 Okay, we're gonna go ahead and begin. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the city of Fort Worth budget town hall meeting hosted by District 9 Councilwoman Ann Zeta. My name is Catherine Heckeby and I manage the engagement office. We really appreciate you taking the time to join us this evening. Before we begin, we just have a few details about tonight's meeting that we need to share. Please make sure that your microphone is on mute during the presentation. If we have less than about 25 people who are on this WebEx and we'll be able to take personal questions, if not we're gonna have to limit them to just texting or emailing or chatting the questions just for sake of time and to be able to get through as many questions as we can. It looks like right now we are right at about that number so we'll keep an eye on that. Also, just note that you can use the chat function to share any questions or comments, whether it's positive or a question that you want answered by the city manager using that chat function. Also text your questions at 817-682-6039. We are going to have that phone number up on the third or fourth slide just in case you forget that and wanna text in a question or comment that. City manager Dave will be sharing his presentation with you and then we will begin the Q&A period. So at this point I'm gonna introduce Councilwoman Ann Zeta to speak for just a few moments. Council? Good evening, everyone. Thanks for joining us. I don't wanna take up too much time but I just wanted to say that when I did about the format of this meeting I asked him to keep his presentation brief so that we could spend the majority of the time listening to what you all have to say and what your priorities are and questions that you have regarding the budget. David has done several presentations on budgeting and my hope have availed yourself of that information and have looked through kind of topics that are available on the city's website now and are engaged citizens that are ready to share with us your priorities. I also wanna appreciate you all for being willing to dive into this town hall hosted by a council member in a completely and totally virtual manner. I am trying my best to continue to do things in a safe manner and it's really wonderful to see all of the faces that I've seen. I've seen a lot of familiar faces joining us this evening. So that is all I have to say to start office event. I just really, really appreciate the willingness to be here. I think there are 37 people or so on this Webex call and I'm looking on Facebook and we've got about 53 people joining us on Facebook as well. So it's a really good turnout. And I know I earlier today that my goal was to beat all the other council members. They told me it's not a competition. So anyway, engagement is great and I'm glad y'all are here and I'll hand it over to David to do a brief presentation. Good evening, everybody. So I'll be brief because I know Ann and I want to hear the comments and the questions. Go back to February of this past year. We have a planning retreat every year with the council and we make projections for what we think the upcoming year is going to look like. And I'll just tell you this, what we told the council about February changed in March and the budget we're putting together in July and talking about right now is very different from what we thought it would look like back in February. And so I'll get into some of that in that the current year's budget, we've had to reduce that to bring it in line with the revenues that'll be available and of course impacts the budget for the following year. Real quick though, we identify some budget goals for fiscal year 2021. I won't read all those to you but the first one is the maintain or reduce the property tax rate. I'll share with you that the tax rate is being recommended to stay the same from the current year to the next year on that in a minute. Capital investment and maintenance has been very important for the council over the last number of years as is implementing bond programs and opening new facilities such as libraries, rec centers. And every time we open a library rec center, fire station, there's a cost to maintain in staff and ways opening new facilities drives what's in the operating budget. Goal four relates to task force. That group was set up in they gave us recommendations 18 months later. And so we're in the second year of implementing recommendations and focusing on equity in both the city services and in level of investment. The fifth goal has to do with police funding and we had the vote for crime control and prevention district in July. And there's been a lot of discussion around the country about funding for police. So we're trying to address that as well. Talk more about that as we go on. And then I think all number six is talking about the future and that I think this year's budget fiscal year 2021 that will advance the ball a little bit. I think the budget for fiscal year 2022 will be more difficult. And I think we'll see that in changes in values. Next please, or do I advance? There we go. I'll try not to hit you with too many numbers. This gets at I think part of the slowdown that we're seeing in taxable values. The number on the far left is the city of Fort Worths tax value or the value that is taxable. And if you look at that number next to it that number says that of all the values in the city of Fort Worth the existing values went up less than half a percent. That's the slowest growth and existing values in at least eight, nine years I believe. What is propping the budget up is the new construction. You'll see that number of 2.5 billion dollars. That's stuff that's in process of new construction, new building on the ground and new values being added to the tax rolls. That's what's giving us a little under a change year over year. That is the lowest increase and again in the at least the last eight, nine years. Next please. So the recommendation is to keep the property tax rate the same. We divide the overall tax different components. The overall tax rate is 74 and three quarter cents. 59 and a half goes to operations and maintenance and 15 and a quarter goes to debt. What you see in orange is our investment in capital maintenance, the debt being that 15 and a quarter. And then we use six and a half cents to the property tax rate to cash fund capital projects and the cash fund maintenance of capital projects. Next please. This just shows you a couple of different lines. The blue line being total assessed value, orange being adjusted net taxable and the bottom line being the revenue that's generated from that adjusted net taxable. You'll see by the slope of the line that we're gonna see less growth than we have before. Next please. So this is the city's entire operating budget spending. It's $1.8 billion. That's if you take added together it's about a half a percent higher than the current. We'll spend more time talking about the general fund, some of the enterprise funds and special revenue funds but overall the city spends 1.8 billion. Generally the focus is on the general fund because that's where property tax is spent and that's most of the services that directly when you think about police fire, when you think about transportation, public works, libraries, parks and recreation code that all comes out of the general fund. Next please. Here's going to general fund revenues and looking at property tax, sales tax, property tax and sales tax makes up essentially 79 cents of every dollar in the general fund. And then there's a variety of other revenues that are in the general fund. The second goal is to maintain funding for capital investment and maintenance. What that means is we're implementing the 2018 bond program and we still have some projects and then we kept the tax rate the same for the pays you go or what we refer to the cash funding for maintenance. We're going to continue the level of investment for equity of infrastructure and transportation, public works and continue our neighborhood improvement strategy. Just as a side note, we're continuing to plan for the 2020 bond program. One of the, the still keeping in mind we're still growing by about 15 to 20,000 people a year. So we still have to plan for infrastructure investment the next number of years. Next please. Goal number three was to open new facilities and meet current obligations. Golden trying to library I think is opening this week. We also have the Riva carry library that will open toward the end of next fiscal year. Barton and then there's new parks. And then we also have obligations through our collective bargaining agreements with fire and meet and confer with police. Next please. Goal number four is the implementation of race and culture task force recommendations and looking at and improving equity of city. We started some of that spending this year in the transportation and public works. That will continue. We started the police monitor function and we're going to add to that in the upcoming fiscal year. And again, I mentioned the neighborhood improvements and our diversity and inclusion, which in of itself was a recommendation