 Good morning and thank you for attending this district five budget information session. I'm Gina Bivens and I represent city council district five. Joining me today are city manager David Cook, Wade David. Transportation and Public Works director William Johnson. Parks and Recreation director Richard Zavala. Assistant police chief Julie Swaringen and chief of police chief chief of police Ed Krauss. We have special guests with us today. Fort Worth Housing Solutions president Mary Margaret lemons. And senior vice president Brian Denison. There are others on the dais that I can't see behind the mask. Who's that down there? Push your microphone button and introduce yourself. Terry Hansen with planning and data analytics. And Jan Hale planning and data analytics as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. I will tell you, we're going to have some information on the two hottest projects going on in district five. Those will be described one by our friends from housing solutions that being the Cavill revitalization project. The other very busy project will be described by our TPW director, which is the rail station coming to district five. Last year, several of us on the council discussed the importance of making sure the citizens of Fort Worth would be educated on understanding the budget. That's what this meeting is all about, but you're going to get some information on the next bond election since that's how the big ideas come about. And our city manager is going to discuss the difference to show you how we fair it so far. Not too long ago, we were able to remodel and expand both handling metalbrook rec center and Eugene McCrae rec center, all from the same bond package. And that doesn't happen too often. You really do need your input. And if you're watching virtually, you can text your questions or call 817-682-6039. I'll repeat that 817-682-6039. You can also email your questions about the budget to fwconnectionatfortworthtexas.gov. Again, that's fwconnectionatfortworthtexas.gov. Keep in mind your input is so important because district five is bigger than most people really realize. Most folks don't know, city council district five is bigger than the cities of Bedford, DeSoto, Trophy Club, and even Tyler. Now, we're almost catching up with Carrollton, but district five is pretty big. And so that's why it's important that everybody gets involved and becomes knowledgeable about the budget. Now, in the city council chambers, for those of you who have signed up to speak, we will ask you to limit your speaking to three minutes. You're pretty accustomed to that. Those of you watching us online will be able to call and text those questions. I don't have a lot of chit chat. We're going to just run this like a business meeting with everybody discussing their areas of expertise. And so first, let's go to our first speaker, city manager David Cook, to provide you with a presentation on the budget and some tips on the bond. Thank you, Councilmember Bivens. And it's good to see everybody out there and the folks that we have in the audience. What I'm going to talk about briefly this morning is the recommended 21 budget, which is before the city council for consideration right now. The five year capital improvement program. And we appropriate the first year of capital, but we update that every year and I'll spend more time also talking about the upcoming potential bond program for 22. So I'll start by saying that I look at the budget process as a year round process and not an event that just occurs in July, August and September every year. Fiscal stewardship and budgeting has to occur throughout the year with the with the city. There is a moment in February of every year that we have a planning retreat with the mayor and city council. And we go over the upcoming goals of the budget we forecast what we think next year will look like and we'll set some goals for the budget. I'll have you think about where we were last February in Fort Worth. And this is before we asked people to stay home. Unemployment rate in Fort Worth at the time was 3%. The stock market was humming development is strong. And so when we had a planning retreat with the city council, the way we talked about the future is very different than the way we talk about the future right now. And I'll talk about some of those changes that really is reflected in that goal number six. That wasn't on our agenda back in February of this past year. And again, more on that as we go forward. So we've had the same goal, goal number one for a number of years. And I'll just touch on these real quick and that's to maintain or reduce the property tax rate for a number of different reasons. Second goal is to maintain funding for capital and for the maintenance of that capital that we build. Three open new facilities were opening new facilities from prior bond programs, whether it's the 2014 or the 2018 bond program. And when we open a library, I think the citizens expect that we'll have materials in there and librarians to serve the public. So in many ways, our bond programs are driving the operating budget as well. The fourth goal I'll spend more time on this is we've had the task force on race and equity that gave the city council goals or recommendations about a year ago. And we're we've implemented some of those recommendations in the current budget and those will carry over into next year. And we're also adding things to again address those recommendations. Goal number five, I won't spend a lot of time on because Chief Ed Krause will cover that. And then the last goal I'll talk about as well and that's preparing us for I think fewer resources for the upcoming fiscal year or two. We show this chart and I won't spend a lot of time on it. But the far the number on the far left is our current tax base for the city of Fort Worth. So that is what we tax to generate property tax revenue. The next line over this is the change in values of all the properties that are in Fort Worth. And if you look at the current year to next year, that will grow less than a half a percent. That's the smallest increase in the growth of our current tax base in at least the last six to eight years. So that's the lowest again increase for a number of years. We are fortunate if you look at the new construction number that we're still producing $2.5 billion in new taxable values. But if you add those together, it's still less than four percent. And that again is the smallest increase we've had in four years. So the recommendation to the city council was to keep the tax rate the same. We have been able to reduce the property tax rate each of the last four years. But this is not a year that we are recommending reducing the tax rate, but we are recommending keeping the tax rate the same. Our overall tax rate is seventy four and three quarters cents. And this is the way we think about it and we divide it up. The operation of maintenance is fifty nine and a half cents. And the debt side is fifteen and a quarter cents. Now let me stop right here. One of the first things we have to consider is how much of the tax rate do we dedicate to capital? And how much of the tax rate do we dedicate to operations? We're at a point where I think we are at least able to invest in new infrastructure and maintain the infrastructure that we're building in the infrastructure that we have. At the same time, I tell you that we still have fifteen to twenty thousand people that the city adds each in every year. And so at the end of five or six years, we're going to add a hundred thousand people. I'd ask you to think about the infrastructure needs of a town of a hundred thousand people. And we've got to produce that every five to six years. So I think the investment in infrastructure and part of that is our debt portion of the property tax rate is very important. I think some people would argue that we had gotten behind after maybe a decade or so and we're still catching up. So to me it's important that we maintain or increase the level of investment in our infrastructure. We break down the operation and maintenance into both operations as you see and capital. And that orange box on the far right, that really is what we could call our pay as you go capital. And a lot of that goes for maintenance of infrastructure, but it also goes to renovate or reduce some properties. But that's the cash portion of our capital program. And we try to maintain a mix of debt and cash as we talk about investment in infrastructure and the maintenance of infrastructure. This chart simply shows that the lines over time for both the total assessed value, taxable assessed value, and then the budgeted property tax revenue. And as you see, the line from 20 to 21 is flattening. The operating budget for the city of Fort Worth, we spend $1.8 billion or expected to spend $1.8 billion. That's about the same amount that we're currently spending this year. So you see that year over year increase is less than a half a percent. We're going to talk mostly about the general fund. I think that's what people are most interested because that's where the property tax, that's where the sales tax, and that's where most of the services that we talk about are from. So this is the general fund for the upcoming year. It's $718 million. It's growing by only 1.5 percent year over year. So again, it's a very modest increase year over year. Most of the money that's in the general fund is from property tax and sales tax. And that makes up about 79 percent of all the money in the general fund. Goal number two is about maintaining our funding for capital and maintenance. And what I would say is keeping the tax rate the same year over year is simply maintaining our level of investment for infrastructure and maintenance. But that still allows us, there's still many positives. We're implementing the 2018 bond program. We're maintaining our level of investment for infrastructure and maintenance. We're going to continue the neighborhood improvement strategy that's been in place for the last four years. And we're starting the process of the 2022 bond program and I'll talk more about that as we go. Goal number three is when we have bond programs and we tell the public we're going to do these things that we intend to implement those capital projects and we have to operate them once they're open. The Golden Triangle Library opened this week actually on Tuesday. And another library we'll see toward the end of next fiscal year is the Reba-Carry Library on the east side of Fort Worth. We will also open in the upcoming fiscal year the Far North Animal Shelter. We'll have new parks that come online. And also obligations that we have are from the collective bargaining agreements with FIRE and the meet and confer agreements with police. Goal number four is to continue the implementation of recommendations from the race and culture task force. I'll say there's a number of things in this year's budget that are not only caring for but increasing. One of the things that we did in the current year budget was put more money for streets, lights, street signs, pavement markings, sidewalks, road maintenance. And we put it in the transportation and public works department. And we asked them to look at where the greatest need was and some of these are majority minority areas. And so there was an influx of additional funds for those levels of investment. We started the police monitor function, which is a part of the city manager's office. So there were resources in this year's budget. We're expanding those in next year's recommended budget. We're continuing the neighborhood improvement program and looking at our levels of investment. And I'll just, I think, try to sum it up this way. We want to make sure that our level of investment in infrastructure, our level of maintenance of infrastructure, and the way we provide services and programs are done in an equitable way. And so one of the recommendations was also the creation of a diversity inclusion department. And we've set that up in this current year. And many of you might have met Christina Brooks, who leads that department. And she's going to be working with all the other departments in the city on again looking at level of investment, maintenance, and services and programs with a focus on equity. Just jumping real quick to enterprise funds. And this is simply to share the breadth of the city of Fort Worth, the number of things that we're in. We run a regional water and sewer utility. None of those rates are going up. We run a stormwater utility. Those rates increased in this past year, but they're not increasing next year. We run a solid waste operation and we operate a landfill. We run three general aviation airports. And this is simply, I think, to show that the breadth of what the city is involved in is bigger than just the general fund when we think about police, fire, parks, libraries, municipal courts, codes, and so forth. So that the city of Fort Worth is a big operation. A lot of these enterprise funds really follow a business model. They set their own revenues. You've seen a lot of those on your water bill. You pay a residential collection fee, a stormwater fee, and a water and sewer bill. All those operations that were just talked about are going to grow less than 1% year over year. Solid waste is an issue that the city council needs to address in the current or the upcoming fiscal year because the solid waste fund is not currently sustainable for another number of reasons. I won't go into all of those. We had a work session just day before yesterday on the strategies to bring the solid waste fund into a sustainable position. And that's without putting it back on residential customers. We have a number of special revenue funds. The two largest are the CCPD, Crime Control Prevention District and Culture and Tourism. I won't talk much about the CCPD. Chief Ed Krauss will do that much better than I can in a much greater detail. I'll have you think though about the Culture and Tourism Fund. So think about what happened when we asked people to stay home. In March and restaurants closed and bars closed and many retail establishments closed, offices closed, and hotels were impacted to a tremendous degree. And that hasn't all come back when you think about conventions and shows and things that just haven't reoccurred since the shutdown. So we've also had some conversations internally about how we handle the Culture and Tourism Fund over a longer period of time. And when you look at those revenues of all the special revenue funds, they've declined by nearly 7% year over year. I'm going to let that go by and let the Chief cover that. And goal number six, again, this is different from where we were back in February. When we asked people to stay home and businesses shut down and the unemployment rate went from 3% to 15% in that period of time, we put a hiring freeze in place in the city of Fort Worth. And we have not lifted that hiring freeze. And I don't see us lifting that hiring freeze for the foreseeable future, much to the chagrin of some of the folks sitting up here with me at the dais. But I think what we've got to think about is what does next year look like in the year after that? We are reducing the number of overall positions in the city. I think there's a slide on that in a second. But part of our dialogue, our conversation with the Council is I think next year will be more difficult than this year because of what's happened in the economy. So one of the things we've looked at is what do we think it looks like in the next couple of years? And so we make some assumptions, but just for fun, the blue line was the line we shared with the City Council in February. And that's what we thought the future looked like. And that's how we were planning to fund services and the 22 bond program. And so the red line is one of our forecasts moving forward. It's just a dip that's going to occur either next year or the year after. And then we hope with a recovery it tracks back in the positive direction. Sales tax was a little bit more dramatic in the short term. So in March, April, and