 Presidents, thank you for your attendance and your request. And with that, we're calling on Dr. Ramirez Bonifacio of the Fort Worth Harvest Church for our invocation, followed by the pledge, please stand. Good evening, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you, and we're so grateful for this opportunity to come and to have your will be done on our great city. God, we just pray your blessings and your wisdom on our mayor and on the men and women of our city council. God, give them wisdom as they're navigating through our challenges and through resolutions for our schools, for our first responders, for the citizens of this great city. God, just bless Fort Worth and bless this time in Christ. And we pray, amen. All right, consideration of minutes from December 13, September 20th, September 27th, and October 4th council meetings. And with that, those minutes are approved. Sorry, Ron. That's okay. Now, we are public comments right now. Our first speaker is Dave Folson. And before the speakers come, Ron, what's important that you know is this is a public comment meeting. You will hear a bell at two minutes and 30 seconds. What that means is you have 30 seconds remaining to speak. At the end of those three minutes, your mic will automatically silence. And so be aware of that. And with that, we welcome the first speaker. Hello, John T. White. I'm Dee Dee Smith, current vice president of the John T. White Neighborhood Association. I've been a paid member since our association began. We're here a few years of slanderous accusations, false claims, and deceitful rhetoric directed at the JTWNA. This is the letter from community relations to then president, R.C. Collette, stating that JCWNA was registered with the city on November 26, 2001. Next is a letter from Michelle Goode, dated October 11th, 2022, stating our neighborhood association is still registered with the city, is included in the database, and is in full compliance with its requirements. I gave this one to Dee to be the president, and that was a mistake. I gave it to her. Before this year, JTWNA has only had two presidents, R.C. Collette and me. I was unanimously voted in seven consecutive terms for a total of 14 years. And after researching, there's no record of Mr. Willoughby ever being a paid member. That makes me confused on how he could give me the presidency, especially without a vote from the members. Here's a group of newsletters and signage showing how Mr. Willoughby has misused and called meetings under the JTWNA name without authorization and against numerous requests to stop. When Mr. Willoughby would attend a meeting, he was very disruptive and belligerent, speaking over others, including Councilwoman Bivens during her presentation. On December 7th, this Council had to call an officer to encourage Mr. Willoughby out of the chambers which were letters sent to him regarding harassment. We've had that same issue multiple times. The last time police escorted Mr. Willoughby from our meeting, only for him to come back with his camera and had to be removed for a second time with police body cams running. It must be frustrating for you to listen to some citizen presentations and not be able to respond. It is just as frustrating for our neighborhood association to be inundated by false claims, only to remain on mute. Personally, I'm ashamed of Mr. Willoughby trying to tarnish our stellar reputation with city staff and our residents. But in the future, please consider the source. Our next speaker is James Hook. Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and Council. My name is James Hook and I serve as a current president of the John T. White Neighborhood Association. We keep all our members engaged, informed, and up to speed on news related to our neighborhood as well as issues on association, on our association is engaged in supporting or fighting. We've designed our website to be easy to use, highly informative, and it's available to everyone, including Mr. Willoughby 24-7. Everything one would want to know about our association can be found at the JTWNA, including the difference between a free or paid membership, our bylaws, important neighborhood news, and finally, you can get to know the officers and how to contact us. Next is our association's Facebook page, which was recently recognized in a nationwide neighborhood newsletter competition for electronic content. Like the website, our Facebook page is available to everyone with access to a computer or smartphone. Our Facebook page serves as our main platform to reach area residents. It also provides a critical opportunity for public feedback and ideas on how to better address issues we're facing. Our Facebook page is full of neighborhood-related information going back several years. We enforce these social media group rules. One, be kind. Number two, no hate speech or bullying. Number three, no self-promotion, and that includes campaigning. And four, all posts should be neighborhood-related with the exception of the occasional lost dog posts from time to time. Mr. Willoughby continued to break all of these rules after many warnings, so his Facebook privileges had to be revoked. Neighborhood associations are the first one to be notified about zoning, okay? And that's where your counselor member comes in. If she takes over the neighborhood association, and they don't notify the