from the racing is working with these department as we look at service delivery, level of investment relate as is tied to equity. Next please. When we think of enterprise funds these are all separate businesses. They charge their own rates. So we have a regional water and sewer utility, a half a billion dollars solid waste being the next largest stormwater municipal parking and we operate three general aviation airports. This slide I use simply to talk about the breadth of the other city services that are outside of the general. These all have their own rate structure and you probably see some of these on your water bills. So you'll get the residential garbage collection. You'll see the stormwater fee and you'll see the water and sewer rates on your water bill. Next please. Well, by the way, there were no changes in any of the rates for stormwater or for water and sewer. We do have one issue that's in our year that we need to focus on and that's solid waste. And it's simply simple for the longterm. So we're going to have to look at a number of different strategies in our solid waste fund year. Next please. This touches on special revenue funds and I'll just make a comment on these. The CCPD or the Crime Control and Prevention District. That was the funds that were approved in the election in July. It's sales tax dollars that comes in to provide funding for mainly community programs and other programs in the police department. It's down from its previous year simply because sales tax is down as sales tax is also down in the general fund. Culture and tourism, this is the operation of the Fort Worth Convention Center and it's the operation of the Will Rogers Arena. I want you to imagine the revenue stream from hotel revenues, ticket tax revenues since those operations haven't been in place since March. We're gonna have to spend a year's budget talking about culture and tourism and how we move forward with both future convention items and Will Rogers issues. Next please. Then goal number five has to do with funding. Chief Ed Kraus gave a presentation just this past Friday on how to reorient programs and reallocate some funding in the CCPD program. And you'll see the numbers there that have to talk about increases and decreases in different areas. Next please. And goal number six is just getting at, again, I don't think this is a short budget issue. I think we're gonna be in this for a number of years, at least the next one coming up. We have had a high place in the city of Fort Worth since March. We intend to keep that in place for the future. We're also reducing the net number of people in our workforce year over year and I think we're gonna have to continue to do that next year as well. Next please. This is just getting at what I think the future looks like. The blue line was the line that we showed the city council back in February. And that was essentially with 4% growth year over year. And we've beaten that over the last number of years. And the red line simply being a revised forecast for the next number of years. Next please. Sales tax a little bit different. We took a hit in the current fiscal year on sales tax. Right now it appears to be rebounding. And we'll just have to follow that in the next number of years. Next please. I mentioned that we're reducing the size of the overall workforce. There are a number of additions and a number of reductions throughout the city. You'll see the number of positions in police, finance, water and the city manager's office, which is really the police monitor function. And then a number of reductions throughout the rest of the city operation. This does not include the positions that are being transferred from the city to the Botanic Research Institute of Texas for the operation of the Botanic Garden. That also happens to coincide with our fiscal year, which begins October 1. Next please. So I just went through all those goals. We'll repeat any of those. So next, I think we have a few on the capital plan. And what we'll talk about the capital is we always do a budget presentation on capital with the city council before we go to the operating budget. And one of those is because in a lot of ways the capital budget drives the operating budget. And that again, if we build new facilities we have to maintain them and staff them. We pay for capital through both cash, which is like pay as you go in gas flow revenues. And we pay for infrastructure through debt financing or impact fees or park dedication fees. Next. So the tax rate is, as I said, we're recommending to keep the debt tax rate the same, the page funded part the same. So we'll continue our current level investment for infrastructure maintenance. And we're still looking at what that means for a bond program in 2022. Next, please. This, well, let me explain this a little bit. Every February, we tell the city council what we think our future debt capacity looks like based on our assumptions and the tax rate. Back in February, we told the council that we do debt in the area of 750 million. If we just changed the assumptions like I showed you in a few slides before, actually our debt capacity will be impacted on the downside by a third or 250 million. So we won't have the bond capacity we've lunch thought even though we're keeping the tax rate the same. Next, please. So when we talk about capital again, it's all the different funds. We're in a number of different businesses that are infrastructure intensive. Think of roads and stormwater and water and sewer running three airports and then all the items that are in the general fund which are libraries, parks, community centers, rec centers and those type of things. Next, I won't bore you with the numbers just to tell you that we're spending between 300 million dollars a year on infrastructure and infrastructure maintenance. So it has an impact on the overall community. When you see a lot of that is in water which is water and sewer lines and transportation which is in the general CIP plan. Next, I'll close with some of the schedules we're doing. Zeta mentioned a number of town hall meetings. We have a CCPD board public hearing tomorrow and they'll talk about the CCPD budget. We have council work sessions currently scheduled for this Thursday and then a Thursday and Friday in September. The first public hearing is on September 1st. That's at a council meeting. Second public hearing on October 15th and then the adoption of the budget on September 1st. Budget has to be adopted before October 1 of the next fiscal year. I hope that was fast and brief enough but we'll be happy to try to answer any questions. Let's get to some of our questions here. Okay, so one question is why are city employees not receiving a pay raise yet the general fund budget increases by $8 million from 2020 to 2021? All right, let me, am I on? Okay. Yes. So let me dissect that a little bit. Part of that is the amount of money that we have going from one year to the next. And when I said to meet current obligations and open new facilities, much of that money has already been spoken for. Now it is also my emphasis to keep performance pay going for city employees. It's also an acknowledgement of what's going on in our community in that if I go back to February and think about the unemployment rate was 3% and now the unemployment rate is, I know it was near 15 at one point in time is probably less than that now. About the number of businesses that have closed that includes restaurants and retail. I think it's part of all trying to pull together with the limited resources we have. And again, I think it's gonna be in a more difficult situation next year. Okay. The next question may need to be deferred to neighborhood services. It's what is the city's budget for alleyway maintenance for fiscal year 20? How much was spent in fiscal year 20? If I'm not mistaken, we should be able to find that information and put that on the website. Yes. I think- Unless you just know that off the top of your head. I don't know it off the top of my head but it was in the capital budget that we were able to increase in debt. Yes. Okay. And I wanna remember the number but I do expect that it grew by somewhere between two and a half and 3% year over year. It's a very popular program and I do have the questions that we don't have immediate answers for. In addition to all the ones that we do have the answers for will be put on the website this week. This is not a question is a comment that says the ANZATA did win the contest, no, it's not a contest so we need to read that out loud too. Let's see. How can citizens get an understanding of the total funds a department has to spend each year? Well, I think we have a slide. We could produce that on our website. We do have a slide that was in the operating budget presentation that showed the spending by department. Okay. We have the operating spending. I think you can also go to our website on the budget and get much more detail on each of the department spending. Okay. Let's see. This is a question slash comment. You have a hiring freeze for every department except for civil service police, is that correct? We have a hiring freeze for every