May we saw a significant drop in sales tax. Since that point in time it's come back. And so we're hoping that that tracks positively in the future. And so at one time we thought we were going to be in real trouble with sales tax. Now it doesn't look as bleak as it did at one time. Here are the positions that we reduce. We reduce 50 net positions overall in the city. You'll see additions on the left and subtractions on the right. And for some departments they're in both columns. But we're adding 30 positions, taking away 80. That's where the net 50 reductions are going to come. I think you'll see a similar, we'll have to see a similar result next year. Because I think again the financial picture will be more difficult. So in those areas I think we've accomplished with the recommended budget what we set out to do in a very difficult time. The budget is always about choices and trade-offs. And that's why public input I think is very important. This is based on a set of assumptions and a set of choices and trade-offs that as staff and as city manager we have put forward. I think city council considers input along the way about should that change and if so how. Switching to capital we also present each year a five-year capital improvement plan and we do it on a rolling basis. But what we look at primarily is the projects that we intend to fund in the current year. We look at how we finance that in a couple different ways. Essentially it's what do you have in cash and what do you want to debt finance or finance with essentially other monies. So we look at maintaining our current infrastructure primarily with cash. And if we're going to build new infrastructure it's okay to debt finance. It's not okay in my mind to debt finance ongoing maintenance. With keeping the tax rate the same we're able to implement the 2018 bond program which also will continue the neighborhood investment program and the equity investments we currently have underway in the Transportation Public Works Department. We are developing and internally the 22 bond program which is exciting because you get to talk about new facilities, new parks, new libraries, new rec centers, new neighborhood centers. And so it's a time when you think about those great things that the city should do or can do the debt capacity that we showed the city council back in February. It's a little bit different than the debt capacity with our revised projections and I believe we have a chart on that. So back in February when we used that old blue line you saw on property tax revenue and sales tax revenue, our debt capacity that we were using for the fiscal or the 2022 bond program was 750 million. With just those changes in assumption it drops our debt capacity by $250 million. And so we're going to follow very closely what the next two years looks like. Now that sounds like a bummer that we lost 250. The upside is we still have 500 million, right? But we need to look at how that might change. But let's say we're looking at the 2022 bond program and it might be 400 million. Let's just say that. To me that's very positive. We're going to invest 400 million in new infrastructure and some of that infrastructure we're going to have to do because 15,000 people are coming every year. Just a couple more slides and I'll wrap it up. So we have all these businesses that I've talked about. Stormwater, regional water and sewer utility, public events, which is the convention center and Will Rogers Aviation, which are three general aviation airports, and then the general CIP, which is all those things, fire stations, libraries, parks, and so forth, and roads and that type of thing. With really just to show even within the revenue streams that we have available, we're still spending three to 400 million dollars each year on capital maintenance and capital infrastructure. And to me that's a big boost to the local economy as well. But it's a level of investment we need to continue and increase actually as we grow over time. And so our focus again is how do we make sure that we're planning, implementing, and maintaining the infrastructure for a growing city. And that's an important part of the budgeting process as well. Before we go into the upcoming meeting schedules, I would like to say a little bit more about the 2022 bond program. We're putting that together internally. And there'll be a time within the next year that we will be bringing the 22 bond program to the public. And that is all about getting public input. It's all about getting feedback about what people like that's in the program, what they think got left out of the program. And so I would say stay tuned for our public meetings on the 2022 bond program. We're not sure what that amount's going to be yet, but the feedback and the input on the upcoming bond program is important. And if we do it like we did it last time, we'll be all over the city and all the different council districts and working with all the council members on what ultimately is in the 22 bond program. But as the upcoming schedule goes, we're down to this August 20th. I'll just jump to the August 25th next Tuesday. We have a council meeting and a crime control and prevention district meeting. The city council and the CCP board are the same people. And the CCPD board passes the budget onto the city council. But we have another public hearing for CCPD next Tuesday. And I think it's scheduled for the vote of the budget at that point in time. But there's also a city budget work sessions. We have two more coming up on September 3rd and 4th. There are formal public hearings on the budget. September 1st is the first formal public hearing at a city council meeting. The second one is on September 15th. And if all goes well, then the budget will be adopted on September 22nd. And with that, would you like to take questions now? Yes, we'll take questions now. We have one person here who wants to ask questions so far that signed up. And that's Cindy. Cindy Bowling lives in District 5. There's a microphone for you, Cindy. Good to see you and your hubby. Cindy is also one of our neighborhood presidents. Really have a comment for a couple, of course. First, I love the CCPD funding budget that Chief Kraus put together. It certainly reflects someone who is totally in tune with our community. I hate that you're leaving. But it's a great budget. You have listened even during angry times. When Ed announced his retirement, I learned how little our police chief has paid. He's on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That includes holidays, birthdays, everything. I don't know of anyone else who is on duty like the police chief, yet he has paid. And I know it's not about the money for Ed, but it's a small wage. And Mr. Cook, you're doing a great job. But our police chief needs to make as much as our city manager makes. Because the decisions of our police chief are incredibly life changing, city changing, community changing. It reflects everything. People on the street. That budget needs to be increased. I wish it had been done before this. Again, it's not about the money for Ed. I wish he would stay. But they need to be paid a whole lot more money than our chief is currently paid. Thank you. Thank you, Cindy. And chief, you can give the hugs later. I will say our police chief is the most popular one that I've seen in recent years, not since the days of chief Wyndham and I've been around for a while. And every time I go to a community meeting, there is Ed. I was at YMLA, which is Young Men's Leadership Academy where I went to middle school. And I knew I was going to be presenting a plaque, but I looked and there was Ed. And so it's no surprise to hear such a voice of support. And we were all surprised when you announced your retirement. But I truly understand. Do we have any other questions online or in the council chambers? Yes. We received a text message question. Could the city manager explain the revenue generation abilities of the enterprise funds and how they work with our business model? I'll be happy to. How well I do it, we'll see. Let's go back to them. So this is back to the slide on the enterprise funds. Let's just take a few of them. So each of these enterprise funds, they don't compete with each other. They generate their own revenue streams and they have their own expenditures. So let's take the regional water and sewer utility, which provides water and wastewater services for more than the city of Fort Worth. There are a number of surrounding municipalities that we provide water and sewer for. So the water and sewer operation is paid for through water and sewer rates that are both charged to residential customers, industrial and commercial customers. So whatever they are able to charge and collect is the amount of money then that they have to pay for all of their infrastructure. The maintenance of that infrastructure and any services that that operation provides. So let's take the again the water and sewer utility. Think about the miles and miles of water pipe underground sewer line underground wastewater treatment plants, water treatment plants, the people that do the billing, the people that maintain all that infrastructure. So they have to create charges to customers, whether they're residential or again, industrial or commercial to pay for that operation. Just like we operate three general aviation airports, taxpayers don't pay for those airports, but the users of the airports pay for whether it's landing fees, hanger fees, gasoline, surcharges. So the revenues that the airports derive pay for their expenditures at the three general aviation airports. So they have to collect the revenue to cover the expenditures of each of those business models. We have several that have come in that have to do with transportation and public works issues. So I'm going to wait until we have William up. But I have one more that's more of a general question. Are there any plans to help the technology infrastructure in the district to help with internet connectivity? Well, that's a good question. I have a couple of thoughts on that. So generally, I think what we have all learned during the pandemic is that if you are well connected electronically or whatever, you're in a much better position to operate in the current economy that if you don't have that infrastructure. Historically, we have relied on the private sector to provide that infrastructure throughout cities or wherever. And I do think there's going to be a greater conversation of should the public intervene on areas of the city that don't have internet or Wi-Fi or some of those capabilities, because I do think seriously the current pandemic has pointed out the gaps in those areas. And Mr. Cook, I would add to that. I think it's important that we all reach out to our state and federal partners and friends, because what we know now is when you don't have that access, you're shut out of the world. I was glad to see my former employer TXU Electric, I think it's called TU Energy now, whoever it is. I worked for them, but they gave away, I think, 500 laptops to students in Dallas. I saw that recently. Fordworth has a very generous giving community, and we'll be calling on friends at AT&T and the foundations whenever we're told that there is such a need. But we have to have that type of partnership with our school district as well to know just where the need is. But I'll be calling my state rep and my congressman. We really need improved access, and so I'm glad that question came through, Michelle, but I think it's also important that people know the city lane. And so just know that people think that everything is answered at City Hall. It really is not, but we're able to get to those contacts who can impact change. And one thing I'll mention before introducing our TPW director, for those of you who came in, you had the opportunity to pick up a card. Now this card is in Vietnamese. It is not in English. But this card tells you how to report a problem, and it really talks about my Fordworth app and what I call the 1234 system. Too often people think you can report a problem by posting it on Facebook, Twitter, social media, or next door, but that is not the way to really get your concern to the appropriate department. And what I will tell you about the My Fordworth app, and I have to thank Councilwoman Kelly Allen Gray because she got me to understand how to use the app in spite of my age. But if you see a pothole, if you see a streetlight out, if you see any problem that needs to be reported to the city, you can use the app and take a picture. And when you take that picture, you can report that problem through that app and it gets to whatever department needs it. Too often people know how to call their NPO, they know how to call their community engagement liaison, but what if that person has gone on vacation or is sick or has won the lottery and just left. And so I hope you will, all of you will grab cards. Cindy, grab a lot because all the neighborhood presidents are going to have several. And just know that it's important to know how to get that connection. Michelle, you're looking at me. What am I doing? Am I good? Okay. Okay. So my Fordworth app is very important. And one reason why I really want people to know about the app because I got a phone call yesterday about a street problem on Burton. And I was given the address, but it would have been so much easier and much more immediate had that person known to report it by using the app because that problem would be in the system of results right now. And the person who helps us bring those types of results is TPW Director William Johnson. He's going to talk about what projects are in the budget for transportation and public works. He'll also share some projects that have been completed or underway. I can tell you what a horrible ride I used to have a random meal. It's not perfect, but it's better. I had a horrible experience on East Rosedale. It is just about perfect. And I'm looking forward to some more street work. And so with that, Mr. Johnson, welcome to Fort Worth and the floor is now yours. Thank you. We'll talk briefly about some transportation and public works projects that are that we've recently completed in District five and projects that are planned for fiscal year 2021. We'll start by talking about a few of our 2014 and 2018 bond projects. We have a couple of projects that were funded through some leftover funds from 2014 for safe routes to school at McRae and Duggett Elementary School campuses, as well as CCMOS, ML Phillips Elementary School campuses that are in design and should be being completed in May of in the year 2022. A number of these projects focus on pedestrian improvements when we talk about safe routes to school. We're talking about making sure that we have all of the safety features at crossings and sidewalk improvements where kids are on their way to school. We also have sidewalk projects that we're working on that are in design and some under construction. Sidewalk projects at Hanley Drive, what we call our sidewalk year two cooks lane project and Eastbury Street project. Two of those projects are under construction scheduled to be completed at the end of this fiscal year and one still under design scheduled for 2021. We have Bond Street construction contract eight contract nine projects and if you look down further you'll see Bond Street year two contract 11 and contract 10. These are kind of to decipher the TPW code. These are packages of neighborhood streets that made the Bond program that are either in design or under construction that are scheduled for and being completed in in District five. We'll get into a little bit more detail on that a little bit later. We have a stormwater project that's under design the stormwater projects typically deal with drainage improvements or improvements to mitigate roadway over topping and properties that are flooding in the area. This project is under design scheduled for 2021 to be completed. Just a little bit more on we're taking one of the contract year projects and you can see the streets that are included in this