 Thank y'all so much, what an amazing turnout. This is what neighborhoods are about and I'm honored to be able to represent you all as the council six or district six council member. My name is Dr. Jared Williams and I'll just kind of give the welcome and kind of a rundown of what we're gonna do today and then I'll hand it off. So first of all, I like to thank, first of all, I like to thank the Westminster Presbyterian Church for their hospitality and opening their doors for us. So let's give the team here a warm hand clap for hosting us. So today it's no surprise we're here to give an update on egrets. Of course they are in their migratory season here in Fort Worth, they're nesting. And so our goal really is to bring a couple of our city departments, co-compliance and animal control for them to give an update about where we are in this season in terms of some of the activities that we're doing to respond to the real impacts that egrets nesting are having in our neighborhoods. And then once our city representatives give you an update on kind of what we're doing in this season, I'll come back up and I'll talk about what me and my office are doing to create a long-term plan to ensure that we're proactive with addressing egrets and it's gonna take all of us, all hands on deck with this plan. And so I'll give you an update on what we're proposing to my colleagues on council and working alongside our city departments like co-compliance and animal control to ensure that we're addressing this issue more proactively and thinking about the long-term future of the impacts that egrets have on our homes and most importantly on our pocketbooks and our budget. I know that egrets nesting generates unexpected bills for our families and it is my sincerest priority to ensure that our office does everything that we can to ensure long-term that we're reducing those impacts on you, your family and our neighbors. So without further ado, I'm gonna invite Barry Alexander. He's gonna give you all an update on what we're doing to address the immediate impact of egrets. And again, we'll come back and give more updates. I'm at the conclusion, we'll open the floor and my district director, Kendall Locke, will open the floor up to hear questions and me and the team will be able to fill your questions and also any issues that you're having. We'll be able to connect with you directly and make sure that we're helping you find the answers and solutions to your specific issues as well. So without any further ado, Barry, folks. Thank you, Barry. Good afternoon, everyone. Some of you I know, I've met in the fight with egrets and then some of you I've not, for those of you that have not met, I'm Barry Alexander. I'm one of the field supervisors under the Code Compliance Department in Animal Control. We got involved in this a few years ago with a fight with egrets because they got in and nested and we weren't aware of it and then we got notified. So we've been fighting these things and so we did some things in preparation for Candle Ridge because we knew they were coming back and we've all got very well schooled as some of the neighbors have in egrets. So we got, did some things. We got a permit to help us with the egrets and it wasn't what we'd hoped for, but it helped a lot and along with everybody in the Candle Ridge neighborhood we fought them and all respectively we won, but they got, the problem is once they nest, you run them off, they fly very fast and very low and they're really hard to keep up with. So if someone doesn't actually see them in their trees and it's too late, they build a nest and once they build that nest, we've still got a little leeway but once they lay those eggs, we're in trouble. Then it becomes an issue. So the permit kind of helps us through some of that and we're gonna definitely be applying that, applying for another permit and sending our report into the state and doing some things like that and then of course preparing and trying to get the word out what to look for. Over on Winchester, they're already nested, they've already got eggs and on top of that, now the birds are being kicked out of the nest so the fledglings are being kicked out of the nest. So every day the Code Compliance Department's been, Animal Control's been going by there and picking up injured and dead birds. That's their survival thing. They have three or four young, the nests aren't big enough for them so they end up kicking some of the babies out. So it's just a normal thing. So we're seeing birds on the ground, we're seeing baby birds down and we're also seeing young birds in feathers which we know now we've got a waiting period. So it gets really nasty, we're trying to do what we can but we're picking up the dead birds and we're picking up the injured ones and then we're thinking that unfortunately, the way they got nested in there is probably gonna be to the end of August before somewhere around there when they get, when they'll finally be old enough to fly off. So we're hoping it's earlier than that. But I don't suspect it will be. So. Oh, hello everyone. My name is Neil Johnson. I'm with Code Compliance also, but a different area. I'm with Code Compliance Solid Waste Division. I'm actually a superintendent over Solid Waste. I'm on a different end. First of all, I sympathize or empathize with you guys on what's going on. We're learning as we're going along as of the past year and trying to do our best to educate and make things a lot better in the future. So my job is to make things once the egress have nested to make things a little bit easier or bearable with street sweeping and also litter pickup throughout your neighborhoods. I don't know if you've seen the street sweepers come through on Winchester and even on the other end last year, they're coming through approximately three times a week and sweeping those effective areas along the curb