 So thank you so much. We're going to have a great discussion about a public-private partnership that is taking place here in the city. Ms. Gwen Wilson is gonna moderate this discussion, but I just wanna say thank you. We've had a great morning, afternoon, hopefully you've had some great business discussions at our six-annual Terran County Business Opportunity Fair. I know all of the panelists here, but Ms. Gwen is gonna introduce them, but I want to say as a forward native, this is truly a public-private city forward-engaged partnership. And that's what it's about. That's what it always will be about in terms of those successful projects. And so we'll have opportunity to hear those. Bathrooms in the back. We're COVID-sensitive here in city and forward, so if you need a mask, we have those. Thank you for your consideration and understanding, and at this time, Ms. Gwen Wilson, Director of Supplier, I'm sorry, Business Equity, Assistant Director, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Ms. Brooks, I'm sorry. Ms. Gwen Wilson, thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm so glad you look like you made it through half of the day, so it's not over yet. There's still a lot more networking to be done. And also, don't forget the workshops and stuff, but I want to introduce Christina Brooks, she's my boss. She's also the Chief Equity Officer and Director of the Department of Diversity and Inclusion, and I'm her Assistant Director over the Business Equity Division, and she'll tell you a little bit more about herself. Also, we have Scott Bennett. Scott is one of our partners with the Beck Group but also a supplier as well. So we're very happy to have Scott on the panel as well and to talk about the partnership that we have together. And then we have Ms. Demetria Bivens, she's the star. Demetria is the President and Founder of the National Association of Minority Contractors of Southwest Division or it's a DFW chapter. But Demetria is also a phenomenal entrepreneur, a DLB consultant. So we're excited to have her as well and share the relationship that we have with Demetria. So put your seatbelts on because you're in for a ride with Demetria. And then we have Mayor Pro Tem, the honorable Gina Bivens. So we're very excited to have her and her support of our group. And so we're very excited to have Gina on the panel as well. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, we'll go ahead and get started. Okay, all right. Okay everybody, are you guys ready to learn some stuff today? Okay, we have, as Gwen just mentioned, we have some really fabulous panelists for you. And we just wanna kinda take you through a couple of things, hopefully to give you some ideas to take back to your own community or your own business organization from the lessons that the city of Fort Worth has learned in partnering with private companies on public development. So we wanna walk you through our agenda this morning. And we're gonna go over quickly some learning outcomes because everybody should walk away with some new knowledge here. We'll tell you a little bit about who we are in the city of Fort Worth. And we'll talk about some of the opportunities that we believe are really on the table. Some of them we kinda hit on this morning in our introduction. I know both our Mayor Parker and Mayor of Arlington kinda touched on some opportunities but we'll go into a little more detail for you just so that you're aware of what's on the table right now and what's coming up. We'll talk a little bit about what we've done and then we'll get into lessons learned and along the way we'll stop and ask you if you have any questions, direct questions for our panelists in the course of the conversation. So does that sound good to everybody? Does that sound good to everybody? All right, all right, so let's get going here. All right, learning outcomes. We wanna make sure that at the end of this conversation you all can identify some locally active private firms in your particular area that are viable business equity firm capacity building partners. We also hope that by the end of this conversation you'll be able to measure economic impact of successful P3 or public-private partnerships and community development and then also we wanna make sure that you're aware of some of the challenges and lessons learned in one of the major projects in Fort Worth and that's happening right now in the legendary stop six neighborhood which just happens to be in the honorable Mayor Pro Tem Gina Bivens district. All right, all right. I believe in giving people flowers while they're still here, so please, go ahead. You can do that again. So I want to play a little game with y'all to kind of get the juices going. I'm gonna play a video but we're gonna play three truths and a lie. Is everybody familiar with this game? Okay, I'm gonna give you your options. I want you to watch the video and then after the video, y'all need to tell me which one is the lie, okay? So here it goes. Fort Worth has a lot of names. Which one is a lie? Panther City, River City, Caltown, where the West begins or Funky Town. Where's the lie? River City. Hit the video. Maybe I should start with which one is the truth. Okay, so now by reason of deduction, you know which one isn't true. Okay, so we have an idea of what Fort Worth is like today, right? We are a