neighbors about the zoning case, that's how they get talent points put in. If our neighborhood association is known for anything, it's our involvement in zoning issues. Mr. Willoughby claims that our association does not inform the neighborhood on pending zoning issues. Just another baseless claim that melts away with one visit to our website or Facebook page. Our association sees zoning issues as priority number one. Our association is working to bring more desirable development to our area with the same determination we used to fight undesirable zoning. Here's an example of what our association calls a zoning red alert. All official zoning requests are posted on our website, Facebook, and emailed to all members. Each zoning red alert gives information on the zoning request, what the developer wants to build, what the current zoning is, and a map and a site map of the effective property. Mr. Willoughby has a long history of publicly accusing our association of a lack of transparency. Clearly we have shown how our association goes above and beyond to be a model of transparency. Next speaker will tackle additional baseless claims made against JTWNA. Thanks. The next speaker is Daniel Seraldi. Good evening. Good evening, City Council. My name is Daniel Seraldi, I'm a resident of Fort Worth and a member of the John T. White Neighborhood Association, and I serve as our secretary. I would like to address two additional false claims. These were made by Mr. Willoughby concerning our neighborhood association. They have secret elections, we have a secret elections. It has secret elections. It has secret elections, they have secret elections. Having just completed an election cycle for our association, I would like to quickly highlight our election process, which is clearly stated in our published bylaws. Every two years, our neighborhood association holds elections for officers. Any paid member of the association has the opportunity to run for and serve in these elected positions. These volunteer positions include president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and directors at large. The letter you see to the left was sent to all association members on June 1st, 2022. It includes the slate of members running for officer positions, as well as an opportunity for association members to nominate any other member, including themselves, to be placed on the ballot for consideration. The letter to the right was sent to all paid members on June 15, 2022, with the finalized list of candidates being nominated for office. It includes a request for all member ballots to be returned to DD Smith no later than June 22nd. The next step in this transparent election process was to tabulate the votes. Once accomplished, the results were then publicly announced at a scheduled association meeting. Association meetings are open to all area residents, regardless of membership status. That meeting took place on June 23rd at the Calvary Baptist Church on Williams Road. As you see, this is a far cry from the secret election claims you have heard from Mr. Willoughby. Neighborhood Association John T. White, they hold secret meetings. Secret meetings is another accusation that has been repeatedly made by Mr. Willoughby via multiple venues, including these console chambers. I would like to address the facts related to our association meetings. Even through the pandemic, we utilized Zoom meetings and our association now holds in-person public meetings throughout the year. In fact, we hold more than they're required by the Community Engagement Neighborhood Association's office. These scheduled public meetings, far from secret, are well advertised in the following manner. On the association website, on our Facebook page the next day, tap emails and finally legally place signage throughout our association boundaries. All of which completely refute Mr. Willoughby's claims of a corrupt illegal and secretive neighborhood association. Thank you. The next speaker is Dave Folson. Good evening, city manager, Mayor Pro Tem and the council members. My name's Dave Folson. I reside in the John T. White area and serve as a director of the John T. White Neighborhood Association. Can we restart my clock? Was that starting it? I'm gonna need it. Can we restart it? Okay, the reasons we're forced and that's the right word to present these facts is that we're not convinced the city leadership of the hard work of our association volunteer membership is to let the public know of a precarious situation due to the constant battle with Bob Willoughby versus John T. White. Each of you sitting at the dais tonight have also been the target of unwarranted accusations based on nothing more than Bob Willoughby's personal and biased opinions, neither worthy of your time. But unfortunately a lie told often enough, Ken and does have the potential to affect public opinion of folks unaware of the facts. Our hardworking volunteer members share a common desire to combine our efforts and voices to make Fort Worth the best it can be. Regardless of age, sex, race, financial status, political affiliation, you're welcome to the John T. White Neighborhood Association with only a single, yet well-deserved exception. You know, they ban people that don't agree with their same philosophy, so you're banned. I live in John T. White all my life. On the screen, you will see section 206 of