position unless there's a recruiting class underway and then so we do have some recruiting classes and police and fire that are underway. So right now civil service has positions that are being filled. Let's see. Someone would like a response on why the city has not properly funded transit. I'll start with that. I want to hand you can jump into if you'd like. So adequately funding transit like people think and we've adequately funded and fill in the blank. There's not a department that I think feels they've been adequately funded and there are many initiatives that the city participates in that people may not think they're adequately funded. So you come to this point in time in the budget and you have to decide where the limited resources are going to get allocated for the upcoming fiscal year. In the current fiscal year other than the Trinity Metro budget that currently exists we have, we put in 1.5 million for pilot programs or other initiatives to help Trinity Metro. That's the same amount of money that's in next year's recommended budget. So it's the same. I know that they requested $10 million more dollars. To me, again we have to look at what we were gonna take out of the budget so we can put that new money in. So I'll chime in as well. I know David probably thinks I'm stacking the deck with people who are supporting transit at this meeting but he's very aware of my support for transit. The question I had for David and I'm gonna continue to ask is that we have grown the other departments by 2.5 to 3% as was mentioned when somebody asked the question about outweigning. But on Trinity Metro or on the public transit budget we're having that remain the same. We have in the past only relied on the half cent of sales tax that goes to Trinity Metro and have not included them in our budgeting as the way we did last year and are continuing to do this year. So I do think that that is a step in the right direction but I too agree that we should be funding at a higher level for public transit. Cause I think that it has a return on investment in a lot of other areas that would be beneficial and it also speaks to the equity that we are talking about doing going forward as well. So that's something that I'm still gonna advocate for changing. Trinity Metro is generous enough to put in their ask some things that I think are already in the city's wheelhouse and that is sidewalks and ADA accessible ramps and making the bus stops that people need to access as accessible as possible and safe lit and all of that. And that is a part of the money that we've identified as our contribution to public transit. And I think that that's something we should probably be doing anyway and shouldn't count against the total number for Trinity Metro or for public transit. So I agree though that every year all of the departments come forward with their budgets and I'm pretty sure that all of their requests are above what money is available. And so pretty much everybody coming forward with a budget request has to scale that back. And those budget requests are built upon the communications that we have throughout the year as council members and as city staff as we are out in the community providing the services. We get definitely more requests for service than we have funding available. So I understand the trade off when we ask for something else to be funded more we are going to have to find a place to subtract and nobody wants to subtract. So it's a tricky question but I'll definitely continue to advocate for more funding for public transit for sure. Thank you council. Rachel, what will public input during these town halls be processed? Well, I know that we're going to take all the questions right and post them on our website. I want to share all the information with all the council members. Each council member is also I believe having their own meetings too. So I think this is all about gathering public input and sharing it broadly with the mayor and the council members. Yeah, I think it's important to note that all of the information that comes in at this meeting will be shared with all the other council members. I know that in the past when we have public meetings on say an upcoming bond election that we have very much, and the city is guilty of this ourselves and elected officials and staff that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And so the more you show up and let us know what it is you want, prioritize that the more likely that is to happen. But in all of the conversations we've been having over the last few years this desire to be more equitable in our service delivery flies in the face of the squeaky wheel getting the grease. So that is definitely something we need to be very careful of and try to move away from. But I do encourage you to make sure that you attend at least one of these meetings. But I would hope that all of the information that comes out in each of these meetings is shared with all of the council members. And I will be looking at anything that comes out of the other council members meetings in my advocacy going forward in the work sessions that we have where we have to hamper we're going to add things and subtract things going forward. But the hard part will be if we're adding things we're gonna have to figure out where it comes out of. Thank you, council. I ask what are the main factors to find the projections for a multi-year property tax decline versus a much shorter sales tax decline? Okay, let me start with the property tax and we saw this year being the lowest growth of existing values in the past number of years. And here's what I, here's how I see our path forward. If you own buildings now that have office space with more vacancy, if you own build a retail space that is now vacant, if you own office buildings or buildings that had restaurants in it that are now vacant, you're, I'm gonna bet you're gonna be able to make the case that that value, that property has a lower value. And so when that value is here on the commercial side for some of those functions will come back less than this year. That's why I see a decline in the property tax side not necessarily on residential, but I think on commercial space, whether it's office or restaurant, I do think there's an argument that those values will be less. And I think we'll watch that play out over the next 12 to 18 months. That's why I think it'll cross two fiscal years. The sales tax on the other hand took a steep decline in March and April as people stayed home and maybe then learned to buy stuff online. I'm not sure, but sales tax has actually been coming back a little bit stronger this fiscal year than we first thought it would. The information that we share with the council at tomorrow's meeting will show that the sales tax in June of 2020 was actually higher than the sales tax of June, 2019. So we don't believe that the sales tax has bounced back a little bit quicker. And as long as we don't have another shutdown of the economy on a broad scale, we think that sales tax will remain on that trajectory. Okay. Lizzie asks, how is the city evaluating the funding and committing to the shift of funding prevention rather than just control and enhanced enforcement? What I would incur, I think we, meeting on last Friday was taped. So Ed Krause's presentation, so I don't want to steal his thunder. I think he also wanted to reorient some of the spending that was in the general fund, this better oriented than CCBD and vice versa. So that was part of it. And I think part of it was looking at how we could fund more community programs. And in a way, again, that still makes sure that we get the outcomes that we want for crime prevention and for long-term crime reduction. And you might want to add some of that. Yeah, there was specific, I mean, there was a shift in some funding to the general fund, which I think there have been some things put into the CCBD over the years that probably shouldn't have been put into the CCBD. So I think that shift is an appropriate shift. And then there is a definite increase with that other, with that shift of those programs going back to the general fund of dollars available for those community partners. And so there's a significant increase in the CCBD going to those community partners. And then I think there was actually a set aside of some dollars to contemplate some additional partners that haven't been identified yet. And I've been hearing from several of those that fit into parameters that folks have been asking us to consider. And that is looking at mental health professionals to respond to some of the things that police have responded to in the past that are not appropriate for police to be responding to. And so some of those organizations have been coming forward. I met with a woman today, virtually who runs a program that would be looking at some of that kind of response because we have that CIT team that responds but that has been led by police. And so the goal would be to have that led by mental health professionals. And then also there's not enough resources available if you find somebody with a mental health issue and you try to find them services, those services