deliver this river vision project And it will be a great benefit for the city of fort worth the next issue is something mayor I hope you mayor Rawlings. I hope you pay attention to this one Mike knows I picked on him all the time to get this one before before you leave if you don't mind mayor city bot This is fascinating. So dallas has 3 1 1 you guys are about to get city bot, which is a text message service No longer do you have to wait on a on hold or wait for someone to answer the phone? You can text a problem in and then we'll get to the city department. Yes city bot is the brain child of a young man Whose father was the longest-serving mayor in the nation city bots? A cell phone app that'll roll out in march and april 95 percent of us have a cell phone even some of you still have flip phones But you'll be able to text if you see a pothole If your trash isn't picked up If you need to call code a loose animal whatever but beginning this spring you'll just enter city bot's number It'll take your information. It'll send you back a receipt and then immediately it goes to the appropriate department They will see that someone is there to take care of that repair Then they will send your receipt back and a response saying hey, we've handled it if it's not appropriate Send us another one. We're really excited about city bot and that will all be done via text It'll all be done via text So if some of you don't text find a teenager and get them to teach you how to do it For all those with flip phones still out there Oh, you can text on some of those flip phones. That's old school right there. Definitely. So let's talk about homelessness too That's a different topic that you guys have had some interesting stories and interesting success in as well too It's an ever-present problem in any city. What is fort worth doing differently? Give us the overview first You know every major city has homeless issues that we're focused on fort worse. No exception We had directions home. Mayor mike in his wisdom brought forward directions home 10 years ago. It's had great impact We have gone in now following that and restructured the continuum of care Which is the overriding board that funds throw through flow through that takes care of homelessness goes down to our providers To have elected officials at the top. It's mayor williams from arlington judge Whitley myself and mayor pat dean our county judge from parker county And really it's a great way to make your elected officials know more of what's going on But what we're doing is focusing on housing first We know that the least expensive way to handle homelessness is to get them in permanent supportive housing The city has allocated 5.6 million dollars for permanent supportive housing. That's profits from our housing Solutions corporation, but the good news is this is a great example of a partnership The morris foundation has announced that they will match dollar for dollar The amount that we put in to support permanent housing The faith-based community has stepped up and gotten involved first presbyterian just dedicated a million dollars To help with permanent supportive housing and broadway baptist who you heard pastor price earlier give the invocation Stepped up and provided three nearly four months worth of shelter this year Really, it's been a great win. It's a major shift away from thinking about just Getting Education getting jobs getting everything into housing where then they can get the services that they need and use that as a jump start That's right But talk about jobs because the city is actually hiring some homeless people to do job We are a partnership with brandon bennett from our code compliance department head and tobey owens at presbyterian night shelter Farmed clean slate. It's a letter Program that we hire the folks coming out of the presbyterian night shelter and other homeless areas to come and pick up the trade Pick up the trash all over town. It gives them a steady stream of income Part of it. They have to go back work on their education Work on other things, but we now have 15 full-time employees at the city of fort worth that have come out of that program I'm really pleased with where clean slate program is going the other big A Goal surpassing moment you guys had to was for homeless veterans You hope to get housing for 100 of them and you've almost doubled that so far Last year 2018 We had a goal and from november from late october into the end of december to house 100 veterans in 100 days And that's pretty audacious go So we came together with our providers at the shelter mhmr The veterans association and our apartment owners association and said Let's put as many veterans as we can and one of the hold ups is that many of these veterans Can't afford the deposit for their apartment So we got our apartment owners to agree to waive those deposits And i'm proud to say that we now have 181 veterans in that 100 days who are in permanent housing You know Those who've served us on the front line and worked so hard shouldn't be homeless It has to it should be a focus for everyone, but particularly for our veterans congratulations, mayor Next topic mobility one that affects everybody congratulations i35 w Finally open, but there's news that you have Another stretch. I know you all want to stand up and cheer because you got better access on i35, right? Most of you know i35 has been under construction