side. So we try not to let the accumulation, you know, get too far before we get the street sweepers out to clean those areas. The one thing that I ask that you do, we try to stay away from Fridays, which is your, I think, your trash pickup days because obviously it impairs the street sweepers from actually having access to the curbs. So if you are in one of the impacted homes or please keep the curbs clear of any cars or, you know, whenever your trash pickup, you know, just bring it in immediately so the guys would have access to the curbs. So we work diligently with Barry and the crew with the pickup of the caucuses. So if you incline to put it to the curb and we'll pick it up. But we're trying to make things a lot bearable. This is my job to speak with the residents. If you do see them out there and if you have another area that you see as impacted or you feel like some other areas within your neighborhood is not being addressed with the street sweepers or cleaning, please contact us immediately. I think we have the, my fault worth that, that is set up in which you can actually report that. So please feel free to, you know, to report it if there's another area. If we don't report it, if you don't report it, we don't know. We, Barry and Chris have done a great job with the officers of, you know, going through the neighborhood and tracking everything and letting us know where we can kind of fit in and make things a lot bearable for you. So please, you know, just know that we're working hard to work with you and make sure that next year we don't have this problem again. So we appreciate your help and your patience. And again, feel free to let us know if there's anything else we can do to make things more bearable, okay? All right, thank you so much. Hello, my name is Chris Loret. I am the superintendent over Animal Control. I'm Barry's boss and I'm also the Animal Control officers that are out in the neighborhood every week, helping y'all with the egress and all that. I'm just gonna touch base on a little bit that you might wanna look at once we get the birds out, okay? Once the birds leave is whenever the hard work really starts, okay, it's the cleanup. That's when we need to get everything out of the trees, birds and nests, everything that they could come back and reuse, all right? Cause we don't want them back. We definitely don't want them to use what's left in the trees. There's limitations to what the city can do on private property, on getting these out, okay? We try to do the best we can from the road, what we can reach with, what tools we have, but as your property, you have to do it, unfortunately. That means getting arbiters. They go up there, it's money and it hurts, I know. Y'all gotta pay for that. But like I said, it's limitations of what we can do and what everybody, we got to get these nests out once the birds leave, once the birds are gone, there's preparations for next year, okay? Trimming trees, getting that already. My people getting stuff to help y'all next year when the birds start coming in. I brought flyers, all these flyers that I brought, there is stuff online for the city website. It's all on the egress. I have PowerPoints that I will be addressing, we'll look at doing another meeting before next year comes, probably about three or four, just to make sure we keep everybody updated. And when January comes, on the sheet it says February. It says February to March and I was addressed about that. So you wanna start looking out January, okay? February to March is what the state says, that's when they come in, okay? January, end of January is when we look at ground zero, okay? That's when they start flying in. You're looking for the night herrings. Night herrings, they're dark colored, they got the little yellow in the hair. Those are the first guys to come in. Those are the ones that everybody thinks, oh, they're cute, they're pretty, you know? You don't want them, okay? Cause if you go down to Winchester, there's several little night herrings in that tree. That's the first bird that's there. They blend in to the tree that has the nice pretty cover, okay? And I was talking to one citizen coming in here, I'm driving down the road and Winchester was ground zero, okay? But there's a lot of ground zeros that I seen coming in here. That could have been that house, could have been that house. You don't wanna be that house, okay? So it's gonna take not just the neighborhood, okay? It takes the whole city. Me and Barry's been working on this since I started with the city back in 2008, okay? Since 2008, okay? Sorry. It's tough. Every year we see something different. We learn something different. I've talked to wildlife biologists. I almost feel like I have the degree now. I've been talking to them for so long. They've given me a lot of good information. I research it, I look at it, I try to pass that information on. I talk to our PIO who puts the information out. There's every year I change something, okay? I change something on our information that I put out because something new happened. COVID hit. That changed a lot. Because the birds just flew in, nobody knew. Everybody was in their house hiding from COVID and ground zero was candle ridge. John Stone, a couple other neighborhoods, about three or four blocks. We had one up north. Lady was in the hospital, didn't even know her house. You had about 50, 60 birds. This year they had about 130 that tried to come in. So the city, my employees that I work with, we were in two different areas. Not just one, and we was working around the clock, okay? So it's not like we're not doing anything. We're trying to do the best we can for all of y'all because we got the whole city to help, but we need your help too. So January to March, but it goes through all the way to September, October, okay? October is sometimes when they leave. I'm gonna be honest with you, Barry