our city-approved association bylaws. It defines the association's rights to terminate or deny membership status with a majority membership vote. In particular, it states, examples include but are not limited to individuals who have harmed the reputation of the association or diminished its reputation within the community. Bob Willoughby holds the distinction of being the only person since the inception of our association who paid membership found it necessary to enforce this clause against. For the record, here's how we enforced it. This is a letter sent to the entire association voting membership on May 14th, 2021. It asked the membership to vote to approve or deny future membership in the association should Mr. Willoughby ever decide to apply. Accompanying this letter with several pages of images, printed video, dated material, and audio examples of false, damaging, and slanderous accusations made by Mr. Willoughby against our association. The next letter dated May 28, shared those results with our voting membership. For clarity, 100% of membership voted unanimously to deny future membership in our association to Bob Willoughby for the countless examples of harm he has sought to inflict on our association. This last letter I personally hand delivered to Bob Willoughby to inform him of both our vote and our process. This is our official and final association position on the Bob Willoughby situation. Tonight, we have proved every claim he has ever made against John T. White, both baseless as well as untrue. We now intend to move forward with our real work, regardless of his continued threats to take his association back. You'll no doubt continue to bark, Bob, and you weren't in here to face us, but my friend tonight, we have publicly pulled the teeth out of your bite. Thank you, Mr. Cook, council members, for your time and attention. The next speaker is Billy Jones. My name is Billy Jones. From Dallas, Texas, I'm a journalist, videographer, and Mr. Austin Shotted on YouTube. I'm here today on behalf of domestic violence, victim of gun violence, and rape victims. Well, and the beautiful city of Fort Worth, we may have a problem. Maddie Parker, the mayor of Fort Worth, may not know that she has been in close contact in arms reach of a proud rapist by the name of Charleston White, the community advocate, the CEO and founder of Hypes About Hype Kids in Fort Worth, Texas. He's been seen on many of photos of LPD for years and even claims he's a police officer at times at his benefits, and that he has police buddies that seems to come quicker to his aid than they do to victims that really need help. Either he speaks at their conventions or they're at his high hour or whatever, talking to the public. The Fort Worth officials, through the Fort Worth officials know that they're working with and alongside of an openly proud rapist. Well, if you didn't know, you do now. You're no longer ignorant to the facts. You can go check on YouTube at Mr. Austin Shotted and many other sites where millions help solve. Because New Years Do Pre, versus Texas in 1980 was wrongly convicted of rape, while many other innocent men has been wrongly and indicted and convicted of rape that was innocent via through DNA. They're not free to date, but they was also screaming loud, as you can hear Charleston White repeatedly screaming, bragging that he rapes white women and their coworkers alongside with his buddies, a gang rape in a train is how they describe it. If it was not for a young lady, a mother of three, while suffering, trying to be in a relationship to live again after 10 years of being alone, not trusting a man, after she was brutally raped and assaulted, had not reached out to me, I would have been ignorant like you guys of this vital information of a man that works with and among kids and elderly. I have nothing against Charleston White, but I do have a problem that Charleston White works around kids and that he openly brags and very proud of raping women. I take a man and men to rape and very serious, loud and clear. It's, it's, it's, yeah. Yeah. So, so she's, and so should you guys. Someone to admit such violent acts, it has to be heard. I do not have a problem with the mayor forward. She may have not known such material. Is this or, or it's probably his apartment. None of you guys. Hopefully you guys can help him. It's just not a good look for your city, a forward of Texas. Millions of people have saw the documentary of Hollis and I've contacted CPS. I contacted Cyber Mullins. I contacted many of people to let you guys know this man is openly saying that he raped white women. You know what I mean? It's just, this is, if you go on YouTube, you can see it all. I mean, it's sad. Now I'm coming to you guys, respect, and I mean, I know y'all probably talking about something or whatever, but it needs to be heard. The next speaker is Jim DeLong. Good evening, I'm Jim DeLong, proud citizen of Fort Worth, Texas. And my subject matter tonight is called de-escalation. There's a short video clip from a TV station in California that I want to share with you. Two Los Angeles police officers pulling over a man on probation, but under the cloak of cheeriness. So you see that a police officer pulled over a gentleman driving a car. She was friendly to him. She knew him, she knew that he was on probation. And as far as de-escalation procedures, she