city now of almost a million people. I think the actual census count has us sitting at about 918,000 in some change. And every year we're adding about 25,000 people, right? And 20 years ago we were considered a small to mid-sized city with a little over 380,000 residents and now we're closing in on a million. So with all of that growth comes growing pains, right? And so when we think about Fort Worth, we are the home of the legendary Stop Six. We're also the home of Atatiana Jefferson. We are the home of Opal Lee. And we are the home of the Fort Worth Stockyards. So there's a lot in that, right? Our history is rich and it's deep and it's wide. And we don't run from any of it because every aspect of our history brought us to where we are today. Most of you realize that the reason why my department exists and the reason why my position exists was because a group of residents and concerned citizens got together after a very public event with Jacqueline Craig and Fort Worth Police Department. And they said, we're not satisfied with things as they are. We want to build a strategy for how we can be a better city. And they worked together for 18 months putting together the Race and Culture Task Force recommendations, 22 recommendations across seven key areas of criminal justice, education, economic development, governance, health, housing and transportation. Two of those recommendations are why I'm here. My position was created and our department of diversity and inclusion was created because the people said, this is what we want to see. And so when I say that we own our history, our history isn't always as great and as rosy as we would like for it to be. This picture that you see on the screen is a picture of actually a red line map from Fort Worth in the 1940s. And there are areas that were designated no-go areas where you didn't see a lot of development dollars, if any at all, going into those areas. And what's unique, well, not really unique because you see this across the country, but what's important to know is that the repercussions of decisions that were made in 1940 are still showing up today. Right, you can lay this footprint from 1940 on a map in Fort Worth and see where we need to do some work. And that's why we're here today, to talk through what we're going to do to make sure that Fort Worth has a different future. And so I wanna talk to you a little bit about before we get the panelists involved some opportunities. We mentioned some of these earlier when we first opened today's event, but there are some inclusive development funding opportunities and we hope that by the end of today you'll find your place in the supply chain and one of these funding opportunities and understand what these funds will mean for development and your business in particular right here in Tarrant County, but specifically in Fort Worth. So there are a couple of different things that are already existing, that are already in place, right? We have the Community Reinvestment Act or the CRA. And what that does is it requires financial institutions to put some money back into low income areas and low income development. And most people kind of stop when they think about construction, but it actually goes further than that, right? It's not just hard vertical or horizontal construction that can be included in some of those funding opportunities for large financial institutions. It can include workforce development programming. It can include healthcare and education opportunities. So there's a lot of room for us to kind of get our foot in the door for opportunity. Then we have the American Recovery Plan Act money, right? ARPA money. And in Fort Worth, I'll get into a little more detail about what that looks like in Fort Worth, but because of that ARPA money, the city of Fort Worth is using about $3 million of that to build a CDFI-friendly Fort Worth, which would provide sustainable access to capital and funding for businesses just like yours. This is an area where traditional financing, they really don't wanna play in that pool because they don't make enough money. But CDFIs, this is what they focus on, it's their sweet spot. So they are looking for opportunities to fund businesses just like yours, to make sure that you can stay in business, that you can grow and expand if that's what you choose to do. And then a couple of other things that are in the future coming down the pike is Bond 2022 in Fort Worth. I know a lot of organizations that are here today also have bond programs that they are about to step into as well. So make sure that you're making the connection between the money that is allocated in those bond projects and the work that you're gonna be doing. And then who knows when the infrastructure bill is gonna be passed? But they keep saying it's gonna be today and then it'll be tomorrow. But we hope that it'll be coming soon. All right? So quickly, Bond 2022 in Fort Worth, we have a couple of goals. And this is important for you to hear. Number one, we wanna make sure that we're using that about $500 million in bonding to maintain and improve existing infrastructure and address equity issues. We're also looking at mobility in city services and enhancing the active transportation plan and recreational corridors. But we're also looking at ways to allow for flexibility in partnership