said late August. I mean, worst case scenario, it could be late September. But we gotta be vigilant, because I definitely do not want to have to deal with it in another neighborhood next year. So if you know people, pass it along, let them know what we're going through this year. John Stone, a lot of them told, they told the people last year, hey, look out, we had a lot of people running around with pots and pans, clapping them. That's what it takes if that's all you can do. We got incineraries that we bought the city. We have permits for that. So a lot of people can't use that. You gotta be careful, because I don't want y'all getting in trouble with PD and all that PD knows what we do. They know what we're doing all year. We're gonna get ready for next year. Once these birds get out, we'll be out every day doing what we do. And then next year, we'll be out again. Y'all gonna see us around all year round because we're not going nowhere. Hopefully the birds do though. I'll give you back to Mr. Williams. So before I talk about the council plan that we're working on, I just wanna give a huge shout out and thanks to Code Compliance, Animal Control, to 4th PD. They've been working around the clock, just really trying to make this situation as lighter of an impact on y'all as possible. I also wanna thank each of you for calling our office. You all help us to address issues, day-to-day issues that you experience every day. And so thank y'all for emailing us and calling us. I also wanna give a huge shout out to my district director, Mr. Kendall Locke. He's been filled in a lot of your calls while I'm working on the long-term plan from a policy perspective. He's coordinating with the department's day-to-day. So thank y'all, thank y'all, thank y'all. We'll share with y'all all of our contact information. Egrets is an important issue right now, but each of you will have additional issues coming up and just know that our office is open and it works for you all. And so please continue that. We really appreciate that. From my perspective as your representative on council, one of the things that I'm really focused on, and I work with Kendall a lot on this, is thinking about how do we address this issue, not just for the here and now, but how do we ensure that we're addressing migratory birds of all sorts, whether they're egrets or any other species? How do we ensure that we're working with our city departments to create a plan that we can continue to implement with fidelity long after I'm gone and long after the next representative is gone as well? And so what we've been working on is a three-step approach in partnership with the departments that I've named. The first piece is really about education. The plan that we're putting forward is really designed to get the word out faster and more efficient in ways that you all like to be communicated with, right? Like the website is an important first step, but we have to go deeper and deeper in neighborhoods with our education. And so the plan will authorize the city department to go above and beyond on an education basis. I think education piece is so important, especially in that late September to January period before the egrets are back for the next season. I guess it's important for all of us as residents to know how we all can do our part to ensure that we're deterring egrets from nesting during the season. I think that the second part is that deterrence piece. We need your help in deterring them, but also the city staff, once council authorizes the city staff to do more, we can come out and help deter. And so there will be a deterrence piece in this plan to make sure that egrets are not nesting in our neighborhoods. The third piece is a conservation perspective. With me having a doctorate in environmental science, I really understand how important conservation is. And right now with the egrets being federally protected, we really have to be a strategic with how we relocate birds to more suitable habitat. And so one of the things we're working with in partnership with a program that was relatively new in the city of Fort, the open space conservation program is a fund that allows us to find suitable open space areas and purchase that as conservation areas for long term. And so this plan will authorize the city staff to relocate birds that haven't laid eggs in their nest yet and relocate them to suitable habitats. If you've ever been to Fort Worth Nature Center, that's a classic example of what we're talking about when we talk about open space conservation areas. And I think that long term, that's a comprehensive plan that of course requires all of us doing our part, but that ultimately helps us to reduce the impact that egrets have. I'm also really sensitive to the financial impacts that this has on our neighborhoods. And so we'll also be having conversations about how to help address some of the impacts that are especially in our common areas, but even in our neighborhoods as well where law permits. So I just wanted to present that to you to let you know that that's the plan that I'm working with the departments. And after your questions and the stories that you all shared this evening, that'll help me go back and inform the work that we're planning with your experiences as well. So thank you in advance. We're gonna open up the floor for Q and A and I'm gonna ask my friends from the city of Fort to come stand up here with me. We'll have an extra microphone for you if you have questions or if you wanna share just a real quick sound bite of how you've been impacted by egrets. That way we'll make sure that we have as many perspectives as possible as we continue to advocate for y'all from a city council perspective. So with that being said, I'm gonna invite Kendall Lockup. He's gonna help me facilitate this and we'll bring around the mic to you if you have any questions about what you can