probably followed them very closely. She was friendly and just was not authoritative or accusative, but she knew that he was on parole. And so from that standpoint, she used very good de-escalation procedures, play the tape. So you see that the man got out of the car, shot her, shot the other fellow policeman. When you have a weapon to draw it, you have to put your hand down, pull it out and fire it. You don't have time to do that when someone comes out with a gun blazing. There's just not enough time to do that. And so I'm showing you the other side of de-escalation. Every police officer, every time they come in contact with a person, they've got to be ready for that. You can't, they can't, if they, she trusted that man. Knowing that he was a felon, knowing that he was on probation, he had nine more months, she used good de-escalation procedures and she got shot. If it wasn't for her bulletproof vest, she would have been killed. So when you hear people say it's easy, well, it's easy to be a couch quarterback. And after the fact, look at things and say, that cop should not have done that. Had she known what would have happened, she would have stepped back, pulled her gun, and asked him kindly to get out of the car. That would have stopped him from shooting. And so just be aware, there's another side of the story. And this story could have ended tragically for her and her family. So just please, whenever you see things, remember there's another side, thank you. The next speaker is George Charles. My name is George Vernon Charles, my residence is in Fort Worth. I don't know whether y'all have got a printout on why I'm here, so it pretty well sums up why I'm here. I wanna know if the state of the city address given by the mayor and Dickies building was pursuant to her duty under article two of the organic law of Fort Worth. Now I've tried to find a definition, I have no legal training. So I've tried to, despite that handicap, I've tried to find a legal definition of ceremonial occasion. There is none in the index to the text administrative code. There is none in the index to Vernon statutes. There is none in blacks 11th. There is none in texture third, including the words and phrases index, effective September 26th, 2022. And there's nothing in the Westlaw listing of what used to be in the books and still is, but it hadn't been updated as far as that in the actual service words and phrases, which is about a 40 volume run of books. I wanna know, I wanna know this, was it pursuant? Was it a duty for her to do this? Because the ceremony occasion clearly it is. Now I'm gonna be talking until the next year on this given that we get six minutes, six minutes a month at most. But I don't wanna make any false accusations. And this is a crossroads or a fork in the road as to what I'm gonna say next. You didn't have any trouble getting a legal opinion on whether a certain meeting was in violation of Texas Open Meetings Act. And so I would like to have the word right now. What does the city of Fort Worth define as a ceremonial occasion? Thank you. Next speaker is Lana Stevens. I'm Lana Stevens. I live in district seven with Councilman Firestone's area. And I came up here just to reiterate some concerns we have in our area. We have a lot of roads that do not have sidewalks. And we have a lot of roads that do not have lights. And we have a lot of teenage drivers. We have a lot of fatalities that have happened. And this is seem to be an ongoing occurrence. Saturday night, there was an accident on an area where I've been trying to get two street lights installed. A teenager, a freshman was hit. He is still in the hospital, but if we would have had lighting on our road, sidewalks and even mowed sides of the road, these things could have been prevented. I requested January 10th of 2021 just for two street lights. This particular area of Old Decatur Road does not have any street lights as far as another street, Bailey Boswell. It's very dark. We're working on it, but it doesn't seem like it can come fast enough. I know that they've moved our repairs to our street up, but it doesn't seem like it can be fast enough. I started a petition, a change.org petition last year and I've already had close to 3,000 signatures supporting that the growth that we've had like 2020, the census said our part of Fort Worth has grown 79%, which is the fastest, quickest part or growing part of Fort Worth, yet our streets and our infrastructure is neglected. I know we are trying and trying and trying, but when we have kids getting hurt, all they wanna do is like, there was three kids, they were probably going to 7-Eleven. They shouldn't get hit. We should have safe measures for them. If I've sent pictures of the un-mowed sides of the roads to TPW, I've sent it to the Bardich people and they said that that's not their department. I just need to, oh, I didn't even show any of the pictures. Well, there's a lot of pictures. Hopefully y'all can take a look at them that I sent in yesterday, but if we could just get the grass mowed, some street lights in and improve our area, it would be much safer for our kids. Lauren, please, Lauren raise your hand, please. Lana, please get with that lady there and we can take care of the street light. Operational things are very easy. Next speaker. The next speaker is Adrian Smith. Adrian Smith, District Three. The Fort Worth