opportunities. So we are going to fund and look for opportunities to fund what we're gonna be talking about today on the panel. Next, we have the ARPA funds. And I don't wanna spend a whole lot of time on this because just to make a long story short, I wanna get to our conversation with our panelists, but there are really two buckets of money, right? And the first bucket of money for Fort Worth, it was approximately about 92 million and we'll get a second bucket next May, 2022, for the second half of that funding. So there's a lot of money out there, just the ARPA money. We're not talking about the 500 million in the bond of money and possibly that infrastructure money. So we wanted to look at ways that we can partner with some large private firms in Fort Worth. How do you identify who these potential partners are? And in Fort Worth, we've got a couple, right? We don't have them all, but we've got a couple. Two of them just happened to be in Mayor Pro Tem's district, American Airlines and Bell Helicopter, but we've got Deloitte and GM Financial, but we've got Beck, we've got Beck. And in having Beck as a partner, we'll tell you a little bit why that was so important for them to come forward. We do a lot of things in the city and probably this isn't gonna be earth-shattering or new, but Fort Worth has lots of incentives, tax abatements in Chapter 380 grants, both of which those programs commit or require companies to commit to a minimum of 15% of all construction costs, and that's hard and soft, going to what we call business equity firms, so minority and women and disadvantaged business firms. So now, let's talk about the rubber meeting the road. And this is where I want to bring in our panelists, Scott and Gina, to talk a little bit about the Dickies Arena project and how that developed and what came out of that project. What did we produce from building that relationship with Beck in the city of Fort Worth? Is that my cue? That's your cue. Can I give my background, my honest story background? Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you very much and thank you all for being here too. This is really important for us as a company and important for us as a community, so thank you. You know, the arena for us was an incredible project and we were really grateful to have been awarded that job and the partnership with the city and events facilities for Fort Worth was a really incredible collaboration, but for me, I learned a tremendous amount on that job and that process personally as well as professionally as we were going through the pursuit process and one of the things that we were told when we were pursuing that job was yes, it's gonna be big and schedule and cost and we also have a minority business commitment that we need to achieve and at that point in time, all I can see is Fort Worth Arena. Oh my gosh, this project's incredible, I gotta win it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And once we got there, the real gravity of that commitment hit me and it really set in stone for me something that has been a critical part of my career going forward and that the partnerships that are required to create these investments are the most important thing that there is and as a company like Beck, it is our responsibility to not just meet a goal, but to really strive to exceed that goal, but also do it the right sense of purpose and that requires the right team and for us, the city of Fort Worth was an incredible partner in that and I remember our original meetings when we were meeting at City Hall and I learned a lot about getting into the community and really helping lift up a lot of the companies that could be involved because a lot of these jobs that come out, they're big and you take a smaller business and you say, all right, here's your opportunity, bring your bid in, come on, let's figure this out and there's just too big of a gap, a gap in understanding, maybe a gap in systems, a gap in practices, bonding requirements, I mean, there's a whole lot of very intimidating factors that goes into getting a small business set up and put in a position where they're ready to take part in a project like that and one of the incredible things to come out of that process, not only did we hit the goal, not comfortable with it, we always wanna do better, project by project, we wanna do better, but what came out of it was a great idea and a collaboration between the City of Fort Worth and Beck on the Beck School of Construction and this for me has been one of the things that I've been most proud to be a part of in my entire career. We're in our third year, we have our graduation next week, Tuesday, for our third class and it is a program where we partner with the city and we go out and we solicit the interest of smaller companies that have the interest in really gaining exposure to a larger contractor and we work with them through 11 months, one of those is a graduation at 11 months to really understand how a company of our size, Beck, acquires and delivers work, whether it be business development, marketing, accounting, legal, bonding, project management, project supervision, the whole bit, pre-construction. It's really, really important for us as a builder in this community to help find those potential partners and help grow the community, not just because we need the help, but