packet include Binkley Street, Birch Hill Road, Birch Hill Road South and Little Street. These are rehabilitation and reconstruction projects that will include curb and gutter improvements, sidewalk improvements, driveway improvements, and some some water and sewer main replacements in coordination with the water department. This project particular package of projects just started in August of this year and scheduled to be completed in July of next year. Miller Avenue at Will Barger Street is an intersection improvement. It was actually funded in the 2014 Bond program. There were some delays or this project was placed on hold due to the need for some specialized equipment that had to be manufactured through text dot a text dot approved vendor. At this stage, this this project is complete. It includes some pedestrian and facility improvements at Will Barger Street under US 287. Our 2019 Pago funding projects include streets like Precinct Line Road from Randall Mill to Concho Trail, Fifth Street, Diplomacy Road and Chittamwood Trail. All of these projects are complete or will be complete within the next 30 days. Our Pago funding for 2020 included has included streets like Randall Mill Road from Precinct Line Road to Racquet Club Drive, one of my pet projects. As you know, Ramey Avenue, Rosedale and a number of others. Most of these are complete or will be complete by the end of this fiscal year. We also have three bridge projects at Rosedale Street, South Pipeline Road and Trinity Boulevard all scheduled to be completed this fiscal year. 2021 Pago funding includes a list of streets that you see here that are currently being considered. These streets have been prioritized based on our pavement condition index, which is an index that goes from 0 to 100 and any street rated at 50 or below is generally going to be considered as part of our priority. These are the priorities for the coming year. We're still coordinating with a number of stakeholders in finalizing these lists. We like to try to coordinate our Pago funded programs and capital funded programs with the Water Department or others who may need to get into the roadway to do work. For street maintenance, we're now talking about basically streets in a community that don't meet the criteria to make our bond programs, but these street programs are in-house, mill and overlay projects. So city crews go, we prioritize based on the same criteria that we use for the other streets, but these are performed by city crews. We typically mill and overlay and do some base repairs. And Councilwoman, you mentioned potholes in the apps. Well, I wanted to point out that your constituents are apparently using that app as we've repaired over 2,138 potholes in District 5 in the current fiscal year. Transportation and management. The funding for this group for the year is about 8.5 million. This includes general traffic systems maintenance, pavement marking, street lights, traffic signals, neighborhood safety or sidewalk improvements, et cetera. This fiscal year overall funding is remaining relatively flat, but there were additional dollars recommended in this year's budget of about $650,000 for additional improvements to access to transit. This is loosely translated means improving sidewalks, ADA access, et cetera, where we have transit stops and people trying to get to transit stops and sidewalks are in disrepair or missing sidewalks. Pavement markings. We look at pavement markings and when we say pavement markings, we're talking about the line striping and pedestrian crossings that you see on the street. These we'd like to see replaced on about an eight-year cycle. In District 6, I mean District 5, we have six Vision Zero schools that we've worked with in fiscal year 20 on pavement marking improvements. As you can see, our funding is remaining relatively flat between 20 fiscal year 20 and fiscal year 2021. And we have planned for about 25% of the total city's budget to be spent in District 5 and doing pavement marking improvements. Street lights. Again, a pretty hot topic, if you will. Lots of complaints around street lights and a lot of those in District 5 centered around Interstate 820 and I-30 and the lights that were systematically out of service. Repeatedly out of service and in large part due to some theft that was going on with the, a lot of the cabling for those lights. We worked a lot with TextDOT to try to improve that in fiscal year 20 and we have some work underway. We'll talk about a little bit more. In addition, Miller Avenue railroad tracks to US 287, 140 lights have been upgraded to LED and wires replaced as needed. I'll point your attention to the four series outages where we have seven or more lights in a row that are out and that's typically indicative of someone that's removed the cable. Again, these are much more expensive repairs, much more intense repairs, requirements. But we completed four of those series outages in your District 5 in fiscal year 20. The staff is currently working on our plan for fiscal year 21 on which locations we'll be able to prioritize based on our overall budget. But I'd like to point out that we do take into consideration the asset conditions from our database as well as staff assessments and our service requests or complaints that we receive as we look to prioritize those locations. Just a little bit more on the Interstate 820 and 30 issue. We talked about our need to work with TextDOT. These lights are actually located in TextDOT right away, but we have maintenance agreements with TextDOT where the city does most of the maintenance in those areas. But a lot of the problems were so egregious, the causes of these problems were so egregious. We were able to negotiate with TextDOT to get them to agree to come in and do some improvements that would harden, if you will, harden the access to the cabling to try to reduce the repeated theft that we saw coming along. We were able to provide them with a design and they agreed to do a lot of the installation and upgrade work that work is underway and scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2020. So you say egregious, you're talking about people stealing stuff so frequently? Yes, ma'am. Reportedly even coming out in service vehicles and stealing the cable out of the system and causing the lights to be out. This is a problem that in speaking with TextDOT, they said that they had seen this problem in some other parts of the state and had come up with a design that seemed to be somewhat effective in reducing the occurrence. So we ask that they implement those same improvements in this district. And they agreed to do that. Great partners. In terms of traffic signals, you can see again from fiscal year 20 and 21, our overall budget is remaining relatively flat. We had one major signal project improvement at Miller and Martin in District 5 in fiscal year 20. And we have four signal projects planned for fiscal year 21. Barry and Edgewood, Miller and Hardman, Trinity and Post Oak and Barry at Stalthelle Street. Some of our ADA and sidewalk improvements. I just want to remind you that we had an additional $650,000 in sidewalk funding added to our budget this year thanks to our city manager and the recommendation coming out of city manager's office to assist us in making improvements to transit access. And that combined with the carryover from prior year increases us to almost double the total budget that we had from last year. We focused a lot of our attention on safe routes to school again with sidewalk improvements. This year we work with six schools, John T. White, Logan, Audrey M. Walton and River Trails, A.M.P., Atwood, McDonnell schools and District 5. Next year we have an additional five schools that we have planned to work with. And in addition to the work that we're going to be doing with schools, we're also going to be focusing some of those additional dollars in District 5 on improvements and access to transit. We're looking for some recommended locations in coordination with Trinity Metro on a lot of those and for input from the public as we plan on where we're going to do those improvements for access to transit. Regional mobility and innovation, speaking of transit, we're working with Trinity Metro on implementing and reviewing a number of their plans. People can get more information on a better connection plan at ridetrinitymetro.org backslash ABC. In District 5 there's also a major project that's in the works around Trinity Trail. I mean Trinity Lakes, the TRE rail station that's going to be relocated into District 5 and that estimated completion is 2021. We'll get into a little more detail on that. The City of Fort Worth is also exploring draft recommendations from the Transit Moves, Fort Worth Transit Plan. And people, members of the public can get more information by going to transitmovesfortworth.com. We have had some ongoing discussions with TextDOT on the Southeast Connector Project. And as you know, we've been working with TextDOT in making sure that they heard the voices of the historic Carver Heights neighborhood. We just talked a lot about sidewalks, but there are some communities that don't want sidewalks in their communities. And we like to make sure as a city that we're being responsible to the desires and the needs of our community. So we've been in touch with TextDOT and working with them to make sure that if any way possible we remove the sidewalks that were planned to go into the historic Carver Heights neighborhood. And we have to make sure development services is aware of that too because I think they touch sidewalks as well. Yes, ma'am. That project is anticipated to start in the winter of 2021 and construction is scheduled to be complete in 2026. Okay, a little bit more about the Trinity Lakes Transit Stop. It's a relocation from Richland Hills to Fort Worth on the east side of I-820. Here's a map that kind of shows the location of the existing stop and the proposed new location for the Trinity Lakes Station. This is part, this is going to be, and you see some of the renderings of what the transit stop is supposed to look like once it's completed. But this is more than just a transit stop. This is what we call a transit oriented development that's being proposed through a developer working in coordination with the developer. And it would include commercial and residential improvements and upgrades, which basically means that it would create residential housing, as well as shops, restaurants, potential services, all within walking distance of a transit stop that will allow residents to have easy access to job centers in downtown Fort Worth or connect to job centers in downtown Dallas and other areas throughout the region. So we are working with a number of partners on this, including Trinity Metro, the developers, the city and COG. And this project is an exciting project and we're hopeful that we'll be able to see it through to completion. A stormwater management program, City Council approved a 6.5% fee increase to the stormwater utility fund that's going to allow us to increase our bond capacity by about $70 million over the next five years. And that's going to accelerate a number of higher priority projects that would include projects focused on mitigation of roadway over topping, rehabilitation to a lot of our aging storm drains. These storm drains, often when there's damage to them, we won't know that there's damage until we see them at the surface. And what you're seeing there is a lot more than a pothole that would be called a sinkhole caused by historic undermining of the sub base because of a damaged storm drain. Restoring our eroded channels or waterways and mitigating flooding to homes and businesses. We also have a non FEMA risk policy communication and regulation that we're working on now and coordinating with various different stakeholders and communicating with council as we make our progress and looking at the cumulative impacts of development as part of our overall evaluation. That's kicking off this fall and we're looking forward to having some feedback on that coming up soon. We're also looking at upgrades to the high water warning systems that are underway. These are warning systems that provide notification that there's a danger or potential flooding problem to help save lives. And the members of the public can get more information on a number of these programs by going to Fort Worth Texas dot go back back slash flood warning. Our open space conservation program. Our first acquisition was at broadcast Hill, about 50 acres of native prairie off of I 30. As you know, the purpose of this program is to preserve open space as the city continues to grow. City manager Cook just mentioned that the city grows by 15 to 20,000 people every every year and in some places that's a small city in and of itself. So as we continue to grow, we need to try to maintain a lot of the environmental and recreational recreational opportunities and benefits to enhance the livability here in Fort Worth. We coordinate and we work closely with the trust for public lands to identify and prioritize these projects with the goal of preserving water quality, providing equity in our communities, promoting economic development, enhancing our ability to control flooding in our city as we continue to develop and to provide community access for recreational purposes. They're upcoming public engagement opportunities related to this. And you can get more information at open space at Fort Worth Texas dot gov. And we expect to have more results and be able to report out more of the summer of 2021. That concludes my presentation. Thank you. You've been busy. I'm sure Michelle has questions. I did have one text in and I turned my phone off because I can't multitask like that. But John T. White, Dave Folson, they want you to take a look at the corner of Cook's Lane and John T. White and they have numerous videos showing trucks not able to make that the turn. And so I will get that to you. And again, for those of you watching, my phone is off. I can't multitask. So Michelle, the floor is yours. Okay. The first one I have, there is money in the budget set aside for sidewalk improvements as stated earlier. What is the plan for maintenance of sidewalks specifically related to grass overgrowing on the curbs between the sidewalks and the streets between 820 heading towards 287 on Eastbury? If we're talking about sidewalk mowing or the mowing of the the medians, we partner with our parks department where we have where that's funding public public space or in the public right of way. So there is a plan and there is a budget to address that is something that we can look and coordinate with the parks department on making sure that we take care of it. Are there budget plans to work with TextDOT on the flooding issues on 820? I'm going to ask Greg Simmons to come to the mic and address specifics on our coordination with TextDOT around flooding issues. Yeah, I'm Greg Simmons, Assistant Director of Transportation and Public Works. I'm assuming they're referring to the flooding on the service road at 820 at Willbarger or in 2018. There was some loss of life there and there is efforts ongoing right now. It really involves the private property owner who has a drainage system that conveys water from the service road toward Lake Arlington. So they're working on that to make those improvements right now. TextDOT has cognizance because it's a TextDOT easement. So there are efforts going on. So that's the only thing that we have going on that involves TextDOT right now in District 5. We have some questions coming in that are very specific about specific streets or projects within a neighborhood. And so I will pass that along to William and his staff and they can reach out to you directly because I'm not sure we have that specific information available right now. So if you did send in something very specific like that, don't think I'm ignoring it. It's just, I don't think we have the details. We need to answer that with a lot of text messages coming in. What are the plans to engage more MWBE companies with construction projects