forever the good news is February the 28th, and we're going to be front and center my friend bruce bug his chairman Of text dot has promised that we will have the funding in place for three c the last lake Where it next down now will be widened out and you can keep going all the way up 35. Wow. That's a big win that's from the Texas motor speed way up to dentin From eagle from 281 to eagle parkway eagle parkway. Gotcha, and it'll be a great Opportunity and it isn't just our friends at text dot. We've worked hard They're responsible for those major roads, and we've believed me. We've pushed hard Victor vandegraef bruce bug are tired of hearing from me, but i'm not gonna let up But we also worked with our federal partners I mean we want to thank congresswoman k granger Who's now the ranking member on appropriations for her work on transportation? And with the dims running the house now our own congressman mark vise is serving on that energy Commerce commission helping us with that and just yesterday it was announced that mark was the majority assistant whip We're very proud of mark. Wow Transportation and transit truly is a partnership and everybody has to be pulling in the same direction And trinity metro and text rail. Where's the next leg of that going to go? You know we just you see this picture if you how many of you've ridden text rail Oh, that's not near enough They had major success in january and blew through their ridership numbers because this project getting that a great looking train Because this project came in under budget and on time They now have some money to carry forward We're hopeful that it'll go south towards the medical district ultimately south out into the torlton area I know councilmember jordan is excited about that scott mahaffey and his crew bob boucher at trinity metro have worked so hard now if i could just get them to keep their name they've been the t right if Fort Worth transit authority And now trinity metro they changed their name more than p-ditty Really seriously they've done a wonderful job on transit if we can't deliver transit And ultimately long term connect on innovation Just like jeff williams has via and arlington dallas has dart expanded fort worth has to expand it 81 of us drive to work in single cars only 11 percent take transit and the balance is 1 who walk or take bikes 81% isn't that amazing wow if we're going to be a successful region by 2035 which is not very far out or 2036 texas is centennial We've got to have a regional approach. That's a creative innovative approach to transportation Well in the last 10 or 12 minutes or a couple more topics here education Absolutely, which is one let's talk about what's on the tables here on every table in here There are big bouquets and things like that. There's something special on the tables Yeah, this year for the first time because we're focusing on education because it will change the future folks It touches everything we do from crime economic development quality of life Scholastic came in and donated the books that are on your table along with cliford the big red dog that's on your table I know you all know cliford But you they donated all those books and they'll go to the children in 20 schools low performing dr Scriveners here and helped us identify those schools And these kids don't have books at home and for children to really be literate and increase their learning They have to be exposed to books early on this will be pre-k through second grade If you want to donate to that effort you can go to read footwork.org or donate or you can simply leave a check Or cash on the table today and we'll add additional books. It's a shameless plug I know that matt rose would kick me if I didn't plug this program and their success with read footwork as well too You have to announce Yeah, we're you know our goal for read footwork is third grade literacy This crew knows that kids have to read at third grade level to be successful And with the partnership with matt as chairman kent scrivner in my office We came up with the goal of 100 by 2025 to get there. There's a chart up on there that'll show you It's an audacious goal as my kids would say it's a bow hag a big harry go But that shows you we've come a long way. We've come five percent in the last two years But we're gonna have to jump this forward to get to 100 by 2025 We need a nine point three percent annual growth in literacy year over year So fort worth has had some real successes in some of our programs One of them being our summer slide program. Dr. glenice rompton runs that This year every program that the city touches where there's children involved will have a major literacy component We voted to accept that and last summer we saw a big drop in summer slide where kids Lose the amount that they've learned now We expect to see an even bigger rise in that because we know we'll have at least 5 000 children Involved in the summer slide program and a special surprise today jackson shaw One of our businesses stepped up and donated 20 000 to help with this summer slide initiative. That's just announced today Kids involved in summer slide last year saw a 70 percent gain in their literacy Versus those who weren't and who had lost over the summer Hopefully you'll meet that gold. Do you think you'll feel pretty confident? We will meet that goal. This is fort worth Well, let's talk about one thing you're known