often are available and ABS is overwhelmed and MHMR can't respond to every single thing. We wanna try to have programs in place that intervene before a crisis so that we're not in a crisis response. So I again, will be advocating for more of those programs to be supported by the CCPD going forward and evaluating those to be able to understand what it is that we're trying to accomplish. Thank you, council. Fernando's asking why does the stockyards get a dedicated officer security detail through CCPD? Southside does not. I'm not aware of that dedicated. How'd you describe that? A dedicated security detail through CCPD. I'm not aware of the one. You look at that and get more information on that. I know that we have done security details in response to entertainment districts and the near Southside has had an enhanced availability but they're not funded through CCPD. So if the question is specifically to the funding company, that's something I would ask David to look into and determining how those decisions are being made. But as far as security in entertainment districts, I think that that's the stockyards, the downtown area, the West Seventh Area have been places that were identified in the past. Near Southside is kind of a mixed-use district that does have an entertainment element, but I'm not sure it qualifies as being an entertainment district in the same way that drives the need for the security that maybe arises in a downtown area and a stockyards area and a West Seventh area. But that's just off the top of my head. I don't have that as being a factual information, but we can look into that further. And just as a reminder, any of the questions where we don't have an immediate answer for you, we will put those on the website and we know who you are for new. So we'll make sure you get that answer. Lizzie had a second question. Does city leadership intend to reinstate community board for CCPD spending rather than the city council serving as the board? Again, we had that conversation on Friday. I think the two options, that were discussed were as, well, let me go, I'll ask Ann to jump in too, but I guess there were three options. It was either citizen board only, a council only board, you can't mix them, or also creating a citizens advisory board for CCPD funding. Yeah, my understanding is state law says that it has to be either a board or a full elected official board, it can't be a hybrid of the two. And I think the reasoning, I was not around when the decision was made to change it from citizens board as we started out with to the elected board. The reasoning behind that was a concern about citizens making decisions about tax, the spending of tax dollars. So from what I have heard, you can ask them in their meetings of what they would be supportive of, but my feeling at this point is that the support is to continue to have it be the council members as elected officials being the official board, but that there, I would be absolutely have more input from citizens. We have meetings that are open to the public again, but not always that engaging. And now that more people want to be engaged and we continue to try to broaden the ways in which we get input from people, I'm not requiring them to come to us with an opportunity meeting that's held. I think any opportunity to have that citizen input would be something that would be beneficial to all of the decisions being made going forward. So I definitely that citizens input to the CCPD process. Thank you. David made a statement that he's concerned that Mr. Cook's responses to the questions make it seem like they're set in stone is for public feedback before this budget is adopted. I can start on that one, David, because I think I might have in the conversation that you and I had earlier today, because I think often our responses when we are having these public meetings is very much to say, this is a balanced budget that has been recommended by the city manager and in this city manager form of government that we operate under in the city of Fort Worth. All of the requests have come in from the various departments and this budget has been built and it is a balanced budget. So therefore any changes that occur when you add something somewhere, you're going to have to subtract something somewhere else. So that does seem like something that is going to be insurmountably difficult to do. But if we're having public meetings, it doesn't seem, it's disingenuous to say that this budget could not change during the public meeting process. And the fact that we're having these participatory budget meetings once these town hall ones gives us more flexibility to have those conversations. My desire was to have this meeting prior to the work sessions that the council already has on the budget because I want the input before I go into those meetings where we're going to continue to hash out these decisions, I want to be informed by the citizens that I represent as to what things that I should be bringing forward besides those that I already have been advocating for just because it's information that I have coming up to this point. So I definitely think that if we are going to have the budget change during these public hearing processes that that is a very disingenuous position to start from. And so my goal is that that not be the situation that as hard as it is and as much as you have to find some place to subtract from when you add something, that's something that we should be willing to do and staff should be willing to do that hard work alongside the council members. Pete is saying with the increase of violent mobs in Northern cities and an increase in people migrating to Texas to flee unsafe places, can we increase police funding to ensure safety for Fort Worth citizens? Well, let me answer that this way. So you'll see that I'm ducking the first part. The police budget is going up from fiscal year 20 to fiscal year 21. So if you go back and look at the amount of money in the general fund for this year and next year the budget's going up about 5.8 million. Even though the CCP budget is going down by about 4 million and that's because of the sales tax drop, the police budget is still going up one fiscal year to the next. This was a question that was texted in and they would like to know if you could comment on the focus and equity spending for neighborhood spending. I'm sorry, could you do that first part again? It's a comment that was sent in through text and they want to know if you can discuss the focus in equity spending for neighborhood spending. So are we talking about the neighborhood improvement program that we've done in our careers? I don't know, that's all it says. Okay, if that's what it is, I think that the Planning and Development Department and it has shifted and been renamed recently but there is a data analytics element of that department that looks at an amazing range of information to determine which neighborhoods are identified at Neighborhood Improvement Program that we implemented starting four years ago and we've completed three different neighborhoods. Going back to that concern that we had about the squeaky wheel getting the grease delivery system that we have been operating under in the past has left some neighborhood with less resources, less infrastructure, more poorly maintained infrastructure than some other neighborhoods. Noticing and admitting that concern and mistake, this program has been put in place to try to address some of those areas that need to be brought up to a higher standard. So those neighborhoods are chosen based on that data and it's a very intense process with a lot of factors that the staff looks at. And I know that all of that is available because everything that we do is available to the public and so I would hope that if you have interest in that matrix and how they decide which neighborhoods are chosen that you could get that for you specifically. Let me add to that. There's also money we added in this year's transportation department to address a number of characters. So it would be street lights, pavement markings, street signs, traffic signals, and road repaving or reconstruction. And there was more money put in this year's budget to be targeted toward majority minority areas to make sure or to look at the equity of spending so that we feel that the investment is equitable, not equal in different areas of the city. Pete is asking, as far as the racing culture task force, are you ensuring that the city emphasizes patriotism and American traditions as part of culture? Yes. Yeah, I think the answer is obviously yes to that. Okay, we have a lot of really great comments that you are gonna enjoy reading later. What I love is people answer the questions for other people already. Okay, we had a campus camp set up in our little neighborhood park and they were concerned that the city's response was as long as they don't pose a health and safety threat, the camp will remain there. An officer was assigned to work with the homeless and said that there was a massive amount of human waste and the parks department needed to clean it up. Will city staff assigned to work with the homeless be educated