with the city? MWBE is one of the departments that has the most opportunities to engage the engineering design and construction community in participating in city projects. We've just gone through a process where we've pre-qualified about 75 companies to do design work with us. And as part of that project and working with the Diversity and Inclusion Department, we asked them to do an equity review to make sure that we're being equitable in our process. And I think as a result, we increased the number of minority and women-owned businesses that will be participating on the design side of our projects to over 47 different companies. We're planning to do a similar process and coordinating with Christina Brooks and her team as we look at our opportunities to engage the construction community in participating in our projects going forward. So we do have plans to do that. We're going to be working with the Diversity and Inclusion Department in engaging more local firms, minority and women-owned businesses on the construction side of the project opportunities with NTPW. And didn't you just get a minority firm to participate and win a contract? I think it involves a firm, Dakita. I don't know the overall name. I know we recently had a number of firms that have been involved. I saw it in a business newsletter. Sorry, Michelle, go on. Oh, no, that's fine. And we do have another thing is people are recommending possible locations for open space. And we do have an open space working committee and I will pass this information along to that group so they can reach out to you specifically about the recommendations that we're getting. Those are all the questions right now on this particular topic. And William, I should also say before you came, riding down Hanley was a bumpy road. It's like in a boogie western days. It's much smoother now. So your people were already working on things before you got here. Next, we're going to go to Parks and Recreation Director Richard Zavala. He's going to talk about the budget to be allocated for his department. We all know how fabulous Sandy Lane Park is and those two remodeled rec centers I mentioned, but I've asked him to provide information on updates with Bunch Park and Mosier Valley as well because some folks, Richard, think you've left Bunch Park. So Richard Zavala, take it away. Well, thank you. Good morning. I think that last question is a perfect lead in to what parks mean to a community because we know in the book of Genesis on the third day the Almighty created parks and on the seventh day he created recreation so we are doing the Lord's work on a daily basis. I also want to comment on my esteemed colleague, Chief Kraus. We're both class of 1992. Of course, I'm six months ahead of Ed. I remember Tom winning in my looking at him and saying, you know, I think he's going to make something of himself. So we're glad to have you on the force. We are presenting our the city manager's proposed budget to the Park and Recreation Advisory Board on this Thursday, August the 26th as we've done the last 30 years. We present the manager's budget to the board in a work session, and then they take action on that and they submit their recommendation to the city manager, the mayor and council. That is forthcoming from the park board. Your representative, Walter Dansby is outstanding on the board. In fact, we have a very active group of volunteers in the Park and Recreation Department. So I'm trying to advance. It did it. I just want to go over the general fund very quickly and then get into capital funds. The proposed budget in the general fund you can see there at $54 million. But when you look at all of our funds, we're at $61.2 million. The general fund funds are parks, community centers, forestry, nature center, log cabin village, athletics, aquatics, all of the services we provide across the city. I do want to point out that about 14 million of that is funded for the zoo, $11 million under their management contract. The zoo, which was in the last four years has been in the top four in the country by USA Today and this year, number one in the country. So outstanding work there with our partners. And also this year's budget includes $3.3 million for the contract with the Botanical Research Institute of Texas or BRIT, which will be operating the Botanic Garden Effective October 1. Again, a non-profit that can help leverage private funding in support of these public venues. The golf fund at $5 million that operates Rockwood, Meadowbrook and Pecan Valley Golf Course. The manager talked about the things that we're looking at long term as we try to right size and adjust the organization relating to the COVID economy. And we've done that in the park and recreation department eight years ago, closing zebo's generating 138 acre community park inside of Loop 820 and most recently closing Sycamore. It generates 66 acres to add to the existing Sycamore park, which was actually one of the initial nine parks established in the park system in 1909. And we partner with the first tee there. But golf, the main thing that's happening there is we're in the current process of constructing the Rockwood Golf Course Clubhouse. It's a $7.7 million project and that will open in the spring. The crime district we have been involved in the park and recreation department with the Crime Control and Prevention District since its inception in 1995. This funds our late night program at Sycamore and not showing in this number, but the other four sites are in neighborhood, the neighborhood services department in MLK is one of those locations in District 5. Also our graffiti abatement program in our police and community security, which supports our late night programs or athletic activities, aquatics, just general security on a preventative basis. As far as the community tree planning program, that's funded from gas well revenues because our corpus in the gas well fund is sufficient to be able to spin off on an annual basis funding for capital projects a couple of years ago because the council place community tree planning in the financial management policies as part of a gas well revenue eligible program, we were able to fund that program. And it plants over 1600 trees a year, but we really work closely in the neighborhood improvement programs, each one of those we've done things and we did so in stop six. And I wanted to mention there's a notation there, our pay go funding in the general fund is at $4.3 million. Moving on to the next slide, let's get the capital because capital in District 5 has been a pretty significant investment in the past few years and ongoing what's planning now. What you're seeing now is the East Fort Worth Trinity Trails extension going from River from Ederill Road to River Legacy Park. That is complete. That was funded through a local match of 20%, 80% from Textot grant that adds two and a half miles of 12 foot five mile trail. But I do want to point out the section underneath 820. Textot is rebuilding that portion of 820. So the trail stops and ends at that location as soon as they're complete, which is supposed to be done in the fall of 2022. We'll go in and make that connection. Other trail work, we're going from River Legacy all the way to the city limits of Arlington with the East Fort Worth Trinity Trails extension. This was funded in the 2018 bond program at $4 million. We started a quick start with bond funding from 2014 to begin the design. It's under design now. It's to be completed in 2022. I will tell you that $4 million represents about 5% of the $84 million in park proposition that was received in 2018. So now let's get down to the park since top six. Bunch Park last June, we dedicated the first phase development of Bunch Park. You can see a lot of happy faces there. I don't know about the kid with the scissors because I think this Bivens is trying to take him away or he's trying to take him away from her. But you know, Ralph Bunch Park is so historic, named after the first African American Nobel Prize winner. The man that established United Nations was a friend Eleanor Roosevelt. It just brings so much history and the park was acquired in the 50s. It was really 60 acres. The Rose Hill Park Civic League came in and said we need to name it after Ralph Bunch and that was done. Dunbar High School sits on one side and because of a federal consent decree, the western side was set aside for what is now Marquette Middle School. And we were able to come back and capture the last 10 acres there. The first phase development was $727,000. It was completed and again the ribbon was cut last year. This Tuesday, there is an M&C coming forward with two other parks. I suspect it will get approved for award of contract for the next phase of Bunch Park. You can see the project budget there at $675,000. What's highlighted in the red are the improvements that are part of this project. But when it's all said and done, we will invest $1.4 million in this 10 acre site just in the last few years when we were able to reopen the project and take it back from the Fort Worth Independent School District. So we're very excited about that. The next project I want to talk about is Mosier Valley Park. Historic, historic, historic. The first freedman settlement in the area. And because a lot of folks have had an interest in that, we were able to begin acquisition of property initially three acres. I don't know if you can see a laser, but in that top right corner, we've also acquired an acre there to begin to really formulate the boundary of the park. We spent $387,000 in park dedication and gas well revenue fees doing initial improvements to the park, first phase, the parking lot, the shelter and things like that. Future phases are identified in the master plan and we would look at that along with all the other projects that we look at in the park and recreation department. That really is my presentation as quickly as I can do it. You already mentioned that we completed Hanley Metta Brook and Eugene McCrae at $1.8 and $2.9 million significant projects. Rosedale Plaza Park got $300,000. In fact, we nearly got a million of those, first $2.6 million of the neighborhood improvement zone for Bunch Park and Rosedale Plaza and the cleanup and the community tree planting we did there. So when there's an opportunity for funding, you know we're going to be there and we're going to do the best we can in the interest of the community. So I'll be glad to answer any questions at this point. Well, Richard, thank you for taking us to church. Any questions, Michelle? Are there any plans to add parking to Bunch Park? Are there any plans to add parking to Bunch Park? No, this is classified as a neighborhood park. There is parking both on the east and west side at the high schools and there's on street parking. We worked with a citizens committee that Ms. Bivens appointed that involved folks from the Independent School District, the Neighborhood Association, Robert Brazil from the Boys and Girls Club, XNFL and Dunbar Grade. We worked with them in developing this master plan and the intent was to make sure that we preserve as much of the land as possible for folks to utilize because there is sufficient parking on both sides. In fact, the improvement that we'll be doing now will make a connection that fits you, which is on the south side of the park. What are the plans for the MLK Center? Any renovations or updates? The MLK Community Center falls under the Neighborhood Services Department and I think there's going to be some discussion about that later on with Housing Authority. Yeah, I didn't think to invite them. Housing Solutions to talk about future plans. How does the city decide where to put parks and what amenities to include? Well, that's a great question. First of all, we're driven by our park recreation open space master plan, which is adopted comprehensively every 10 years. We update every five years. It's based on a needs assessment, basically a citizen survey that we do, but we set standards based on population. Our neighborhood parks are at 2.5 acres per thousand community parks at 3.25 acres per thousand population. And that's what guides us in identifying where parks should go. But we also look at other things, including what are the barriers? It could be an interstate, it could be the river, whatever it might be. And our park planners go through that process looking at both population, the physical characteristics of the neighborhood. Once we acquire a park plan, we'll place it in reserve. And then we will do a master plan for that particular park. We work with the community in identifying their desires. And I will tell you this, it's our duty from the park and recreation staff's perspective to look at the infrastructure, to look at those basic needs of a park. So folks may come out with a lot of things that they want to see. We'll put them on the plan, but I got to make sure it drains, make sure that all the infrastructure in place before we can make improvements to that. Once that master plan is completed, we take it to the park board not once but twice. We take it to them as an information item. We review the plan with them. We invite the folks that were involved to come to that park board meeting. And then the park board endorses the plan. And that's the stage for us to move forward when funding becomes available to begin the development of that site. That's all I have for now. Thank you. And Richard, I will tell you one of the most tranquil places in my district is Mallard Cove Park. And just thank you for the work you've done there. We have two more departments who are going to be presenting to you. Well, one more department. But before that final department, you're going to hear from our special guest. Our partners from Fort Worth Housing Solutions are with us today. That being President Mary Margaret Lemons and Vice President Brian Denison, and they'll be talking about a major project that is taking place in District 5 and has gotten the attention and support from the White House. Mary Margaret, take it away. Thank you, Ms. Evans. I think there was a question out in the audience, and I wanted to make sure that she could ask it if she needs it. Cindy had a question. Can you get to the mic, Cindy, again? I know everything was going to be formal like City Council. I do have a question, Parkson, about the golf course. I work with someone who usually plays Colonial, and he recently played Metterbrook and commented what a great course it is, but it's in deplorable condition. And I shared with him that Metterbrook was designed by the same man who designed Colonial. And he expressed it's disappointing to see the shape it's in. So what are you doing about our Metterbrook golf course, even though it's not in District 5? I'm going to turn this on. In the 2014 bond program, we reinvested in Rockwood Park golf course. I know. We completed a $5.2 million renovation. It is exceeding expectations. The rounds there and the revenues that are generating there, 75 years old, and we made that reinvestment. So as we look at all of our golf courses in the Park and Recreation Department, Metterbrook has been identified in our preliminary list, and I need to underscore preliminary list of projects for the Park and Recreation Department for a similar complete renovation to that golf course. Whether it makes the final cut, because we need to look at streets, police substations, libraries, all the gamut of the needs of the city, is yet to be determined. But from the Park Department's perspective, we've identified it in the initial listing. That's not very encouraging what your feedback is. I hope that you give it more attention than preliminary. Okay. So do in my neighbors. All right, thanks. Would that be part of the bond package or having to rank out on the bond package? Yes, it'll be ranked along with all the other projects in the department and across the city. And then this fall, the city manager will be submitting an initial list to the council to review. So ultimately what ends up on the ballot ends up is the council's decision. So city, what you do is what we