because it's the right thing to do. But I will tell you right now, more than ever, we do need the help. I mean the construction industry is lacking in the right amount of resources to get the amount of work that's coming up done. And so education and training, collaboration, mentorship is absolutely critical and I just, the city of Fort Worth for us has just been a dream partner in this. So thank you, Christina, can we go in? Andre, back there was a part of it, Gina. So Scott, who can apply to be a part of the Beck School of Construction? There are thresholds and what I will do is you can look at it on our website or the city of Fort Worth website, but what we're looking for is smaller companies that really are below a certain revenue threshold to come in, it's given us an application, talk about what you wanna do, have some sort of connection to the design and construction industry, but also be within a certain scale that you could truly benefit from the class. I mean I think that where we've seen the highest benefit is too when you have business owners or leaders within that organization that wanna come in and take part because we cover a wide range of the business practices, but we're really looking for those companies that can come in a little bit lower and that we can really help develop into a larger company. So companies that are ready to scale? Ready to scale. Ready to scale. And you touched on a little bit, but what are some of the classes that you think are the most pivotal in the Beck School of Construction? You know, that depends on the student. It depends on the company in a way because a lot of times you see companies that have something great going on, but they haven't been getting out there and getting exposed. Or they've got a great reputation, they've been doing some great jobs, but maybe they don't have the accounting support that they need to scale up or handle the management or the paperwork or even staff. And so that's why for us this year program is really important because it exposes them to all facets. And then the most important thing here is relationships. I mean, it's why we're all here today. You look at this room right here in Fort Worth for being the 12th largest city or nearing it almost a million people now. This is a manageable room. This is a tight community and it's an important community. And the best thing that we can do is develop relationships with one another because right as we're getting to it, we're thinking in mind, all right, you know, who do we know? Who are those people we can go to? Who are those reliable partners? Who have we met? Yes, we have our pre-qualification process and that's very important part of this also, but the relationships that we can make are critical. And one other thing that really was the benefit of the process, especially on the arena is the idea of mentorship. And we would see a lot of smaller companies come in and, you know, hey, I can handle a half a million dollars or a quarter of a million dollars worth of volume and that's where I'm kept, but I really want to get in there. How do I help? And some of the best things that we've been able to do is not only provide exposure to Beck, but also help build the relationship with a larger subcontractor or a larger vendor that says, hey, we need this partnership too. You come with us, we'll show you how to do it, and it really helps mitigate that risk, mitigate that bonding requirement. Awesome, okay. I'm going on and on, I'm sorry, Christian. Yeah, so what happens after graduation? Do you cut ties, leave them to fend for themselves, sink or swim, you're on your own, buddy. No. What happens? I mean, that's one of the special things and honestly it's good for Beck and all of our industry partners as well. I mean, let me just say, this is not just about Beck. This is about growing the community. This is about growing the community for all of our industry partners of different sizes because we need the companies. But after these classes, we learn about 30 new companies each year. We have 30 new relationships and we've got another great pool of people that we can really go to when we have these projects that are coming about. And we really urge everybody to go get pre-qualified with us and other GCs. We help that process and again, leveraging the relationships with other subcontractors so that when these projects come about, those partnerships and those knowledges and relationships are there already. All right, so you've heard a little bit about the class and who would be a good match for this type of partnership program and what you would get out of it. But let's talk about measuring impact, measuring outcomes. So this is where I'm gonna bring in our fearless Demetria at the end of the table. Because of the Beck School of Construction. Our next speaker that you're gonna hear from was a member of the Beck School of Construction cohort. And I'm not gonna tell her story. I want Demetria to tell us what the Beck School of Construction set her up for coming down the pipe. But before she does that, I just want y'all to know that in those first two cohorts, just the first two, we haven't even done the final calculation on the third cohort that's graduating next Tuesday. But in the first two cohorts, $14 million in contracts came out of those two cohorts. $14 million in