do to prepare for the next season or if you wanna share some issues about how you've been impacted with egrets. I'll just say from a protocol perspective, if you can talk in sound bites, that'll be great because I know there's a lot of folks here and we wanna make sure that we have time for all those who are wanting to express a question or express how they've been impacted in particular so that we all have a chance to lift up our perspective. So thank y'all in advance and I'll come around with the mic for you, okay? Well, good evening everybody. Like council member Williams said, my name is Kendall Lock and I'm the district director for district six and I know I've talked with many of you guys already and had conversations come to some of you guys' houses. We've rolled around the neighborhood. But like council member Williams said, today is just literally having a conversation and listening from you guys about the egrets. We are in the process of scheduling a few additional meetings in September and in the following months to touch on a few other things that are important and that are happening across the city that's having an effect on us as neighbors. So we will get started with questions and just kind of raise your hand and council member Williams will. And so just raise your hand, council member Williams will bring over a mic. And so like I said, just questions that are about egrets in particular about preventative measures. Maybe you need to pick our brain about what's something that you can do, what kind of noise maker do you need to purchase, what kind of tree trim do you need to get, those different kind of questions. So we will get started. Yes, ma'am. I'm secretary of Wedgwood South neighborhood and two years ago we had an infestation of two or three houses and it was just awful. The stench a block away, I walk with the neighbor, we wouldn't even go near that street. It cost the man whose house was mainly affected $5,000 to have his trees trimmed, his yard dug up about four inches down and his shrubs replaced. He installed bright lights, he installed scare eye balloons and he had sound that came on automatically. But what we did this past January, our neighborhood association was proactive. We mailed via postal service educational mailing with information about the scouts that come in February and pictures and what they could do to deter it and we included the Fort Worth website and we had signs posted, we had 20 signs placed strategically throughout our neighborhood at intersections where people would see it. We had an army of people who fought the egress and luckily they did not come in our neighborhood but we directly mailed, not emailed but via postal service every registered, every homeowner's address between Woodway and Kingswood and Alta Mesa and French Lake. So we educated first and we had good compliance. Thank you so much and for those of y'all who couldn't hear just to summarize that my friend and neighbors down in Wedgwood, they basically implemented a really robust education program from mailing information about what folks can do to prevent egress from roosting on their property to posting signs all across the neighborhood about how folks can prepare for the upcoming migratory season and they saw success there. So thank you for the work that y'all did in the neighborhood. I know that it required some elbow grease and I appreciate that and that's really, we wanna replicate that all across the city, right? Us as neighbors and neighborhoods have some best practices out there and from a council perspective, we're gonna be really focused on how do we do that type of education city-wide and how can the city help with some of that education and the costs with that, so thank you for that. And I'll also mention that we've been in contact, our council office has been in contact with the communications and public engagement department and in our conversations, literally within the past two weeks that has been something that the director of that department has brought up is piecing together some of those different programs such as mailers, the signs, of course still doing things digitally and we'll do a more robust digital program next year with videos and different things that'll be disseminated not only through the city channels but through the homeowners associations and neighborhood associations but printed material is definitely kinda at the forefront going into next year because we know a lot of people, I mean, if you're being honest, you don't have the time to check the website or you're not looking at the website or you're not on Facebook, so we're trying to meet you guys where you are and so that's definitely at the forefront and I've been getting that from a lot of you guys in our conversations and just email so we're keeping that definitely at the forefront. Next question. Here's my question. Because a lot of times people, they left our last meeting and everybody heard something different. What I wanna know is this. Have they quit nesting and are the brownbirds that we're seeing walking in yards that are egrets? I don't know if they have the yellow thing on their head or not and the brown ones are flying into neighbor's trees over there on court side. Are they still nesting or is nesting over? From all indications that we've seen thus far, they are not nesting anymore. Now, you will see them still in trees where you'll think, wow, there's five egrets in my tree and they'll have twigs in their mouth because the whole time they're nesting through the season, they go get twigs and stuff and then they have to rebuild and work on their nest and then they fly off and go get food for the babies and come back and this goes on constantly. So as a result of them nesting where they did on Winchester, we were getting calls just like every day, multiple, multiple calls. I've got birds in my trees. So we