on threats they actually pose to the neighborhoods? So let me ask you to get the name of that park. We actually have a hope team. Wait, I think I recognize this question. So it's been responded to. There was some concern because during, I mean, just when you find an encampment, it's not as easy as just going and telling people they have to leave. And there's some concern with the folks who use that park in their neighborhood of that not being able to occur as quickly because of safety concerns. So the hope team is very well versed on about that and they do a really good job of it, but they are under resourced. And I think that that team will definitely need to have additional resources assigned to it in order to be as responsive as we need to be. But it's definitely a complicated issue and in a time of COVID as well, it's difficult to be responsive and keep everybody safe that's involved. A desire to have people not have to be living in parks. We would like people to be connected to resources and permanent supportive housing and affordable housing. And we keep moving in a direction of trying to make sure that we have more of that available so that those connections can be made and people are not driven to a position where they have to live in unsafe and unsanitary. Thank you, Ann. Zachary is referencing the fiscal budget document that's online that shows the CCPD budget of about 86 and a half million dollars. But he says that he believes your presentation showed 83 million. What is the reason for the decrease in taxes tax? I'll have to go back and check the numbers. I don't know what that difference would be. This is Terry Hansen and I work in planning and data analytics. And the answer to that is in the presentation, it does not a contribution to fund balance. And in the budget book, it shows contribution to fund balance to make up that extra three million dollars. So it's actually a contribution to fund balance. They have more money than they have your mark for spending and that's primarily due to a decrease in capital. Thank you, Terry. Okay, how are you determining equity when it comes to the neighborhood improvements? Well, let me start and then Ann might want to jump in. So we've done stop six, Ash Crescent, Northside, and we're now going online. And in each case, we work with people from the neighborhood to decide how we ought to spend that capital investment. And so sometimes it's sidewalks, sometimes it's park improvements, road improvements, street lights, cameras. Most of that is at the request of the neighborhood groups who we work with in those areas. Ann? I think starting off, those neighborhoods are on a basis of looking at areas that were not treated equitably in the past. So I think just going into those neighborhoods is an attempt to do things in an equitable way. We've identified those neighborhoods as areas that have declined or are in need of investment because of a lack of investment in the past. So we start from there. But going, like I agree with what David said, it's a program that is heavily intensive of the neighborhood itself. And we are definitely facing a challenge with Rosemont, which is the first neighborhood in District 9 to be selected for this. And I waited patiently for them to be recommended by the data so that I wouldn't be contradicting myself of doing this on an equitable way. I supported the three neighborhoods that were chosen prior based on the data that they were being in need first. And Rosemont is the one we're working on now. And we are definitely having challenges of doing this in a time of COVID. Normally we would be able to go, we did actually get some door-to-door activity where we got to walk the neighborhood, the area identified in the neighborhood and put flyers on doors to inform folks of, we had one large public meeting before we had to reduce all of that with COVID to get some input. And so thankfully we did get quite a bit of input from the neighborhood. And we're continuing to try to roll out those improvements checking back in with the neighborhood. They haven't acted. And we continue to try to get input from everyone and inform everybody of what we're trying to do and get their input back to make sure that what we're proposing and implementing is in fact, what it is that they would like to see happen in their neighborhoods. And I would add that if anyone has questions about the metrics for the NIP program, Victor Turner did a really good presentation several months back for council during the work session that highlights all of the metrics that are used for before those neighborhoods are chosen. And it looks like that's all the questions that we have. If there's any other questions, if you wanna, oh, one more question, hold on, I shouldn't have spoke. How are you specifically connecting with the unhoused? I'm not sure I understand that entirely, but maybe. I think with our connection with people who are experiencing homelessness. I think that COVID actually gave us a, there is, we have Directions Home staff that works with the homeless community partners across Tarrant County to try to work together to bring resources to support folks moving through a shelter system in order to not just continue to have a temporary shelter, to make homelessness short-term, non-recurring. And I think those are the two things. Short, to try to have people not fall into homelessness to begin with, to make it short-term and non-recurring. COVID, when the city stepped in to man and operate an overflow shelter in the convention center, we actually had an opportunity to house some folks that we probably would not have had the opportunity to house had we not taken on those operations. And then also coming out of COVID, we had designated some funding to Permanent Supportive Housing from COVID CARES Act dollars that we've regained government, which would result in units of Permanent Supportive Housing that would be maintained for years versus the use of COVID CARES Act dollars that might just be a short-term infusion and not carry on going forward. So I thought that was a really unique and good way to use some COVID CARES Act dollars to try to get some Permanent Supportive Housing that we're in dire need of. But all of those organizations and the HOPE team are in contact with the unhoused on a regular basis. Hopefully when people bring to our attention folks that they see struggling with homelessness, we have those teams responding in a way that is empathetic and helpful if we're bringing resources to those people because it's very important that we do it in that way. So if we're always open to suggestions if there's other ways, if you think that we're missing a segment of the population of unhoused, we would be happy to hear about that. Territory Directions Home Team. And okay, her name just went out of my head. That's the police officer who heads the HOPE team lab, Lieutenant Ladd. They are, you know, always when they bring things to our attention and everybody of course wants to improve and do things the best way that we can. Okay, one just a second. Juanita wants to know if the Directions Home Stack, can they begin doing more than just outreach efforts? I think the Directions Home Staff is doing a lot more than just outreach efforts. We can get more detailed, I guess if you want to call a job description of all the things they do, if that would be helpful. Yeah, they've done a lot more than just outreach to individual homeless. They've actually convened a group of developers who are interested in helping to create and build permanent supportive housing and affordable housing. Non-profits who are interested in funding that effort but don't have the wherewithal to do the actual building and builders who want to create that as well and have come up with some teams that are gonna be able to go forward with creating that housing. So they're definitely being very proactive because you know, you can't fix homelessness if you don't have places for folks to live and affordability and permanent supportive housing is always a thing that's lacking that makes it more difficult. So they're definitely working in that arena as well. And let's see, Sammy's commenting, since we recognize that there's been an in communities like Stop Six and Northside for many years, are we now willing to have, hold on just a second, are we now willing to have an over-investment in the same neighborhood? If so, for how long? So I think it's a multi-part strategy one is recognizing that these areas of the city need more investment. That's what the infusion of dollars is all about. The other strategy that we've tried to do over the last number of years, and this is with the mayor and council support is invest more money in the maintenance of our infrastructure. So that as we go forward, we're not picking and choosing which neighborhoods get investment on which ones don't. We should be maintaining infrastructure at a certain level, regardless of the zip code in the city. Yeah, I think it's definitely, I mean, I'm repeating myself when I say that in the past, I think we've done a lot of squeaky wheel gets things. And it's a difficult thing to, when somebody asks for