awarded contracts. That is the kind of impact that you wanna see in your community. Demetria, tell us about your experience with Beck and what are you doing? Good afternoon. Demetria Bivens here with DLB Consultants and also I wear two hats. Name Act, the National Association Minority Contractors. I made a few of you guys earlier today at the Name Act booth. But my story on the D-Bivens Consulting DBA DLB Consultants. But I wanna, before Beck, I wanna, because Tony got mad at me when we were in San Antonio, I wanna first give a shout out to Tony Arps because that's where my journey really started with the DOT, with his program. From there, I came to the Beck School of Construction. And for me, it's been really, it's been very impactful and it has really made me grow as a business owner. And it really, you heard Scott talk about the marketing, the business development, the project management. And even when you may have a company that's trying to get a quarter of a million dollar job and they may not be able to because they don't have the insurance or the funding or whatever that case is. But this is what you'll get out of the Beck School of Construction because they will bring in a broker like Drew Green with Baldwin and Cox. They'll talk about the insurance, the bonding capacity. And then Drew, he'll even keep it real because I've heard Drew speak in Tony's program again in the Beck School of Construction. I remember calling Gwen and saying, dang it, the light bulb is freaking came on with me. I know what I need to do now. So I called Drew and I go, you know what, send me the application. I'm not gonna be ashamed about my credit. I'm not gonna be ashamed about anything. Here's mine. Here's the information. I send him this. The funniest thing for me is the balance sheet, my P&L and balance sheet because they all want what your credit look like, what's your P&L, what's your balance sheet. So I did most small businesses. I go into QuickBooks and I print it out and I send it to him. And we meet and Drew is like, hey Demetria, what the hell is this? And I'm like, I don't know, I just print it out. So with that, it really resonated with me. I'm like, man, I really don't know anything about my business and what's going on in my business. So I went, you know, got me on counted, a bookkeeper, got really serious about everything. I got with Mickey Esquivel on the credit side, started looking at my credit and just started putting things in order. And I tell you guys what's happening for me now, even now, because even from back school of construction, I went on to do 10k small business and some other things, but just putting things in order, your credit, even though it may be all jacked up and you don't want people looking because that was my thing. I want people out of my business. You know, I don't, man, why you need to know this? I'll just go pay cash for it. But all of that is still messes you up because you're not building any credit, but it feels so good now when you get a new project and you can go fund that project and you can go to your bank and you can say, here's my P&L, you know what COVID hit, some of my projects may not look good right now because all my money going to labor because I want to keep these people on board, but it feels so good because my banker here recently just told me, he goes, you know what, Demetrius? It all balanced out. And to me, that was a huge win for me, just to hear, oh, it balanced out. From the first time I sent it out, and Drew's like, what the heck is this, right? But that's not exactly what he said, but what is this, right? So for me, that was that financial piece because we can't do anything if you don't have those financials or can't get the funding to pay your payroll by the supplies that you need. Because we already know you get a new project, you're gonna be waiting 60 days before you can get your first check, right? So you gotta have it or you're just gonna be stuck in a rut doing small projects and you're not gonna have that capacity to truly grow. The other thing for me is the project management. And even just speaking, we did this back in San Antonio a couple of months ago, I think I've even grown since then because I've had more experience because I went from in my painting division, I went from zero people to seven and they want payroll every single week. So I had to grow again in a different area. And again, I had to take those tools and those resources that they were giving me and then on to, I don't know if I should, but I did mention the 10K Small Business, I took all of that, SBA Emerging. Matter of fact, I'm graduating today at three o'clock from the SBA Emerging Leaders Program. It's just, right now I'm just hungry. I wanna be better, I wanna do better. I don't wanna go to a Beck or any other large company to say, you know what, Demetria? You just don't have the capacity to do that. I don't ever wanna hear that again from no one. You know, like what Scott said, if you got the resources and you guys that are asking the questions about the Beck School of Construction, I mean, do it. Everybody's doing a lot of classes, but this one here is the real deal. And you know why it's real? Because Gwen and Christina is making, they're making them accountable. They're tracking, you're not just going through their program and going away. No, and