did when we got Handley Metterbrook Rec, which was not on the list at that time, that high up anyway. And district five folk went around and shopped people and said, please vote for this. And our friends from four and eight was with us. And so we can be with them again and try to influence it. It's all about the people. I did have another one come in. Are there any plans for splash parks or pools in district five? The city council adopted an aquatics master plan initially in 2008. And it was updated in 2012. And that's what guides our development for aquatics across the city. Most recently we've done Marine Park Pool. And we did a partnership on the southeast side at Mitchell Boulevard with the YMCA. With a facility there. We're currently in the process of doing a partnership with the Eagle Mountain Saginaw Independent School District in the YMCA complex up there. Because that master plan derives what we do in the park and recreation apartment and how we formulate every bond program that we do, we begin the process and I need to underscore we begin the process with looking at all those plans and putting together our initial list. So each bond program, we list a couple of aquatic facilities, whether they make the final proposition or not is yet to be determined. But there definitely is always the beginning part of our process. Thank you, Richard. And now we're going to go to our friends with Fort Worth Housing Solutions and Mary Margaret, thanks for recognizing Cindy because I didn't see her. My face shell is blurry. Good morning and thank you for having us, Councilwoman. I'm here to talk about our stop six choice neighborhood initiative. And we are partnering with the city and the school district, as well as our development partner McCormick Baron Salazar and our people partner urban strategies to implement a choice neighborhood grant award from HUD. As many of you may recall back in 2013 the city and the housing authority jointly created a transformation plan for stop six. It was adopted and the very early stages were implemented, but we saw the need to refresh that as we plan to demolish Cabell. And so we got together starting in 2018 with the city to talk about what we wanted for the neighborhood and get the neighborhood's input on a new plan that was updated. And so here's a picture just for you guys that may not be familiar. The upper left-hand corner is Cabell Place. It was built in 1954. It's 300 public housing units. And the picture on the right-hand side is a rendering from our plan that was submitted to HUD on the new streetscapes that we intend to develop. So this is a community driven plan. We spent many days, weeks and months talking to community leaders and residents throughout the really all of District 5 in the city, not just stop six about what we wanted this neighborhood to look like. And so the HUD grant process mandates that it can only be a two mile area and the red dotted line on this map indicates the neighborhood that we submitted. And so Cabell Place is right in the heart of that right off of Rosedale. And you can see all the green space that Richard and all of our city friends have talked about this morning. And we are very rich with parks in this area as well. So that's very fortunate. But we really want to create a sustainable community with quality services to include education, health care and other amenities that anybody would want in their neighborhood to make it a neighborhood of choice. So there's three major components to this grant. The people are the first component. And all of our residents at Cabell Place have been relocated. So we don't just want them to return, but we want to support them throughout the entire development process. And so they want to return to a new mixed income community. Our plan is to replace the 300 public housing units with one for one replacement. But on top of that build almost 600 more units or 700 more units to create a thousand units in the neighborhood. And so we would have housing at different affordability levels. Some would be supported by project based vouchers. Others would be affordable or workforce units. And then almost a third of the thousand would be market rate units. And the big plan for the overall neighborhood is to activate Rosedale and create open spaces. We also plan to create a neighborhood hub that would provide and house essential services as well as amenities to the neighborhood. This is a timeline and actually April 23rd during quarantine. We heard that we were awarded one of four of these awards across the nation. And so that was a great day. We couldn't have a big gathering like we would wish, but we hope that we can do that hopefully in October. So we've put our heads together on agreements and those are being signed. And then we've also started the process on looking for partners to help on demolition and other contracts. So this grant will bring funding to the community that local firms can apply to be part of this process and hopefully benefit from. So we've already put out several RFPs, including one for consultants on MWBE and assistance of DLB consultants is helping us with that and educating the public about how to be involved in this process. We've started all the testing on our units at Cabell for the abatement process. And as of June, all of our residents were relocated to new homes using housing choice vouchers. And so they've relocated throughout the city for the most part. We had just a few that left Fort Worth to other areas of the state. We've hired staff and continued to meet with our residents on an ongoing basis. And are starting those training sessions through throughout zoom calls now to educate the public on how to be involved. An alternative to Brian Denison, my senior vice president of development and asset management to chat a little bit about the contracting process because that's a really big part of this initiative. Yes. Thank you, Ray Margaret. One of the things that was critical in this process starting from the very beginning has been transparency. And part of that transparency is to make RFPs, RFQs and all the associated items with along with this transaction to be open and very, very honorable in how we go about it. One of the first things we did aside from providing a developer of record was to provide an MWBE in section three component to that specifically with goals with expectations that is going to include not only the process of working with minority businesses for development and contracting opportunities, but for job training, job openings. And part of how we're doing that and implementing that is that if you get a chance, look on our website, we put together a very active and very real time website that will give an update on actions that are taking place with respect to RFPs, RFQs, zoom calls, just huge community engagement. You'll see this as we go along through the process. One of the things for us that is extremely critical. We're just reaching out. We're in phase one. Mary Margaret talked about some of the contracts that are taking place. We have a general contractor, which is in our phase one of this project. You'll know that project is Cowan Place. The name of Cowan Place is significant. It's one of the first settlers in the stop six area. And we wanted to make sure that we recognize and honor those who are not only stop six residents or former residents, but made an impact in that community. That first phase is known as Cowan Place. It's a senior project. It's 174 units. There you go. Thanks, Mary Margaret. It is a total of 174 units. It's going to be located on the corner of Stalcock and Rosedale. We have Housing Solutions is on this site. We plan on starting the development. Actually, we've been working on the development for the last 12 months. We expect to close on it in January of 2021. Immediately followed by a notice to proceed to start the construction process. So we're gearing up for that now. Part of that gearing up will mean community engagement, community meetings. I had described to you talking through what is the process? How do I get involved? What do I do? Where do I go? We have a website. We have a huge amount of people who are going to be touching this here. And we expect this to be an extremely grassroots effort to roll this first phase out. I can tell you, at least through our eyes, we expect this to be the hello meeting to the new stop six for the transformation plan right there on Rosedale. The street has been, Textile has done a great job with widening Rosedale. And the first item out of the ground is going to be that Cowan Place. Simultaneous to that, Mary Margaret showed you a picture of our Cowan Place. Every time I go by there, if you go by there now, it's completely boarded up. And in that boarded up process, I see two things. I see history for 70 years of housing for so many families, so many residents, so many people have come and gone. But I also see the opportunity of what that's going to look like going forward. So that process is going to be a demolition and abatement. That is working real time right now. We are working very closely with some general contractors for the demolition and the abatement. The timing on that right now as we speak today is mid the end of October. A councilwoman has made it very clear that we're going to have a demolition party and we want everyone to come and see it. I'm mentioning that because it's kind of bittersweet, as I mentioned. We have all this history, but that is going to be, that's going to, that demolition is going to engineer into the new transformation. You'll see, you'll see Rosedale Street activated. You'll see Amanda Street activated and you'll see a vacant lot for some time. So when I go by there, I see it boarded up. And next thing we're going to see is it's not going to be there. And now we're going to have to visualize what it's going to look like going forward. So between now and the end of 2020, those are our projects that are real time and that are going to take place. We have one here on the screen. You'll see our development play is made up of six phases. Phase one, I mentioned, which is Cowan Place. Phase two will take place right there on Amanda and Rosedale. It will be not only housing, it will provide some retail, some community space. And then phase three will be further on the Caval site, which we're at Caval site real time right now today. It's about 22 and a half acres. When that demolition takes place, it will start those phase two and phase three, which will be coming up. Phase four will also be on that footprint. So you'll see this community being activated. If you ever get a chance, again, look on our website, you'll see the blocks here on our PowerPoint. But when you look at the website, you'll actually see some renderings of what it's going to look like. It's going to be a walkable community. It's going to be a community that's going to be engaging. It's going to be different styles of development. It's not going to be your traditional rental property that you see. It's going to be a mix of properties that are going to be for family are going to be for singles. It's going to be for seniors. It's going to be engaging that you can walk through the entire community. And then those those final remaining phases, which is phase five, which is near Ramey. It's going to be more of a residential look. It will be rental housing, but it will be a residential. And then phase six will be on the corner of a Miller and Rosdale. That would be one of our mixed income sites that would be more workforce housing and more market rate housing. We expect to engage the community, not only in stop six, but to connect our community that involves Texas Wesleyan that connects both communities. So, you know, this whole footprint that we have is meant to not only be transformative, but to be engaging along these phases. We're working with our footwork PD to engage some of the community policing that we have. We see so many opportunities here and I'll close my Margaret and I'll let you pick it up from there. But what's important here, this community, not only is it going to be new. Not only is it going to be engaging, we're going to be creating job opportunities. We're going to be creating opportunities for MWBE companies. And we're also going to be, you know, not every phase of this where people can come to work, but we're going to provide job training. Those job trainings can fix people up so that they can go beyond justice stop six transaction. Our transaction window of time is a seven is a the contract is for six years, but we expect it to be a eight year contract over time from start to finish. And I think those opportunities not only engage our stop six area, not only transform archival property, but also create a whole new awareness for this area and what it can be and what it's going to be. Thanks, Brian. And when you talk about awareness for this area, if you look at the picture, the rendering down in the bottom right hand corner, this is kind of the dream for the neighborhood hub. When we met with our focus groups about 18 months ago, we really listened to whether it was groups of schoolchildren or our faith community and had multiple meetings over a few months and heard what they wanted for the neighborhood. And our design experts were able to put it in a picture. And so they we shot big I want you guys to know that and so this is the dream. And as we go through budget and funding and figuring out how we can get public private partnerships involved. It may change a little bit, but our goal is to create a community space that really is a destination for not just the stop six residents but also the entire Fort Worth community. So this is the overall income mix by phase, as Brian said, it'll be six phases of housing development and to create almost 1000 units. And just so you know, market rate, obviously is easy to explain workforce, we typically see up to 80% of the AMI, and then the LIHTC is the low income housing tax credits and so that typically goes up to 60% of income. And PSH stands for permanent supportive housing and that's for our neighbors that are exiting homelessness. And the PVVs are project based vouchers which are rental assistance tied to a particular property. And so in total we hope to create 1000 more units in that two mile area of stop six. And that's all we had, Councilwoman. I did have a couple of questions. What does the LITHC stand for on the PowerPoint. So those are low income housing tax credits. And that's through our TDHCA partnership. So we fund most of our development with either 9% or 4% tax credits. And so in exchange for that, we commit to maintaining affordability for usually 30 to 45 years. And what specific measures are being taken to combat gentrification and provide affordable housing for people who currently live in the stop six area? So our development is focused on the multifamily and the single family development will be done by private developers. And as you all know, there's a multitude of vacant lots right now in stop six. And our plans are to offer the ones we were able to acquire and I guess close to 100. If you look at both what the fourth housing solutions have as well as the city through tax foreclosed or their housing finance corporation. And our goal is to put those lots back out for development by private developers at an affordable rate to match what the needs are in the community. And Brian, I don't know if you want to talk about gentrification. This is obviously an issue that we're in tune with and we talk about often. Yes, thank you, Mary Margaret. So so so it's a legit it's a good question and it's a strong question. What we've got to do is I think before we even go into a gentrification scenario is that the community itself in general. For its lack of this investment is open spaces has a ways has a long runway to go before we get to any conversation about gentrification. Now right now with the investment that with the new housing with the investment of infrastructure and with the investment of private services. Then that's when we can start talking about from