their street to be redone to let them know that while their street might be in a poor condition or inadequate in their opinion condition that there are streets in the city of Fort Worth that don't even have curb and gutter. And so we definitely need to look at bringing every part of our city up to a certain level before we go back and make sure that some areas that might be in need of some attention are done ahead of areas that have been in decline for a long time. I think that that's definitely something we need to continue to do. And I think we're being better about looking at TPW has done like a survey of the entire city and they have a database that shows the condition of every single city street. And they have them ranked by what can be fixed with pay-go dollars, like something that can be done just in the regular course of things and things that are gonna be needing a complete and total reconstruction that might take bond funding. And so in going forward, I think when I first got on council six years ago and David started as a city manager six years ago same night, there was a lot of kind of moving things around to respond to folks that were to be done and then when you went back to do something else that had been promised, some of that money had been moved somewhere else. I do not see that happening now. And I think that's definitely what leads to inequities and a way that we should not be doing things. So prioritizing, identifying the priorities and then delivering that in an equitable way is the way we need to be doing things. And when we don't do it that way, I would like someone to point it out to us. Thank you. Okay, so why did the city cut the recommended funding for permanent supportive housing? So let me, I'm gonna answer it this way. I would say, isn't it wonderful that the city took $9.3 million of discretionary CARES Act funding to invest in supportive housing? There was a proposal at the time to take 18.6 million. And what that meant is we would choose to exhaust the remaining part of our discretionary CARES dollars for permanent supportive housing. And I think there are arguments that we ought to have some of that money still available for businesses or individual citizens that are on difficult time during COVID-19. So I see it as a very positive move to take 9.3 million of our discretionary CARES money and put it toward permanent supportive housing. Okay. How is the city bringing more diversity to citizen advisory boards and committees? In other words, adding citizens from the not so squeaky wheel neighborhoods. I think many of those appointments are made by individual council members. And I have made an effort to expand the pool from which I'm choosing those appointments. In the past, I served on the zoning commission for six years and I'll tell you that the only reason I got appointed there was because the person in that position before me wanted out and there at the time was not gonna let him get his own replacement. Not the case anymore. I have multiple people offering to serve on the boards and commissions that I now staff. All council members have the same thing. District nine is a very engaged district with a lot of people willing to serve. So, you know, I think individually I am in an effort, other council members you can ask them, but my understanding is everybody has been in an effort to expand the diversity on those boards and commissions in every way. And that has occurred, I think, but there is still, it's still not where it needs to be. The mayor has implemented a program just recently to get more women on appointments for boards and commissions. Many of these meetings though, much of the business of the city occurs during workday hours. And so you're always gonna run into the challenge of finding people who have the ability to take time. There are many community, I mean, there are many businesses in Fort Worth that support the city of Fort Worth and offer those days off for their employees in order for them to serve the city in that capacity. And I would encourage other businesses to do that so that we can get a broader range of folks that have the availability to serve in those positions. But it's difficult up and during the day. And if you're on commission, for example, that's pretty much at least a half a day once a month. So it's a commitment and it's difficult. I think we're moving in the right direction. Okay. Pete is asking, can remove the fine on retailers if people are not wearing masks? He says the science is undecided on masks and we should not have to wear masks when they may actually cause more harm than good. I think the city's position is we're encouraging everybody to wear masks when they're out in public and again to practice distancing. Okay. The next question is, why did you cut the CARES Act funding for housing in half? Which I think we've already addressed. Let's see. Actually did not address why that funding was cut in half. By the way, it's made an excuse. Well, I think that the majority agreed that they didn't want to extinguish or disperse that entire amount. They wanted it to be available to some of those other resources that David mentioned, small businesses and individual people that need help with their rent and mortgage and utilities and those sorts of things. So the desire was from the majority of the council to decrease that number by half. Okay. The next question and comment is, Lizzie, she says as a result of COVID the city has cut parks and rec budget by 4.1 million, transportation by 32 million and economic development by 200,000. Meanwhile, the police department's budget which gets substantially more funding than any of those other categories was cut by only 10 million. Will future cuts continue to come from community programming and the police budget remains untouched? So not knowing where those numbers are coming from which I'd be glad to look into each of those. I'm not sure. Anyway, I'm not, I have to look at those numbers. I don't think we're cutting maintenance and infrastructure. All of the pays you go money that we froze for a little bit during this year has been reallocated back to each area. And so we only had to cut this year's budget by about 22 million in total. And so I have to look where the numbers came from. We're actually, again, as I mentioned, 22 million out on the current year and we've already identified the strategies to balance that out. And it didn't include any cuts in maintenance and capital. This was a text question. Why does the city always cut staff for libraries and recreation centers? Do those services are widely used by the citizens? I don't know about the premise. I can't say always. If you look at the reductions that are on the list of the presentation that I, the libraries did reduce 13 positions, parks and recreation, 12, you know, part of the conversation departments is asking them to identify where they would make the reductions. And those were offered by our library department or our parks and recreation department as were the ones from municipal court, property management, police, and some of the other departments. Let's see. I think that's the only other questions that we have. Are there any other questions from anyone that you'd like to put in the chat real quick? So just a reminder, we will take all of these questions and the answers for them and then council members Zeta also asked that we make sure that you have her contact information. This is her email address and reach out to her directly. If you have any other comments or questions or concerns, this entire meeting has been recorded and will be on Fort Worth TV so that you can take a look at that and all of the pieces, including all of the comments and everything that we didn't have time to read through, you can view those as well by viewing this meeting online. Councilwoman Zeta, did you have anything else you want to close with? So I did see where somebody asked for comments to be read. I don't, I think most of the comments that I saw that didn't have a question in it were just support for public transportation and Trinity Metro's request. So I will definitely reiterate that. So everything that's in the chat, will that be available? The whole time that the chat was, that was on, it'll be in real time with the video so it was posted, then it should be on there. And if somebody had a question that didn't get answered fully to their satisfaction, please let us know. I'm happy to follow up like we said and get answers to any questions. Yes, but we do have a little bit more time. So if there's anything else that anybody wants, I'm happy to address it. I don't want anybody to feel like we're cutting them off. And I'm going through everything in chat just slowly to make sure that everything is on the screen so that everyone could see it just in case. City Manager Cook, do you have any other comments that you wanted to add? I just want to thank everybody for joining. There'll be more of these. I think they're posted on our website. And I believe the next one is Wednesday night, six o'clock. I believe that's true. The last few, there's a couple of questions that just came in at the end. There's somebody