Business Press had an article that I just read dated back September 23rd, 2022 of this year. Mr. Richard Connor, he wrote the article and it dealt with the current issue that we had found ourselves here within the last two weeks concerning our city manager. Now, I'm not here to bash the city manager because of a relationship. You had a right to be friends with whoever you desire to be friends with. We all had that right. But I think the apology that you gave to this, the city should have been more to the, I mean to the, I think the apology was to the council and not to the city as a whole. So the residents, the four of us all required that apology. But I digress from that. I think that what comes in the question are the business dealings down in Sundance Square. Although they reprimanded, quote unquote, y'all call yourselves censoring Mr. Cook. Again, this is not, I told you Mr. Cook. One has to question the previous year's business dealings and what has been undermined it or what has not been considered because of a particular family that holds quote unquote sway over the city, the Bass family. So I would just say, I hope people are paying attention to this because there should be no one getting more favorable treatment over others, you know, when it comes to the city of Fort Worth. The city of Fort Worth is comprised of people, not just business interests. So the most recent tax bait debacle we found ourselves where there was a discussion to lower the rate and I feel like you all made a decision behind closed doors to stick with whatever tax rate there was. But one council member in particular used this space, I feel as political posturing to make it as if he was concerned about low, to lower the tax rate even further and that was Mr. Crane. He's not here, but again, I think that was just political posturing. I think if he had that same energy behind closed doors and then brought it out to the open space, I feel like it would have been more believable. So to the city, to the constituents of district three, Mr. Crane is for business interests and business interests only. Regarding the censorship, I could deal with the censorship, the changes in the rules regarding our speaking here. I can deal with it. Kim Neal's departure, it's really, I don't know how they made the news when it's really nothing considering the report we got from the independent study regarding Fort Worth PD. Thank you. Next speaker is Will Dryden. Will Dryden. I live at 7650 Meadowbrook Drive in East Fort Worth and I want to say hi to Mayor Pro Tem Gene DeBivis, city manager Goop, attorney Guzman, honorable council members. Appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight. And it's primarily to speak regarding the situation with Mr. Goop and there's some certain things I don't quite understand, but hopefully we can get some direction on that. But I'm a little bit confused about the statement that came out regarding the findings having to do with Mr. Goop. And it's stated from the council with public perception matters and we must go the extra mile to reassure residents and taxpayers removing even the appearance of a gray area, the statement read. The statement also asserted Goop's actions were not a violation of the city's ethics code and so the council came to that count of conclusion after considering the evidence and consulting the city attorney, Mayor Goosman. And then this is what I really don't understand. The city's ethics code bars city employees and their partners from accepting any benefit, including a promise of future employment of sufficient economic value for anyone who has a financial interest impacted by the decisions of that city employee. But hopefully what I say here tonight in my opinion has possible remedies for future bad judgment regarding poor unethical conduct and all leadership positions with our great city. First issue has to do with the recent council action regarding our city manager, David Goop, been directed to recuse himself from any dealings with what's known as Sundance Square. This was basically a slap on the wrist with little consequences in my opinion and probably was felt to be the same with others. I'm not sure what the percentages of total downtown businesses represented by Sundance Square but it could be as much as 15 to 20% of total downtown business. But the council's actions to force Mr. Coak to recuse himself from that responsibility therefore is giving up a considerable amount of responsibility that was hired to manage. Now someone else will have to do that. So far, all that has happened due to Mr. Coak's bad judgment is being shamed to some extent and the taxpayers are overpaying him as a result of his actions in my opinion. And all fairness to the city and his taxpayers, Mr. Coak's salary should be reduced by a commensurate amount that is representative of his new reduced responsibility. Your time has expired, sir. Our final speaker this evening is Bob Willoughby. It appears we have lost quorum. I'll ask the city attorney to address that. I believe we've lost quorum. We have five, one, two, three. We only have five people. We can't continue the meeting without six. Well, this is what Beck just walked out of here and they did this on purpose so they couldn't play my video. This is crooked. My readings adjourned, we lost the quorum. You're gonna take me out of here by hand, Dan, okay?