would go out there and even we had help from Candle Ridge, Dibert Association going out there. Maxwell helped us and we would look every time because we were worried that maybe they were trying to nest and they were just late, late. But everything from up to this point we believe that they're completely nested where they're gonna be nested. So and as far as we know, the only place that they've nested is a couple of houses on Winchester. Thank you. Not a problem. Thank you again for that question and from a council perspective in the future with our plan, we wanna be able to track egrets as well, their migratory patterns here in the season so that we can start finding hotspots so that we can do preventative measures where we've seen egrets nest in the past. So we'll come, yes ma'am. And if there were eggs in there and you took them but the parents still stayed here, how did the parents know where you took them and they're still gonna build new nests? Because they're fairly protected, we're not allowed to touch the nest, both the city and also residents. We're not allowed to disturb the nest once there are eggs in the nest. So yeah, but. Let me touch, so okay. So in reference to some nests whenever we first started dealing with the nests and the egrets was coming in, I have a permit that would allow me to get into the nest, take the birds, the bird eggs and scare off the rest of them, okay. I also have, that permit also allows me to take a bird which is basically kill it, okay. So we didn't do any killing of any large egrets. We took the eggs, we destroyed the nests, and we scared off the birds to go fly somewhere else, okay. My director said do not take any birds because you can only take it with a shotgun. That's the permit. There's specifications and limitations on the permit, okay. We filled that permit up. My permit was done whenever they got to Winchester, okay. That's the permit that everybody is talking about. I, because I'm with the city, I submitted for the permit for the city, for all over the city. The airports also have a permit, but that's only for the airports. There's no, it's a limitation for how many you can take. The federal government gives you a limit on each breed. So I can only take that limit for that breed. How do we avoid the birds coming back? And I think you guys addressed that through, once you did the take of the nests and the eggs, there were a number of us that helped out and tried to make sure they did not come back to that area. And so both that tree behind the church as well as the one that was behind on the other side of the fence, I think that's how we've maintained or the city's maintained not having birds come back in those areas. I think the timing was unfortunate by the time the three weeks that it took to get them cleaned out, they had started migrating to other trees, Barry and the city ran out of permits. And so they were sort of at a loss with being able to do any more to help that part of the community. So that is correct. And that's why we said early on that it is very important in their next year's coming to make sure that you're vigilant for watching for the scout birds. Because the ones that cause the huge damage are the white eagles or cattle eagles. They're the ones that come in hundreds at a time. The gray herrings or donut scout birds, night herrings, they're different. There's a lot of different breeds, but they're the ones that they'll come in about two or three. You won't even know they're in the net, in your tree. They don't make a lot of noise. They fly at night a lot. They come in late in the evenings. And then once they build that nest and get those eggs laid, it's almost like a homing beacon for the white eagles. And once they get in, then you're in big trouble. I know houses in all the neighborhoods around here that have had a couple of night herrings in them. They've nested. And fortunately, they nested, they grew up and they left. And you didn't have a big impact of a lot of white eagles coming in. But then we have the total opposite of that effect. Where a couple of birds get in, the homeowner does not have any idea they were in there. And then all of a sudden they walk out one day and there's 50 birds. Then a week later, they walk out, there's 100 birds. So during this time, or last year in Cantaloupe Ridge, when we were fighting them, three officers from Animal Control picked up a little under, around a thousand birds. So you can imagine the scope of that. So that's what this is all about. And we believe they're nested. We don't believe they're nested anywhere else. We haven't had any reports. And as you know, this is a big neighborhoods. And so we haven't had any other reports. We don't believe they're nested. We just need to be vigilant when these birds leave and getting the nest out of the trees. Next year, trimming the trees back. We're not saying you gotta cut your tree down. We're saying you need to have like 80% cover in there and get 20% of it out. Because, and these particular birds are attracted to post oak. That's just the tree they like. And there's a limitation too, when an arborist will wanna trim those trees because of disease. So be diligent about thinking about an arborist and get online, look at some different ones and study it and then get online and look at, there's a lot of information out there on egress that we're telling you tonight. But there's a lot still out there. Thank you for that, Barry. I think we had a few over here, Kendall and then Anita will come to you as well, okay. Hi, her and I were wondering, are the blue herons, are they protected as well as a species? Anything that's a migrating bird, blue herrings, snowy egress, night herrings, they're all protected. They're all migratory birds. There are ducks, they're migratory birds. There's a whole bunch of, there's probably about 30,000 birds that are protected and it's