has a question about the police monitor's office. Hold on just a second. They didn't say what the question was, they just said they have a question about the police monitor's office. So I don't know if they're asking it verbally or if they want to type it in or... Hold on just a second, these just came. Okay, so here's some new ones that just popped in. Thank you, thank you. It's good that we have comments, I love this. Go into calculating reduction of budgets in various departments. How do we get all the jobs cut? I could not catch all of that. And they want to know what factors go into calculating the reduction of budgets in various departments and why and how our jobs cut. Let me start with the first question, which is the amounts. So far we have asked departments to identify areas they believe they can cut without impacting services an overall degree. So these cuts that you're seeing in the current year budget have been identified by each department. I am not a big believer of saying everybody has to pony up five or 10% because not every service across the city is equally important. So some of this we leave up to departments to identify what they think they are able to reduce. The other one about positions and employees, this is one of the reasons we put a hiring freeze in place in March. We had to reduce the size of the workforce. What this does in a large organization like the city of Fort Worth is we have over 7,000 employees and we want to try to reduce the workforce in a corporate wide matter, not a department by department matter. So when a position becomes vacant and we think it's important to fill, we allow that position to be filled in which creates another vacant position within the organization. So we have a lot of positions that an employee can go from one department to another and take a position. The goal of that is to reduce the size of the workforce without impacting employees. We do work with employees if their job is going to be eliminated. We look for other positions that are available in the city. It might be a different position, but our goal is to work through a reduction in the size of the workforce without impacting employees negatively whenever possible. Okay. The next question is will public comment be taken at the budget work sessions? The budget work sessions are normally for the council to have conversations among themselves and with staff. And that's up to the mayor and the council to decide if they want public comment during those meetings. They usually are for council members to have conversations about those issues. But they are open to the public. And if there's any comment that you wanted to make, you can always communicate with your council member or any council member via an email. If anything comes up during those discussions that you're viewing that you would like to have your opinion known on. So I encourage you to do that. Okay. The next question is Erica, will changes be made to budget reporting so citizens can better understanding how much is allocated to their specific district? Right now I don't believe we try to divide the budget into council districts. I do think we have geographic reference data in a number of departments like transportation and public works, maybe neighborhood services, the water department. So we are able to do it under other geographic. And again, I think what we're trying to look at is the equity part of that question and not the council district part of that question, although some may overlap. Okay. It just says I have a question about the police monitor office. If you're still online, if you wanna ask the question you can. I did, if you scroll down a little bit there. You wanna go ahead and ask it? Sure. My question is the independent office of police monitor, not listed as a line item in the city manager office budget because that's the office or the department that it falls under. But it is independent. The people should know exactly how much money that office is in a part from the city manager's office. How much money is allocated for the police monitor's office in 2021? How many positions will that office now have and what are they? Thank you. We'll get that budget divided out. So we can articulate what that spending is specifically. Ask the question, has there been any discussions about putting some of our higher city salaries like Mr. Cook's more in line with our peer cities as a way to help balance things as opposed to not funding transit and implementing hiring freezes? Was that a question or a statement? That was a question. Has there been discussions about putting some of our higher city salaries more in line with our peer cities as a way to help balance things instead of not funding transit or implementing hiring freezes? I'll answer that for the management team. On all our salaries are based on peer cities and being competitive in the marketplace. Next question, it was texted in. How is the city dealing with increasing MWBE participation? Well, that's a current topic of conversation. And in fact, that was part of the work session on Friday. And so I'd encourage folks to tune in if they're interested on that. Christina Brooks, who has had diversity inclusion has identified the changes to what we're gonna call the business diversity ordinance. And she was briefing the council on those changes on Friday. And I believe the ordinance comes to the council on the 25th of August, I believe, for those changes. They have a diversity ordinance or an MWBE ordinance is to increase participation of minority-owned firms and to actually increase capacity of minority-owned firms over time. So not number each year, but actually growing capacity of firms over time. Okay, I think we've got all the questions. Council member Zeta, you're the one that's hosting this. If you would like for me to go back and read through the comments, just so that they're part of the record, I can, we have about 30 minutes still allocated for the meeting. Did we lose council member Zeta? Sorry, did I just say all of that without unending? Good though, so. Wow, no, I was gonna say, as long as we stop just reading comments to answer any questions that arise, because I think the questions are the most important, but somebody specifically did ask for the comments to be read, so I would be happy for you to do that. Okay, so if you'll keep track of any more questions, then we will do that. I'm letting you stay up, go scroll through. Okay. I will do that. I'm gonna skip any of the questions and just go through any individual. I think you mentioned that some of the questions were being answered in the chat and I did see somebody ask a question about Spanish translation and then it was responded to by machine, it's would be a translation done for this meeting and that would be released on the city's cable channel. On forward TV, yes, it'll be along the bottom. Yes. Okay, so we've entered the, okay, I'm gonna read them all. So this one is not a competition, but you win and let's see. Fernando has a question. Can he just ask it audibly? Yes, Fernando. Yeah, so I'm here. So I really just wanna make sure that it's very clear that we should have translations. Obviously this is gonna be translated. Thank you for answering that question, but Spanish translator should be common practice in the city of Fort Worth. So I know that was an issue in one of the city council meetings, somebody called and there wasn't somebody to answer or translate. So I just want that that requesting a translator is just another barrier for our Hispanic community. So thank you for that. Thank you, Fernando. Text and comment in my opinion, goals four and five go hand in hand. One can help the other and vice versa. Another comment, please spend more of the budget on neighborhoods and areas, updated roads and grocery stores. This is just Zachary shared a copy of the budget document and just shared it and asked the questions about the difference in funding on that. John shared that the Greater Fort Worth Sierra Club is respectfully requesting that the city supports and fully funds Trinity met request for fiscal year 2021. The Sierra Club advocates for clean air, clean water and fully protecting and conserving our natural resources. We will, we also work and advocate for environmental justice communities, low income communities, where people are disproportionately impacted by air pollution, water pollution, extreme flooding and industrial pollution. I understand that David Cook put forth a 2021 budget for Trinity Metro of 1.5 million. That is a great disparity between the request and the city's line item. The 1.5 million does little to nothing to provide expanded, reliable and inexpensive transit to citizens of Fort Worth. Most notably the city left out Trinity Metro's request for increased frequency for areas of the city that are 65% minority. The Southeast Zip Zone, which is a high minority area and the Alliance Express Service in Amazon route, which would serve employees of those areas. John says, these people need transit to get to work. In all the city's budget item for Trinity Metro leaves minority and low income people high and dry and does nothing to