by the way, we are doing business with Beck. We're doing business with Beck and you know, the relationships are great. There were some things that they said in a course, you know, even if you're estimating, you want someone just to take a look at your numbers. They wasn't lying, send it to the estimator. When they tell you something, just do it. You know, just don't think, I mean, get their contact information, be it Scott or Graylin back there or whoever was teaching that class, get their contact information, go, hey, I want you to take a look at this. Amount on the right track. Hey, this is my work in progress, you know, on the construction side, there's a lot of paperwork versus just what you do on a consulting side. So, you know, I can go on and on and on, but I really appreciate what I've learned, what I'm gonna continue to learn and how I will apply it. And those relationships will just last forever. All right, so Dmitri, you talked about what you've been able to accomplish since the early days with all of the learning opportunities back included that you've been a part of. Now I wanna get into Mayor Pro Tem's baby. And can you talk a little bit about what your role has been in stop six and the neighborhood development there? What are your takeaways? What went well? Where were the challenges? And where do you see us going in the future as a city that is literally investing arpa dollars in building more partnership relationships like this to build companies like yours? Thank you. Well, I wanna first think, because this is Ms. Gina Bibbins, we're not even related and Gina got home story with, I met Gina probably about five, six years ago. So in the stop six of my role with the project that's happened to be in her district, keep in mind we are not related, I met her five, six years ago at Nicole Carrier's office. I don't know, do you remember that? It was at a text doc. I do, I do, I do. Why was I there? We learned about the corporate inclusion plan that Royce West had rolled out. I forgot all about that. So anyway, the stop six, the project came out and they were looking for a customer, a construction support consultant position that came out. So I went out, looked at it, I had some experience with some of the requirements, section three, certified payroll, of course the MWBE, compliance piece of that project, and then just some knowledge of who's in this market as far as trade contractors. There's several of you guys in here right now that's on that project, wanted to be on that project and still pursuing that project, because it's a big project. It's gonna go on for multiple years. So my experience with the project is, you know, it was been very interesting, it was very challenging, because one, if anyone's ever done business in Fort Worth, you know, Fort Worth is not like no other city in North Texas. I mean, they're just not, they have neighborhoods. I mean, in their neighborhoods, they have neighborhood associations. There are churches on every corner that's involved in what goes on in those communities. And if you don't know that, when you come into Fort Worth, you got some issues. You know, there's some big issues because, you know, Christine has already said that's how her position was created because of the community and the people. So my experience and one of the biggest challenge on this top six, because even I felt like an outsider, because I'm not Fort Worth. People from Fort Worth, they're gonna tell you what high school they went to, what church they went to. They're gonna tell you all of this. I mean, it's just that serious. You know, and I learned that years ago because back in 2001, I actually had an office in Fort Worth in my first business. And so I learned Fort Worth many, many years ago. But one of the things that I truly learned from this project, you do not come into Fort Worth and not get their community involved. You don't get their leadership. You don't get their city council. It's a no, no, it does not happen that way. Are you gonna have issues? But I'm gonna let Gina speak on that because I had to learn something like that for myself. But the thing is, it's about local participation. If you go to any of their pre-bits, outreach, they're gonna start off with, they're looking for Fort Worth companies. They're gonna search Fort Worth first and then they're gonna go around to the other counties. Am I right? When? Christina? And if you get out of that realm, I mean, I guess basically what I'm saying, know the culture, know the people that you're dealing with when you come into people's houses. I mean, you better know who their neighbors are. You know, and I'm just gonna leave it like that. All right, Gina? Is my mic on? Do I have to press a button? No, it's on. I think it's on. Okay, I'm gonna address your setup, but I gotta make sure people here know about my council district because it's quite complex. Many layers. I have people in my district who survive on four figure annual incomes. And I have people who thrive on annual incomes, 12, 13 figures and above. It's very, very diverse. My council district is bigger than the city of Tyler. It's bigger than Ulyss. We have 109,000 people who live in my district. And I am never confused about who I represent. I represent them all. I think the difference when I came to office in 2013 is that I made sure