online. You can look at all, it's a long list. A lot of houses down from the bird tree, so the smell and seeing the poor little baby birds dead and dying is not my thing, but I'm wondering what is or up to the limit that we're allowed to, as they're trying to nest, what is our limitation as a homeowner to protect our house, our roof, our trees, besides just truing back the trees and scaring them off? What is our limitation? Cause y'all come out with the flashbangs. I don't think we can do that, can we? Well, Barry was out there. We did have PD come out there. We did have wildlife and fishery come out there. They didn't know we had a permit. Whenever they went out there and they found out we had a permit, they kind of ran off and said, have a nice day, cause they didn't want to be involved. All right. Your limitation is basically as long as the birds are trying to nest. Just nesting, collecting. If they're collecting stuff, if you see them collecting in your tree, chew them off, scare them off. If they're trying to make nests in your trees, get a stick, try to get up there and get the nest out. Don't let them do anything in your tree. Well, what I'm wondering is between the time that I realized animal control actually let me know that I had a blue herring in my tree, then like literally a week or two later, a hundred of the friends of the white herrings came and all of a sudden the blue herrings were, I mean the blue egrets, the blue birds were gone and all the white birds were in. Yeah, the white birds scared out the blue. The blue, the white, they're all noisy, they're all nasty. Do we have any kind of idea if they're gonna get rid of this federal protection? Cause it sure doesn't seem like they need too much protecting. So the migratory bird tree act of 18, 1918, 1918. I'm thinking it's a little outdated. 1918, yeah. Well, it's between like 36 countries and they have tried to get 36 countries together to do something with it. They've been trying to do that for years, so. Well, they haven't had them live in their tree, so. Yeah, I know, you know, Carrollton, Carrollton seen the same thing and they thought they was just gonna go out there and do what they wanted because, oh, this is outdated. They got $40,000 worth of fines. Oh, okay. That's why I'm asking, like, what is our limitation as a homeowner besides seeing them do the sticks and running them off, at what point do you realize that they're there and they've nested and they have eggs, sometimes you just don't know. They blend into the sky and the leaves, you can't see them. I get that, you know, I drive down through neighborhoods and I catch myself looking up and I don't wanna run into nobody. So it's tough, it is very tough. Me and Barry, we run all over the place. Right. Barry doesn't have great eyes, my eyes are not great either. We miss things, but if you get a neighborhood together or a city together, you'll be surprised whatever everybody can do. Right, right. So it's just being vigilant, talk to your neighbor, let them know, let us know, we'll come out with the vangers in there, okay, now another part of the question is, what do we do once they're gone? Because I have a neighbor where his one tree is affected next to the one that looks like a big cotton ball exploded. So once those birds are gone, you say it's up to the person that owns a house or whatever, I mean, are we gonna get any kind of help money-wise in combination of what we do to clean it up? So a great question from my perspective on the council, that's why I'm working so hard on this plan. I mean, is there gonna be some joint thing where the homeowners and y'all can kind of where we can pull money together to help those who can't clean it up? So that is well received and we will bring that in discussions in the plans. Thank you for that. I know that the financial impact is huge. That's why this plan is so important. That's why the education piece, where if we're all aware and the city's leveraging the resources that we have to make sure that we get the word out to residents, we can all be looking so that it's not a one neighbor, to have to spot that burden. So this plan is gonna be comprehensive. That has come up in our conversations and I wanna keep continuing to bring that up as well to see what type of fun we can create long term. So for those of y'all didn't hear, she asked, will there be a fund for the end of this season? I'm currently, there are not funds available for this, which as a representative, that's something that I'm very sensitive to. I'm in the term of how do we really address this systemically? I know that some of the work that we do from a policy perspective doesn't happen like tomorrow, but I wanna make sure that we're addressing this like once and for all. So we're not gonna be forgotten in the loop anywhere. No, you won't be forgotten. Yes, sir. Thank you for that. So we'll have a time, I wanna honor the time in the church. They have us here from six to seven. So we'll take about two to three more questions and Kendall will come around before round enough. Also at the end of this event, if y'all like to continue the conversation with us, and we'll hang around for maybe five to 10 extra minutes, we can share with you our contact information if you'd also like to call our office. That way we're making sure we're getting all of your feedback and perspective, okay? Okay, my question was going to be about the law that was passed where it's made these little darlings to where you can't do anything to them. Well, you're saying that there's other countries that have signed a treaty, an agreement, whatever it might be. Why can we not pull out of that agreement? So the question was in regards to the federal treaty and whether or not we could pull out of that, that is definitely a congressional conversation and the discussion that the Congress would have to act on. We have congressional