a policy standpoint. How do we mitigate against that? What are some of the things that we can do? Not only housing solutions, but with the city of Fort Worth, you know, to prevent this from going haywire and get priced out. But right now we are ways away from that, just simply because the tax base there has not been significant enough to create all those areas where we're moving people out. We've increased people's taxes. Current residents taxes so high they can't afford them. We're a ways away from that now. So so I think that the question is not only a good question. It's one that we have to address going forward. But with respect to the the transformation plan with respect to our next five years, we have a window of time before we get there. But I still want to make sure that that does not go unnoticed or unaddressed. Any others, Michelle? That's all I have right now. Let me tell you what has been happening during the last few meetings at City Hall. I have always been pushing the police department to enhance their minority recruitment. And that philosophy for me came from a guy named Doug Hawthorne. Doug is the retired CEO of Texas Health Resources. And he told me about how many languages were spoken in the Harris hospitals around the region. He said, Gina, we've got nearly 300 languages spoken every day in the hospitals. And it's important to me as CEO that our workers reflect the customer base or the patients that we serve. And so I applied that to the police department and saw that the numbers needed to be improved. And so I kept on harping and harping. And finally, I got a call from Julie Swaringen and she said, let me tell you what we've been doing. And they got me excited. And so Chief, I wanted to save you guys last because I'm pretty sure we're going to have quite a bit of questions coming for PD. And so with that, I say take it away. The floor is yours. So we're going to talk about the CCPD budget changes this year and something we noticed as the CCPD came up for reelection this year. There were a lot of questions, a lot of concerns and the vote came up in the middle of the national narrative of defunding the police. And defunding the police means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But what we were hearing were actually some pretty good ideas about how to better use some of the money that's coming in through CCPD. CCPD, since it was first approved in 1995, is always meant to be an enhancement to the police budgets. So what we saw is there is a lot of misunderstanding about what was funded by CCPD as well as maybe an opportunity for us to re-envision how we spend some of those funds. So we had two goals with this year's budget. A was to make it clear delineation between what are traditional police services and move those as many as we can into the general fund budget and identify what is more of an enhancement, put that into the crime control and prevention district budget. And B, the second goal was to see where we could leverage more new programs out there that could help us prevent crime and address crime. So we think we've achieved a pretty good balance here with this budget and this is what we're proposed to the city council. This basically says what I was just talking about. We really wanted to expand on some of our successful programs and create new opportunities for other programs. So there are five funding initiatives located in the CCPD. That's enhanced enforcement, crime prevention, partners with the shared vision, recruitment training and equipment technology and infrastructure. And we'll go through each of these in the next few slides. But what you're going to see is where we've decreased some of our spending with enhanced enforcement, equipment technology and infrastructure. And we've significantly increased funding in neighborhood crime prevention and partners with a shared mission. One of the things that we started a couple of years ago was a crisis intervention team to respond to people in mental crisis. And we did that by creating a co-responder model where we team up an officer who has extra training in dealing with people in mental crisis and a professional from MHMR of Tarrant County and from their law liaison program. And those officers and liaisons go out and address calls with people dealing with mental crisis. But they also do follow-up visits to people that call in to 911 needing mental health services. And they do follow-up visits to make sure people are getting connections to their doctors and their medications as needed. So we are looking at taking that program, which we started at the end of 2017 with a team of six officers, a corporal and a sergeant. We want to expand that to two teams of 10, eight officers, a corporal and a sergeant on each team. And that will give us the ability not just to cover one shift five days a week, which is what we've been doing, but to cover two shifts seven days a week. We also heard from the community that they would like to see people other than police officers responding to some calls. And right now with the COVID financial issue we are going through as a city, we don't have money to create new police positions, even though the recent staffing study from 2019 said that we need significantly more officers. So we thought of a way that we could better utilize our existing officers would be to take some of the nonviolent non-emergency calls off their plate, allow them to respond solely to the emergency calls when possible, and also to be a better beat officer and serve the people on their beat by not having to be pulled in so many different directions. So what we've recommended is a creation of a pilot program of 10 non sworn civilian employees to answer those nonviolent non-emergency calls. And then we wanted to expand our partners with the shared mission mission initiative and allow for more community based programs to apply for funding through the CCPD. This is a crisis intervention. We just went over all that. Some of the other initiatives dealing with crisis intervention and people with mental illness is that we're going to create a mental health advisory board. And that board is going to help guide the police department on how not just how to better answer calls dealing with people in mental crisis, but how to divert some of those calls that come into 911 because when somebody's family member or neighbor is suffering a mental crisis, we invariably get those 911 calls, but not everything requires a police response. Sometimes we'll be able to divert these calls directly to the mental health providers. And that's what we would like to do so that we're hoping that advisory board of local providers will be able to guide us on how to do that. And then also train our call takers on how to identify which calls can be diverted. We've also we're working with a local foundation to fund our training and certification. So every officer on the fourth police department will be trained and certified as a mental health peace officer because no matter how much we try to divert those calls to private providers or how many times we can try to get our crisis intervention teams to respond. There are going to be plenty of calls where officers get out there dealing with somebody in mental crisis that maybe they didn't know it when the call came in, but they find themselves in that position. So if they're trained and certified to a higher standard, they're better able to deal with those calls. The community service professionals, that's the group that I was talking about, the non-sworn officers that would respond to non-emergency calls. We've seen this in large cities like Denver, also Fort Collins, Colorado, locally north which in Hills has been doing this for years. We've leaned on members of those departments to help us guide the creation of that program. And the types of calls we're looking at diverting from the calls that typically go to officers are minor accidents that are on surface streets. We're not going to put them out on the freeways, but if it's a surface street accident or a stalled vehicle, if we have a loose livestock out there, welfare checks, stranded motorists, those types of calls, they'll be able to handle. As I said, we wanted to make it clear delineation on which are basic traditional police services and which are enhancements. We were able to do that by moving personnel between the two funds. So our expanded SWAT unit, which is eight persons, our criminal tracking unit, special response teams have all been housed in the CCPD, but those are pretty basic police services if you look on how departments around the country handle their policing. So we want to move those back into the general fund and move other personnel such as the crisis intervention teams, our bike patrol units, our homeless outreach unit into the CCPD. So by switching those personnel, we're going to move 21 full-time employees into the CCPD and out of the general fund. So if we look at the different five funding initiatives, enhanced enforcement, this is one that we are basically moving personnel from CCPD into the general fund. The first three of those programs I just talked about SWAT, CTU, and SRT, and the bottom three that are highlighted are the bike units and the COPS hiring match. The COPS hiring match is, even though we aren't able to fund the hiring of a bunch of sworn personnel, the COPS hiring match is a Department of Justice grant that allows us to hire 13 officers and the federal government pays for half their salaries and benefits. Neighborhood crime prevention, this is the very first line under there, the Code Blue program. That is where all our volunteer programs are housed in the Fort Worth Police Department. That includes our citizens on patrol, our clergy and police alliance, ministers against crime, which has been a program since the onset of CCPD, our community emergency response teams that help us deal with natural disasters. All these programs are housed within the Code Blue program. I'm going to give a shameless plug to the citizens of Fort Worth to get out there and volunteer for these programs. Ms. Bivens, just in the past several weeks, we've had two crimes solved by some of our citizens on patrol volunteers. One was out doing a neighborhood walk and saw some suspicious people around the house because it's his neighborhood. He knew they didn't belong there and the way they were acting, based on the training we provided, gave him pause. So he called the police, police came out there and sure enough, they got arrested because they weren't supposed to be there. Additionally, we had another citizen on patrol member call his MPO and say he thought he'd seen a stolen vehicle that was been reported in the area and the officer called the patrol officer, I'm sorry, the neighborhood police officer called the patrol officers. They all got there at the same time. Sure enough, it was a stolen vehicle and they were able to get those individuals arrested and recover that vehicle. Chief, I had asked you for some examples. Do you think we have enough people involved and citizens on patrol in District 5? No, and not just District 5, but it is a citywide issue that we could use more volunteers. Unfortunately, when COVID hit a lot of our volunteers, we want to protect them. Some of them are older individuals and we want to make sure they're not putting themselves at risk, but we have gotten back to where they're out there patrolling their neighborhoods, either in their vehicles or on foot and it is a huge help to us in crime prevention because they're visible presence, but also crime control because they do call in suspicious activity that we are out there investigating. So, District 5 is an area where we definitely need more citizen involvement and we will put them through the training and give them the equipment to and the training to be able to help us out with that. Maybe we can get some of the ministers, the clergy to help recruit and talk about the importance of recruiting, sorry to interview. No worries at all. The ministers against crime, like I said, they've been a stalwart of the program since the beginning. They actually reached out and asked to do some patrols around a school last spring because we were having some issues there and we were more than welcome to accept that. So, they're great partners for us. Some of the other things that are highlighted at the bottom there, the moving the crisis intervention teams and the homeless outreach teams and those community service professionals, those civilian groups into the CCPD budget just makes sense. Partnership of the shared vision or mission is something that we're very excited about. The afterschool programs, Alliance for Children, coming up gang intervention programs, the Crime Prevention Agency and the Family Justice Center are all programs that have been in this funding initiative for some time. They have not had a increase in their budgets for many, many, many years through this program. With this budget, we were able to give them each a 15% program enhancement, so they will be getting more money to do more of the work that they've do for us traditionally. But the big improvement here, the big increases in the community-based programs, and this is the funding line where we solicit programs from the community that are centered around crime prevention or crime control, and they are able to request CCPD funding. We traditionally have been giving out $250,000 a year, so we regularly fund four or five programs, so they're getting about $50,000 each. Now that balance is going up to over $2 million a year, so we'll be able to fund a lot more programs. We're planning a second solicitation to prepare in the fall and be ready to initiate in January. There will be caps on how much a program can get, but we have structured it so some programs can get funding for multi-years, so they have a good foundation on which to grow that program. The second line from the bottom is program expansion and enhancement. That is a line item that Mr. Cook, the city manager's office, allowed us to put into the CCPD funding this fiscal year. We wanted to research some programs on violence intervention. We were able to develop a program with that $250,000. We are increasing it because of the success of that program and the potential we see in it. That is just an example of how the CCPD can be used when we see a potential to help prevent or fight crime. I'll actually ask one of our deputy chiefs, Neil Knokes, to come up and give just a real brief overview because I know we're running out of time, but on that violence intervention program before. Oh, okay. Well, take your time. Gina says we're here till four. Thank you very much. Good morning, Council Member Bivens and members of the panel. Thank you, everyone, either physically or virtually that's watching. I want to say a special thank you to the Council, City Manager's Office and Chief Kraus, our leadership for the department, for what they have done to allow us to try new and innovative things within the department. And because we did listen to the community, as you said, Ma'am, because we did listen to the community, we're able to put an emphasis on community programs, on programs where maybe the police department takes a back seat and supports the community, as the community on its own takes the initiative to make a positive impact in their neighborhoods. This program, VIP Fort Worth, stands for Violence Intervention and Prevention Fort Worth. What we did was we looked at addressing the violent crime issues that have plagued certain neighborhoods in Fort Worth for far too long by a method other than our traditional law enforcement method. Now, understand that doesn't take away what we do as far as law enforcement efforts. Unfortunately, people will still need to be arrested sometimes. There are those who are predators in our communities that the communities themselves don't want in the streets. But we also understand there's things that members of the community themselves can do that we just can't do. So we looked at some programs across the country, we researched several, we visited