the businesses that Christina mentioned knew I expected engagement from them as well. And so my district is home to Bell Helicopter, as you heard. It's also home to American Airlines. And part of the airport is in district five. I'm gonna ask you guys a question. And I think I see Benny Tucker here. Benny, is that you? Okay, well you can't answer, so just keep your hands down. How many of... You know where I'm going. How many of you know where Mosier Valley is? Please raise your hands. How many of you know where the Garden of Eden is? Garden of Eden is not in my district, but they're both home in Fort Worth to where freed slaves first settled. And so I am very protective of Mosier Valley. And if the redistricting map that's underway right now gets a side off, I'll have Garden of Eden too. Benny Tucker knows the story of Mosier Valley. If you watch news during February of every year, you'll see a preacher who held off the Klan with a shotgun. And we have these traditional black history stories. But I'm gonna tell you some more stuff about my district and how we got to where we are. When we hired city manager David Cook, he wanted council members to take him on tours of their districts. I made it a point not to take him to anywhere progressive. I didn't show him Vail, didn't show him American Airlines, didn't show him Trinity Boulevard. I took him to Stop 6. And that's where I was born and where I live today. Now they called my neighborhood Remy Place. I call it Stop 6 with Brits. Stop 6 is really a state of mind. And there was one point in time where nobody wanted to be from Stop 6. We even had an African-American fire chief who's deceased now who talked about my community. He had no idea he was really pissing me off. But he talked about who wants to live in Stop 6. He just assumed I live somewhere else. And so when I took city manager David Cook on a tour, we went to streets that looked like alleys because of city neglect. Do you guys know the name Ramon Romero? He said, Ramon took me on a tour of my district when I got elected. And we argued about a street called Booker T. And he said, Gina, this is the first thing you should do, get city staff to fix that alley. I said, Ramon, that's a street, that's not an alley. No, Gina, that's an alley. Well, you know, I grew up there, okay? My dad's church is right up the street. So he got out and walked, found the curb, he said, you're right, but it looks so bad. Nobody knew that it was a street. That's neglect. When I took him to an area where there were about 30 duplexes on one street, only four of them had people living in them. And so I saw one guy parked at a duplex, boarded up, got out of my truck, the city manager got really afraid. He didn't know what was gonna happen. He said, are you getting out? I said, yeah, I'm getting out. And so the guy's smoking crack in the truck, daylight, and I'm knocking on his window, his eyes get this big. And I said, man, what are you doing here? When I'm moving, my family was his response. Amaris, and by this time the city manager's getting out because he did not want to account to remember getting killed on his watch. And I said, man, you're not moving your family from a boarded up house. And if I ever see you again, I'm calling the cops. And so he left. This is the condition of stop six. We had streets that had been fixed probably five, four years, four, five years ago, already incomplete what they call failure, meaning it rolled like a boogie whip. So he saw the neglect. He saw burnt out structures that were unsafe, had just been left there. And so that is what started what we call the neighborhood improvement strategy. And I have taken that story at the national level for National League of Cities. And what we do, we take out some money every year and grow that fund, and we pick the next neighborhood that needs that kind of help. We were able to start building homes in stop six after I changed zoning. And that was a real fight. But I had no idea why developers didn't want to build in stop six. We had zoning in place that I considered detriment to development. It was, I guess designated as historic district overlay. Nothing was historic, but the dirt. But we had been saddled with this designation from 2006. And from 2006 until 2013, less than 300 homes had been built. It's awful, totally unacceptable. So we changed the zoning and the building started because my philosophy was if you own land, you need to have the right to build what you want on the land you own. But here's the deal. When we started building, we realized not everybody wants to build what I considered nice homes. And so I put in the requirement for the overlay. You're going to give me brick. You're going to give me two car garage because I'm trying to build sustainable neighborhoods. And the people started moving back. People are shocked to see 5, 5,500 square foot homes being built in stop six Texas. We could have had a millionaire's row, but for the state representatives in 2017, they stabbed me and everybody else in the back and said, you can't make people build brick. You can't make people do anything. And so in come the poverty pips. And that was confrontation I had with the builder because he was building what people call plywood homes. Now that's stop six. Let me tell you about the importance of recognizing community. I