for riding bikes healthy cities. You still ride your bike these days I still ride as much as I can. I'm running the cow town half marathon or should I say I'm plodding through the cow town half marathon This weekend, but I love to ride my bike and I still do because I think healthy communities are stronger More vibrant encouraged communities one of the things we asked about last time you run our program on inside texas politics was about blue zone and and that's this is a pretty wide ranging Program that's in the community now in restaurants and other places. It is it's an all-encompassing Program in foot worth and it's we're five and a half years into it and I'm proud to say this year we were Blue zone certified which makes us the largest city in the nation to be blue zone certified You may or may not that's a big win We had better than 200 000 people the chamber came to the table thr sponsored It was an incredible effort 200 000 people took the blue zones pledge But one reason that's so important folks is and bill probably shoot me for disclosing this When we looked at the first round of statistics five and a half years ago Gallup well-being surveys communities Surveys top 190 cities in the nation Every year and has for years according to how the health is in the community how people feel about their community Their overall well-being and foot worth ranked number 185 out of 190 Wow after five years of hard work on blue zone this year's gallup well-being showed we were number 58 Wow, that's a huge game And that's attractive not just for quality of life, which it changes for people dramatically Efforts are better children learn better when they're in school when they're healthy. It's great And businesses are more attracted to that too, and you're leading by example. I'm trying So go ahead early childhood Before we run totally. Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead and early childhood then. Yeah, one of the things we kind of skipped over Education is as we dug into this we realized the real key We can't be starting that pipeline over every year as kindergarten We have to back up and look at birth to pre-k or birth to kindergarten That's where major gains are being made And i'm proud to announce this year that fort worth is doing a great spaces for kids There's a blueprint on your table. I hope you'll take a look at as to why we're doing this We've seen a 62 increase just in the last couple of years on quality child care But if you're a low income family living just above the poverty level You can expect to spend 60 of your income on child care And if you're not making much money many of these people withdraw from the workforce that puts them back on Poverty and welfare it impacts their children's education So we're going to back up even the federal reserve bank weighed in and said for every dollar invested On early childhood quality early childhood education. It's a $16 return fort worth has committed $500,000 and several of our foundations have agreed to help us Move that needle forward the announcement will be that we're enlarging the greg community center in kelly ellen gray's center to Accommodate more and more children. We've got a prime example With you and t-health science and lean of pop homes partnership for underwriting child care My challenge to all of you as businesses is to go talk to your workforce Find out how early child care is impacting them. Who are you losing that should be at work? Well, you're losing that part that even young professional women are opting to stay home because they can't afford or can't find quality child care We've got to move the needle if we're ever going to move families out of poverty Particularly single families and in fort worth one in three children live in a single family home We've got to change that and we've got to change poverty make one fort worth successful for all And I believe the place to start is for each and every one of us to look at our parental leave policies and look at our Investment in early quality child care a challenge to businesses. Absolutely a lot of topics. You've had a lot of success as well, too Why in the world do you want another term? I think I think there's probably a lot of people saying why are you doing this again? Particularly my daughter who's giving me the evil eye over here You know, I love this city. We've had incredible success Incredible growth. I want to see that growth available to everybody I want to continue to move The issue the needle on community health to move education forward for all families for all children You've heard me say before nobody's zip code should determine their future Nobody should be limited by where they live for success in fort worth I think we have to make this one fort worth for all and I think our business community We have bar none the best business community in the nation They understand these issues. They'll come forward and partner with us moving forward to increase that You know, it really is we want one fort worth and after all folks This is our city you helped build it and you can help us move the needle forward I'd like to be here a while longer because it truly is worth the work. All right, mayor. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much Excellent. I think you're all officially dismissed make a donation to read footwork. Leave a check on the table, right? Thank you guys very much. Thank you