two, went to Richmond, California to look at advanced peace, and we went to San Antonio, Texas to look at stand-up SA. What these programs do is they reach out to people in the community who were once the problem, they were part of the problems in their own neighborhoods, the people who have reformed, become positive influences, and actually become part of the solution in their neighborhoods. We're talking about former gang members who once were involved in the gang lifestyle, who have removed themselves from that lifestyle but stayed invested in their communities, people who have legitimacy in their communities because of that consistent effort in their communities and their credible messengers, as they're called in some cities. So what we did is reached out to some people in our own communities who fit that description. People who had been part of the solution that stood up and said, you know what, it's time to make a change and I'm not going to wait for someone else to do it. We're going to do it ourselves. And these people we're working with were already involved in these efforts in their own community, but they didn't really have the backing or the funding to do what they needed to do. So what we're doing, and this is critical to understand, this is not a forward police department program. This is not a program being run by the police. This is a program that the forward police recognized could benefit the entire city and compliment what we're doing but do it from a different angle, do it from a different perspective in a different way. So we're empowering these outreach workers to go out on their own into the community to engage with the young people. And I say young, but as normal we find between mid-teens to mid-twenties is where we see most of the perpetrators, what we call cyclical and retaliatory gun violence. And those are also the ones that are often the victims of the gun violence. And what we want to do is instead of having to arrest everyone, maybe we have someone from within the community that can reach these young people, offer them the resources and the support that they need to not only get out of the lifestyle but be successful and thrive as members of their communities. And then we don't have to have a negative interaction with them as forward police department. So please understand, again this is an effort that we support because we see the benefit of it but we are not running this program. This is a community program that is being run by members of the community who live there and want to see the change because they live in these neighborhoods. And we have found some amazing people that are a part of this program. We trust them fully to go out there and do what needs to be done in the program to affect the change we all want to see in the city forward. Questions? Not at this point but I'm sure we will. Thank you. Michelle's text is coming in. Thank you, Neil, for expanding on that. I do want to point out that with this increase of programmatic funding that we are proposing in this budget, we are also holding money back in order for us as a department to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs because we want to make sure that the funding that we are giving to the programs is being effective. The next funding initiative is recruitment training. This shows an overall decrease this year from last year but that is because we are not funding as many officers going through the police recruiting or training academy, the new officers. We are not having, even though Mr. Cook talked about the hiring freeze in the city, that is not include the civil service positions and police and fire. We will still be hiring officers as we have officers leaving the department so we have been assured we will be able to maintain the current authorized strength of our department. We are planning one recruitment class for this fiscal year. It will be class number 150 and then we will keep an eye on our attrition so if we have to have a second class, we will make sure we have enough money in our fund balance to put on a second class this year. I will have Assistant Chief Swearing-Gen talk briefly after my presentation on some of the recruiting efforts that you mentioned earlier, Ms. Bivens. Also, the highlighted line here at the bottom of this slide is the CCPD cadet program. That program was recommended by the Task Force on Race and Culture that Mr. Cook mentioned in his presentation. The recommendation from that Task Force was that we reimplement the cadet program that we did away with in 2008 due to funding shortages during the economic recession. We were able to remap that program and we got 20 cadets hired. They are part-time positions. They do 20 hours a week throughout in different areas of the police department. We will move them around to give them experience. The overall goal for the department is to get these young people engaged in what we are doing as a department and buy into our vision and then hopefully move them through the pipeline into a recruit training academy so where they become police officers themselves. The final funding category is equipment, technology and infrastructure. This is one of the larger budgets in the CCPD and as such it was a budget where we were able to find some savings to fund some of the other increases. Where we had some reductions was the first highlighted line technology infrastructure program. We realized the $1 million savings through a capital IT program that our project that we did not need to move forward into this budget year and the other million dollar reduction there is not really a reduction. We are simply pulling the citywide camera program out of that larger funding line into its own because we want to better assess the effectiveness of the citywide camera program and make sure that the reportable results are tied to that specific program and not a larger program. That citywide camera program is something we have expanded each of the several past years through the neighborhood improvement strategy. When the city identifies an area for neighborhood improvement, there is a portion of money set aside for crime prevention. We meet with those communities at the public engagement meetings and ask them how they want that money spent. We have in each of the four different neighborhoods that we've employed this strategy. We have been told they want cameras in the neighborhood. We actually go to those engagement meetings. We show them video that we've acquired through the citywide camera program and how it has helped us prevent and solve crime. And they've all agreed that is what they want in their neighborhoods as well. The facility requirement program, the second highlighted line, is a debt we owe to the solid waste department here in the city of Fort Worth. We took out a loan of $10 million from that department to fund the police portion of the Balboa facility down on the south side of the city where the police administration and training buildings are. We fulfilled that payback of that loan this fiscal year. Going into next fiscal year, we do not have to pay that back. The other big reduction comes from the high mileage vehicle program. I'm sure if you've seen our police cars roll around the city, you would probably be in agreement with me that these are, our fleet is in the best shape it's been in the 28 years I've been here. Of course, you know, I've got a lot of officers that would want a new car every year. We do try to put as many new cars on the street as we can and cycle the older cars out of patrol to some of the other units. But right now with the fleet being in such good shape, we can reduce the dollars for one fiscal year on how much we spend on that, replacing those vehicles. This slide just shows the proposed budget by category. You see that the large bulk of the CCPD revenue does go to salaries and benefits with equipment being the next larger category. So I will, you want to do questions now and then bring up Julie Swarngen or? You have any questions, Michelle? I didn't know if you wanted Julie to do her part and then we can do all the police questions at one time or? That sounds good. Do you want me to show the video or the pictures? Just real quick, I guess I'll start. So thank you for having me here and I'll be brief respecting everyone's time. You know, I just want to talk a little bit about our recruiting efforts we did to attract and target minority applicants. And talk about the campaign that we started, this last civil service test, which is in March. So it was probably a few weeks up to the exam date closing, accepting applications. And we looked at the numbers and they weren't quite where we expected them to be as for minority applicants. So came up with this great idea in the short time is come up with a campaign and the campaign is be the change in your community. And it was kind of like targeting campaigning where we were going to focus on women and minority applicants. So I got my pro team to come together. I said, let's do some pictures of women. Let's do a video real quick and let's see. We have five days before this close. So let's push it out every day steady to see we can come up with. And so that's what we did. Yeah, if you want to pull up the pictures, you're at the pictures first. Yeah, we'll do the pictures and then we'll show the video. So we wanted to showcase women in different roles. So we kind of came up with, I guess you call them memes, so something funny to say. So after each picture that we posted, we had link to apply and apply now be the change in your community. We just kept on pushing that message out. Again, the same thing be the change. Also, we did in Spanish, of course. Okay, and I focused the memes on women and then the video we did. We focused on our men. Be the change in your community. Thank you, Michelle. And like I said, this was for the last campaign where we close those applications. So after that five day push, I checked the numbers to see where we're at to see if we attracted and we picked over 500 applicants on top of that. Now, I'm not going to say it's solely based on the campaign be the changing community, but a mass majority and I don't want to give you an accurate, not accurate number, but it was probably over 300 and something that applied. They were all minority applicants, women and minority applicants. So something changed in that five day push and I just want to be able to expand on that. That was kind of a quick put together and I spoke with Councilwoman Bivens and she had some great ideas. So I'm hoping we do two new classes to see how we can take this and where we can push this campaign. So anyway, so after the closing of the application, I wanted to give you some numbers to see what we came up with. When the list was finalized, I got the list and on the goal now is to make sure that the applicants were seated. They followed through because it's one thing to get them to put in Sam interested, but to get them to actually follow through and take the test and be successful. So I thought, okay, what can I do to reach out to them? You know, phone call, emails, what can we do? Now we reach out to everyone that takes the, that applies because of course we have to set up the civil service exam and set them up for a date. So I thought, what else could I do? And I thought, okay, my position, I'm a Latina, I'm a high ranking on the department. I'm going to personally reach out to all the women on that list. Getting that number now, there was over 300 women on that list, but you know what? I said, I'm still going to do it. I'm going to call them. And so I solicited a help from a couple of female officers we had that were on light duty. One was pregnant, one was injured and I got him in my office and I gave him my pitch. We need to get women on this department. We need to be the change. We need to be leaders. So sold them. So the three of us called all those women on that list. I called 120 myself. So I talked to the lieutenant over backgrounds and I said, hey man, this is what we're doing. I need you to call the rest of minority applicants. Do you think you can help us get that? So he was absolutely, he saw the importance of it. So he got some help from some of our background team and they called all the other minority applicants on that list. And now just to be fair, we again, we call everyone on the list. Once you apply, you get a phone call or an email from the police department, you know, telling you about the process. So everybody is called. We just did a follow-up call, you know, again, to assure that we had as many minorities as we could to be seated on the task. So let me give you the numbers. It's funny. One thing I was going to mention when I called them, the ladies on my list, imagine you put an application. I'm interested in police officer. Next call you get, this is Assistant Chief Julie Swearingen. So a couple of them hung up on me first, but they were just shocked because they wanted to know why I was calling. And so I had explained to them, you know, again, who I was and why I was calling them to encourage and support them to be part of the change. But anyway, so out of the numbers, we had 1,034 sign up to take the civil service exam. Out of that, 1,068 showed up approximately 784 passed the exam with 461 of them being minorities. And that's including the female applicants. Now we had 72 that didn't disclose their raise. And so, I mean, I think from those numbers are great. Now we all know that getting them again to show up, take the test and be successful. So another thing I felt that was important for this campaign, again, is not only calling them, encouraging them, being available, but being present when they actually showed up to take the exam. So for three days of the testing, I was there all three days. And I invited Chief Kraus, an assistant chief of marriage, and Alders us that we need to show them how important it is that we support them. And so we were there, we greeted them, encouraged them, wished them well. I stood there and it was funny that he joked and said I was like a cheerleader because when they came out, I was there. You know, once I found out that they passed, I was clapping, shaking hands, and it was right when COVID started. So even though I wasn't supposed to, I was still high-fiving and hugged a few people out of excitement for them. Those who did not do well on the test, we personally walked them out and said, look, don't give up. I hope to see you next time around. Now you know what to expect on the next civil service exam, so please stay in touch. Keep up with the website. We'll be pushing videos. So we still wanted them to leave with some type of encouraging words, so they would still be interested in coming back on the department. So after the, again, the test, I talked to a few of them and a couple of them said, wow, I've never applied for a job where somebody was so passionate about having a diverse applicants and actually aggressively pursuing it. And one of them even joked and said, you called me like three times. You were harassing me. And I said, well, I wanted you to come in and take this job seriously. So I think it was a big success. Now, the other side of that, the success of getting the minority applicants through the process and to remain in the process and stay seated in there. So, you know, our number of women and Latinos are in Latinas are up. We're doing good there, but we still struggle with our African American community. So we are looking at some changes in the process. We met with the police associations, all three of them. We talked about recruiting and mentoring for those who are in the academy to help them be successful through the whole process and get them through through the end. So we're looking at some different things, but I just wanted to share some of the things we're doing. I know a lot of times we have to be a diverse police department, like you said, to mirror our city. But a lot of times we don't share that message. I think what I've learned in my time as deputy chief and assistant chief is we have all these great things, but we