representatives that we also wanna build a working relationship with as well, but that's definitely gonna be an act of Congress to amend that treaty or to make other provisions that allow cities to address migratory birds in a different way. So we need to get after Congress is what you're saying. Everybody hear that, Congress? Okay, thank you. Thank you. Can't you guys like use hawks, owls? You know, where I live, we have a hawk. We have actually two or three of them. They fly around between about two or three houses. I live on Winchester. Okay, so even in Candle Ridge, there is a lot of hawks flying around and if they go to a nest and take a bird or if they knock one out, that's totally legal. I mean, that's nature. But as a protected bird, we can't use hawks or anything now. As I said before, we had a permit and we got that permit. This was the first year. But it's natural if a hawk attacks another bird, isn't it? Exactly, but that's what I'm saying. So they can do that. But we can't physically set that up. It would be just like us being able to shoot them with a 12 gauge, but here's the good news. Here's what we're trying to do. So Chris spent a lot of time doing the paperwork. With the fishing game, we contacted them. We talked to them and we have established kind of hopefully a working relationship with them. So all over the United States, they deal with this as well. So we're hoping all the birds and the eggs that we removed this year with our permit, we have to keep track of that. Then we have to submit that to the state or to the federal government and we're hoping next year we get a better permit. We get more. We get the ability to deal with them more strongly. Now, this year we took hundreds of eggs to steal. So like Chris said, we didn't kill any bird and we took them to a rehabber. So we're proud of that fact, but we're hoping that we have a better permit. We have better communication. We're working even on trying to get a drone that is infrared, state-of-the-art, so that when we do have to run these eggs off, we can track them better, we can see them better, where they go, we can push them out. Because once we get them nested somewhere else, if they're out in the country, then they're not an issue. And they'll come back there every year. All right, well, what about using speakers to make loud noises, you know, put a speaker in there, it could play on a loop, find some fake hawks, some fake owls. But fake hawks, fake owls will work. That costs money, but it's cheaper to have, and you guys come by every so often. That works, and people were putting balloons up with faces on them, in the trees, they were doing, and a lot of it was helping and working. What we worry about at Code, and with the police department is that you can go online and you can get fireworks, you can get all kinds of stuff. People were firing fireworks and stuff at birds that were just flying over. So if you get an entire neighborhood, riled up and they're firing just every time they see a bird, we had people firing at ducks. So what happens, and then what happens, and I'm gonna tell you what happens when you do that, all of a sudden, the police department is doing multiple calls out for gunfire, and it just creates this chaos. We found that out firsthand in Galleridge. So what we ask you to do is use pots and pans, and it works, and use boards, and it works. Well what's gonna end up happening is somebody's gonna fall out the tree and get hurt really bad. Well they don't, you don't have to climb in the tree. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you don't need to climb your trees. Yeah, don't get in your trees. Have an arborist train professionals do that. So, because you're right, you will fall out. So, but anyway, I want to touch base on that because I didn't want people getting all worked up, and then, because there's a city ordinance, if you're firing, we had people that we pretty sure were firing guns at them. First of all, they're federally protected. Second of all, you're committing a crime, and it was just not good for anybody. It is not good for the neighborhood. So, that's it. Thank you for that, Barry. Kendall, if we can go over to Anita for the last question, and remember we're short on time, but please come talk to us after the event, and we'll make sure that we engage in that conversation after, so we'll still hang around. Thank you. My question was about the permitting, and are we guaranteed to get it next year, this year? That's what concerns me. The number of birds and eggs. Peggy is here. She had, I don't know how many birds in her trees, but what if we use up a permit and there's still nests there? How does all that work? I'm concerned about going forward how we can be guaranteed of getting that permit and removing everything that needs to be removed if other areas in the city also have egrets. Okay, so no, the permit is not guaranteed, right? That's why I had to build a relationship with the federal government, along with several wildlife biologists to get them to help me fill out part of the permits because I have to get paperwork from the USDA, wildlife people, also wildlife and fishery, and me filling out several forms and giving them a guideline of what they're expecting me to do before I even take anything. So it's a long process. I submitted it probably in November, and I finally got it like April 1st. So the birds were already coming to us. So it's, there's no guarantees anything with wildlife. I'm gonna be honest with you, it's tough, but I think I worked out a good relationship with them and I filled out the forms correctly, thank God. Yeah, so, and they gave it to us. The only thing is, is they do, they have to look at the impact on everything. So they look at the impact on the wildlife along with, because they're not gonna give a permit to somebody that's just gonna go out there and start firing