clean up our air and improve transit in Fort Worth. We will continue to bring up the rear for medium to large cities transit alternatives. Then you would answer his question. Answer those. Thanks, Ron says, thanks for sharing this information. We had several comments in our neighborhood about the COVID impact on city budgets. We answered that question. Fernando mentioned that near Southside businesses were told that they had to pay from their own money in order to get security. David mentions, your decision to not fund transit does not square with your budget goals of equity and access within the city. Read that one. It says, Trinity Metro requested 10 million and the city will fund it at 1.5%. That's quite a disparity and does nothing for transit, equity and Fort Worth to serve minority and low income populations. Rachel says, the Terrant Transit Alliance agrees simply isn't enough money to go towards transit. We have 86 organizations that represent 3,100 plus companies and 31,586 individuals who believe we need more support. Read that one. Read that one. This was a statement that was texted in. Our neighborhood associations had to fight for TPW for $3,000 for gate repairs in our neighborhood. The city was responsible for such maintenance. We've learned departments will always say we don't have the funding. Can we talk about metrics? Pete says, as far as the race and culture task force, are we ensuring that we are emphasizing patriotism and American tradition and not progressive lies from George Soros and the Marxist agenda? Rachel says, the benefits that investment in transit will provide are more important now than ever. Essential workers, minority populations, low income populations, those that need to access healthcare, et cetera, all need transit investments because it's not a convenience for them, it's a necessity. If you aren't prioritizing it, you aren't prioritizing equity, as you say. We need safe, accessible and frequent transit service for those that rely on it just to live their lives. The response to Trinity Metro's request is not considerate of the city's actual needs. The mic says that near Southside detail is funded by private businesses. Jay says, I don't believe there's a dedicated security police detail in the stockyards. A portion of the Northwest division is located near the stockyards but they are not dedicated to the stockyards. Mike says that the Magnolia business owners pay for enhanced patrols. Answer that question. Fernando says, we need a full citizen board please. David says, this needs to be changed back to a citizen's board. There's too much interest with the city council. Rye says, we need a full citizen board for CCPD. If we are serious about preventing crime, CCPD board council needs to fully fund VIP Fort Worth. Pastor Rodney McIntosh is doing an excellent job but he needs support and more resources to the program in order for the program to flourish and be its most effective. Lizzie says, we are concerned about the city council making decisions about spending on police budget since the police officer association has made campaign contributions to each council member. That's a big conflict of interest. Rye says, you all represent the people, not your own personal interests. All input from the people should be taken into consideration for the final budget. Thank you for hosting this meeting and thank you community for making it happen. Zachary shared a budget document again and wanted to know the reason for the difference which we discussed we would share who would look into. Lizzie says, the police are already the largest category of spending from the city's general fund and it hasn't been touched in major cuts to other departments through COVID-19. Taxpayers in Fort Worth spend nearly $1 million per day on policing, they have more than enough money. Lizzie says, Cook mentioned that it decreased from the projections because the sales tax didn't meet projections because of COVID. If that helps, this was, says we've been told by PD that they didn't have funding to install a security camera on Hemphill to monitor activity on a shopping strip. The governor would benefit the neighborhood and PD when will departments realize it isn't their budget, it is ours. John says, the $5 million increase in police funding could be pet toward organizations that help prevent crime like STEM programs and could be pet toward Trinity Metro's request that would definitely improve transit equity. Barry says, that's a good question. Thank you for asking. Rye said, around people make up the majority of Fort Worth, not the minority. Please correct that in your language moving forward. It looks like Lizzie and Zachary were going back and forth. Juanita says the city's initial response to JMSL Park homeless issue was dismissive. Question. Rachel says, I agree with John's comment. Funding the police department should not be the only priority in keeping citizens safe. There are so many areas like transit that will contribute to safety in our communities. The police department already has plenty of funding. Additional funding should be diversified in other areas to support safety and crime reduction in other ways. Good questions. We read that one. We read that one. Rye says, they're cutting COVID funding by half for the unhoused. Wanted to do that. Lizzie said, person first language is free. It costs zero dollars to call someone a person experiencing homelessness instead of a homeless or homeless people, et cetera. Peep says, Dr. Fauci admitted, lied when he said, people should wear a mask at the start of the hysteria. Then he said he lied because there was a shortage of, he cannot be believed. Another one says, I would like to hear a response to Liz. Oh, we already answered that one. It's repeated. This comments here and understand how much work goes into developing a city's budget. I encourage we improve our transit system and increase assisted permanent housing for our homeless. Peep says, coding criminals, having transportation and having nice parts doesn't deter crime law and order does. And Peep says, defending police is a Trojan horse. Defending police is a Trojan horse for anarchy. Scams here in Texas. Lizzie was sharing something from Peep that says most crime is never reported and most reported crime is never solved. Police spend over 4% of their time responding to violent crime and the majority of their time is on paperwork and responding to nonviolent calls that don't actually pose a threat to public safety. And then there's a link to a story. Zachary says, that's a horrible way to dodge the question, Mr. Cook, and how people deserve all of that money if not more you all failed. Peep says, the New York Times said, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, so not exactly a good source. Already responded to that. Fernando says, definitely we'll be asking other council members to be. Fernando's also asking for an evening meeting. There were several people that are sharing links to different articles and things that can be shared. Lizzie said that her, the question that we read it said that police funding was cut, it was not cut by $10 million, it was cut by $10. Asking us to read all the comments. Thank you, the information was useful and well presented. We appreciate this town hall. That's a question. Thank you for allowing us to ask the questions. Thank you to the council people for all their service. I know your hearts are in the right place. God bless. More links to stories. Thank you for your time and for statements made for the record. Someone said they didn't need the comments to be read. And then a question from Pam, she said, she wants to know how much money the office is getting. Okay, they just wanna know when the information will be posted about the police monitor's office and how much funding they receive. And it looks like that's it. So as far as answering questions from this meeting, I don't know if staff is gonna, and we've answered a lot of questions, staff is gonna start putting these on the website as the meetings occur so that people can see frequently asked questions and the answers to them and maybe not need to ask as many questions and meetings going forward or if they're planning to compile everything at the end. I think some of these meetings are gonna go into the budget process. So my desire would be that they start getting answers as soon as possible in order to get that information out to a faster. So the way that we've created that has the upcoming meeting schedule on it has the links to the budgets. I think they're adding the CCPD budget to that as well. All of that we can start answering those questions on there. And I appreciate everyone's patience with reading through the comments. We can't please all the people all the time. So I know some people wanted to hear them and some we went ahead and did that. Okay. Thank you everyone. We really do appreciate all of your feedback. And again, please reach out to Councilwoman Anzeda if you have any other questions with anything regarding the budget or her district. And if there's anything that we can do to help you please let us know. Thank you. Thank you everyone.