do a terrible job of pushing out and telling people what we're doing. So every time Councilwoman Vivins would say recruiting, I'm like, ooh, I want to say something. And so finally I had an opportunity. Chief Cross, it will reach out to her and tell her what you're doing. So this was a start of this campaign, be the change in your community. But this is just the baby start. To me, it was successful. We have 333 applicants left on the list from this list that we pushed. And I'll get that list probably Monday or Tuesday and I'll start making those phone calls. And I'm going to see how many we can get from that list as well to be in the next class. Out of that 333, there's 194 minorities on that list. So we'll see what we can bring. But thank you for allowing me to talk about what we're doing. And you did offer to help me. So if we do do the new classes, we'll be calling you. Happy there. Thank you. Thank you. She's a little bit passionate about it. That's why she's in that position. Michelle, you had some questions for us? How do we work with local school districts to improve our recruiting efforts? So that's a great question. The Fort Worth ISD has a criminal justice program at Eastern Hills High School. We partner with them. Our command staff has been out to their classrooms. I went out there twice this year. They come and do tours of our facility so they can integrate into our police department. The problem with the high school is, you know, you graduate high school at age 17 or 18. You can't become a police officer until age 21. Actually, you can get into our academy at 20, but you have to be 21 when you graduate. So there's those years in between where if we don't engage youth, they may move on to different opportunities. So what we've done to deal with that is we have our Explorer program, which allows individuals to join that program and stay engaged in law enforcement or in criminal justice. So those groups go out and they do competitions. We train them at our academy similarly to how we train police officers. So they learn how to do traffic stops. They learn how to interact with people, building searches, all those kind of things. And then they go out to this state and do competitions in those categories too. And our Explorer program routinely comes back with the state awards from that. So that's a very good program. And then we also have a teen academy for the middle school kids. And our officers that are assigned to the schools will bring those individuals at the middle schools after school to bring them to the academy where they similarly go through programs much like our explorers do, where they learn about the department and what police officers do and why. We feed them that night and get them something to do in those vulnerable hours between when schools out and when parents come home from work. And then the officers will take them to their homes at the end of their time at the police academy. And then the newly created cadet program I mentioned earlier is a way to get youth employed in the police department actually get paid during those years. And then we routinely place individuals who once they turn 18 years of old in our Explorer program into other areas of the police department such as our communications division where they serve as call takers and they even can be certified as dispatchers if they go through the appropriate training and keep them engaged that way until they're old enough to apply for the academy. Where can people find out more information about the Explorer program and how to become a Code Blue volunteer? It's all on our website. And so we have those opportunities on the forwardpd.gov. And so all that information is on there as well as the email and phone numbers for the coordinators of those programs. Okay. What resources are available to address the significant panhandling problem in District 5? So that is a problem in District 5 but it's a problem throughout the city as well. So there are certain areas that are designated by ordinance as no panhandling zone but if they're not so designated then panhandling can occur there although there are rules on what people who are soliciting money can and cannot do. They cannot be in the median, they cannot be, they cannot aggressively approach vehicles or anything like that. Most of how we deal with that is through enforcement. Our citizens on patrol and our officers at certain divisions of the city will do panhandling details where the citizens on patrol will go out and identify panhandlers who are being aggressive or not acting or not performing according to ordinance and laws and then call in the officers to help address that with the citations. And Michelle, whatever I do, whatever I see a panhandler, if I'm at a convenience store I'll go tell that store manager if he's got a panhandler out there. But I think I'm so known about my approach with panhandlers they no longer approach me. We do have comments just from people like thanking the panelists from being here and thanking the chief and his staff and so I'll be sure and pass those along because we really, we don't have time to read all of those out loud but I will be sure that they get them. Can money be allocated from CCPD to reinstate something like the DARE program to engage students in that type of education? Yes, the DARE program is now run by the county and not by the city. However, if there were community-based programs that had an evidence-based approach and they wanted to apply for some of the funding through CCPD they would be considered just like any other program. I believe you touched on this but will more funding be provided to the VIP program? So in last year they, we pretty much devoted that $250,000 start-up money to developing or researching and developing that program. The entire amount was not used. However, we told them that it would be available this year and then we also increased it 15% just like every other category in the partners with the shared mission initiative. Did you get an update on the early warning system for police? What is it and when can we expect it to begin? I'm assuming we're talking about the early intervention system that was mentioned by the expert panel. I think so. I'm going to refer back to Assistant Chief Swearing-Gen. I know we are close to getting that done but I'll let her speak more to that since internal affairs is also under her review. Someone's asking what is the, how diverse is Code Blue and Citizens on Patrol age and race and I'm sure we can get them that information. Yeah, that's something I wouldn't have off the top of my head. I would tell you that we are always looking for youthful members. If you talk to some of the Code Blue captains, we have quarterly captain meeting with them. So every three months we have a meeting with the captains and one of the big discussions is how do we become a younger organization as far as Code Blue. We have many members that have been part of that since we started back in the early 90s. Our numbers have decreased over the past seven or eight years. So it is something that even our Code Blue members, our Citizens on Patrol members recognize that they are aging out. And Michelle, Assistant Chief Julie can respond to that prior question I think, early intervention. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, so the early intervention, we're in the last phase, the process of last phase to implement phase one and that's with the significant incident reporting, the training and also the tracking of, oh, I don't want to say threshold, the tracking of patterns. So that was the whole purpose of this, but there was a little bit of back and forth because we had some recommendations from the panel and also with the police monitor's office that we're working with. So those were putting general orders in place, but I'm hoping to have this done and wrapped up. I'm just waiting for a few legal responses, but I'm hoping to have that by the end of the month. And real quick, let's just, for those who may not be aware of what that is, something that tracks officer behavior, whether it's complaints that they get from the community or the fact that they are calling off work at a regular number of time or they're tardy and there are certain thresholds set and if these thresholds are met, then that precipitates a meeting with the supervisor to see if there's some underlying issue causing these minor interventions before they become significant problems. And if I could just add to that. So the whole purpose of the thresholds is to detect pattern, but not only patterns of misconduct or bad behavior, but patterns if the officer needs assistance, like you said, if it's something as minor as missing worker or tardy, we want to provide them the help that they need. I mean, so it's going to serve two purposes, to get their officers the help and the resources and also to monitor conduct. Will there be another round of a CCPD funding for community organizations? Yes, that is something that, of course, it's all contingent on the budget being approved, right? So I'm fairly confident in my discussions with the city leaders that this budget or something very close to this budget is going to be approved. That would warrant a second solicitation. It all falls under that community-based programs, which is going from the $250,000 funding category to just over $2 million. So we are going to this fall create the second solicitation with the anticipation that those programs could start being funded as soon as January. Is there a plan to train and educate officers on diversity and cultural competency included in the budget? Yes, that is part of our current training curriculum, in addition to what we already do as far as cultural competencies, procedural justice, implicit bias, de-escalation, cultural awareness. We are also having a second round of implicit bias training with a nationally known speaker who will be coming in and training all of our police officers. And that was the only additional ones I had for police. Like I said, if there is this very specific question that I didn't ask, we will be sure and respond with that question, and we will be posting all of the questions and all of the answers from all of the different meetings on our website and providing that to City Council. I have had a few other questions come in that were related to some other topics. And one had to do with the Trinity Metro funding. I would suggest that anyone interested in that topic, we do have a very in-depth presentation that was given at the August 20th City Council budget work session that is available online if you want to watch that. But I'm asking the city manager to just identify what the proposed budget is for Trinity Metro for next year. Thank you so very briefly, and I think the watching the work session might be helpful. In the current fiscal year, we funded Trinity Metro an additional $1.5 million over their overall budget, which includes a half-cent sales tax. The budget going into recommended for next year is at the same level of $1.5 million. And one of the conversation points that you'll see on the work session is how we estimate sales tax going forward compared to how Trinity Metro was estimating sales tax going forward and its own it. It's my observation that I believe they have the ability within their existing revenue streams and projected revenue streams to fund those items that they had requested from the city. And I think that wraps up most of our budget questions. I did have a question. How does a citizen get involved in District 5? I can respond to that in my closing remarks. Is that the only other question? Any other questions? I have one, but we had it asked at the last budget town hall. And I think it's one that we probably need to do a little bit of fact-finding and gather more information. And so I suggested that we presented it maybe the next budget work session. Okay, okay. I'll address how to get more involved with District 5 in these closing remarks. First, I want to say thank you to the staff who showed up today, our guests who showed up today. These meetings usually in District 5 will have what's called a District 5 leadership meeting. And so I'm accustomed to imposing on people, but this was different. And the idea of people knowing about the budget is very important to all of us on the Fort Worth City Council. It's also important to the city staff who puts that budget together. But it does take input from you, the citizens, to help us know what you think needs to be done. And that's why input is so important. What I will tell you is neighborhood associations become the rock of citizen engagement. We have a neighborhood president here today, that's Cindy Bowling. I want to say congratulations to Dede Smith and Michael Moore. These two neighborhood presidents have reactivated their neighborhood associations and they are strong. Dede is the president of John T. White Neighborhood Association and Michael Moore. As in Pastor Michael Moore is president of the Historic Stop Six Neighborhood Association. These associations were never inactive. They just became formally deactivated because of some technical issues. If you don't know, and this is the involvement factor, if you don't know the neighborhood association covering where you live, then all you have to do is go to Fort Worth, Texas.gov. Look at one address. The one address will tell you the name of your neighborhood association. What I have told people since 2013 is if you don't like your neighborhood association, I'll help you start one. I'll point you in that direction because we have some neighborhood associations all over the city that are composed of comprised of friends and family. And I hate to say that, but that's true. But if you really want to get involved, it starts with your neighborhood association. If you have a homeowners association, there's very little we can do to impose things there. But as a volunteer organization, you do have power. I will tell you when you see bad development coming toward your neighborhood, you really want to have the muscle of a neighborhood association behind you. When there are issues that have taken on neighborhoods in District 5, I have seen the council chamber filled to three-quarters of the chamber. Cindy, you know that's true. And when we get mad, we wear red shirts. Well, COVID-19 just makes us kind of cranky and we e-mail a lot. But what I will tell you is if you have problems, if you have issues, if you have things that need to be addressed by police or code compliance, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Nextdoor, those are not the way to get to the resolve you're looking for. You really want to be able to plug into the city of Fort Worth. And that's the reason why my Fort Worth app is so very important to you. You could have a problem that you saw this morning, taken a picture of that, used the app that I promised you that department head and his staff have gotten that issue just that quickly. And so I would encourage you to take a look at the city website. If you have issues or questions more about getting involved, you can e-mail Sandy Brough and myself at district5atfortworthtexas.gov. If you would like to be on the District 5 newsletter list, you can e-mail us at district5atfortworthtexas.gov. We have a good time on the east side and what people don't really know is we go all the way to parts of the airport. District 5 is deep and wide. And so there are 108,000 people in District 5, some people we encourage to stay and feel bigger. We've got some people from Dallas trying to move in. We want them to keep on going. But when it comes to how we're operating this entire city, it's all about having you engage more you as a citizen. We can have meetings at your churches, your schools, your neighborhood groups. Whatever you need to do to get involved, I urge you to get involved. And with that, I say thank you everyone for attending virtually. Thank you Toby Jackson for texting and texting and texting. And have a wonderful day everyone. And don't forget, as Betsy Price would say, y'all wear a mask. Good day.