off a shotgun. I had to show them the whole lay of the land, saving as many birds, even though I did take eggs and all that and break nests and all, I was still bringing the eggs to a wildlife rehabber that is licensed with the federal birds. So with all of that, we have guidelines and limitations, even with that, but nothing is guaranteed. And I'm hoping that I know the whole process now. So it should be a little bit easier. And I've made that relationship with the USDA and Wildlife and Fishery, which I've been knowing them for 14 years. So it should be a good relationship. So, but yeah. And I just wanna say, you know, special thanks again to our team and specifically to you, Chris. I know it's not easy to get federal permits and from, you know, a council representative, we wanna work with y'all moving forward. For those of y'all don't know, we have a lobby team that has a federal program each year. We go to Washington DC with a list of agenda items that are important to us and we talk to our, not only our Tarrant County delegation, we talk with representatives from all over the country on issues that are important to us. And this will be something that I'm presenting to our lobby team because part of this, part of our issue is with working with our federal, you know, representatives and with our departments to make sure that we're working together to really address this issue in a way that's meaningful to you all as neighbors and also that puts forth some best practices and conservation. So like Chris said, we are conserving as many of these e-grids as possible and moving them to, you know, more a suitable habitat. So with that being said, thank you all for engaging in tonight's conversation. Thank you for, you know, your feedback. I know this is, you know, a really tough issue that's impacting all of us in many different ways. And as your representative, I know that I'm deeply, you know, concerned and also, you know, my sleeves stay rolled up constantly because, you know, I'm really willing to work on all of the issues that are important to our district. And so just know that this issue is a priority for our office. Please, please, please continue to engage with us. If you all see new issues that come up, feel free to reach out to our office. We'll be passing out our cards with all of our information for our folks watching. You can find our information online on the District 6 webpage that has our office phone number and our emails. Please feel free to contact us with the issues that you're facing with e-grids and other issues that you face from day to day. Like I said, our team will be hanging out for about five to 10 minutes to exchange contact information and to hear a little bit about how each of you have been impacted by e-grids during this migratory season. So thank you all again. Again, thank you to our friends at the Westminster Presbyterian Church. We really, really appreciate you all opening up your space for us. And we look forward to doing many more of these listening circles on a number of topics. In fact, Kendall's gonna talk to you about some of the exciting events we have from our council office, including a back to school backpack giveaway event that's gonna happen right down the street at Trademark Church. So, Kendall, if you would give them a rundown of upcoming events. So yeah, so we have a back to school event that is coming up on August the 7th. That's the first Saturday in August at Trademark Church. And so that will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. We're giving upwards of 500 backpacks with school supplies geared towards middle school students. So if you know anyone, if you have, you know, those individuals in your home or in your families, definitely invite them to come out. It's a drop through event, so they just pull up. We give them the backpack and then they continue on with their day. So that's one event that we have coming up on September the 2nd, Thursday, September the 2nd at six o'clock we have an event where we'll take a deeper dive into bond projects for the district. So bond projects looking at some things and budget priorities across the district and getting some feedback from you guys. Looking at redistricting. Of course, we're redrawing a few maps or all of the council maps and adding two additional seats. So we'll be touching on redistricting. Also touching on the my for worth app and things that are available to you through that app. In addition to that, we are currently planning two other town halls that will come at letter days. One that will be geared towards the new my H2O program that's through the water department. So of course, many of you guys probably know there has been new meters that has been installed. So we'll be touching base about that and talking to you guys about some exciting things on how you can actually view the breakdown of your water bill, view your water usage and just all of the great things with that department. And then also to a town hall that's gonna be geared towards just traffic, infrastructure, speeding, things as stop signs. We've been working hard with transportation and public works and have some great things that are coming to the district as far as new stop signs, new signals and just things that's all about traffic infrastructure. So those are a few things that are coming up. Of course, everything will be disseminated through all of the city channels, our channels. You can always reach out to the office. I'll give you guys our office number if you wanna write it down. And of course I have cards that you can get as well. But it's 817-392-8806. And so that's the office number. You can feel free to reach me if you text, if you call on my cell, it's 817-372-1138. 817-372-1138. And like Council Member Williams said, our office is open, feel free to call, email. And we're here for you guys. So thank you for being here.