have a group of people, if you look at me sideways, they're going to come after you. That's my John T. White Routy Neighborhood Association. So when you come into Fort Worth from Dallas or Arlington and you see the East Chase exit, well, on one side is where Bishop Jayce lives in Kirk Franklin and a whole bunch of other people with money. And on the north side of I-30 are people who have not that much money, but still okay. You are not changing their zoning. We like big lots. A-43 is the zoning. And if there is any way to get people to buy district route up, just try to change the zoning. So that's one thing you need to know. In terms of what's happening in stop six now because of the neighborhood improvement strategy, because of the availability of land, we now have a neighborhood that is so attractive that people from other parts of the city are trying to change the boundaries so they can be a part of the neighborhood improvement strategy. On one call, and Demetrius, you were on that call, I think, there was a neighborhood, a neighboring neighborhood association led by a former council member. And one of those spokesperson asked, well, can we change the boundary so that all of StalCup is in, you know, Rose Hill Park, I'll just call it out. But they didn't know that the stop six neighborhood president was on the line. And he said, oh, no partner, we're gonna keep this like it is. And so what's happening now makes me so very proud because we've got a bond election coming up in 2022. And I will tell you for the first time, oh my Lord, in decades, we're going to have what's called a, what's that big word? Natatorium, swimming pool is what it means. Yes, swimming pool. We're gonna have a natatorium in stop six. But I have to make sure people know it's not just for stop six, it'll be there, but it's gonna be a city-wide facility. I will tell you in closing, I was very concerned at first because not everybody, and this is where you guys come in as contractors, you have to make sure everybody is on the same page. And so because of Christina and Gwen, we were able to put in some assurances that if you were a woman or minority contractor, you were gonna get a piece of that money coming to stop six. And that's where, was it section three? Section three comes in. Don Weber's former HUD Regional Administrator, bless his soul, educated me on the importance of section three. And what that meant was, if you're gonna be building in any community getting HUD dollars, they have a right to get some of that money. Well, we had and have a contractor, a very, very well-respected contractor, but was not in sync with us. And so I think he made the mistake of saying, I'm meeting HUD guidelines while ours were stricter because we had to make sure Pookie, Bubba, JoJo, this chick found folk under trees and was able to get them lined up to get some of that money. And so what I would say to you, it's a very stark difference in the relationship with Beck. With Beck, we were working hand in hand building relationships. They knew the rub that the community felt and all the money going that they thought would go elsewhere. But what Beck has done has ensured sustainability, capacity, because I promise you, anyone who goes through the Beck school, if they've got children, they see, oh, construction can be cool. Construction can feed my family. Construction can send my kids to college and there's two and there's two and there's two. And so it's important that when you all are looking for dollars, make sure you understand everything. And the final thing I'll tell you is, don't come to my district, buy some land, not knowing what the zoning is, and just thinking that we're gonna change it. It doesn't work that way. And so we have filled up city council chambers at Fort Worth over proposed zoning changes. And the worst thing any builder can tell my office is, oh, she's just gonna leave that land vacant? Yeah, I'm good with that, because I respect my constituents. And so that's the message I have for anyone coming to district five. We've got several neighborhood associations. Yes, Dimitri, we do have a church on every friggin' corner. And you have to make sure they're all in the loop. So thanks for inviting me. Christina, let me look at one more thing, because I wrote down some stuff I wanted to make sure I mentioned. Oh, we were able to get a bank in my district long before I got on board, but it was bank one. And that bank branch was the smallest they had ever built in the nation. And the reason why is because it was coming to an inner city community. And they just didn't think there was money there. When that bank opened for business, their daily projected number of transactions quadrupled what they thought they would get. Because people brought money in from planted in the ground, in some old mattresses, paper bags. And it has, the first time it got robbed, the only time was about five years ago. They also thought it would be robbed all the time. So don't take for granted that you know an inner city. And in stop six, we are very diverse as well. So Christina, that's all I got. Thank you so much, Mayor. Mayor Pro Tem, Gina Bivens. Let's give our panelists a hand. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Christina Scott, Demetria, Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, love you, thank you.